Once upon a time…
Once upon a time there was a man. And a horse, although the horse isn't that important – not to say it's not a nice horse, it's a lovely horse in fact, every bit the horse among horses that the man was among men. It's just, you know, history is a very human-centric thing, so horses have to be really exceptional indeed to even get a look in, and being mentioned in the same breath as the man is a fantastic achievement when you think of it that way. But the horse isn't important. We're not talking about the horse.
Anyway, this man was the sort of man who was really quite good at hitting other men very hard with sticks, and since he lived in the sort of time when that sort of thing was very highly valued, he became a general, and swore himself to serve another man. All was well, until the man was struck by a thought:
Why was he following this other man, who was so much weaker than him?
Things rather went downhill from there. The man betrayed the other man, for a start, but because of how good he was at hitting other men with sticks (
so good, you guys), he was kept around by the men who'd told him to hit that other man. Until of course the man wondered why he was following these other men, and the whole wretched business started all over again.
Eventually the man became a warlord, which is like a general except you never stop, and eventually he was captured by one of the men who would have liked to have him for a follower earlier. It would have been poetic justice if he himself had been hit by men with sticks until he was dead, but instead he was hanged.
The morals of the story are these:
First, don't waste time talking about horses when you have a really interesting story to tell and have to squeeze the whole thing into four measly paragraphs and leave out all the cool detail.
And second, some men just have no sense of drama.
THE THRILLING ADVENTURES OF KALEIDO GARNET
Chapter Twelve – In which basically nothing is achieved
When a man was tired of London, he was tired of life. So said Samuel Johnson, and that guy basically invented, like, words, so you know he was a real party animal. Ritsuka had his own take, which went along the lines of 'when a man is tired of London, he is tired of constant rain, a low-level stink that gets into your clothes, and being surrounded by the English'. He thought it was a lot more instructive, and according to Waver his slowly growing hatred of his adopted city was a sign of a true Londoner in any case.
That said, Ritsuka's optimism shone through, like a lovely statue that couldn't quite be covered in pigeon droppings, and he generally enjoyed himself. He liked spending time exploring the city with Mash, on what definitely weren't dates no matter what Ruby said, and he liked how every part had its own character.
Some places, though, he was quite happy to never set foot in.
"Ah, man," he said, when the co-ordinates for the newest Card came through. "Well, this is awkward."
"What is it?" asked Mash.
Ritsuka pointed at the map, right between Soho (where one could, if so inclined and of the right age, purchase a round of drinks for only slightly more than seventy pounds) and Covent Garden (where interesting tourists from all around the world kindly placed themselves within six inches of your face so you could meet them).
"That," he said, with the air of a wizard announcing where he must regretfully send his hobbit friends, "is
Chinatown."
Throughout his apartment, there was a confused silence. "Yes?" said Mash. "I've always wanted to go there, actually. It's so colourful!"
"Right, agreed, but… well, I'm not Chinese, if you catch my meaning."
Again, a silence, confused in nature. "I'm actually not either, senpai," Mash said, as though revealing a great secret. "I don't think there's, like, an entrance requirement, though…"
"Right, there's not, but there's not being Chinese, and there's… being Japanese, not to put too fine a point on it." It wasn't something Ritsuka liked to talk about, the cultural awkwardness was just too much. "Can we, you know, enter the Mirror World somewhere else? I just think it'd draw less attention to ourselves."
Ruby made some suspicious-sounding beeps and boops. "
Sorry, Master, looks like this Mirror World Pocket is only large enough to cover Chinatown."
"Of course it is."
"
It is! What, are you embarrassed? You'll just have to get over yourself. Honestly, compared to what Sapphire does to Mash on a daily basis this is nothing!"
Ritsuka sighed, and gave up. No use arguing with the sticks, he'd learned that by now. It was fine. Fine! He'd just keep his head down and not draw attention to himself.
"Senpai…" said Mash uncertainly, as they dismounted the bus and began their walk into Chinatown. "Are you sure you don't want to, you know, just dress normally?"
"I don't know what you mean," said the apparition in sunglasses, medical mask and grey hoodie. "I am
totally inconspicuous. My eyes, skin and hair are completely hidden. Frankly, I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner."
