A little while earlier.
10:02 AM
Gilgamesh was lounging on a chair, a scowl marring his face as he drank some juice from his glass.
"Damn you, you really are a little mongrel, aren't you?" Gilgamesh grumbled, directing his attention to the bed inside the suite. On top of it laid a young boy who was sweating profusely, maybe even a little dangerously, with his eyes still closed as he made some tiny movements from time to time. "I even made sure you went to bed early. Why are you still sleeping? You have been sleeping for roughly fourteen hours now."
Gilgamesh facepalmed himself as he couldn't contain his own boredom with the situation. He even tried to wake up the kid but nothing worked.
'Should I actually use some noble phantasm?' Gilgamesh was genuinely tempted at the prospect of using one of his treasures to wake up the child. 'No, I can't do that, where would my reputation go if I, the King of Heroes, had to resort to using a noble phantasm to wake up a sleeping kid?'
The fact that annoyed him was that he couldn't even drag him as he was sweating and he wasn't interested in grabbing a stinking child that was sweating that much and using one of his treasures to drag would dirty his treasure in his liquids so he wasn't keen on doing that. He also couldn't just leave him here by himself as for no matter how slim it was there was still a chance of him getting killed by some Servants if he was too far away.
Well, as long as the kid was somewhere inside a radius of 10 kilometers from him he was still confident in protecting him from that distance. But going around as he sleeps made him feel like he was letting him laze around and it irked him so he ended up staying there waiting for him to wake up, but he has yet to.
"What the hell are you even dreaming about for it to take so long?" Gilgamesh already guessed that the boy must be dreaming about his past, but he had no idea what part exactly of his past he was seeing and he wasn't interested in looking inside his head to find out as that would be unbecoming of him.
But still for the dream to take so long… What part was of his GLORIOUS past was he even dreaming about?
As he wondered about it he suddenly realized one thing. "...His heartbeat is accelerated and he's still showing signs of physical fatigue but he doesn't look to be in pain this time though…wait a moment."
'Would he also see that?' Suddenly a certain possibility made its way inside his mind and he couldn't stop his lips from twitching as he slowly smiled at the thought. "That would certainly explain why he's not in pain and why (most of all) it is taking so long. I'll have to make sure to ask him when be wakes up"
His smile widened into a grin as he started rubbing his nose proudly. "You really are a lucky brat. Make sure you remember everything you see there boy, especially if you ever dream what I'm thinking about. In the unlikely event you get a woman it will be useful. Hahahaha."
Coming to a conclusion by himself Gilgamesh, now a little more satisfied about the situation, decided to go watch the TV on the sofa, not minding the kid anymore and instead looked for a program to waste his time for a bit longer.
****
An hour or so later somewhere that can't be talked about
"Well…nice to meet you too, man." Saber returned the greeting to his opponent though he was still somewhat confused by the comment about this place.
"Yeah, it's a pretty wild idea for a place. Honestly, I didn't think it would work so soon. I'm so happy someone showed up so soon. I'm Berserker, who are you?" Saber's enemy, Berserker, grinned like a maniac and his hands trembled but he still refrained himself from rushing at him.
It was obvious this guy was itching to fight but was holding back to hear him give his greeting back.
'Berserker? This doesn't exactly look the part though. Actually, if I didn't know any better I might have thought he was a Saber from those insane sword moves, but it couldn't be as that's me.' Hajime was a little suspicious of his identity but seeing his building battle excitement he just decided to sum it up to his Madness Enhancement maybe being low ranked for now.
"Me? I'm Saber." Postponing his doubts Hajime presented himself back.
"Saber…" Berserker words trailed off as he raided his weapons back, his muscles bulging as his eyes shined in a completely different light than before. "So you are the rumored servant of the strongest class. I'M SO FUCKIN' LUCKY, HAHAHAHAHA."
