Beta read by Paragon of Awesomeness
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-The Imperial Capital-
Slimy, salty, nauseating and absolutely disgusting. Those were the sensations that lingered in Wave's mind even as he donned his armor right as those things reached him. The aftertaste of those writhing tendrils that had tried to force their way into his mouth still clung to the tip of his tongue, leaving a sour taste that made his jaw tighten. A shiver rolled through him, the kind that slipped under his skin like a cold draft through an old house with gaps in its walls. He fought to steady his thoughts, especially with the creature standing before him. It had once been a person, someone who might have worked a normal job and held a normal life, but now they had been turned into a twisted blend of human and nightmare.
"Run! Bols!" Wave shouted for his companions. Bols had already recovered his Teigu and unleashed a sweeping torrent of fire that tore across the area. The flames washed over the infectious tendrils that had been trying to crawl into them moments earlier, reducing them to ash before they reached him. The mask on Bols's face had protected him, sparing him from whatever corruption the creature spread.
Wave rushed toward the spot where Run had been. A heavy kick slammed into the ground nearby, the impact scattering what had previously been a thick wall of flesh and sinew.
The mad scientist's mutated creations had swept through the area, their movements being far too chaotic for him to keep up. The blonde man Wave called out had been buried under that mess of warped tissue. Wave gritted his teeth and dug through the pile, tearing away each sticky layer. Slime coated his armored sleeves, and strands of mucus clung to the joints, but he pushed on without hesitation.
Finally reaching the bottom, he found Run lying motionless. Pale blue vein-like marks crawled over the man's skin like thin ribbons of frost.
"Shit! Wake up! Run! Wake up!" Wave tried to rouse the Jaeger' lieutenant. He shook him, slapped his cheeks, even tried prying open his mouth to pull out anything foreign, but Run's body stayed limp.
He was at least still breathing, but he did not respond in the slightest.
A warped voice echoed behind them. "How unfortunate. So you also refused my gift and denied the chance to join my collection? I should have known. People with such little intellect rarely recognize true opportunity when it crosses their path. At least your friend over there understood what you could not. He will be grateful to me for the rest of his life."
"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" Wave snarled. His fingers curled so tightly that the concrete beneath him cracked. In a burst of anger he hurled a massive chunk of rubble toward the scientist, the hunk of debris being more than half the man's size. It should have crushed him outright, but the creature Stylish had turned himself into just lifted its twisted sword with a single smooth motion. The blade's many eyes seemed to track Wave as the piece of rubble split apart into neat pieces that crashed harmlessly around it.
"Hahaha. Such a pathetic attempt no longer threatens me. Even now I cannot help admiring the brilliance of my own creation. My intelligence is almost frightening even to myself."
With a clenched jaw, it became apparent that this man was too far gone. There was no trace of the mind he once had… or maybe this had been the real Stylish all along and there was no point trying to reason with him.
"Bols, we need to take him down before he escapes. We can't let him turn any other people into more of these things."
"What about Run?" Bols stepped closer, flames swirling lightly around him to push back the advancing tendrils and the strange humanoid creatures creeping out from the shadows. Their bodies were fused with metal weapons and pieces of Danger Beasts, forming shapes that looked more like unfinished experiments than any shape nature could have intended life to take.
Not wanting to remain behind and do nothing, Wave swung his weapon at one of the creatures closing in on him. The blade struck, but instead of slicing through cleanly, it got stuck on the creature's hide like it had struck a slab of solid steel.
"What!?" His enhanced strength and weapon sharpness should have carved through them with ease, but these were different. Wave however didn't let the unexpected difficulty of his task stop him and shifted tactics, driving his boot into the creature's chest and sending it crashing several meters back.
The scientist watched with clear satisfaction. "Grand Chariot, shaped from the Tyrant's very core, the brother to Incursio. I was always curious about comparing this Teigu to the one that assassin from Night Raid used, since that model was created first. Its more raw essence might have helped me understand the deeper functions of the core of such a creature and refine them. But yours will work just fine. My observations lead me to believe that yours lacks the sheer volatility of the creature that once slept within the metal, since its mind has been completely subdued by the more refined processes used to create your Teigu. Yet such a thing is little issue to one such as myself, and the Tyrant's power still remains."
"I don't want to hear your nonsense." Wave tightened his grip, ignoring the sticky grime on his armor as he prepared for the next clash, the air thick with the smell of burnt flesh.
Jumping above and using the laboratory's large open room to his advantage, Wave positioned himself right above Stylish with his feet aimed below. "Grand Fall!"
Like a descending meteor, the attack descended with an unprecedented level of power compared to his previous strikes. Using both speed, endurance and strength provided by the armor to its limit, Wave crushed several of the organic sword monsters.
Finally, he was able to kill some of them and close the distance between him and Stylish.
'Do I kill him? There is no guarantee these things will also die out if I do so. But there is no way he will just surrender and willingly follow up my words.' A dilemma, one that he could not afford to spend too much time thinking about. 'The general will have a solution.'
With his blade pulled back, He rushed forward pushing every ounce of strength and thrusted his weapon towards the crazy traitor's chest. Cleaving through less than a handful of those creatures that tried to act as a wall between them, getting ever so close to the doctor.
Only for the last obstacle to jump in at the last second, making him realize with his blade was already halfway through the flesh that the one before him was no longer Stylish, "Run!?"
The man had woken up, but rather than aid him at taking care of the problem, jumped between the two of them using his body as a shield. In a moment of desperation, every single fiber of his being pulled back, pulling the sword before it inevitably killed someone he wanted to save.
"How predictable." He heard Stylish's mocking words, where from his blind spot, the greatsword the doctor held snuck towards him like a snake at great speed.
The sword's edge reached his armor in less than a second.
"Urgh!'
The blade cut into his midsection, managing to break through Grand Chariot's defenses. For a heartbeat horror passed over Wave's face, as he never thought his armor would ever fail him. But upon closer inspection, he realized it had not. While badly damaged, the plate held, barely, even as the blow threw Wave back in a hard arc.
He slammed into a flight of stairs, colliding with Bols who was still doing his utmost to force the other creatures back despite the wave of flesh they were trying to form. Both men tumbled down the hallway, him taking most of the impact while twisting at the last instant to keep Bols from landing in a way that would leave his spine crushed.
Wave was left coughing harshly from the impact. Despite Grand Chariot's protective properties, the strike had still managed to rattle his internal organs, making him feel his insides twist and cramp up from the impact alone. Bits of blood spattered the inside of his helmet, forcing him to pry the mask open and vomit onto the ground.