Sure, the other pedestrians did seem to be looking at him and muttering, but it was probably his imagination. People always thought about you a lot less than you thought! It was a very valuable lesson, that, and one that had always helped Ritsuka whenever he'd felt anxious about how he'd be perceived.
"Senpai, people think you're a terrorist."
"What? No!"
"Sorry, but yes. I just saw that man call the police…"
Ritsuka faltered, then rallied. "Well, OK, but they don't think I'm a
Japanese terrorist. I'm going to call this a win." He raised his voice. "Now, let's get out of sight and into a quiet area
for perfectly innocent reasons."
They ducked into an alley, Mash apologising to a street full of alarmed people for some reason.
One sparkly transformation sequence and one equally sparkly dimension transfer later, they were in the Mirror World.
It was odd, seeing such a lively area of London completely quiet. They'd chosen daytime to do this, on the reasoning that the whole magical wizz-bang laser show took place in an alternate universe, so there was no risk of exposure – and, that being the case, you may as well see what you were doing.
Ritsuka swept Ruby in a horizontal line, seeding his red, green and purple spells. They hung in the air in front of him, ever-so-slowly gathering power. Better to do that now, because he still couldn't pump magical energy into those spells any quicker than before, so set-up was a necessity.
For her part, Mash changed Sapphire into her shield form.
"Okay," Ritsuka said, because pre-battle speeches were his designated thing, he guessed. "We've collected the Archer, Assassin and Caster Cards, and that's good, because those are all the Servants most likely to blindside us. But, that doesn't mean we shouldn't stay on our guard. Whichever Card this is, it will be a skilled and canny warrior, probably a master tactician-"
The building ahead exploded, and something enormous skidded into the street, roaring fit to wake the dead. Mash raised her shield, stepping in front of Ritsuka.
"…or, as I was saying, it could be Berserker," finished Ritsuka. "Let's go, Ruby!"
… and that was pretty much all he had time to do, as Berserker descended on them.
It was-
- a demonic figure, claws reaching for a broken and bleeding Mash –
Ritsuka swiped Ruby through the purple spell, then pointed her at Mash. Mash was jerked to one side as Berserker's weapon came down where she'd been standing. Ritsuka was out of range, but leapt up to the rooftops anyway, making space.
Mash recovered from Ritsuka's escape spell, and followed his lead – in seconds, she'd joined him on the rooftop.
"Senpai, what's wrong?" she asked, looking slightly hurt. "I was going to stall Berserker's blow so you could counter… did you not think it would work?"
-
Sapphire on the ground, broken in two -
"It's all Shakespeare's fault," said Ritsuka, echoing the anguished lament of every English language student ever. "Sorry. Let's try that again, shall we?"
He took a look down below, and his eyes widened in alarm. Whatever this Berserker was, it was
not the thing from the Caster Card's nightmare. Unfortunately, Ritsuka thought he recognised it. That armour, that halberd, those… antenna things?
Mash readied her shield, and made to jump down from the roof. "Okay, senpai! I'll attack close-in, you support from behind. One, two-"
Ritsuka's arm snapped out without conscious thought to block her way, as ancient wisdom shoved its way to the front of his brain. "Do not pursue Lu Bu!" he blurted.
"What?"
"
Do not pursue Lu Bu!"
There was a roar, and the armoured figure leapt. With an almighty crash, it brought its halberd down on the rooftop where Ritsuka and Mash were standing. They shot to either side to escape.
"Lu Bu is pursuing us, senpai!"
Ritsuka thrust Ruby out behind him blindly, firing off a series of tiny blasts – not powerful, but as bright as he could manage. They sprayed off to the side like fighter plane chaff to distract the Berserker Card while Ritsuka made the most of his Magical Boy body, sprinting over the rooftops of Mirror World London.
Another roar behind him told him the Berserker Card hadn't been fooled, and he risked a look behind him… only to see the halberd whistling towards his face.
For the second Card in a row, Ritsuka's life passed before his eyes again, but at least Berserker was polite enough not to show up and try to poke holes in his mental state. Just when Ritsuka was getting to the good bit when he met Mash…
CLANG.
… the girl herself was there, slamming the Card's halberd aside with Sapphire in shield form, so hard that the Card was sent skidding back across the tiles. Mash stood, resolute, between Ritsuka and everything that would harm him.