BOOM
Berserker jumped up in the air readying a double downward attack with both his weapons. Saber moved away to preemptively dodge the attack but it was a feint, Berserker rolled in the air and his feet made contact with the ceiling before propelling himself toward Saber once again.
Saber barely had time to narrowly evade the attack by kicking off to the side.
Berserker didn't let up. He spun, mace dragging a vicious arc through the air, forcing Saber to duck. In that same breath, the black sword came screaming for his ribs.
CLANG
But it was parried once again. 'This is so strong and precise at the same time, what a monster.' Saber grimaced, even though he somewhat expected it this time it was still an extremely fearsome attack.
Their blades clashed again. Sparks flew. Hajime twisted, trying to counter with a rising sweep to Berserker's side with his foot.
But Berserker was undeterred as he took the hit before swinging his mace again.
CLANK
Hajime parried the blow with his sword and used the momentum of the clash to push himself back to avoid the Berserker's sword strike.
'It's getting progressively harder to fight this dude. Should I use two swords to fight him now?' Hajime seriously pondered about his situation. He was still wearing the suit Kairi bought him as his coat would immediately give away his identity and he had been using only one of his swords. 'No, I have no idea what this guy might have in store and just fishing out my cards before him will hardly do me a favor in the long run.'
The moment Hajime's feet hit the ground, Berserker was on him again. The black sword came from the left in an upward slash immediately followed by a brutal overhead swing from the club.
CLANG CLANG CRACK
Hajime deflected the sword. Just barely sidestepped the club. The two weapons moved as though held by different minds, their timings perfectly offset to leave no room to breathe.
Hajime grit his teeth, eyes narrowing. 'Something's strange here.'
Sprinting towards Berserker he tried changing angles, darting to his blind side.
"Finally tired of running away, Saber?" Berserker laughed happily seeing Hajime changing his tactics.
CLANG
He tried attacking his back.
CLANG
He tried to bait him using feints.
CLANG
But every attack aimed to change the rhythm of the battle was countered by Berserker's sword with an impossible precision. Of course, a warrior who reached the pinnacle of armed combat would be able to pull such feats effortlessly.
'But that's only the sword. His club is always swung from the most comfortable position where he can always exert his full power. But why can't he just utilize it like his sword? A true warrior trains in both hands and this guy before me is obviously one so he wouldn't have just abandoned his non dominant hand.
At first I didn't notice due to the fact that with one weapon attacking in a regular manner and the other in an irregular but extremely efficient one I was kept on the back foot, but why didn't he alternate between the two?
If he did I would have been injured long ago and he might have had a chance at landing a killing blow without even revealing any ability that could be countered by knowing of it. I know it because my sword style can do the same as well.'
Saber was deep in thought as he continued analyzing his enemy to find any weakness to strike. He found none so far but he did notice something strange about his fighting style.
'He's fighting like he has a second brain made for his left hand. No, it's not the hand or arm… it's nearly like the sword knows how to fight without him.'
Hajime's jaw tensed as Berserker closed in again.
The black blade came swinging low, perfectly timed to slice at his thigh while the club went for the upper body with a slight delay. Hajime sidestepped, using the momentum to pivot and slash toward Berserker's exposed ribs–
CLANG
–but the sword was already there to block it.
'It happened again…' There was no shift in weight. No telegraphed movement. It was like the sword had moved first, and Berserker's arm had simply followed it and more importantly it did not lose any momentum from the swing he directed at his leg.
"Tch!" Hajime growled under his breath. He ducked, avoiding a follow up blow from the club that struck a metal support beam snapping it in half, sending pieces of it flying in the air.
Berserker's laughter rang out joyously. "Come on, Saber! Fight harder! You're boring me with this pretty fencing!"
But Hajime wasn't listening to the taunts. He took the chance now, now that his blade was still, to see if he was right. His sword thrusted at Berserker's abdomen.
CLANG
Once again the black sword intercepted it, but he was able to draw a very tiny line of blood from his opponent, the cut was so small it was not even easily noticeable, but that's not what mattered for Saber.