"This is ridiculous," he whispered between shallow breaths, wheezing in his voice as a distant crackle edged closer across the broken hallway. "You okay there?" he asked.
"I've seen better days," Bols answered. Part of his facemask had been shredded. Blond hair hung in ragged strands over a cheek, and a clear blue eye stared back where the fabric no longer hid him. The sight struck Wave as odd, an errant thought crossing his mind that this was where Bols' little girl had gotten her looks. Not exactly an appropriate moment to think about that, but something he couldn't help but involuntarily take note of.
"You have to retreat for now… get the General."
"Are you crazy? If we go now he will make his way to the surface. In his state, he will attack everyone for sure," Wave shot back. Pain in his abdomen made each word a challenge.
"Listen," Bols started, taking a moment to regain his breath, "us staying here will make him more dangerous if one of us falls. You saw what happened to Run. He won't be interested in regular people. We should get the civilians moving and clear a path for reinforcements."
Shit… he had a point.
The navy blue-haired former marine recognized the truth of the situation despite the heat and the nausea. Ordinary bystanders were not the kind of specimens Stylish had any interest in, not with several Teigu wielders in the Capital. Still, a part of him worried that it was just guesswork at the end of the day, nothing certain, and he was not willing to risk the lives of innocents on that.
"What are you doing?" Bols asked when the dark blue-haired man pushed himself up to face the twisted monsters instead of backing away as suggested.
"I still need to help Run. I'm not leaving until I've gotten him back," Wave said. "I'll go up ahead, find an opening to get close, and knock him out before Stylish can get any closer."
"You'll just end up captured, you fool!" the masked man barked. He had rarely raised his voice like that, and never with such anger. But Wave understood it was for his own safety more than anything else, he felt a brief smile form under his helmet at that.
"I'm not planning on falling today," he continued after a sigh. "Run has an important promise to keep. It is kinda my duty as his friend to make sure he can accomplish that." His hands glimmered as Grand Chariot's weapon formed in his grasp, the gauntlet extending and sharpening into a longsword.
"You go up ahead and clear a path. I'll buy you all the time you need and try to knock some sense back into Run," Wave told him.
Bols hesitated. He looked down at his Teigu device, battered and smoking from several close exchanges. No guarantee it would hold. He bit his lip, closed his fist around the damaged device, and made a quick, low vow under his breath. "Don't take too long. If I don't see you in the next minute, I'll come back down to get you."
"Noted," Wave said. He crouched, braced his feet in the ruined stone, and pushed off with every ounce of strength left in him. The ground fractured beneath his force, small fractures spidering outward as rubble kicked up. A shockwave followed and then he closed the distance in an instant, sword raised high above his head.
Stylish turned with a small amused tilt of his chin.
Right as Bols rushed upwards the stairs, a powerful shockwave struck his back. "Argh!" Pushing him upwards and crashing through the rooftop of the shabby house above.
{Break}
Bam!
"Hn!"
There were plenty of things Esdeath had learned when it came to raising and training proper subordinates. From the moment she became a Captain in the military and gained control of her first handful of soldiers to the years she spent commanding a far larger force as a General, she had pushed herself to refine her methods.
She wanted those who followed her to grow at a similar pace, to sharpen their skills until they could hold their own against any foe without relying on something so unreliable as luck or mercy. Yet the task was always far more difficult than outsiders believed.
If it was not the battlefield or a Danger Beast waiting to tear them apart, then death would reach the unprepared through her training alone. The survival rate among new recruits rarely rose above a tenth. Only the absolute cream of the crop ever made it through, shaped into something stronger and more resilient than a regular soldier of the Empire would ever be barring the truly extraordinary. She used the same principle when training every one of her soldiers, her Beasts and of course the various members of the Jaegers.
"You are too slow." The woman said this without a hint of emotion as she watched the girl in front of her. With her uniform torn in several places, fresh cuts scattered across her arms and legs and blood staining most of her clothes, Kurome looked like someone who had been tossed into a shredder and had barely managed to climb out.
"A proper swordsman does not show weakness. There is never a moment to catch your breath when facing an enemy. Trying to buy time is pointless when fighting someone stronger and more skilled than you. I am giving you space to recover even though your enemies will not offer you that courtesy." She repeated the line for what felt like the hundredth time. This sparring session had gone on for half a day already, yet she felt nothing resembling exhaustion. Her mind stayed clear, her breathing steady, her muscles free of soreness.
There was not a trace of strain anywhere to be found on General Esdeath.
Truly, she had more than earned her title as the Empire's Strongest.
"Urgh!" The girl ahead of her pushed herself back to her feet with obvious effort. Unlike many Esdeath had trained before, Kurome showed no fear, no regret, no sign she wished to quit. Her eyes stayed locked forward as she lifted her sword again and rushed in. If she was frustrated, it was at her own exhaustion, her own injuries, her own weakness.
That was good.
Esdeath held her rapier with a casual grip and swept the attack aside as if brushing away a falling leaf. She disarmed Kurome in a single motion, sent her blade skidding across the dirt and kicked the girl down with a brutal strike — forcing every bit of air out of her lungs. The impact likely cracked several ribs and stirred up internal bleeding. Kurome slammed into the ground, coughed up traces of blood and slipped into brief unconsciousness.
She returned a few seconds later, dragged awake by the sting of the rapier's tip pressing slightly into her skin and the cold metal seeping into her nerves.
"That will be enough for today." Esdeath said after a quiet pause. She let out a long sigh and dismissed her ice construct. The field around them was private terrain reserved for the Jaegers and she had already made sure no spies would come snooping again after delivering several heads to Honest when he tried to pry into her sessions. Any distraction was unacceptable.
"I… I c-can still go on, General," the girl beneath her managed to say between painful breaths.
"An excellent mindset, but your body cannot keep up. I prefer subordinates who remain able to fight instead of pushing themselves beyond their limits and turning useless. Learn your limits, then find out how to surpass them. Do not allow others to define them for you."
She remembered a few comments she had heard from fellow generals about her training. Some called it harsh. Others called it inhumane… She called it effective, with no time to waste on the weak.
She was only willing to train the strong, and if they could not keep up, that meant they were weak, plain and simple.
"How… How did I do?" The young black-haired girl asked after a moment of silence. She still could not rise and remained flat on her back, staring up at the pale sky with a blank expression.
"Acceptable."