"I won't let you," she said. "I want to experience all of life as a human, and I can't do that unless Senpai shows me how. So buzz off, you… you… you crooked cardboard criminal!" She cocked Sapphire back, ready to swing, and set her mouth in a line. The Berserker Card stormed in, halberd whirling.
Ritsuka didn't need to be told what to do. No escapes, this time. Mash knew her job, and he knew his.
He swiped Ruby through one of the other spells he'd had charging throughout the fight – the red one. He pointed her at Mash.
"Instant Enhancement!"
Mash glowed red – not long, maybe for a second.
It was enough.
Sapphire's edge caught the Berserker Card in the throat, and sent it flying. It tumbled across the roof tiles, then off the edge entirely, crashing into a second-story window before collapsing into the street.
Ritsuka stared in pure awe.
"Yay!" said the girl who'd just punched a Servant across a street. "Did we win?"
There was a howl of rage from down below.
"Don't feel bad," Ritsuka said to the crestfallen Mash. "You totally
deserved to win, and that's what really counts. It's not your fault the Berserker Card doesn't have any sense of drama."
"Well, I suppose-"
They were interrupted as the Card hurled itself at them again. It was fast – Ritsuka would have said 'faster than anything had a right to be at that size', but, then, it was a dead hero, he wasn't going to argue about rights with it. It was all he and Mash could do to stay ahead.
They skimmed together over the rooftops, Ruby diverting every bit of Ritsuka's power to physical enhancement and reflexes. Mash had more to spare, but was slowed down by the need, every few steps, to deflect another hammer-blow from the Card.
Ritsuka waited for the moment it paused its assault – that would be when he and Mash could rally and think of a plan. Until then, all they had to do was outlast it.
At an unspoken signal, they dove down into the alleyways, spinning and ducking through washing lines and strings of paper lanterns. Tiny blasts from Ruby smashed windows, toppled bins, and generally made things tricky for any pursuer.
Yep, it would stop chasing them very soon.
Any moment now.
The Berserker Card dealt with the obstacles Ritsuka had left by simply crashing through them as though he hadn't.
"Isn't this thing ever going to quit?" he complained. "Attack, attack, attack, is that all this thing knows how to do?"
"
Well, it is the Berserker Card, Master…"
"Also, it's working!" called Mash, muscles straining as the halberd came down once more. She skidded back a couple of inches under the Card's insane force, and turned it into a leap that let her rejoin Ritsuka. They sprinted down the deserted street.
Bah. Well, if the Card was going to foil Ritsuka's plans by being too stupid to let him come up with them, he would just have to descend to its level. Time for a stupid plan.
"Mash, if you divert all power to defence, how long can you hold it off?" he asked.
"Um… a couple of seconds, without using Lord Camelot?"
"That should be enough. Be ready to jump clear on my signal."
"That sounds alarming, but OK, senpai!"
Ritsuka reached down. Round his hips was a simple leather belt, with one pouch on it – the Cards they'd collected. They'd tried just putting them in his pockets, but his trousers were way too tight for that to be practical in battle, even if Mash and the Director had very much enjoyed watching his attempts at quick draws.
He pulled out the Card, and checked the picture – then double-checked just to be sure. They'd taken all the Cards for this, because they would probably be safer with a couple of, technically, combat-focused magi than with the Director and now that they could actually use them there was no reason not to.
Still, the Archer Card was nothing but a liability, and Ritsuka would have left it at home if he could. Only the thought of some random burglar getting hold of that power stopped him – if they managed to somehow access its Noble Phantasm by a fluke, they'd die, and the devastation would cause almost fifty pence worth of damage to Croydon.
In this case, however, it wasn't the Archer Card that Ritsuka pulled. Nor was it Caster.
He slapped the Card against Ruby's side and yelled, "Include!"
Then he tossed Ruby backwards over his head, called "Now, Mash!" and ran as fast as he could.
There was an almighty
CRASH.
Ritsuka skidded to a halt and looked round.
Includes, in theory, were fantastic. For the cost of having to transform the Kaleidosticks, you got access to a legendary weapon or technique, literally the most powerful tools humanity had ever had access to. For every Class Card Ritsuka and Mash defeated, they should have been increasing their arsenal, making each fight easier.
Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, that hadn't been the case. Shielder's Noble Phantasm was incredible, but only on the defensive; Archer's was right out for obvious reasons; Caster's was the greatest mind-fuck ever made, which would have been great against opponents with actual minds.