'I was right.' Saber took a quick step back and created distance between him and Berserker.
Berserker scowled a bit looking at his opponent's attitude, he was initially happy at his opponent's apparently incredible ability to handle a sword so well, but this had slowly turned into a game of cat and mouse and it didn't exactly thrill him. "Oi oi, Saber don–"
"You know what, Berserker. I'm really glad. Because–" Saber interrupted him as he was about to talk to him, his demeanor shifted even further, Berserker's instincts warned him immediately about this change, something dangerous was coming.
"–For a second there, I actually thought you were strong."
***
Inside the elevated room at the far end of the building Haldor observed the situation in frustration. He set up the whole place expecting to transform the illegal matches into magic power to feed Berserker and prepare the place for the eventual arrival of an enemy Master.
But that wasn't supposed to happen less than twelve hours since he set up the place. 'Fuck, fuck, fuck. Holy fucking *******!!!!! Why did they have to come so soon? Couldn't they wait for just one day.'
Haldor grumbled cursing his own luck. 'To top it off, that guy is good. He quickly realized all those bastards were under suggestion and threw that cursed grenade. That shit looked like those nordic curses but the grenade made sounds like it was made out of flesh, it could have been made from black magic or a necromantic craft but that shit still took out 26 people in one go. He's not a traditional magus for sure, is he a mercenary?'
"Pierre." Haldor called out to his bird companion. "Go call your friends, I'll need their help soon, you stay at a safe distance so that you are safe."
"PEEP." Pierre quickly flapped his wings flying away.
Meanwhile Haldor turned to look at four men that were still inside the building with somewhat absent gazes. 'I still have four of these gangsters to use. The motherfucker came on my home turf and at a bad time for me but I'm no bitch who will just lament his situation and lose. I'll fuck you up man.'
Haldor was a peculiar type of magus who liked to call himself a jack of all trades but not in the usual sense of the word.
Usually the saying goes "jack of all trades, master of none".
But Haldor could be described to be in a totally different category from this kind of archetype by his own words as they were literally worlds apart.
Because Haldor was more of a "jack of all trades, above average at none".
Yes, you read that right. Haldor is so lacking in attitude he could barely learn little applications of a craft even if he studied it for many years. Ultimately over the years he studied a great deal of many different arts and took a little application of two from all of them, but they were all extremely weak, they would never be able to kill even a normal person by themselves.
He is the definition of mediocre magus many magi despise to their core, with his only redeeming quality being a somewhat decent amount of magic circuits and the remarkable quantity of magical energy he could store in his body.
"You, go out with the others and remember to wear the coat, keep your left hand somewhat visible but don't exaggerate it." Haldor said to one of the men who had a somewhat handsome appearance, some red marks were drawn on his left hand like a tattoo, they were fake command spells made to look the part with idolatry and painting spells based on murals and tribal tattoos to create the necessary mystery to make them seem real enough.
If a magus looked at it up close they would immediately notice that they are fake but the important part was distracting them, not convincing them.
"Have your weapons ready and don't stick too close so can't take you all out at once like he did with the others. If he throws a grenade, run away from it."
The men nodded now more attentively, they weren't brainwashed but rather in their view Haldor was their boss and as lowlives they are used to firearms scrambles happening from time to time so there was no need for any strong hypnosis to make them fight, a pity only so little of them remained.
As the men made their way out Haldor strapped an utility belt to his hip and put on a jacket, both of them full of his auxiliary mystic codes and other tools, he might not be a good magus but he's not a weak fighter.
Haldor pulled out a revolver and checked the cylinder to make sure it was properly loaded. The bullets were one of his many auxiliary mystic codes, made from refining in metallurgy magecraft, animal bones using a bit of necromancy, a bit of his blood to easily activate reinforcement and incisions of runes to reduce air resistance together with a coating made of a particular red paint to create a combustion once the bullet penetrate the skin while causing an infection.
