Long 6k chapter, enjoy.
***
11th of April, 7 AM, Tokyo 一 Desolate Graveyard
Night could finally be considered to have truly ended now, and Saber, who was tired (bored) from keeping watch all night, was so happy that he could finally go outside and maybe eat something delicious during their next exploration.
As he continued stretching his back, his master, Kairi, came out of what might have been the gravekeeper's post. "Good morning Saber, ready for today's round of perlustration?"
"Aye aye, Master-chan you can count on me, I was born ready. So let's go get breakfast for both of us quickly, we will perform better once our bellies are full."
Kairi laughed at his response. "I guess I like the positivity but I'm surprised you still want to eat, don't servants only need magical energy to sustain themselves?"
"Yup, that's for sure but where's the enjoyment in that? One should eat a lot to feel satisfied and full of energy, right?"
"Well, I guess you have a point, thank god you Servants still eat normal people's worth of quantities or else I would need to worry about my wallet. Come on now, let's go."
"So, what's the plan for today?" Saber asked curiously as they made their way to a nearby bar.
"For now, I'm thinking of asking around like yesterday for a bit and then go finish looking at the places we marked yesterday, there are still a few we haven't visited yet."
"Ok, sounds good."
They entered the fairly empty bar, as expected from one near a cemetery, apart from a few elderly people having breakfast. Taking their seats Saber turned to the pretty bar lady. "Excuse me, miss, me and my friend here would like to order something for breakfast."
"Yes, I'm coming sir. What would you like to order?"
"Well, how about…"
***
"Good, now I can go all out." Saber grinned as they walked to their rusted Corolla.
"Hope you will back it up when it matters. I don't really want to die." Kairi cracked a joke as he boarded the driver seat and took out the first cigarette of the day.
"Don't count on it too much Master-chan, I'm a weak servant I never lost because I never fought a losing battle in the first place." Saber responded a bit embarrassed as he didn't want to set his expectations too high.
"What a coincidence, I do the same as well." Kairi, seemingly unbothered by his attitude, just started the engine and drove out from the cemetery.
"I see, I guess we are a pretty good pairing then." Saber said with a faint smile on his lips.
"I hope so." Kairi took a drag from his cigarette and turned the car around a corner.
"So, where do we start?"
"Hmm, how about we go take a look around local markets first today, it's sunday today… so there should be plenty of them."
"Yeah, why not."
"Then let's hurry up and get there as soon as possible." Saying so Kairi stomped on the accelerator and after the car revved up he changed the gearshift, speeding up despite the complaints of the poorly maintained Corolla's motor.
"I'm not really an expert but this car doesn't look like it's gonna last much longer if you drive it like that, you know?" Saber looked pitifully at the Corolla thinking it would meet its end soon.
"We will just get another one then." Kairi brushed off his worries. "And I'm sure a car would rather die driving around than be abandoned on a street and left there to rust as a decoration."
"I guess you are right."
***
"Kyah! Please, I don't have any money on me, spare me."
"No, miss you misunderstood, I just wanted to ask for directions, I'm not a gangster, I didn't approach you to rob you." Kairi was flustered as he tried to calm down the poor lady that was bawling her eyes out from fear.
Of course Kairi was aware of his appearance and would usually not approach normal people casually without using suggestion magecraft as he looks pretty sketchy. But Saber was busy asking a vendor at that moment, he was searching the names of a few places on his maps but he couldn't find them, so he either passed over them with his pen accidentally or he just couldn't see them so he just asked the first person passing near him quickly.
But he ended up scaring that person to death and people started staring, some even wondered if they should call the police.
"Master-chan, did you mug someone again?" Saber called out from behind while biting on an apple with an amused expression.
"I didn't mug anyone, dammit! Look, I just asked a question about directions!" Kairi said through gritted teeth as the old woman ran off, screaming something about today's delinquents when she saw that Kairi wasn't looking in her direction.
"Hmm…" Saber said, chewing thoughtfully. "Maybe it's your face."
Kairi glared at him. "Thanks. Very helpful. Truly, I would have never guessed."
"You're welcome." Saber grinned, mouth still full.
"Yeah yeah, now just go ask them where this district called Shimokitazawa is."
"On it." Saber nodded, took one last bite from his apple before throwing it in the air behind his head, it landed inside a trash bin that was about fifty meters away and went asking a passing teenage couple for directions.