Assassin's, though…
It wasn't really portable. It wasn't all that powerful. It was, frankly, a bit disturbing.
But it was quite large.
And giving Ruby the ability to suddenly increase her weight by about 200 tons was something Ritsuka could find a use for.
The street was filled with wreckage where the enormous pipe organ had landed squarely on the Berserker Card. Bits of horrible melty-people-statue bounced to a stop as Mash and Ritsuka stared wide-eyed at the carnage.
"That was a bit… more than I expected," said Ritsuka, at last.
"It was so creative, Senpai!" cheered Mash. "I would never have thought of that."
"Yes, well, the Card was brute-forcing its way through all of our other plans, so I just thought, what would be the most monkey-brain way to handle this?" said Ritsuka with a smile. "And then I thought the Card would probably be prepared for a magical attack, so if I had a way to just squish it that might work instead. It was this or try to topple a building on it, but I'm glad it-"
There was a rumbling noise from the pile of wreckage.
"Aw, come on!"
"No sense of drama at all," agreed Mash sympathetically.
The Berserker Card exploded from the rubble, roaring, halberd flying. It seemed to have been dazed by the blow to the head, or at least Ritsuka liked to think that was why it didn't immediately start charging them again.
"Ugh… return, Ruby," Ritsuka called. With a squeal of delight, Ruby
schwoooped back to normal size and shot back to Ritsuka's waiting hand.
"
Weee! That was fun, Master! Can we do it again?"
"It didn't really seem to do anything, so no. Good work, though," Ritsuka said, patting Ruby on what probably counted as her head.
He ignored the purring, and the way Ruby squirmed delightedly in his grip.
Mash stepped up, Sapphire still in shield form and held at the ready. "What should we do now, Senpai?"
Ritsuka made the decision. "We're retreating. I think we're going to need more firepower to pull this off, so we'll hold off on this one." He looked at Ruby. "That is OK, isn't it? It's not going to start breaking through into the real world?"
"
It's not impossible!" Ruby chirped. "
But probably unlikely for this Berserker."
"Good enough for me," Ritsuka said, filing this horrible new implication under 'things to worry about later'. "Let's go."
The mission hadn't been a total failure. They'd discovered which Card it was, and placed a lower limit on its durability, and could come back with a strategy. But as Ritsuka returned to the real world, he couldn't help but feel a little annoyed with himself.
He hated losing.
"… so Ritsuka came up with his idea," continued Mash.
"Hm?" said the Director in a 'carry on, I'm totally interested' sort of way. For once they weren't in her office, having caught her as she was visiting the Department of Modern Magecraft. She said she'd just popped over to discuss something with Reines, but her hair looked suspiciously well made-up for that and Ritsuka and Mash had found her fidgeting outside Waver's office.
Discussing the incredible Mystic Codes, and their quest to secure enough funding to build a base in Antarctica of all places, was not really the thing to do in a corridor full of listening ears – some of these students were probably modern enough to have phones and know how the 'record' function worked. The Director had pulled them into an unused lecture hall, and sketched a quick constellation into the ceiling that (she explained at Ritsuka's puzzled look) should prevent eavesdroppers.
That done, the pair had launched into their explanation.
"So what was this idea?" the Director asked, turning her attention to Ritsuka.
Ritsuka put his hands on his hips, proudly. "I decided to crush it with my massive organ," he said, beaming.
Olga Marie Animusphere's gaze dipped.
"That is, the Assassin Card's Noble Phantasm," clarified Mash hurriedly, cheeks pink.
"Ah, um, yes." The Director lifted her eyes to Ritsuka's, then looked away for some reason. "Of course. Well, was it successful?"
Ritsuka shrugged. "Not really, I'm afraid. Berserker just kind of shook it off. So, we retreated – we'll need to either master Installs to the point we can start using the Cards' full power, or else continue hunting the rest of them until we get an actually properly offensive Noble Phantasm we can Include. But, at least we can come back with a plan next time!"
"Yes, you've done very well," said the Director. "Well, no sense in waiting around – we've made good progress in finding the next Card. Getting in might be… well, I'm sure you kids will think of a way. Here."
She passed over a file. Ritsuka opened it and found a map along with a photograph of a building. His heart sank.
"A strip club!?"