Kurome's girl's face soured and her fingers clenched until the knuckles turned white. Esdeath watched her without surprise. From the way she tightened and let go, she could make a reasonable guess about the thoughts moving through her.
"You have improved your swiftness in combat, but your strength and skill have barely changed," Esdeath said in a calm voice. "You tend to let emotion take control when you are pressed into a corner. That causes mistakes. As the fight continues, the mistakes accumulate. Each one earns you a wound, and each wound lowers your performance."
"Is it not enough for me to become a Beast?" the young girl asked. Her hands trembled as she reached into a small cloth bag and pulled out a handful of sweets. She ate them one after another with quick small bites, the wrappers crinkling between her fingers. Esdeath watched the movement for a long moment.
She was not naive; she did not believe for a second those were merely candy.
Reports had come in about several new drugs circulating in the border towns. They claimed to temporarily enhance physical abilities for a short, dangerous window. The labels and the signatures varied, but the pattern was the same. Esdeath had read the reports a while ago and filed them away.
"Combat prowess is not the only requirement to become a Beast," Esdeath said. "If it were, at least half the Jaegers would have qualified long ago."
Her tone came up as neutral as it could be. There was a hint of satisfaction at the girl's hunger to grow. "I created my squad to follow only me. Loyal to no one else, obedient to no command but mine. Each member excels at one thing. Together they become a nightmare on the field, in covert missions, and at planning. You might already be the strongest Jaeger now in direct combat, second to no one, but if martial strength is your single advantage, you will die like the first iteration of the Beasts."
Esdeath's voice turned bitter for a moment as she remembered the three Beasts who had died under her command. The memory tightened something in her chest and caused an old scar on her pride to ache once more.
She had not been surprised by their deaths so much as disappointed.
'They showed me where I had failed,' she admitted. 'I did not break the other two after Nyau's death enough to make the pair of them understand just how big of a mistake their desire for vengeance against a foe like him was… They underestimated their enemy, when that should have never been a possibility. It wouldn't have been, had I been more harsh on them.'
She shifted her posture and cast a sidelong look at Kurome. The latter stared back with a stunned expression, jaw tight and her hands went still around the last sweet in her fingers.
"I would not betray the Empire," Kurome said with a great amount of conviction.
"And that is the issue," Esdeath let out a small chuckle. "You would never betray the Empire."
Kurome's brow furrowed.
She tried to understand the criticism and failed to see just what her commander was trying to insinuate. Unfortunately for her, the woman did not bother to clarify her answer. Instead she moved on to the one redeeming point she had noticed.
"You have hate," Esdeath said with a soft grin. "It drives you to improve. Your hatred for your sister, Akame, is the fuel."
"Yes," Kurome answered with clear venom in her tone aimed at the aforementioned individual. "Akame," she let the name settle into the air.
Esdeath nodded once. "You and Seryu are similar in that sense. Both of you are loyal to the Empire and both of you are fundamentally driven by revenge. But for either of you to reach that goal, you must face the same obstacle. Someone stands between you and the person you want to kill." She did not even need to name him, for his name had been brought up during conversations several times.
"Would I be able to kill him in my current state?" she asked. "Or at the very least, can I get past him?"
To that, all she heard was a scoff. "You're far more likely to be struck by an arrow straight through the heart before you ever even get within sight of your target. That much is certain."
Esdeath stepped toward the girl and crouched beside her, reaching into Kurome's bag with a slow and almost lazy motion. The younger girl tried to pull the bag toward herself at first, but one look from those cold eyes locked her in place. Her hands went stiff, her breath caught halfway, and she sat frozen while the blue haired woman plucked out a single 'candy'.
Esdeath unwrapped it and placed it in her mouth. Her expression never shifted, her eyes entirely focused on Kurome.
"The second requirement to earn the title of a Beast is to prove that you can survive against him. He has many faults and is far too merciful for his own good, but he absolutely can and will kill you if he decides it is necessary. There is no point bringing in new Beasts only for them to die within days at his hand. Survivability matters more than anything. That was my mistake with the first generation of Beasts, I never tempered them enough to be able to cross paths with him."
At first, she had tried to believe that someone like Liver would have the sense to understand his limits. She expected him to judge his enemy with a clear head and experience from having been on the frontline for decades, and even being a former general himself. Esdeath accepted that the strike against Nyau had been enough to teach them a lesson. The more she remembered, the more she wondered if her own decisions had played a part. If she had allowed them to face him in a contained skirmish, if she had let them taste their strength and be pushed back before she stepped in, maybe they would have survived long enough to grow. Maybe they would have learned the severity of the threat facing them.
'There is no point thinking about the past anymore. Liver proved himself weak, and Daidara was no better.'
With that simple conclusion, she rolled her shoulders and turned away. She walked toward the building that was their headquarters once more, leaving Kurome with time to rest and recover before the next mission. Her boots clicked against the stone, yet before she passed the doorway, Kurome forced out one last question with the thin breath she still had.
"Is it possible for me to grow strong enough one day to kill that man, and then my sister?"
Esdeath paused midstep. For a heartbeat she simply stood there, her back turned, then she looked over her shoulder with a small rising smirk.
"He is mine. None of you are allowed to kill him. As for becoming strong, you will never reach that level by chasing shortcuts."
Deciding she'd said enough, Esdeath left the training area. Instead of returning to her office, she set her sights on the far end of the Capital. She crossed the stone paths at a calm pace until she approached the palace gates.
There, leaning with trembling legs against a wall, stood a familiar blonde from her group.
"G-General," Dorothea whispered. Her hand pressed against her waist where a dark patch of blood spread across her clothes. From the looks of it, the injury was shallow but painful. "I'm afraid Doctor Stylish has gone crazy and is revolting."
"Hm?"
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.
.
Why?
Why had this been happening so often to her lately?
Esdeath asked herself this while stepping across the ruined ground at the edge of what could only be described as a disastrous scene. Near her boots, the nearly unconscious Bols collapsed with a weak thud. His breathing came in short bursts and his mask hung loose in tatters, revealing his tired eyes and much of his face for the first time. The surrounding street had emptied. Homes, shops, and walls were covered in twisting vein-like patterns, as if the entire district had fallen sick and needed to be purged, much like the work Bols used to do in the Incineration Squad.
"General," Bols whispered. He tried to raise himself but his arm buckled under him. "It's Doctor. Stylish. He's gone mad."