After thanking the couple, Saber came back and pointed him to a corner of the map where he had indeed gone over with his marker.
"Ok, if today we don't find anything we will go to this place tomorrow to search for more clues." Putting away the map Kairi took out another cigarette, which he needed to vent, while strolling back to their trusty Corolla. "Come on, today the construction workers are on holiday, let's go take another lap around some bad neighborhood instead."
'I guess it's time to terrorize another group of sketchy guys.' Saber gave a small chuckle as he pictured the scene in his mind.
"Ok, I'll get my sword ready to look menacing then." Saber boarded the passenger seat giving a thumb up to his master.
RATTLE RATTLE RATTLE
Starting the engine, Kairi took a big drag before releasing a puff of smoke. Now totally calmed down, he gave a wide grin to Hajime. "Then put on your scariest expression, I can even give you tips if you need some."
"Please do, I'll gladly learn from you Master-chan."
"Yeah, I'm sure you will."
***
8:24 AM 一 Underground Jazz Bar
The moment the sun peeked through the slatted blinds of the underground bar's entrance, Yvette let out a deep groan.
"Uuuugghhh... I hate this, I hate this so much."
Empty coffee cups littered the table. Her gem pouches were scattered open, its contents spent and dull. And Yvette herself was curled up in an old, velvet armchair like a cat, her usually neat hair became a battlefield of stress and exhaustion.
Most of all, she hated that nothing happened.
She might have been worried, she might have been anxious of her situation but she sure craved that feeling of adrenaline. While she would avoid stupid battles where she is sure to lose, she hated the fact that she prepared so much just for nothing to happen.
And Hector, no, Lancer had been absolutely no help.
"Youuuuuu… lazy, treacherous, pathetic old piece of junk." She muttered with venom.
From the corner of the room, the air shimmered faintly.
[Good morning to you too, Master.] Hector's laid back voice echoed through their mental link.
"Yeah, yeah, good morning Slacker." Yvette's eyebrow twitched in irritation.
[That's a bit harsh, Master.] Hector gave a feeble complaint but didn't say anything further.
"Whatever, I don't care anymore. You're on guard duty now. I need sleep."
[...] Hector finally materialized fully while stretching his arms. "Haa… at least she'll calm down after sleeping…"
***
Two hours later…
Hector was sitting on the couch with a newspaper and a sandwich he found in the fridge. He was actually enjoying the silence, if only it would have been this quiet when he was alive it would have been awesome.
Then the door creaked and Yvette re-emerged.
Her eye was sparkling and her steps had a little bounce to them, she now looked to be in a relatively good mood. She had changed into a frilly lavender nightgown and was holding a toothbrush while humming a song. After reaching the sink behind the counter she washed her month and directed her attention to Hector. "~Tadaaa~, Lancer! Or rather, Saber, oh wait! No, you're back to Lancer again since we're at home, right?"
"...What." Hector blinked. 'Did I miss something? I mean, it's good that she's in a better mood now but isn't this a bit too sudden?'
She twirled dramatically and pointed the toothbrush at him. "So! After much consideration, I have come to the conclusion that I am far too pretty to suffer. Therefore, I have forgiven your laziness, dear Lancer!"
"...What." He repeated, slightly louder. 'She just slept for two hours. What the hell happened to her?'
Yvette flopped onto the couch beside him and picked up his sandwich, taking a bite without asking and then throwing the rest in the trash. "Mmm, it's terrible. But it's not like I expected much from a deadbeat old man like you anyway, of course you can't even make a good sandwich."
Hector just stared at her without moving an inch. 'She's even worse than when she just summoned me… crap… I'm too old for this kind of hormonal teenager's behaivor.'
Yvette caught his expression and smirked. "Don't look at me like that, old man. You'll get wrinkles."
He slowly brought a hand to his face. "...I already have wrinkles."
"And that's why you shouldn't frown more!"
"Oh! And more thing." Yvette snapped her fingers, eyes sparkling mischievously. "Once I finish brushing my teeth again to get rid of this foul taste, I expect you to accompany me outside. We're going shopping!"
"...Shopping?"
"Yes." She grinned. "I need new gemstones and outfits. Now, come on, go get dressed, you will be my chaperon."
Hector froze in place and finally sighed, very deeply.
"I should've stayed asleep."
"You should've! But now you get to carry my bags. Chop chop, Saber, I mean Lancer! Or do you like Slacker more?" She called as she skipped off toward the bathroom, humming.
