Third-person POV.
The sun was about to set, giving way to night.
Akane stood at the edge of the village, waiting for the others.
"All done; I've finished the barrier," said Albus, followed by Kenji, who was wiping his hands. A moment later, Chiaki appeared, looking at the three of them.
"Well, everything's ready. We just need the two of you to distract Berserker so we can start our work." At Kenji's words, Assassin appeared behind Akane.
"How wicked, throwing us into the slaughter against that immortal abomination," he complained as he began walking toward the village while Archer materialized at its gate. "This might be the last time we see each other, and I'm just going to tell you that you're the worst sorcerers I've ever seen since you have far too much moral compass to be sorcerers."
As he said this, he pointed at the three of them.
"But perhaps that's not such a bad thing," Assassin finished. "We're running late," Archer complained.
Assassin gave him a listless look, only to turn his gaze back to Akane.
"Master"—that made Akane jump slightly in surprise. "You still have three Command Seals; don't be stingy and use them if necessary, and be ready to call me at all times if needed; your life is more important than anything."
This caused Akane's expression to shift from surprise to determination.
"Don't worry, I will."
At her response, Assassin smiled at her and leaped to the center of the city, followed by Archer.
Once the two servants left, Albus turned to the map.
"Alright, my familiars detected a mana leak in this location. Once they distract Berserker, we'll go to this place; we don't know what we'll find, but luckily, Assassin said there was only one of them, so he shouldn't have an accomplice."
"We still have to be careful; a friend's workshop always has traps or something to distract us, and we have to be quick, since we don't know if Berserker might return once we're inside," Kenji warned, eyeing the spot where the entrance to Berserker's master's hideout was supposedly located.
Upon hearing this, Akane looked at the back of her hand, noticing that she still had the three Command Seals; she clenched her hand with determination.
...
In the middle of the village, Archer and Assassin stood idly by.
"The sun has already set; it should be coming soon," Assassin remarked, gazing at the horizon before turning to Archer. "You've been rather quiet these past few days."
"I'll speak my mind through my fists."
Hearing his companion's words, he simply sighed.
"There's no time anyway, so we need to hurry."
With that, Assassin transformed into his full Reaper form, raising his black wings and horns, appearing as a malevolent being, and beginning to unleash a massive amount of Conqueror's Haki.
(Note: For the purposes of this transformation, I will officially refer to it as the Reaper form, with the full transformation being the complete change and the partial transformation only involving the appearance of wings and a change in one eye.)
Archer stood motionless, watching Assassin exude a feeling he'd only ever experienced in beings far superior to himself, before squinting in a particular direction.
Assassin mirrored this, creating a burst of energy. Archer stood beside him, summoning his chakram, waiting.
In the distance, a figure began to appear, slowly walking toward them.
It was Berserker, his staff already at the ready on his shoulder, strolling casually through the ruined streets of the village.
"Hmm, you look familiar," Berserker said, looking at Assassin, whom he was seeing in his full transformation for the first time. "No matter. I just hope you can experience that feeling of being cornered again, or I'll be very disappointed."
With that, Berserker assumed a fighting stance, exuding a mixture of killer instinct and combat readiness.
Assassin was trying to think of something clever to say when, out of nowhere, Archer enveloped his chakram in flames and forcefully hurled it at his opponent.
The weapon's trajectory created black spikes capable of piercing almost anything. Berserker calmly intercepted the chakram with his staff, halting its momentum, only for Archer to leap out from behind the weapon and deliver a powerful punch.
The blow sent him reeling backward, only for Assassin, from a strategic position, to unleash a powerful strike on Berserker's stomach, directly targeting the area where he had indicated they should fight. This was intended to minimize the impact on Akane's, Albus's, and Kenji's locations, as well as Chiaki's hiding place.
Berserker, airborne, regained control, using his staff to stop himself as he vomited a mouthful of blood. He then looked ahead and saw two punches flying directly to his face.
With perfect synchronization, Archer and Assassin simultaneously struck Berserker, sending him flying out of the village and allowing the real battle to begin, clearing the way for the others.
Once in the forest, Berserker slowly began to rise, using his staff to block Archer's attack with his weapon. He parried the attack and leaped backward, landing a bluish scythe, followed by Assassin.
Monkey King glanced to one side to see Archer, his fists already engulfed in flames, and then looked to the other to see Assassin wielding a scythe and surrounded by several swords, forming a barrier around him.
"This will be fun."
...
Once the three Servants left the village, Akane, Albus, and Kenji set off.
Following Albus, they arrived at the location marked on the map, only to find a trapdoor.
"A delimited field," Kenji remarked upon seeing it. "It would be best to destroy it, just in case; at this point in life, it doesn't really matter if it's discovered or not; the fewer dangers we face upon reaching it, the better."
At that moment, the two looked at Akane, who, realizing what they wanted her to do, sighed.