It wasn't a gun made to fight against a normal person but one specialized to fight a magus.
"Let's go."
***
Behind a supporting beam Kairi was calmly analyzing his surroundings, first making sure that he was safe from any gunshot in his location and then spared a look to his servant fighting, their battle was intense and extremely fast, Saber appeared to be at disadvantage but he was also holding back a lot of his cards so he wasn't worried for now.
'Let's try to find and eliminate his Master first.' Kairi decided on his target.
But then he heard the sound of a door bursting and saw four men running out of the elevated room at the far end of the building. They all ran in different directions, some taking the stairs to get to the high ground while the other two went to the ground and took cover.
'Four men, all armed and one of them wears suspiciously conspicuous clothes. Is he another bait or is he actually the Master?' Kairi reached for his inside the back of his jacket and retrieved a sawed off shotgun and took out a cylindrical grenade with the other.
"Well, who cares, I will just find out for sure if I kill them all anyway." Removing the pin from the grenade with his teeth, he threw it high up in the air, the men still wary from the previous show of them kept an eye on it as it traveled in the air.
That was a big mistake.
BANG
A flash of light swept over the building, blinding everyone inside its range. The grenade was a flashbang, Kairi quickly moved amidst the light without a problem, he had prepared for it by casting Reinforcement on his sun glasses to strengthen the glass' light dampening property.
He reached the two men on the ground quickly, he pointed his shotgun at them without hesitation.
BANG BANG
'First two down.' Kairi's shotgun was a mystic code that was used to shoot three Gandr shots at a medium-short range using fingers instead of bullets, it was extremely powerful and effective but the drawback was that he could only shoot twice before needing to recharge so he momentarily stopped under the cover of the beams and quickly reloaded the missing cartridge.
He looked at the two remaining men, one with a gaudy clock and the other dressed like your standard yakuza. He was about to prepare for his next move when the metal beam near his head suddenly reflected a red light, without even thinking once Kairi threw himself to the side with his reinforced body.
WHISH一TING
A red bullet grazed his cheek as he barely avoided it, it made no sound at all when it was fired, if not for the light reflected at the shooting moment and his quick reflexes he might have found himself with a hole in his head.
Snapping his head in the direction where the shoot came from but no one was there.
'Fuck!' Kairi quickly spun back around and saw that the two men had repositioned themselves with their guns pointed at him.
BANG BANG BANG
Without hesitation Kairi immediately fired one round from his shotgun, quickly shooting three Gandr fingers at the men, aiming was unnecessary as the bullets automatically locked on their targets.
But the two men had already shot from their guns as well, meaning that they would simply end up taking each other down. But if something like were enough to take him down Kairi Sissigou would not have lasted this long in a field of work where people die young.
"O Wind__" Giving a brief chant the monkey's paw inside of his jacket lit up as the magic circuits inside of it came to life, the air in front Kairi suddenly solidified forming a wall before him, it lasted for just one second but it was plenty enough to stop bullets when at such a short range.
Unfortunately he couldn't stop one of the bullets as it struck his left shoulder, but it wasn't a bad outcome considering the ambush, especially when the other two guys laid dead on the ground.
"Good riddance, wait a second this guy…" Kairi eyed the man who wore the gaudy cloak, on his left hand three red markings were present like a tattoo, they looked like command spells.
'Was he the Master? No, something's not right, this guy never used one inkling of a spell, even if that bullet might have been part of mystic code I feel like I'm missing something. Wait, could this be–'
"O Wind__" Kairi didn't waste any single instant after suspecting that the man on the ground was just a bait, the previous bullet was a soundless projectile that was obviously under the effect of some spells to strengthen it.
However that guy used a normal handgun, it should have stood to reason he would utilize a gun as a mystic code just like Kairo does with the handgun inside his jacket or the shotgun in his hands.
So he utilized the monkey's paw again and solidified the air behind him for one second.