Looking around, Esdeath saw that several people were still trying to run while a few Imperial guards lay skewered by strange tentacle-like appendages and solid black spikes that pierced through their stomachs. Others had been sliced apart in a way that turned the whole street into a wide smear of gore, the air thick with a repugnant stench of iron and decay.
Her eyes narrowed as she took in the scene. "I am aware. What is the extent of the damages?"
"I tried to keep it contained until as many people as possible could retreat. Some of the local military police tried to help me but…" He did not need to finish. The ruined bodies and the crushed paving stones spoke for him. "Run and Wave are with the doctor."
"More traitors?" she asked with a visible frown building on her face. She tried to hold her anger down, forcing it to settle beneath her tone, but it pushed through for a moment before his voice tripped over hers.
"No, no, nothing like that. He is controlling… those things. It is… it is…" His words tangled themselves into knots, and Esdeath saw how even forming a proper sentence seemed to be as laborious for him as holding a mountain on his shoulders.
"I see. Rest. I shall take it from here."
With that said, she walked deeper into the area, following the trails of blood where they ran thickest. The air grew heavier the farther she went, the iron scent mixing with a sour smell of decay and some other foul undertone that felt entirely chemical. Her boots made a soft squelch with every step, marking her path across the wide smear of spilled flesh.
'Have I been too complacent lately?' she wondered.
She'd been certain that she had made a strong enough example of that idiot pirate from the Wild Hunt when she first folded into the Jaegers, enough to make certain the rest would stay in line. And while Stylish had been absent for that demonstration, it was only because he'd been receiving his own punishment for trying to go after her target.
She had made the difference in power clear, showing it to be a gap so wide that none of them should have dared test her grip. Yet in a short span of time, two members of the Jaegers had slipped their leash and tried to bite the hand of their own master.
"Unforgivable," she muttered. The word left her lips without even a shift in expression. The carnage around her did not stir her. It was noise, it was waste, and she had stepped over worse without pausing.
Clap!
Clap!
Clap!
A slow clap echoed across the ruined street. Each sound bounced off the stone walls, steady and unpleasantly cheerful. A figure emerged through the drifting fog of dust. His lab coat was stained with drying blood, torn open in several places, and his skin had taken on a pale, stretched quality that made his smile look more like a gash across his face. At his side hung a strange sword that looked far too large for such a lanky man to wield, and appeared to be made out of flesh, bones and… eyes?
She let her hand rest loosely on the handle of her rapier. Lifting her hat just slightly, she revealed her clear, cold blue eyes to meet the doctor's gaze.
"Stylish."
"General Esdeath. What an honour it is to have you come all the way here just to see me," he said with a tone that dipped into mocking familiarity while also bowing "I must apologise for the mess. My colleagues did not give me much of a chance to tidy up properly and even forced me to… accelerate certain plans. As for the slums, you must admit that the place looks more lively than before." His voice stayed calm, almost casual, but now carried a swelling arrogance.
She gave him no answer.
"I imagine you are curious about what I have been working on. Years and months of research, all focused on understanding the powers held by a handful of individuals who hoard them for themselves and slow the natural growth of—urgh!"
His sentence cracked apart as Esdeath tapped her heel against the ground. A wave of ice roared forward, forming jagged spikes that tore through the earth. They shot up beneath him, piercing his stomach, his chest, and his arm in a single motion. The impact lifted his body into the air, freezing the blood that tried to spill.
She did not bother approaching him. She did not want to have a conversation with a traitor. She did not care about whatever reason had crawled into his head and pushed him into this betrayal.
He had turned against her. That was all that mattered.
The woman exhaled once.
Putting down a rabid dog was her duty.
Simple as that.
"Hehehe, hahaha!"
Yet to her surprise, Esdeath did not greet the maddened scientist with her usual cool amusement. Several figures stepped out from the moving wall of flesh, their forms hideous enough to make anyone grow visibly sick at the mere sight of them. As for Stylish, his body twitched, then slowly pushed itself upright. The icicles that had pinned him were dragged out of his flesh one by one, leaving a gaping hole that should have been the end for any normal human.
"Surprised?" the man asked with a twisted grin that stretched too far across his face. His voice came out cracked but steady, and Esdeath observed with a level gaze as the wound began to knit itself together. Flesh crawled inward like threads being pulled tight by a skilled weaver, bone gleamed for a brief moment, and within seconds every injury she had dealt him was gone. His skin settled back in place without even a scar.
"Who would have thought that only days ago I used to almost fear you," he said. His words carried a strange mixture of pride and mockery. "The gap in strength and influence was something even I could not ignore. You held control over every one of us and used that fear to keep your subordinates in line. And credit where it's due, it worked for quite a while. But you relied on that fear, and now I no longer need to fear even the Empire's Strongest herself. I have already stepped beyond my mortal bounds."
"Quite an arrogant evaluation of yourself, but you always did have quite an ego," she replied in a dry tone. She did not back away, nor did her posture shift… If anything, she simply looked unimpressed, as showing that she felt he had always been prone to exaggeration and this was only a louder example of it.
"Where are the others? Is Seryu also part of this little scheme of yours?"
"That girl? Pft." His laugh echoed strangely, too thin to sound natural. "What a sad child who desired revenge and got blinded by her own stupidity. And since you seem to have grown fond of her, I am saddened to inform you that she will no longer be able to return to the Jaegers. She at least was able to serve her purpose — she allowed me to gather vital data for my research."
So she was gone after all.
It would be a lie to say that she did not feel a small sting of disappointment, and there was no point denying it to herself. She had seen potential in that girl, despite her naivety. Seryu chased revenge against something she could not fully understand, yet Esdeath believed time would have shaped her into something sharper. She had been a rough diamond, much like every strong member of the Jaegers in their early stages. Even so, the girl had one of the highest ceilings Esdeath had ever seen.
"I see." Esdeath lowered her head slightly, her eyes hidden for a moment from Stylish, who continued his speech as if he expected admiration from her.
"I will give you the same proposal that I gave the trio of gentlemen earlier," he said. "Out of courtesy for being my former superior. Join my side. I know what you truly desire more than anything, and I can give it to you without hesitation. Not the empty promises that Honest fed you for years. I can offer actual results."
"Hoh." She let out a small smirk once she heard that. "You think so? Then amuse me, what do I actually desire?"
"You are a singularly powerful woman, that much I am willing to acknowledge," he said, tilting his head as if making a gesture of politeness. "But the one you are trying to kill is an anomaly. One I sought to study. Now that I have uncovered his secret and even improved upon his abilities, I can give you everything you need to take him down on even grounds. My swords are alive, unlike his. They grow stronger with time, and with enough resources they can grow indefinitely. With only a few under your command, not even a thousand of his blades would be capable of defeating you. You saw only the first layer of what they can do during your last attack. And much more will be shown if you accept my proposal, General."