Taking a step forward, she placed her hand on the barrier to see various circuits and runes appear on it.
Akane's field of sorcery is based on an understanding of both ancient and modern magic; she performs it purely by examining records and anything else that has contained magic.
When analyzing these objects, she tended to cause them to explode, which is why she was expelled from the class. She could only return once she was able to control her anomaly.
From there, she learned to destroy almost any object, whether alchemic or a man-made bound field.
She only had to hack the bound field and then overload it, making its maintenance impossible and causing it to collapse.
Akane placed her hand on the field where her magical circuits were visible. A few moments passed before the barrier began to flicker and then disappeared with a faint sound.
"There, nothing prevents us from entering now," she declared as she opened the door.
Upon entering the guard post, they noticed several tunnels. The floor was scorched, and in front of them lay burnt runes. One of these runes had been supporting the delimited field, which, when overloaded, exploded, producing the sound they had heard.
Albus approached to examine the rune, only to realize it wasn't as simple as it appeared.
"I see it was a delimited illusion field; it was for civilians should they find this place. Next to it are a detection rune and a trap rune. Thanks to the expansion, neither works now, but they must have alerted the Berserker Master, so be careful."
Akane and Kenji nodded at Albus's words and began walking through the tunnels.
...
Berserker was seen twirling his staff, intercepting each of Assassin's attacks, only to use his feet to block one of Berserker's blows.
He threw a kick, only for Archer to block or counterattack, forcing Archer to use his staff instead, deflecting Assassin's attacks onto his body.
Assassin's attacks did almost no damage, but he felt some of the slashing attacks draining his vitality and energy.
This was something he didn't like to admit, but he had to face him one-on-one, which was more feasible for him.
Using his staff, he attacked Archer, who defended himself using his chakra, successfully creating distance.
Taking a lock of his hair, he threw it into the air, where it transformed into several Berserkers, 46 in total. This caused Archer to assume a fighting stance, but to his surprise, the 45 clones didn't attack him; instead, they vanished. "Damn it," Assassin groaned as he watched several clones pass by. Their numbers swelled, and to his misfortune, some had transformed into canes for other clones to use as weapons.
As he evaded the clones' attacks, it seemed as if more and more were appearing.
On the other side, Archer and Berserker were locked in a relentless battle.
Blows flew back and forth; as soon as one blocked a blow, he was ready to strike the next.
Between the two bodies, all that could be seen was the frantic movement of their arms as they threw and received blows, accompanied by the sound of air being crushed with immense force.
While chaos reigned in the forest above, the three mages made their way through underground tunnels, using Albus's incantations to avoid getting lost.
(Note: In my opinion, mages are those who practice magic, and sorcerers are those who use sorcery, but sometimes the terms are mixed up and used for the same person, whether due to translation or other reasons; I'll do the same to avoid constantly using "sorcerer," but it's worth mentioning that none of them actually use magic.)
A canine was leading the way, searching for any trace of a human in the area.
"How much longer until we get there, Toby?" Albus asked.
"We're almost there, smelling humans, though. There's more than one of them."
"More than one. Assassin said there was only one living being here," Akane commented.
"Could he have been wrong?" Kenji asked.
"I hope so," Albus said as they reached a door.
The three of them and the dog stood before the door.
"There won't be a barrier or anything protecting the place," Kenji confirmed.
At this, Albus nodded and opened the door to see the room. Despite finding Berserker's master, reality can be different from what one expects.
The room was full of people, as Toby had indicated, but not as many as they had expected.
"I was afraid of this, considering how he supplied Berserker with so much mana; now it makes sense."
Albus was a tracker, so he'd been to many places around the world and seen it all, and this wasn't unusual for him, but that didn't make it any less pleasing to the eye. Just because you get used to it doesn't mean you end up liking it.
The room was filled with large tubes filled with liquid, and inside were people.
The people inside the tubes were covered in tubing, both inside and out.
Akane approached one of the tubes where there was a child, about seven years old.
The child's eyes were open, but there was no sign of life in them.
Kenji, using the weapon he had, broke one of the tubes containing a woman. The liquid spilled all over the floor, and the woman began to defecate, being held down by it.
He quickly examined the body, only to narrow his eyes.
"She's dead and alive at the same time."
"How is that possible?" Akane questioned.
"This woman is dead, but only when I pulled her out of there did these tubes and machines keep her body alive. Most likely, her mind is gone; she doesn't have a soul, but her mana is still there," Kenji explained.
"He must be using them as batteries; there are tubes filled with blood," Albus remarked, approaching a tube that contained no body, only a different colored liquid. "The liquid in the tubes is blue, while this one is violet, the result of mixing it with red. It must be the consequence of forcibly extracting mana; it puts the entire body under incredible pressure, destroying it and leaving only the victim's blood as evidence that there was ever a body."
After that possible explanation, the room fell silent.
"I see," Kenji said.
"What's wrong?" Albus asked.
