Fate/Ethereal Order

Not a chapter update, that's coming tomorrow, but something nice regardless: the very first piece of art that I've commissioned for this quest, courtesy of the extremely talented Mayu! Please check them out, they're fantastic, and I think they've done a downright stellar job!

Pushed for an answer, you can't help but think about it.

Are you a man, or are you a vessel?

The question resonates with you in ways you didn't expect, didn't have the time or energy to think about when Caravaggio posed it to you the night before. Perhaps he'd thought you'd have more time to ponder, or perhaps he'd simply lost patience. Perhaps he'd simply realised that you'd be dead if he hadn't intervened, and he wasn't going to stomach that before he got his answer. You consider it, but after a moment you realise it doesn't matter.

Are you a man, or are you a vessel?

It's a familiar question—Caravaggio just asked it differently. A vessel is little different to a spare at the end of the day, after all. Neither worth anything beyond a beating heart and a working mind, both an afterthought compared to the real thing.

Are you a person, or are you just a spare?

You asked yourself that question every day since you were old enough to understand your circumstances. You finally answered it the day that you left—the day that you escaped.

You did that. Not Eamon Ó'Díomasaigh, spare to the heir. Not Edward Demspey, Demi-Servant and host to a knight. You.

"I didn't ask for this." You spit your answer through gritted teeth, the terrible situation you found yourself in falling away in the singular focus of revelation until it's just you and Caravaggio, dull red meeting pitch black with equal intensity. "I fought my whole damned life for the chance to be me—I haven't stopped just because I got lucky."

You kicked and screamed and bled for the power you have. You worked until you couldn't breathe, trained until your body couldn't move, tore out your own blood and bone to forge them into a weapon. You won't allow him—won't allow anyone to forget that. You raise your hand and level your blade towards him, breathing as even as can be as you give him your final answer—the same answer you gave yourself the night you ran.

"My name is Edward Dempsey, and you're dueling me. Not whoever it is inside me."

Buné gives a mocking clap, but you don't care. Avenger looks at you with an inscrutable gaze, but you don't care. All that matters is how Caravaggio reacts—and a moment later, he gives you a wild, savage grin.

"Good. Good! At last you bare your bitterness, speak the seething feelings in your heart! Oh yes, a fine answer! I knew you would not leave your truth to be decided by another—knew you were a worthy muse!" He swings his rapier wide, reaching out to you with his ink-black hand before clenching it into a fist. "But I would have more of it—more of your truth, Edward Dempsey. I will have my inspiration. Buné!"

He whirls once again, jabbing a finger towards the demon who regards him with the draconic equivalent of a raised eyebrow.

"You and yours will not interfere! There will be no negotiation on that point!"

"You are one of mine, Caravaggio." You think you see a flash of annoyance in Buné's eyes, but a moment later he waves a hand and it's gone. "Yes, yes, we won't interfere. Isn't that right, Melusine?"

The water spirit says nothing at all, and worry worms its way through your focus. Question or no question, you can't forget why you're doing this. You need to buy time, and if Melusine won't play ball…

"By the power of my Command Spell, I order you. Alter Ego, do not interfere."

For the second time in so many minutes, the crushing power of a miracle surges inside the city centre, and Melusine's eyes widen as a faint red glow outlines her body. Her muscles tense as she tries to move, but even with all her power, a Command Spell is beyond her to resist—all she can do is snarl at her Master. Buné settles back in his invisible throne, looking down at Caravaggio expectantly, but the painter has already turned his back on his patron.

"I will duel you, Edward Dempsey. And you will duel not Saber, but the valent'huomo Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio! I will have our battle, and I will have it true!"

Caravaggio reaches out with his dark arm, as if grasping reality itself—and then he speaks.

"La Morte Della Virgine!"

Caravaggio rips through the world, and darkness pours in.

For a moment, it's all you can see—all you can't see. Endless darkness, swirling and surging around you as if to swallow you whole, raging like the sea—then, dead calm. The darkness that enveloped you both freezes in place, but it doesn't blind you to Caravaggio's presence, far from it. It's as if the shadows cast their own burning light, illuminating you both as fiercely as they obscure everything else. Caravaggio raises his rapier and the shadows move with him, his form outlined in flawless chiaroscuro just like your own, holding the blade in a salute as he stares you down.

"I will duel you. No other."

Your shield vanishes.

The sudden lack of weight on your arm throws you off balance—but it's more than that. The aches and pains of the battle are magnified somehow, the wellspring of energy you had mere moments ago suddenly nowhere to be found. Panic scratches at the inside of your mind as you reach for that power that had grown so familiar to you, and it claws at your heart when you realise that you cannot grasp it, cannot reach it. As if you were never chosen at all. As if you had never become Shielder.