He gave her a courteous bow, his posture oddly formal for a man who had turned himself into something barely resembling a human. Despite his warped body, he seemed proud that he could still speak like a negotiator rather than a mindless destroyer. Yet the longer Esdeath listened, the more her faint smile faded into a plain, unreadable look. Especially when the doctor clearly tried to corner her by having more of his creations surround her.
Just like he said, living weapons, literally.
What surrounded her barely resembled humans anymore. They had been people once, but now their flesh and bone had been surgically grafted with twisted blades and scraps taken from Danger Beasts. Their bodies twitched with a restless hunger, every limb ready to pounce on her the moment she dared to move in an unexpected way. They were grotesque and unsettling, yet the man who created and directed them spoke as if he had achieved something grand. When he claimed she had somehow surpassed her greatest foe, the sheer absurdity of it nearly made her choke.
And in fact, Esdeath actually laughed, a sound at first that echoed like something unhinged before melting into a lighter, more youthful giggle. If not for the sight around her, the scene might have been described as strangely charming and cute.
"I see it's not just your appearance that has changed, Stylish. You have also gained the ability to make at least one funny joke. Perhaps you would find an appropriate career by becoming a court jester. Your appearance would certainly help with your performance," she delivered her reply with a scoff.
"You… " His expression twisted at once, anger spreading over his face in a wave so strong it looked like it hurt him to hold it in. "Even now, after I showed you so much of what my genius can accomplish, after I offered you a branch to lift you up, you mock me. All of you idiots are the same! Fine then! I will make you appreciate my gift by force, just like I did with the others!"
His shout snapped through the clearing. The creatures around him moved in unison, surging toward her with unsettling speed. Their warped shapes suggested they should barely be able to crawl, yet they darted across the ground with near superhuman power.
Esdeath met the first wave head on.
Clangs of steel on steel filled the air again and again. Sparks scattered each time her rapier connected with one of their fused weapons. Esdeath narrowed her eyes when she felt the strength behind each strike pushing her back, forcing her to lean harder on the skill of her technique to keep her balance. Blow after blow was redirected, her blade weaving between their attacks until a single heavy strike slammed into her weapon. Her rapier shattered mid-swing, fragments spinning past her raised brows.
"Interesting."
She did not flinch. Instead she shaped a new weapon of ice in her hand and stepped forward. Her speed sharpened, turning her movements brisk and precise. She bypassed several incoming attacks and reached the nearest creature, carving into it again and again within a heartbeat. Every cut focused on the center of its body, slicing cleanly through twisted flesh and leaving a layer of frost behind. The ice stopped its regeneration long enough for her to dig deeper, and soon the monster cracked apart and toppled to the ground in pieces. The blade fused into its body crumbled into dust at her feet.
A slow clap followed.
"A magnificent display of swordsmanship. Not only are you powerful in terms of how you use your Teigu, but your skill with the blade is truly second to none, just as the rumors claimed. It makes the effort of acquiring you as a specimen all the more worthwhile, General. What I will make you into… Oh, I don't have the words."
He spoke without moving to assist his creations. She continued her assault, every broken ice blade instantly replaced by another. The air around her chilled further, each slash tracing a thin glimmer of frost behind it.
Her strikes were not limited to her weapon either. She shattered frozen enemies with kicks strong enough to break steel ingots and imprisoned others in solid blocks of ice whenever they attempted to swarm her.
The clash dragged into a tense stalemate until a shadow dropped from above. She reacted instantly and raised a dome of ice around herself. A powerful kick crashed into the barrier, sending cracks shooting across the surface. A sword followed, stabbing down with enough force to pierce the weakened shell.
Both attacks came from Run, the blond lieutenant of the Jaegers. He stood above her, his eyes pitch black with crawling vein-like lines spreading across his skin. No trace of his usual calm or reason remained.
"So that's what you meant by granting me power? Becoming your puppet?" she observed.
"That is one way to word it, but you cannot deny the results." As the doctor finished speaking, Run pushed himself back and shot upward, cutting through the air until he reached a height that let the light hit his wings. They stretched wide like tattered banners before he fired several feathers as projectiles. Each one punched into Esdeath's dome with enough force to burrow deep into the ice, spreading cracks across its surface like a spiderweb racing outward. He did not pause. Run dove with a sword made of flesh and bone clutched tight, the blade writhing faintly as if alive, and he brought it down with a sharp swing that shattered the frozen barrier right in front of Esdeath's eyes.
"Hahaha! Yes! Now even someone like him can keep up with you! This is the new era! People like you will become old history, redundant and unneeded!"
She ignored Stylish's gloating. Esdeath focused entirely on Run, reading his movements with the same calm precision she used earlier against the malformed creatures. His swings came in quick chains, and though she blocked and sidestepped them all with practiced ease, she noticed something strange.
Run had never excelled at swordplay. She knew his strengths, and while he was no slouch at combat his true talents involved planning, leading, and calculating outcomes. Yet the way he handled this blade now showed steady form and a sense of rhythm that did not belong to him.
"This is the standard technique taught to rand-and-file soldiers. He absorbed that knowledge somehow?"
The idea sounded wild, something without a clear method to confirm, but her instincts nagged at her. The longer their exchange continued, the more she saw the same basic patterns she remembered from her academy days. Each swing followed the simple cuts taught to new recruits, each guard a textbook stance. Run never improvised, never changed pace, never drifted from the basic motions drilled into every young soldier.
"That is very close," Stylish said behind her. "My earlier experiments came from a wide group of individuals. A few were soldiers. Like I mentioned, my weapons will keep getting better with every person who accepts their fate."
So it was a kind of hive mind. Esdeath fought while studying Run's altered form, noticing details she had missed earlier. Buried within the twisted mass that made up the creatures she fought, she recognized pieces of beasts she had hunted across the Empire. She saw segments of an earth dragon's hide forming protective layers along Run's limbs. She caught a glimpse of a feline Danger Beast known for its speed in the way his joints flexed.
There were stranger parts too, pieces she could only guess belonged to creatures she had never personally faced. The hive mind must have come from one of those beasts, something capable of storing knowledge and passing it along to every other body in the network. The only known creature with that trait lived far from this continent. If Stylish had acquired samples from a distant land, the idea no longer sounded impossible.