"I know who Berserker's master is," Kenji replied, walking over and stopping at a specific tube. Inside was a somewhat elderly woman in the tube, just like all the others.
"The Tohsaka family keeps records of who participated in the previous Holy Grail War, and I recognize this woman as the mother of one of the former participants," Kenji explained, pointing to another tube. "I also recognize that person; she's from the same family, as are other people I saw a while ago. Knowing that her son died, only one family member is missing."
With this explanation, no one else could fit Kenji's description except the patriarch of the family of the former Holy Grail War participant.
"He turned his entire family into magical batteries just to win the Holy Grail War?" Akane asked incredulously.
"That's how mages are... maybe Assassin has a point."
At that moment, Albus walked beside Kenji.
"Do you remember which family this is?"
"That doesn't matter anymore. It's a dead family of sorcerers; There's only one member left, and if I'm not mistaken, he's practically a mummy. A penalty or anything like that won't do any good."
"I think you're right. I think it's best to keep searching for Berserker's master." Albus agreed with Kenji.
"I see you found this place," an old voice said from behind them.
When they turned around, they saw a man who looked about sixty years old.
"It's you," Kenji said, his eyes widening.
"Don't be so surprised, Tohsaka. It makes it seem like what I did was something otherworldly." As he said that, a noise echoed throughout the place.
A barrier suddenly enveloped the walls.
The man was about to say something, but seeing the dog lunging to bite him, he slammed the door, sending it crashing into the wall.
The three of them ran out of the room only to find the hallway empty.
"Did it disappear?" Akane asked.
"It wasn't the only thing that disappeared," the dog said, making the three of them turn around to see that the door had vanished.
Albus approached the wall to see if it was an illusion, only to realize that the wall had actually disappeared, or rather, moved to another location.
"I forgot this isn't much different from a magic workshop; let's find this bastard and kill him once and for all."
The others agreed, leading the way with the dog, searching for any trace of manure or human scent.
...
If the forest had once been a large part of this terraformed landscape, now almost nothing remained.
In the air, Archer could be seen with his giant chakram engulfed in flames, being launched toward Berserker.
Only to smile at this and respond with a punch, he stopped the attack with a swipe but destroyed his hand, as the weapon never stopped spinning.
To make Archer fall onto the weapon, he pressed down, causing the rest of his arm to be destroyed.
Using his free hand, he struck the weapon, sending it flying. But Archer, who was above him, fell to try to strike, only for Berserker to duck and deliver a kick that connected with the Sunken Warrior's face, sending him flying.
Archer quickly ignored the pain and got back up to see that Berserker's arm had already regenerated and returned to normal.
This didn't discourage Archer; for him, seeing this was only clear proof that he had to try harder to defeat him.
Saber had brought him to a point where his regeneration had been a major setback; he could do the same—at least that's what he told himself.
He engulfed his body in flames once more and launched himself at Berserker.
Elsewhere in the forest, Assassin could be seen destroying a clone only to have to dodge a staff strike, which, upon seeing its wielder, reverted to its Berserker form.
Assassin leaped back, creating distance, but three more clones were already upon him.
"What a load of crap," he complained, using Soru again to dodge the blows, only to find himself facing even more clones.
He didn't have time to destroy the clones, as they attacked simultaneously and recklessly, making escape his priority, not his destruction. If he made a wrong move, a chain of clones, nearly as strong as the original, would rush over him, sealing his fate.
"I'll have to ruin my legs a bit if I want to do this," Assassin told himself, standing on a tree. Creating a sword, he pushed his legs to their limits and, using Soru, reached the other side, managing to destroy only two of the twenty clones he could see.
Only to duck immediately after being struck by a staff and turn around, as another one was about to fall on him.
All he knew was that if it weren't for Observation Haki, he would have been toast.
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Hey everyone, I'm here to talk about One Piece; if you're not caught up with the manga, ignore this. Actually, I'm not caught up either; I'm waiting for the arc to finish so I can read it all at once, but I did read Xebec's flashback because he'd been half-revived earlier and I wanted to see how he fought.
Like I said, I'm not caught up, but I got spoiled on something I honestly didn't like. I'm one of those people who don't like how Oda kills off characters; not even the most relevant ones die.
But Dorry and Brogy decapitating themselves and then suddenly coming back to life is beyond me. I can't wrap my head around the idea that the way to get rid of Domi Reversi is by killing themselves.
It makes more sense to me that they tried to kill each other so it wouldn't be suicide and to prevent Imu's control from making them kill their crewmates, but I don't know.
Also, how did they find out about him? As I said, I'm not caught up, so I don't know what happened to figure out how the ability worked. I just hope One Piece isn't some Fairy Tail-style friendship magic, or else I'll laugh and hate One Piece for the rest of my life.
Anyway, this is just my opinion, and I reiterate that I'm not caught up, so I don't know the context. Besides, Oda can still fix this with a good explanation.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter. Until next time.