Hector sat in silence for a long moment.
"Save me, Lancer."
***
BANG BANG BANG
"Haa….Haaaa…crazy." In a dark back alley littered with trash everywhere where the sun barely reached, the sound of distant gunshots could be heard. One man was sweating profusely as he ran like his life depended on it, and maybe it did.
"Haa… This is all too crazy…Haaa." The man continued running even as he tripped on his steps, he couldn't afford to stop, he knew that if he stopped it would be the end for him, especially after what he just saw.
"That monster…Haaa… He fuckin split a bullet with a fuckin sword, a fuckin bullet, with a mother fuckin sword." The man was so shocked and scared that as he cursed even his vocabulary became so limited he could only curse using a single word as his brain seemed unable to process other words from his confusion.
All he could do was run.
Run until he was safe.
He was nearly out of the alley, after that corner he would just need to run for just a little more and he would reach a fairly populated area where a lot of people are present. 'Certainly not even that monster would just go and attack in the middle of a crowded street, right? right? RIGHT?'
Finally, the man reached the alley's exit. 'Yes, I did it, I did it. Just a couple more steps, a couple more steps and I will finally be–'
THUMP
"Hey there, going somewhere?" Out of nowhere a man appeared obstructing the way out of the alley. He was tall and muscular, with long brown hair, a pair of sunglasses and a leather jacket. He looked like a textbook example of an american outlaw, especially with that cigarette hanging loosely by the corner of his mouth.
This man just obstructed his way out as he bumped into his chest with his face and fell to the floor with his butt. 'No, don't think about that now, I have to run away.'
"Haaaa, GET OUT OF MY WAY!!" Quickly getting up from the ground he shouted and moved to try to shove this guy off of his way.
Usually he would have never tried doing something like that to someone that looked this dangerous especially when they had about twenty centimeters of difference in their heights. But he was sure that, no matter what, the guy on the other side of this alley was way more dangerous than any gangster. However–
CRACK
–he was so concentrated on running away that he missed the punch coming straight for his face from the burly man. As a result his jaw was partially dislocated together with a flying tooth as he ran straight into the punch and because he didn't even see it coming his cheek muscles didn't even flex slightly to prepare for the impact.
"Sorry pal, but we don't take kindly to people who run away from parties."
"Aaahh..." With one last whimper the man lost consciousness as he fell to the ground.
"Saber will be done soon so let's get started with you for now, shall we?" Stepping closer to the unconscious man Kairi grabbed his leg and started dragging him back in the alley.
***
Meanwhile the few people still standing inside the building where the sound gunshots had come from stood in silence looking at the incredible sight before their eyes.
A man with shoulder length grayish turquoise hair was spinning a katana in his hand making it draw circles in the air at high speed.
While the movement certainly looked cool it would hardly scare people who are armed with firearms.
The problem was–
"Here guys look, all nicely piled up."
–that this monster stopped bullets with that same sword and after killing their momentum by continuing to spin the blade he placed the bullets together with the stacks of the ones he stopped before.
On top of a table now stood three perfectly balanced pyramids made from bullets that were pointed upward, their balance so perfect they stood perfectly in place even though their points were curved.
"Phew, It's not everyday I get to make such a precise work using a sword. Did you guys enjoy it?"
"P-P-p-p-p-please… spare our lives." One the man got on his knees pleading for his life crying. Across the floor stood many unconscious men, whether they were still alive or not was unknown to the scared men.
Resting his katana on his shoulder Hajime scratched his chin for a second pondering before answering the man's plea. "Mmmmm, how about…NO?"
"No,w–
SLASH
–ait…"
The last thing the man could see was a white flash before the world turned upside down.
The other two men could only watch in fear as their comrade was beheaded.
"It's too late to beg for mercy. My Master has determined the lots of you, to be better off dead after what you all did. So just accept your fate, there's nothing that can save you." The usually flippant Saber replied coldly to their desperation, he had no intention of sparing any of them.
Even someone who is usually quite easy going has bottom lines he can't bear to watch, especially when taking his old job into consideration.
He and Kairi came to this place to gather information when they came across a certain piece of information while using a suggestion magecraft on a street punk. They found out about a pretty strong gang that did some atrocious activities.
Initially, Kairi and Saber wanted to leave the matter behind and maybe only target a few individuals to extract information through magecraft, but when his Master heard that they had been perpetrating a circle of sex trafficking involving minors, he completely changed his mind.