As if you were simply Edward Dempsey.

"As a Servant, you eclipsed me. As a magus, you would eclipse a mere man. I despise this necessity—would that I could have used it on myself." Caravaggio's voice is low and venomous, spitting the words almost hatefully. "This is as balanced as we shall ever be, Edward Dempsey—A Servant as weak as one can be, and a magus who fights as fiercely as Judith!"

Pure terror stabs into your chest like a knife carved out of ice as you realise what Caravaggio has done, what Caravaggio has planned—what Caravaggio was capable of this whole time.


You are going to die.

Instinct—plain old instinct rather than its supernatural cousin—is all that keeps you alive. One moment Caravaggio stands and the next he's lunging towards you fast enough that you can't keep track without Reinforced eyes. A moment ago, he would have seemed sluggish, but without a Servant's abilities you're left frantically pumping mana into your limbs to throw yourself to the side, just barely escaping the tip of the artist's rapier. He doesn't slow down, whirling on his foot as the painfully bright darkness shifts and swirls around the storm of motion the two of you create, thrust and lash and strike met with sway and twist and parry. Your blades were in your hands before you could think, long years spent in the thick of battle ensuring you wouldn't go defenseless, but each and every time you deflect the point of Caravaggio's blade with your own it sends tremors up your arms, makes you fear that the chains you've spent so long relying on will just shatter. After four seconds that felt like hours, you finally manage to disengage—no, Caravaggio lets you, glancing down at his own hand and scowling as you gasp for breath, your throat raw and your lungs burning from the effort. A few days and you'd forgotten what it was like to be human—to be so weak. So vulnerable. Fighting a Servant was the absolute worst case scenario for an Enforcer, and now here you are, face to face with proof that even the least among them were beyond you, so far beyond that it simply wasn't possible to win—you need to run, to leave, you're going to die if you keep this up and you can't—

"It's beautiful, isn't it? My flame. My pyre." Buné's voice rings out even through the hazy darkness, and though you don't dare take your eyes off of Caravaggio for an instant, you snarl in fury as you realise that even this duel to the death won't stop him talking. "A little dragon's fire to get it started and a little human kindling, so kindly provided by my partner the knight, and we were in business."

"Don't heed his ceaseless fucking prattle. I am the one before you, Edward." Caravaggio's voice is as sharp as his blade, and you only have a moment to ready yourself for his next assault—A moment more than you thought you had. He's still faster than you, but he's not as fast as his initial rush. You don't have time to speculate as to why, not when you're doing your best to not get stabbed. Caravaggio whips the rapier up towards your throat and you just barely deflect with your left blade, but before you can step in to retaliate with your right he drops the sword, catching it with his free hand and slicing upwards so quickly that even with your last-moment evasion, you can still see the gash carved into the leather of your armor. A heartbeat slower, and he would have gored you hip to shoulder.

"After the other three gave themselves to me, I got to work. The little girl in red was an abject failure, albeit a useful one—that's how I knew I needed a little help. The painter provided, once pushed."

The demon's deep voice rumbles in your ears and you know you can't ignore it, but you don't have time to give it thought, not with Caravaggio closing in once again. Again and again the tip of his blade fires towards you—half of them feints, deliberately too far to hit, but meant to provoke and confuse you so that his real attacks land true, and for all your experience you still can't tell them apart in time to avoid dozens of nicks and shallow cuts that slip between the chain-links on your arms. Scarlet blood runs down your arms, staining the silvery metal red as you miss yet another chance to strike back, Caravaggio simply dancing backwards faster than you can reach—and to make things worse, Buné won't shut up.

"Things fell into place after that—Melusine was oh so helpful, and my thorny princess here was proof positive that my Phantom experiments could bare fruit. And Matchstick...oh, Matchstick made it all happen. A little girl whose flames created illusions, a will-o-the-wisp to trick the outside world, and a blaze strong enough to spread the fantasy throughout all of France!"

You—you have to listen, have to make sure you learn his plans as he gloats, but you can barely breathe let alone think, not with Caravaggio bearing down on you. You're bleeding already and you'll only bleed more if you keep letting this happen, the scowling artist whipping his sword to the side and painting the shadow-covered cobblestones with your blood that had been on the rapier—still outlined in sharp light by the burning darkness. If you keep letting him control the flow of things you're going to die, but without the strength of a Servant you can't clash with him and come out on top.

Something in Caravaggio's eyes flickers, be it rage or pity or disappointment and something inside you clicks.