"If that is the case then…" Her eyes cooled.
With one sharp move, Esdeath stepped in and brought her blade across Run's dominant arm. The cut came clean, severing the limb and forcing his stance to break. Run staggered for a fraction of a second, and that second was enough. She summoned a line of ice swords above her, each one forming with a crackle before firing toward him. They hit their marks without hesitation, pinning Run to the ground at several joints. Blood trickled down the length of each frozen rod as his body twitched against the cold iron grip that was her power.
"What?"
Stylish had not expected that outcome. His surprise came through his voice, thin and strained, as if he could not understand how her attacks pierced the defenses of something he believed unbreakable.
"I should have known you have no remorse for those working under you," he said. "But this was only the appetizer. The main dish has yet to appear."
Esdeath kept her guard raised, not trusting a single word coming from him. She prepared another volley, ready to silence him before he could reveal whatever he planned.
The ground in front of her began to tremble. Dust rose between the cracks forming in the stone until the earth burst open with a violent shake. Something massive pushed its way out, lifting chunks of debris as it clawed upward.
"A Danger Beast? No. That is not it."
At first she thought Stylish had hidden an entire group of monsters beneath the capital. It would have been a foolish plan, but she had seen worse attempts from desperate men. The figure kept rising until most of its body emerged from the hole, and only then did she realize it was not one of the known beasts. It was only a single creature, and by no means was it a natural one.
Her eyes narrowed. The upper half looked vaguely human. Indeed the more she focused, the more her breath grew shallow.
For the first time since this battle started, Esdeath found herself at a genuine loss for words.
"…Liver?"
His name slipped out before she could stop it. The man who had served under her with unwavering loyalty, the man she believed had met his end at the hands of Emiya, now stood before her again.
But the truth of what he had become hit her all at once. From his waist upward he still looked like the soldier she remembered, though his skin carried a faint pale tone as if drained of life. Everything below his stomach however, was something else entirely. His lower half was fused to a massive beast's body with thick muscles layered under scaled hide. The legs were far too large for any natural shape, each one nearly as big as a small house. His posture wavered as if waking from a long sleep.
Liver opened his eyes slowly and looked at her with an expression she had never once seen on his face.
"General Esdeath." His voice carried regret and pain in a quiet tone that still reached her clearly. "Forgive me."
A former general, a former subordinate who already had a grave made in his name now standing right before her in a completely new form. The void of anything that once made him human and instead looking like a Danger Beast hybrid.
"So you were the one who stole the body." She was keenly aware that within that grave was just an empty box, serving more of a symbolic gesture than anything else. Believing that with his clash against Emiya, rogue monsters just happened to come across his corpse and eat Liver's remains along with Daidara's, leaving nothing behind.
"It is a shame that I could not retrieve the Black Marlin as well. That Imperial Arm could have served me much better than whatever it might do in the hands of the Revolutionary Army. Regardless, I hope you can enjoy this little reunion. I had plans on showing you a familiar face as part of a more peaceful scenario, but we can't change the past." With a snap of his finger, liver groaned in pain. Visibly trying to resist but clearly unable to do so.
With a beastly howl, lunging towards Esdeath.
Despite his large size and impressive speed, dodging him proved to be an easy task for her. Each place where his massive claws landed was destroyed entirely; houses flattened and roads turned upside down. All the while she continued to observe how the old man attempted to resist but clearly was fighting a losing battle.
"Even in death, you continue to disappoint me, Liver," she said while summoning another rapier in hand, slashing swiftly and creating a large arc of ice that cut through several layers of the creature's skin but was unable to entirely dismember it. And just like with Stylish, the wound was being mended at frightening speed right before her eyes.
"…"
He said nothing but continued to clutch his head, black and red eyes unable to meet her gaze. That seemed to have been more than enough to finally have him mutter something else under his breath, "I… I-I… urgh, I never meant… to betray you… General Esdeath."
"But you ignored my orders and went behind my back to pursue an enemy beyond your ability," she shot back, tapping her foot on the ground and carpeting the entire area in a layer of ice with spikes shooting out, obscuring the creature in several places at once and rendering it immobile for a brief moment. "Just what was your goal back then? Were you truly under the belief that you were capable of killing him? If not from him, then you would have died by my hands regardless."
"I… I know," the acknowledged her words, not even trying to deny them. "Even so… I will always act to protect you, Lady Esdeath. Whether it be from outside dangers, and yourself as well."
"…"
"I cannot say that I understand your feelings towards him. But the longer I stayed by your side, the more I came to understand that you were willing to lay down your life against him." His muscles bulged, His entire body trying to heal from the wounds inflicted by her, but more ice just kept piercing his body, with a layer of frost slowly starting to encompass it. "You were seeking to die by his hand. I… I-urgh, I could not allow that…"
Esdeath's eyes narrowed viciously. "Who are you to decide that for me?" She raised her hand, a large shadow soon spreading across the area with an entire iceberg forming in the air, dwarfing Liver's form by several factors. "Where is your loyalty?"
"My loyalty has always and will always be towards you. We were your protectors, I only regret not having been strong enough to at least wound Emiya."
She gritted her teeth, rage started to build from within. He watched her reaction and accepted it.
"You are a failure," she whispered with pure disdain in her voice.
"I am." He said without missing a beat. "Both I and Daidara were willing to bear your hatred and die by your hands. As long as we accomplished our goal to secure your future, then we were willing to become the most hated existence in your eyes, General."
"That is not why I created the Beasts!"
Facing his incoming second death, Liver showed no fear nor regret for his past actions. Merely lowering his head as if to bow to his general. "I am a Beast. It is my duty to sacrifice myself and all principles if it means that I can hopefully save your life. You only sought to have him finish what he started all those years ago, you have never accepted his mercy from back then. Had I not died, then I would have never given u—"
His words came to a halt, a thin blue line appearing right on his neck followed by a sharp sound, the line slowly turning red with droplets of blood streaming down his neck. The head slid off the body till it fell to the ground, before getting crushed into pieces by Esdeath's boots.
"I revoke your title as a Beast, Liver. You no longer deserve to hold such a rank even posthumously, nor do you deserve to keep the honors that came with it."
With a simple gesture, the iceberg came crashing down, crushing the entire body under its weight while she watched with several emotions swirling in her eyes. Even if somehow the main body survived and tried to regenerate again, she would just crush it one more time, doing so until not even a single spec remained.
"—!"