He shot the man who gave them the information in the head after finding out he had ties with them and then told Saber they were taking a detour to free the area and "investigate further".
There's not much else to talk about, after making sure everyone inside was guilty Kairi sent Saber, the rest is obvious.
They were totally annihilated. They couldn't possibly ever stop a Servant after all.
"No… please, w-w-we will give you money please spare us." One of the two men gathered what little courage he had left to speak and try to negotiate for his life.
Saber just stared at him coldly, it felt like a man looking at a bug. "That was not really smart of you, especially after seeing me come all the way to this point."
Before the man could even reply his head fell to the floor after being cleanly cut from his neck.
The last man couldn't stand it anymore after seeing this and passed out by himself.
"Well, I guess my work here is done."
"Yes, good job, Saber. Now, you can leave the rest to me." Getting back inside the building while dragging an unconscious man by his ankle, Kairi patted Hajime in the back. "Did you kill them all?"
"No, the ones that looked like they were bigshots are still alive. Oh and this one looked familiar, I think we met him yesterday so he's still alive for now." Saber pointed to one broken table where a scrawny man laid unconscious.
"Good, I'll interrogate them then, after I'm done help me cut off their fingers."
"...Now, that's pretty gross."
***
Inside the blood stained room where their massacre just happened, four men were tied up. They couldn't remember when exactly they woke up and initially hoped everything was just a bad nightmare, but they soon realized it wasn't. Kairi had come inside the room and beat them black and blue and after breaking their will he used his magecraft to make them talk.
For an entire hour he made sure they would spill every single piece of information they had on the city and their activities.
Everything was going well for Kairi until something strange happened.
"I… can't answer that…"
The scrawny man called Takagi, refused to answer a question while under the effect of suggestion magecraft.
Of course, suggestion wasn't a full proof method and wasn't always guaranteed to work. For example if the target had a strong willpower or the command was extremely against the target's own morality they would be able to refuse it without any sort of mystical aid.
For this reason Kairi started the interrogation by crushing his targets' will to resist first, this way he knew they would be even less likely to resist.
But this man here refused to answer a question at some point even under those circumstances.
Initially he answered questions like everyone else but after some point his answers started getting weirder.
It all started when he asked a pretty simple question: "What did you do last night?"
At that he answered that he forgot.
At first it didn't seem too strange, but as he asked further he noticed how Takagi appeared to have a big hole in his memories that went from 6 PM to 6AM.
A literal twelve hours memory black out, and yet this man did not even try to go to a hospital nor did he have any intention to and more importantly after probing further he didn't even seem to find the matter concerning even after being made aware of it.
Like it was a normal thing that might happen everyday. But this man did not have any condition or physiology that made him prone to memory loss and he did not have any other similar episode.
By this point Kairi was suspecting that Takagi might have been influenced by magecraft and remembering that he met this man before yesterday he tried asking questions related to sharing information about him and Saber to anybody else or even just mentioning them around briefly.
However, it appeared he never even spoke about them as he just summed up that meeting something that happens from time to time, turns out when the yakuzas call some of their friends to go mess around, guys like him usually wander around those areas.
Even though he felt a bit offended, Kairi at least ruled out the possibility that another Master was actively stalking them, so this was a lucky chance to possibly gather some sort of information about another Master.
And that's how we came to this point after Kairi asked Takigi the question: "Have you ever heard any of the words: Master, Servant, Saber, Archer, Lancer, Rider, Caster, Assassin or Berserker yesterday or today?"
And at that Takagi just mumbled. "I… can't answer that…"
"Yeah? Well, that's really nice to hear." With this Kairi was now sure that the other man must have been influenced by a magus.
"So, why don't you tell me what you have been up to since this morning, especially what you have been up to since 6 AM."
"I've been spreading words around about a new underground fight club."
"What do you mean by fight club? And why were you even spreading word about it? Who asked you to do that?"
"Mmmm, it's a place where you can bet on fighting, as for how it works…mmm… I don't remember. I was spreading words cause… that was my job. I was asked to do it by…ahh… I don't really remember."
"Were you drunk?"
"No."
"I see…" Kairi of course didn't expect to easily extract useful information from him, but he still somewhat admired the work done on Takagi using suggestion, the one behind was certainly a guy with some experience under his belt.