TUNG
And his instincts were right, a red bullet was intercepted by the solid air behind his head.
Kairi might not have had the expertise to immediately recognize the counterfeit command seals but his wealth of experience made him realize the incongruencies in the situation. The true Master was still hiding and it was him who shot him.
But his opponent was no beginner either.
THUD
The moment the bullet hit the air an object fell to the ground beside Kairi, no, not just one object.
THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD
Several of them fell down from the air, they were all cylindrical in shape and were spewing out gas from their top. They were smoke grenades.
Kairi frowned and quickly ran behind another supporting beam to change his position.
He quickly threw some animal bones consisting of three severed heads: a snake's, a rat's and camaleon's making a triangle with them at the three vertices while taking a tissue to wrap around his nose and mouth.
'This should at least help me deal with the sudden sniping for a while, I need to figure out a better way to lure this guy out.' Kairi cautiously observed his surroundings, weary of the gas as he took out an eerie eyeball from his pockets.
What Kairi created with those bone heads was an impromptu bounded field, that slightly retracted the light so that by looking inside of it from the outside it would displace the position of certain objects inside of it, namely just the caster, for the limited duration of time of a few minutes.
The eye instead was a conditional one time use mystic code that when used could detect harmful substances in the air. If the air was safe by human standard then the eyeball would remain intact, but if it was harmful enough over a certain limit the eyeball would rot and become unusable.
Fortunately the air didn't seem to have any particularly harmful substance inside as the eyeball suffered no damage which meant that they were just smokescreen thrown to hinder his view.
'This guy never shot me twice in a row, is it a limit of his mystic code? Or is he trying to make me lower my guard by making me think so? This is so annoying.' Kairi grumbled to himself as he applied a gauze to stop the bleeding on his shoulder.
'I don't have much time, this bounded field will not last for long, I need to think of a solution.' Unfortunately for Kairi, his enemy was not gonna sit still and let him think in peace and silence. Especially in silence.
***
Haldor has been observing as the unwelcomed visitor fought the last four of the 'unnamed side characters', or so Haldor called them at least, that remained after that damn grenade when the guy came in.
And unfortunately this four also seemed to have a low chance to survive the moment they all looked at the grenade the dude threw due to my warning and got flashed, he even had to use suggestion magecraft to make the other two guys move cause they were still unable to see.
So he aimed to try sneak attack him but the man avoided the bullet that came from behind him, probably due to seeing the light emitted when a bullet was fired and he was also able to injure his left shoulder with the sneak attack of the two 'henchmen' but Haldor couldn't find it in himself to be happy about the situation.
'This guy is a motherfucking monster, he even has a monstrous mystic code that shoots Gandr just like ammunition.'
Haldor was blaming all of this on his own cursed luck while also being envious of his enemy. However he knew now wasn't the time to stand idle and let this guy just shoot him a cursed finger.
So he did what every main character would in this situation. He turned on his own soundtrack. Literally.
"Pierre, my bro, turn up the volume to the maximum. Let's disorient this bitch for a while." Haldor signaled to his best friend as Pierre, the white bird with a black eyepatch, went inside the elevated room where he used his beak to turn one the stereo implant, that was just barely installed due to time constraints, at full volume.
Haldor took out his revolver, he had four bullets left, unfortunately this mystic code couldn't fire consecutively as there was a risk of the gun exploding and it couldn't be reloaded until the cylinder was empty, as a mediocre magus his mystic codes all have some kind of drawbacks despite all the efforts and time he invested on them, so to make up for them he decided that if quality wasn't his strong he will fight with his only one redeemable aspect and fight using quantity.
As the whole building started getting noisy from the music Pierre put on, Haldor used his free hand to retrieve a stack of paper talismans with strange writing symbols that didn't look like eastern languages, they were made by Haldor after he studied west african mysticism and learned of jujus.