Then, a sense of urgency reached her mind but Esdeath was once too slow. A sharp pain soon came from her abdomen, looking downwards to see the giant greatsword covered in eyes piercing her stomach, looking back at her gleefully.
"Hehehehe, this is it~! I finally have my most prized possession~!"
Stylish's slimy voice came from behind, blue and red lines encroaching upon her skin from within, spreading from the sword itself as it took root from inside her very body. Esdeath's entire being went fully rigid, dropping to her knees with her hair fully covering her face. She wanted to rip away the strands from within her abdomen, even if it meant aggravating the wound, but it was to no avail with the thing continuing to spread at an astonishing rate.
Soon, her hands went limp and her face dropped, the sight making Stylish become giddy and unable to hold his excitement. His maddened laughter echoing all across the slums. "I did it! I finally did it! The power of evolution at my fingertips, I have finally transcended all mortal bonds with nothing standing above me!"
Those who looked at what happened remained frozen with disbelief. Bols especially could not believe what had just occurred, his reaction being noticed by Stylish who slowly turned towards him and started to make his way towards the man.
"Now that Esdeath has become part of me, I am afraid that I no longer see any use in keeping you alive. Your weapon is already useless to me, I can always just create more of it later on."
Bols tried to move, only to have his limbs caught by Stylish's creations.
"It would be quite poetic to have the remainder of the Jaegers die by the hands of their leader. Don't you think so too, Esdeath? Before I have you face that man again, let's have a bit of a warm up with the entire Capital. It will prove to be quite the generous resource to strengthen you," he said while pushing up his glasses, hands behind his back and waiting for his new puppet to make her move.
"…"
Only for seconds to go by without any movement from her.
"Did you not listen to me, General? Get up." Stylish commanded this time with a much more stern voice, but once again got nothing but silence from her. Frustration showing on his face, he approached her with more tendrils extending from his sword. "Looks like you are more stubborn than I gave you credit for. But honestly that's good, the more you resist the easier it will be for me later on. It proves that you are a valuable asset at the very least."
Yet the closer he got, the more he started to notice the temperature plummeting. Until he stood right beside her and the breath coming out of his mouth was akin to white smoke. His confusion only lasted several seconds when her hand immediately whipped above and grabbed hold of his sword with the metal biting into her palm.
"What!?"
Stunned, He tried to pull it away, to create some distance between them as soon as possible. Unfortunately, the grip on his sword proved to be stronger than he anticipated, even trying to just slice her hand away failed, for ice had created a layer of armor around her, and it was stronger than her previous defenses.
The wounds that were left by his sword, the tendrils that wriggled around it within her abdomen slowed, turning white and freezing within seconds until they started to break away. With icicles jutting out from the wound, piercing the foreign entity all over her body with icicles sticking out from every corner of her body to even her face.
She did not bleed… could not bleed.
"A-Areehh!" The connection he established with her went awry and an inexplicable force pushed down on his mind and made it impossible for him to sever said link himseld.
"W-What… h-how is this… impossible!" He screamed in agony and with rage, trying to overwhelm that presence within his mind, going so far as to disregard every other link and have all focus on her alone. All of it in the end, he was left feeling utterly powerless when that… thing just continued to grow more powerful and started to rip apart his consciousness.
"In the end, I overestimated you." Esdeath's calm voice sounded before him, shocking the man when he raised his head to find the woman staring back at him calmly. The vein-like pattern that had spread across her body dying away and reverting her back to her normal appearance.
"H-How…" Stylish whispered under his breath, finding the cold to become almost unbearable with his body shivering. Ice encompassing the blade he was holding, dozens of eyes wriggling around chaotically as if wanting to scream in pain but having no mouth to do so.
"If two Super class Danger Beasts together were not able to bend me to their will and break me, why would you be any different? You are not even worth taking seriously."
He was not sure if it was the fear that started to bloom within his heart, or the splitting headache that threatened to crush his mind at any second, but Stylish could not help but feel that he was standing before a monster. Nothing about her felt human anymore, somehow she felt far more monstrous than his own creations and indeed himself. Pupils that belonged to a vicious beast stared back at him, both mentally and physically, having him bend to her will, with a weight that kept on growing by the second.
"This poor excuse of a sword," she said while looking at the sword in her grasp, by now the weapon having been entirely encapsulated in ice. "It has not even reached a fraction of the power his creations hold."
Taking his sword from his fingertips, with a single motion, the weapon shattered right before their eyes. Bits of frozen flesh, metal, and tendrils were sent flying everywhere.
"AaaaaaaaAaaaAH!" Stylish screamed in agony, blood streaming down his nose, eyes and mouth only for it to be frozen instantly. His fingers, his arms freezing up, cracking and breaking apart. His insides followed the same outcome, with the last thought that came across his mind being a few words he left the woman with.
"Y-You… are not a human."
Hearing that, Esdeath just smiled. Offering him no parting words, the entire area somehow plummeting in temperature even further, droplets of oxygen dripping from several areas and falling to the ground to form a puddle that soon started to solidify.
By then, all that remained of Stylish was a block of ice in his general shape, showcasing the last expression on face clearly: absolute terror.
Getting up, despite the icicles sticking out of her body, Esdeath looked behind at the remains of Liver.
"You were wrong, Liver… I don't plan on dying by his hands."
{Break}
-???-
It had been a while since he found himself back in this place, surrounded by thick smog and thousands of swords expanding for as far as the eye could see and giant gears littering the place. An endless wasteland that defined him, sitting all by himself on top of a hill with no thoughts whatsoever. Patiently waiting for his next call to be deployed, nothing but his own memories to accompany him for the rest of eternity.
It was a lonely existence, that much he knew and had grown to accept. An existence where he held no true freedom, forever stuck as nothing more than a machine made to kill endlessly.
"Hah…" The wind bellowed his hair, eyes closed with no other task but to just wait and enjoy the silence as much as he could. How he had not gone mad at this point remained a mystery even to him, or rather he just assumed he was already far too broken to even go mad in the first place — it almost sounded like a joke. Yet he could not deny the possibility that perhaps he had already long since gone mad and was just in denial about it.
Though amongst the dreadful feelings, a sense of longing still managed to crawl its way into him. Stubbornly clinging on to his mind despite several attempts at cutting that piece away. Memories of spending time inside the manor's living room, reading all day with a certain blue-haired troublemaker finding joy at getting a reaction out of him with her antics. Another one who kept stubbornly trying to establish her authority as an older sister, overworking herself as usual to the point of collapsing on a daily basis and needing him to take care of her.