While some might think they have uncovered the enemy's plot with the questions about the servants' classes, to Kairi it looked more like an intentional bait. A guy who wipes resort to wiping out memories uses a word ban to conceal if Takagi knew any of the terms Kari asked?
If someone in his situation couldn't extract any kind of information from this they would naturally conclude that the enemy is an extremely cautious man and raise their guard against this enemy.
So this was probably a lure made by releasing small amounts of information that don't compromise him and by giving a small sense of accomplishment to his enemy by making them think they found a loophole in his strategy he makes them lower their guard.
After all, as long as the magus is skilled enough they can remove this block from the brain of the subject. While Kairi isn't exactly the most skilled magus, if given enough time, he would probably be able to destroy it as well, as long as the maker wasn't someone who specialized on this kind of spells and had a proficiency at the level of a Pride or higher ranked magus, but he wouldn't even bother trying either way, after all whatever information obtained from a lure like that was most likely somewhat misleading.
It might sound sound like a stupid strategy but magi are inherently people with egos as great as their idiocy and classism combined and multiplied together. So even in case they were to notice they would just take it as a challenge to their ego and unironically fell for the trap either way.
"...So do you happen to remember the location of this fight club you were talking about?"
"Yes…" Takagi nodded and told him the location of the fight club.
"Thank you, now go to hell."
BANG
Interrogating him any further was useless anyway, so he just finished the job, he wasn't gonna spare a man like that after learning what he has been up to.
"...Now that I think of it he said fight club in english… wasn't that the name of a movie as well or is it a coincidence?"
***
"I see, that's indeed pretty suspicious Master-chan. So, are we going to this place? Or do we keep watch from a distance?" Saber asked about their next course of action, whatever they decide might impact the result of this war as they will most likely meet with a Master with their Servant, a battle is practically imminent.
Kairi stopped for a second thinking about what might be the best and safest option. 'Certainly, keeping an eye out on the area from far away is the safest option, however we have no idea who we are up against, if the enemy turned out be Caster who can control so many puppets from a distance he might just force us in a war of attrition until we can't fight back any longer.
So in that case we will be forced to approach them if we want to defeat them, but what if the enemy is not Caster…'
The situation was indeed tricky from Kairi's perspective, he could just ignore the information and retreat to his base but he felt like avoiding this information would just be avoiding the problem without finding a solution while giving more time to his enemies to prepare.
'No, I'm thinking of this from the wrong perspective.'
"Prepare for battle Saber, we will try to make contact with the enemy." Kairi announced his decision to the surprise of his Servant.
"Wait, Master-chan, are you sure about this?" Saber immediately raised his concerns about the situation.
"We don't know who our enemy is and Caster has been monitoring the whole city, while he probably can't keep track of everything during the day if we start a battle he might notice and try to ambush us. If the enemy turned out to be Caster it'd be another matter but we can't be sure of that."
"That's why we will be approaching them. If the enemy is Caster we will have a chance to fight back and if the enemy is not Caster then I don't think they would just ambush us." Kairi started to explain his plan to Saber to clarify why he decided to take the danger instead of retreating.
"If it were night they might consider it but doing so during the day isn't favorable for them and letting two enemies fight and tire each other out or maybe even kill each other without lifting a finger is good for them so they will most likely stay out of it."
However, Saber still didn't seem convinced. "What if this Master and the Master of Caster were under an alliance?"
"I believe you told me that Servants are capable of perceiving the presence of other servants under a certain range of distance right?"
"Yes, but the range varies from individual to individual and it doesn't really work on Assassin class Servants who have Presence Concealment, and a Caster can probably cloak himself too maybe, so I might not even be able to perceive him before we make contact. Which makes it an unreliable method." Saber warned with a grim expression marring his face.
"I know that." Kairi shook his head, taking out a new cigarette from the pack in his pocket. "My plan is, that in case the situation were to turn that bad I would use a command spell to temporarily make your presence and location perceivable from all around the city to attract the other Servants for about 5 seconds. If we are lucky in the enemy's classes setup we might even attract a Berserker who would create enough havoc to help us escape."
(A/N tokyo is much bigger than fuyuki so doing it like Darmiud wouldn't work in my opinion, also Darmiud has D rank magical energy while hajime has E which is half of that. )
"...Yes, that might work." With a hand on his chin Saber weighted the possible outcomes of this tactic and it was indeed worth it. "Even if we don't attract a Berserker, if another Master were to see Caster, who has been a nuisance due to his puppets, allied with another Servant they would try and aid us to form an alliance and remove Caster from the war."