If you fight like Shielder, taking in all the information around you, formulating a plan as you listen to Buné outlining his own, thinking about how you can fix everything—you'll die. But you've only had to do that since the disaster a few days ago. Before that—

You approached every job assuming you'd be on the back foot—it was prudent, even if it usually wasn't true. Your magecraft is weaker compared to what you could put out before, your binding curse won't work for long against any Servant with Magic Resistance, and no matter how hard you push you can't Reinforce yourself to his level. Get distracted and you're dead, get thoughtful and you're dead, get shaken even a moment and you're dead. Think of nothing but victory, nothing but survival.

If you fight like Shielder, you'll die. So you'll just have to fight like you instead.

You let out a breath and the world dims around you, the shadows that cast you and Caravaggio in their burning light helping you to tune it all out. The chains around your right arm loosen just a little, your blade still held tight, and when Caravaggio charges once again you hold your ground. His sword traces a silver arc in the dark light of his Noble Phantasm, a slice aimed once more for your throat, and when he's just a single step away from you the earth around his feet shifts as your circuits thrum with power. You can't pull off anything like the wall you did back at Orléans, but you don't need anything that flashy. Three inches of uneven footing is enough to throw off his aim, and you dive in under the strike, preparing for the follow up you know he's fast enough to make. It comes in the form of a fist whistling through the air from your right, nothing remotely as gentlemanly as a duel would imply, but that's fine. Playing dirty is your style.

You're not fast enough to deflect it with your blade, so you don't even bother, swaying backwards out of the way and throwing your arm up, chain unravelling and winding around Caravaggio's arm and making him grunt in surprise. You don't give him time for more than that, diving to the right and yanking him off balance once again before releasing him—if he gets a proper grip on the chains, you're dead. Even now, his blade is whistling towards you in retaliation, but it's a clumsy strike. You've earned a single moment of weakness, and you intend to capitalize on it. Moving low to the ground, you dart in close and stab upwards with the blade in your left hand, close enough that Caravaggio can't avoid it fully. The moment you feel the tip cut into his flesh, you send a surge of mana through, the binding curse racing to paralyze the artist just as quickly as his Magic Resistance starts to purge it. For a split-second, he can't move—but you still can. You let go of the blade to reverse your grip, plunging the knife deeper into Caravaggio's side before wrenching it out with a twist as you duck backwards just in time to avoid the blow he sends your way.

You're breathing hard and fast, lungs burning and throat rubbed raw, watching as Caravaggio raises his hand to his side, lifting it and staring at the crimson-covered flesh before giving you a savage smile. He doesn't speak, but he doesn't need to. You know exactly what he's thinking—that's more like it. You hear voices again, Buné's grandiose bragging from without and Goemon's sharp tone from within, but you tune them out without hesitation. You've drawn blood, but the fight isn't nearly over.

He moves and you move with him, drawing up everything you have and more as you clash with a legend made flesh. The next time your magecraft shifts the earth, Caravaggio leaps at you instead, committing himself to the air and thrusting towards you with a downward stroke that scores your side and makes you hiss with pain. In return, you call on the air to sheathe your blade in cutting winds, taking advantage of the artist bracing himself for the curse to simply slice deeper into his arm and dart past him rather than follow up. The inky limb bleeds black ichor, but Caravaggio's grip stays firm as he approaches you once more. Again and again he strikes, and again and again you sway and weave, whirling chains coiling like serpents as you manipulate their paths—he's seen how they work, but the ever-shifting direction from which they strike towards him takes him a split-second to react to, and a split-second he's not trying to kill you is a split-second you're still alive. You duck low again to avoid the high strike he aims at you the moment he slips through your guard, but he expected the move—you're met with his rising knee, and you have to wrench your body to the side to avoid it smashing into your face, instead taking the blow to your shoulder. It feels like being hit with a sledgehammer, even rolling with the blow you worry that he's shattered the bone with a single strike, but you got lucky—it's dislocated, not broken.

You throw yourself to the ground half to slam your shoulder back into place and half in a desperate attempt to avoid his next strike, taking a worryingly deep cut to your leg in the process, and as soon as you do you have to roll to the side to avoid him plunging his blade through your neck. The force of the blow shatters the cobble beneath it and you grab a handful of fragmented stone on your way to your feet—he saw you, his eyes dropping to your fist as he raises a hand to cover his eyes—exactly what you'd hoped for. Gravel slips to the ground through your fingers as you lunge forward, and you see Caravaggio's eyes widen in shock at the sudden swerve in your tactics. The man is an excellent duelist, enough to see how it is you really fight when stripped of your Servanthood and predict you after just a few clashes—but a duelist and an Enforcer are not the same thing. He spent his life learning how men fight, the style with which they wield their blades, how to dissect it and respond to it in instants.