Days when he would go on a simple hunting trip that would turn into a near death scenario and then end up relaxing for hours at a hot spring.
Moments where he could just enjoy sitting with his back leaning against a tree, observing a vast empire in the distance while the sound of two blockheads nearby competed to see whose skull was thicker, sparring one another just because of a stupid bet they made. Somehow they always got him involved before the end.
Hours spent trying out new recipes from creatures he had never encountered before, finding himself experiencing what could only be described as pure wonder and even excitement at discovering something new. To create new tastes and textures, new combinations and try out flavours that were still foreign to him. All the while defending his domain from the two women who repeatedly tried to snatch away his limited ingredients.
Travelling a new foreign world, discovering new cultures, helping people whenever he could, making new connections.
It would be a lie to say that he did not miss those moments. A strange thing to say given he was still being chased around by an entire army led by a madwoman that entire time. This world was undeniably dangerous and cruel, much like his own, with its own set of monsters, challenges and beauties. For someone who had spent an eternity doing nothing but killing, it was a worthwhile experience that would stay at his core forever.
For just moments like these, to go through them again and again till they would also become blurry memories… just like everything else.
In that moment of silence, perhaps it was just his imagination, but he felt far more miserable than ever before.
'Is this what they mean by having a taste of freedom only to have it be snatched away immediately? How cruel of you, Alaya,' he thought with a slight chuckle escaping his lips, deciding to just move past this instance and just go back to his duties as usual, waiting in silence for an unknown amount of time.
"Hm?"
That being until a cold sensation came upon him, cracking open his eyes to see how much darker than usual his inner world was. This time the smog stayed the same, but the clouds above had grown denser. This being just one part of what attracted his attention, for at the back of his hand, the Counter Guardian came to gaze at something quite confusing to be in Unlimited Blade Works…
"Snow?"
{Break}
-Night Raid New Base-
"—!"
Emiya slowly opened his eyes, staring up at a wooden ceiling that he did not recall ever having seen before. The sound of a bird chirping and curtains rustling from the wind reaching his ears, unlike the deafening explosion he heard before everything turned white. For the next few moments, he just stayed there, unmoving and without uttering a single word.
'A dream… Huh.'
Dreams such as those that involved his past were not uncommon, something that always reoccurred one or two times every other month or so. A constant in his life for as long as he could remember. Strangely enough, this one certainly was quite different from what he usually experienced.
He truly did not know what to make of that, and figured it was just a strange dream.
"Hm…" He tried to take a deep breath, only to immediately regret his action when that invited a wave of burning pain from all over his body. Feeling rigid, stiff and sore all over, just trying to move his fingers proved to be a challenge in itself. It was like an enormous weight was put upon his chest, making it impossible to move.
Looking around to get a better grasp of his surroundings, Emiya realised that he was not the only one in the room. For sleeping soundly right next to the bed, using his arm as a pillow while still sitting on the chair next to him in an uncomfortable position was a certain blonde and buxom assassin.
"L-Leo…ne?"
Calling out her name proved to stir the woman from her slumber, where for a moment she opened her eyes ever so slightly and stared back at him. Both sides, not saying a word until he opened his mouth again. "Good morning."
Even though it felt like his throat was being torn apart by just uttering a single word, he did not worry much and tried to say more, only to have his words get muffled when Leone moved as fast as lightning and the next thing he felt was the woman having her arms engulfed him in a powerful embrace. Still being careful to not move him too much, she tightened her hold while he felt her shake ever so slightly.
"We… we really thought you were dead," she whispered into his ears, her voice sounding like she was on the brink of crying. He was honestly unprepared to see someone like her show such a vulnerable side, her current self did not possess an iota of confidence or that loud personality he had grown so used to dealing with.
"I am hard to kill." He tried to make light of the situation, but it did not make Leona calm down as she continued to hug him ever so tightly. "Can't… breath…"
"O-Oh, sorry!" She quickly gave him some space, finally allowing him some space, though he kept his breaths shallow on account of the bruised rips..
"Glad to see that you are doing well, Leone."
She nodded with a weak smile, "It was thanks to Lubbock… and you."
Glad to know that guy was quick to react, even though he barely had any time before the explosion. "Where are we?"
"Another temporary base, we had to abandon the old one after well… half of it has turned into ruins. Plus it being discovered by the enemy, but that's more of a minor detail by this point."
He nodded at her answer, looking around the room and then realizing that there was another bed in the distance where Mine could be seen sleeping while her leg was bound in a cast. He did not expect everyone to come out without any injuries, so for her to get wounded to that extent could be seen as lucky rather than losing entire limbs…
Speaking of which. "What… a-about the others?"
"Tatsumi is in the holding cell in the basement looking after someone. Akame, Lubbock and Bulat — he's back, by the way — are helping set up the place. Sheele is watching for any enemies just in case, along with Chelsea, the new girl. As for the boss…" Her face went sour and for a moment, Emiya felt nervousness creep into his heart at what he was about to hear next.
But rather than getting horrible news, Leone pointed to the other side of the bed. "She took advantage of me going to the bathroom and stole my spot."
Turning his head around, not sure how he even missed this from the moment he woke up, Emiya found Nejenda sleeping right beside him wearing nothing but a loosely buttoned up shirt. Even with her eyes closed, he saw the heavy bags under her eyes and just how pale she looked overall.
"I fucking waited days to get my spot, just waiting for those tiny swords to disappear was a nightmare. Literally no one knew how to deal with those and trying to get any closer to you caused more wounds than anything else. Speaking of which… What the hell happened to you back there!? Do you have any idea just how fucked up you looked!? Your limbs were barely holding on by a handful of strands of flesh! Then these tiny swords somehow sprouted from your flesh and started to mesh together and… and… I'm not even sure what to say since I have a hard time believing what I saw back then!"
He winced at the sheer volume, "I'll tell you later… I'll just go back to sleep for a few more hours."
"Eh? What? You can't go to sleep again! You just woke up! It's been days and you need to drink some water and take some medicine! Oi, don't ignore me! Son of a… fine, I'm sleeping too! I'll take this spot! I deserve some after taking care of you for days with barely any sleep as well!"
He wanted to say something and have both women get out of his bed, but truthfully, he was too tired to do so and did not even have the means with how his body was currently. There was still a long way to go before being fully recovered, so best to continue resting for a bit longer.
---------------
The next 5 chapters of Snafu, and my other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters, Steel Eyed Faker soon to be 3 chapters, Hound having 3 and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.