"Yes, that's why I wanted to take the chance and go now, as long as we are careful enough we will have no problem running away."
"It's indeed a good plan." Saber nodded in agreement with Kairi. "You know, I've been thinking about this for a while now but you really are a great master."
"Keep the flattering for after the battle, for all we know I might have just been severely wrong and miscalculated." Kairi shook his head giving a short laugh trying to keep Saber from lowering his guard.
'That's exactly why I think you are a great master though.' Hajime smiled at his answers as he could see through his intention behind that remark.
***
11:11 AM
"Master-chan, I think I can see the place that dude talked about. There's a few people going inside and they certainly don't look like respectable gentlemen." Holding a pair of binoculars Saber observed the somewhat rundown building which had some circulus of somewhat shady looking people. The building was a rectangular shaped, abbandoned frabbric.
"I see, I guess we will need to be on the lookout for them, if they are his allies or under a form of induced hypnosis they might be used against us." Kairi warned Saber as he was studying the best escape routes from the city map in case things went south.
"Well, it's just one annoying thing after the other today, I guess." Saber complained under his breath. 'I really hope to be lucky today and meet a weak enemy, Haaa, if only it were actually that easy.'
Putting the map back in his pocket Kairi checked for his equipment and loaded both his shotgun and handgun with the newly acquired "ammunition" from the kind traffickers who willingly gave up on their fingers.
"Let's go inside. Wasting time here won't give us any answer."
Putting away the binoculars Saber readied his sword, he kept the other dematerialized to surprise the enemy when needed. The two made their way to the entrance of the building.
Past the main gate were two bouncers, both heavily built men in black windbreakers with coiled earpieces. They didn't flinch when Kairi and Saber approached.
"Private event, we don't accept strangers." One said flatly, not even bothering to ask for names.
'I'm pretty sure that guy knew nothing about an invitation.' Kairi raised an eyebrow. "We're invited."
"Then prove it." The other man snorted.
"Yes, sure, it's right here." Kairi brought his right hand out of his pocket while keeping it clenched. When it was right before their faces he opened his palm only to reveal an eyeball.
"Is this a jo- BANG -ke." The two men thought it was one of those Halloween props when the eyeball suddenly burst, releasing a yellow gas that quickly entered their airways from their noses. The two men fell asleep before they even realized what actually hit them.
"Well, looks like our invitations were confirmed successfully, shall we make ourselves comfortable inside now Master-chan." Seeing the two knocked out men, Saber cracked a joke with an overly showy tone.
"It is but a matter of course my dear Saber." Cracking a smile, Kairi answered Saber in kind as they pushed the door open.
The inside was incredibly large, the whole pavement was made out of concrete with big metal supporting beams all around that extended from the ground up to the high cieling and metallic container of various dimensions sprawled all aorund. On all side of the walls were baclony like scaffoldings with stairs leading to them. On some of the scaffolding many elevated enclosed rooms with tinted windows were also very eye catching.
In the distance they could see a ring surrounded by people making bets, it looked like your average underground fight club, however once they made their way inside both of their expressions looked very serious.
Kairi could sense a basic bounded field that covered the walls of the building but it wasn't very strong, he could sense that it signaled when someone came inside, however he had no idea if it had other functions so he had to keep his guard up for traps. Moreover it seemed like there was some sort of mystery lingering around the ring so it might have been the catalyst for some kind of ritual.
Meanwhile Saber was on guard because ever since he stepped inside the building he could feel the presence of another Servant. They were right, their enemy was in this place.
"Master." Saber became dead serious in that instant, after all when inside enemy territory every action might decide your life or death, thus no mistakes were allowed. "A Servant is definitely here. Be careful I don-"
BOOOOM
"FINALLY!!!" A wall crashed as a figure appeared at high speed approaching Saber. The next moment–
CLANG
–Saber and the unknown figure clashed.
The figure held two weapons in both of his hands. They were both very big weapons but they were still being swung like sticks in this person's hand.
CLANG
Saber's figure also blurred as he sped up to respond to his attacker's.
Meanwhile the people around the rings turned their attention to Kairi, sensing the danger he didn't waste any time, there too many people for a gun to handle alone so took out a mass of red flesh with a metal pin on top of it.
It was a special grenade made from the heart of a magus. He reinforced his right arm and deltoids before throwing the grande at the people looking at him.