You spent your life learning to kill things stronger, faster, and tougher than yourself.

Your eyes lock and you see fire inside his gaze, thrusting his sword forward as he wrenches his hand towards your own, ready to bat aside your right blade as you go for the obvious strike to his gut, but it's not that one you raise. Shock flickers through Caravaggio's eyes as you bring your other blade up to deflect his rapier, his steel biting into your own as you catch the blow along its edge, pushing it out so it cuts a deep furrow in your cheek rather than skewering you. It feels like a physical pain as you watch Caravaggio's sword carve a centimetre-long chip in your blade, but you know you won't get another chance—you can't waste this one. With one blade occupied, and Caravaggio ready to deflect the other, you do the only thing you can.

Drawing your mana right to your skull, you slam your head forward, smashing your forehead into his nose with a crunch.

The impact makes you see stars even with your eyes closed, but Caravaggio's howl of pain is too real to be bait—there's nothing left for you but to do it. You let go of your blade and slam your fist into his outstretched arm as hard as you can from below—the joint bends unnaturally just long enough for his grip to weaken—you wrench your chain away with the rapier still caught in the blade while Caravaggio takes a step back to try right himself and you spin the thin sword and thrust forward—

The tip of Caravaggio's rapier emerges from the back of his shirt with a wet hiss, the silvery steel stained a deep scarlet with the painter's blood. You don't need to look to know you pierced his heart, and as the shadows begin to burn away, their baleful light replaced with the dull oranges and reds of the bonfire, you hear Caravaggio laugh, a wet noise thick with blood.

"So that is how you fight, Edward Dempsey."

You open your mouth to answer and cough once, twice, three times, each time spraying droplets of blood on the cobble beneath you. Your chest burns from exertion and overuse of your circuits—your lungs and throat are raw and bloody, your shoulder feels like it's on fire and your leg is bleeding still. Weakness takes hold of you so quickly that you can't keep steady.

Your grip on the rapier falters, Caravaggio taking a step backwards in surprise, and as you sink to your knees and gasp for breath everything happens all at once.

Through blurred vision, you see Circe and Archer clashing with Jeanne Alter, Melusine still standing still to their side. You see Buné's draconic visage contorted with rage as the bonfire roars in response. You see Goemon with his arms wrapped firmly around Niamh to keep her in place as she looks at you in horror.

You see Avenger approaching you, blade in hand.

"Jeanne! Do it, now!"

Marie's voice cuts through the dull drone of your heart in your ears, and you realise that she was sprinting towards the bonfire, Sanson just a half-step behind her. The saint casts her gaze towards them and raises her hand high, one of the three fiery marks carved onto it glowing like a second sun as she issues her command.

"By the power of my Command Spell, I order you! Marie, consume only the flames!"

It doesn't matter that you don't understand it. Marie does.

Mana gathers around Marie, raw power growing so dense it could be nothing but a Noble Phantasm, and from your position on the ground you watch as her back splits apart—no, as bloody garnet tears through her skin, growing from her spine and twisting into shape, colours shifting as the gemstone multiplies like a cancer, bloating out before narrowing into a tapered point, then exploding outwards again. Two narrow branches of crystal emerge and sprout to the side as another bulge erupts from atop the tapered, triangular growth in the middle, and in mere moments it shifts and cracks and flows into something you recognize—Marie's face, bloated and smiling greedily, carved in perfect crystal. The two branches twist in on themselves into long, spindly arms tipped with claws made of diamonds, the crystalline stomach an emerald bulging larger than any other part of the body, and you watch as it splits apart, a vertical line opening into a maw full of ruby teeth, a crystalline sapphire tongue lolling out as Marie speaks, throwing her arms wide to match the gemstone creature growing from her spine.

"Madame Déficit!"

The crystalline caricature howls with pleasure, and you hear Buné scream in rage as the figure begins to tear into the bonfire, flames freezing into gemstones at its touch before that stomach-tongue drags them into the depths of Marie's Noble Phantasm. The glittering maw swallows greedily, creating swirling winds that collapse into a vortex converging into the gemstone Marie—even with Jeanne's Command Spell, you can feel Marie's Noble Phantasm tugging at your mana. You need to move, have to move, have to help the others—but your power comes to you slowly, and as you force yourself up onto one knee, you feel it flowing back into your soul—feel a hand on your shoulder, and when you turn to see Avenger you see—

[ ] A young boy sitting at a table too big for him, tawny hair hanging low over his face, almost enough to cover his deep red eyes.

[ ] A young knight, strung up at a crossroads, bound in thorns and covered in thousands of tiny, bloody pinpricks.

[ ] A young villain, standing over two corpses and howling at the sky.