Juju was a term that refers to magical practices in West Africa, from this art he learned how to make talismans called gris-gris, they were amulets that could be used to bring various protections to their users by engraving words on leather, Haldor mixed this to the eastern art of paper talismans.
"Pierre, can you call your friends and help position this?"
"PEEP." Pierre nodded and chirped outside the windows and in seconds a flock of birds came inside from the window. They weren't familiars, they were actual normal birds, Pierre could communicate with them and asked them for help.
They couldn't do complicated things but they could help with little small things like this.
They all took a talisman each and flew around leaving them just outside the area covered by the smokescreen.
The talismans were one of Haldor's many failures over the years. He first tried making them to give himself a blessing to affect his natural luck and maybe ward off evil spirits, but all he accomplished was a talisman that lowered his luck by redirecting it outside of himself.
It was a frustrating outcome especially when he's pretty unfortunate by himself and that might have also been why it came out like that, but that didn't mean Haldor couldn't find other uses for them just because they were failures. Just like right now.
While too lousy to be called a bounded field the talismans were now somewhat arranged to surround a certain area, so once activated, the talismans sucked some of the luck inside the area and pushed it outside, just like right now.
"Let's see if this guy's lucky now." Haldor closed both his eyes and pointed his revolver to the cloud of smoke.
He took one deep breath and connected his magic circuits to his gun, he reinforced the bullet, then the cylinder and barrel started heating up and the next second he shot the bullet.
It made no sound when shooting and travelled faster than the average bullet would, but Haldor could be sure of one thing.
And that was that, amidst the chaos of the loud music, there was no sound made by hitting something that was made from concrete or metal.
'Please be a headshot, be a headshot, be a headshot.' Haldor prayed as he started running to his next position, he holstered the gun back and took out six knives from his utility belt and held them in both hands between his fingers.
He threw the knives up in the air as they spun, getting more momentum in their falling.
And hopefully, if he was lucky enough, or rather if his opponent became unlucky enough they will hit his target.
***
"What the hell did you just say to me, huh?" Berserker snorted at Hajime, it was the first time that someone had ever called him weak and he didn't quite like it, more due to his wording than the meaning itself.
"I said what I said." Saber slimed at him, but his eyes weren't smiling at all. "Don't worry, you said you were tired of me running around, right? Then, here I come."
CRACK
Saber didn't waste another second. The floor under him cracked as he launched forward with terrifying speed.
Berserker quickly swung his sword first, but Hajime didn't even look in its direction.
The black blade moved to intercept his slash, but it was a feint, without losing its speed Saber's sword made an arc in the air as it changed its direction and made contact with Berserker's sword from below.
CLANG
Berserker's sword was raised upward from Hajime's attack and lost his balance as he tilted backward. He quickly tried to attack with his remaining hand using his club but Hajime just ducked under the attack and in one move slash both his thighs.
The black sword came back for him in a downward slash but once again Hajime didn't even bother looking at it. He already expected it.
'After all the scary parts of efficient techniques are the skills of the man behind them. But if it's the sword that just homes on the target on its own then…'
Then the one you needed to defeat to lend an attack was not the wielder but the predictability of the technique inherent to the weapon.
The way Berserker fought consisted of using his strength to give an initial momentum to the sword, which in turn then used it to travel on the most efficient path to its target with incredible strength and speed.
That's what Hajime understood from the previous clashes.
However the sword could also move on its own without being previously set in motion by Berserker. But–
CLANG
–in that case the sword would be weak enough for Saber to just just parry by redirecting it to the side.
And now before him was his enemy bare of any form and possibility of defense and counterattack.
And as a seasoned swordsman, Saber, no, Saitou Hajime would not miss the next attack.
SQUELCH SPUUUUURT
And so the next moment Berserker's blood tinted the air in a shade of red.
***
And that was another 5k words for y'all. Hope you have been enjoying the fight so far.
We really did shit in powerstone last week😭.
Well I hope you enjoyed the chapter. If so leave a power stone or/and a review, it would be much appreciated.