BANG BANG BANG
The next moment they took out their guns shooting at Kairi, who quickly went to take refuge behind a supporting beam of the building. Unfortunately for them, they concentrated on the wrong threat.
SQUELCH BOOM
The flesh grenade expanded and exploded after hitting the ground. The nails and teeth inside came as shrapnels that aimed at all the people around the explosion, cursing them to their death.
Soon all the people that aimed their guns at Kaire were laying on the ground looking like they had been fed poison.
'Fucking hell, did they use suggestion on all those guys to attack me? This is not gonna be easy, as I thought our enemy is very smart and cautious.' Kairi decided to not look at Saber's direction and trust him to keep the enemy occupied, he will deal with this annoying Master instead.
***
A few moments before with Hajime
"FINALLY!!!" A wall crashed as a figure approached me at high speed, this guy is certainly not a normal human.
He was a blond muscular man with many scars all over his body and face. He held a black sword in his left hand while his right held a black club or maybe it's mace, I've never seen a weapon like that.
But it didn't matter, the guy was approaching and he was doing it fast, I absolutely had to block this attack, my Master was standing right beside me and if I were to avoid it he would die.
My left hand was holding the section of my katana between the cross guard and the scabbard, logic dictates that he should bring his right hand to unsheathe the sword to swing it at maximum power.
'However by the time my right hand reached for the handle this guy would be so close to me he might injure my Master.'
So instead I twisted my left hand and gripped the handle of my sword with that same hand. This saved me quite some time, enough to take one big step forward.
Then my left hand started drawing my blade from the sheet. Usually drawing a sword in such a manner is so inefficient that you might not even draw the entirety of the sword out of the scabbard. That's just how it works.
But I had no such limitation.
Whatever it's with my left, right, reverse grip or both hands my sword can be drawn from any position at any moment and attack any angle.
CLANG
My sword springs upwards meeting the sword in my enemy's left hand that was swung horizontally.
'His physically stronger than me.' I assessed his strength roughly from this first class. While I couldn't be sure if it was his all it was still a good deal higher than mine.
I immediately twisted my footing and tried redirecting his strike, I shifted our mixing weights and tried pushing him to the ground.
He was caught off guard by the sudden shift in his balance but responded quickly by swinging the club in his right hand vertically.
I reached for the bottom of my handle with my green right hand and quickly twisted my sword to intercept the falling club.
CLANG
Our weapons clashed once again, I quickly repositioned my feet ready to strike for hi–
CLANG
'–What the hell!?' Somehow his sword came trusting for my gut with a near impossible path at an extremely dangerous angle taking a perfectly optimal trajectory that I was nearly skewered from it.
What shocked me the most was not that the blade came at me from there but that there was no sign of this guy preparing to move for such an attack.
'I could still block the attack but if this guy can make attacks like that continuously I don't know if I can stand a chance unless I draw my other sword or use my noble phantasm at an optimal moment.'
I quickly picked up the pace and tried to test if I was faster than this guy.
CLANG CLANG CLANG
We exchanged blow for blow in just a few instants and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I at least appear to be the faster of the two.
By this point I was pushed back by a step to avoid his club, back to the starting point but it didn't matter anymore, my Master had retreated to a different position so I didn't have to worry about him getting caught in our battle now.
I used my superior speed to create some distance from my enemy but he didn't seem interested in pursuing me right away, instead he holstered his sword on his shoulder as his mace rested on the ground observing me. It felt like he was assessing me and I was right.
"You are strong." The man grinned ferociously like a beast. "Welcome to this shitty fight club. I'm your enemy. So let's beat each other to death."
"Hahaha." I couldn't help giving a rhetorical nervous laugh at this guy's welcome. "I guess that's what Master meant when he said Fight Club, huh."
"Yeah but sorry, my Master said we shouldn't talk about that."
***
Hello did you enjoy the chapter? if so yap yap yap yap, you know it already.
Anyway after an anticlimatic day 1 of the war we are back for some action on day 2 at least.
Honestly even counting all the rest of my already prepared chapters this is the longest one I've written so far, 6k ain't little and proofreading it is annoying enough, but i got my beta readers for that lololololol.
Anyway last week I wrote the advanced ones fast and decided to drop an extra one, I'll try an see if it can be done more often but it will likely not be the case for this week, but this one chap is as long as the avarage of two chapters so it's not too bad, right?
Anyway I'll see y'all next week.