Chapter 13 - Expert
You'd be hard pressed to find two more different classes than Caster and Berserker.
As a rule, Berserkers used overwhelming force as their first, last and only resort. Tactics weren't necessary, skill at arms wasn't necessary – the Madness Enhancement that stole their reason also rendered such things unnecessary by empowering them to hit harder, strike faster and take more punishment. As strategies went, it was simple, but effective.
Ibaraki was an exception to that rule, at least partially. As an oni, bursts of all-consuming rage were kind of her normal state, so Madness Enhancement really just acted as a booster without a downside. She was free to use all her strength and all her skill together, and the combination was devastating.
Caster bobbed up and down on her toes, and smiled at Ibaraki. Her stance as a fighter was awkward and static, and she was clearly not ready to take a hit. Ibaraki wasn't fooled.
As a rule, Casters were underwhelming in close combat, with comparatively weak stats and few skills that helped at all in physical battle. Instead, they were intellectual powerhouses, fighting with strategy, if not quite with guile, to change the rules, stack the deck and generally use their knowledge of how to reshape reality to make things
totally unfair for anyone trying to fight them.
To Ibaraki's annoyance, Caster was absolutely not an exception to this rule at all.
Ibaraki thundered forward, a lunge that took her across the street in a single step and shattered the asphalt in her wake. Flame gathered around her sword, madness danced in her eyes, and she swung with all the force she could muster. With the prana she'd gathered throughout the day, it was a blow as strong as any she'd hit Saber with the night before, and she was barely trying.
A foot from Caster, her sword bounced off empty air, which splintered and cracked like glass but halted her charge more surely than if she'd hit a mountainside. She landed on all fours, and bared her teeth at the other Servant.
"See, Master?" said Caster to the boy beside her. "A solid shield is simple, cheap and quick to throw up, but it can only take you so far. In the end, someone'll just muster enough force to batter through it, and then your only option is to match that force with an even stronger shield. For someone like us without a strong Foundation to work with, that's not so good, because the stronger your shield is, the more prana it uses.
"There's another problem, too. Any ideas, Berserker?"
Ibaraki hissed, and the asphalt around her bubbled, then
boiled as the heat around her rose to impossible levels. She drew back one claw and slammed it against Caster's barrier, pumping a white-hot torrent of fire at the invisible plane of force.
It did nothing whatsoever, spiralling inwards on itself and vanishing as it touched the shield.
Caster giggled. "Quite right, dear! A simple physical block won't stop a lot of elemental effects, and if you don't include them a canny foe can cook you inside your own shield if you're not careful. Energy, sonic, curses, spirits… everything else you want to add just makes the spell that much more complicated and that much more expensive. Eventually it just isn't worth it. Well-demonstrated, darling."
"Shut up!" Ibaraki began pounding on the shield with one hand. With every blow it splintered a little more, a spiderweb of cracks hanging in mid-air.
Caster ignored her. "If you've got prana to spare, you can pull all kinds of nice tricks with it, though. For example, a shield that
absorbs force to use later can be very helpful indeed…"
There was just a moment where Ibaraki paused in confusion. Then realisation hit, and she scrambled backwards.
With a merry laugh, Caster waved a hand, and her barrier collapsed – blasting Ibaraki with every ounce of force she'd hit it with.
The ground shook. Cars were flipped onto their sides. Any glass left in any window left it. Ibaraki slammed into a house on the other side of the street, crashing straight through the walls to land in a ruined kitchen.
Ibaraki growled, more from frustration than from pain. Damn that Caster! This was, if anything, even more annoying than fighting Saber had been. At least when Saber had slid away from her attacks they hadn't
giggled about it.
No more. See how funny Caster thought she was now her shield was down! Ibaraki smirked, seized a section of wall in one grasping claw, and hurled it at Caster like a cannonball.
An instant later, it came back as fast as it had left, smashing Ibaraki even further into the house.
Buried under debris, Ibaraki growled again.
"Now, the ideal is vector manipulation," Caster went on. "Defence and offence all in one, that only gets more effective the more force your opponent uses. And because the mystery is only materialised at the point of impact, it's even prana-efficient too! Sadly, the maths involved to make such a thing practical…" she smirked and preened. "Well, you'd have to be some kind of genius."
… this cocky bitch! Ibaraki
had to win now, there was no justice if she didn't.
Or she could just leave, she realised. Caster blasting her away was
not fun at all, but it was certainly better than when Caster was trying to get her to stick around.
With a devilish grin, Ibaraki barged straight out the other side of the house, emerging onto the next street over… or at least, that's what she would have done if there hadn't been a blue-edged portal on the other side of the wall. Once again, Ibaraki found herself tasting road, while a shower of bricks rained down on her from the orange-edged portal that had appeared above her original position.
"Space manipulation is wonderful if you can manage it," sang Caster. "
So many applications, and once again it's all about redirection rather than direct opposition." She giggled again. "Of course, it helps if your opponent insists on being so predictable. Berserker is being really rather co-operative here, but you can't expect everyone you meet to rush head-first into every trap you set…"
"Kill… you…" snarled Ibaraki.
"Oh, don't be a grumpy-guts!" Caster said, wagging one gloved finger. "You're being
ever so helpful, and such a good sport, don't spoil it now. Honestly, I have enough of this sourpuss over here…"
"Caster…!" sputtered the boy, turning red.
"Zip it! I do hope you're paying attention, Master, there
will be a quiz later. Berserker, dear, this is going to be ever so awkward if you keep on trying to escape. I'm not sure my heart can take such a beautiful woman trying so hard to get away from me…"
Oh, that was
it. Ibaraki was
done holding back. She let the lid off the well of prana she carried, and power throbbed in every muscle, so that she almost glowed with it.
Or maybe the glow was just the radiated heat that boiled just beneath the surface.
This time, even Caster was not fast enough when Servant Berserker lunged with everything she had.
The next instant, her sword was stuck fast, inches from the boy's face. Caster's staff was all that lay between them, buzzing with energy all its own, and the Servant of the Spell was no longer smiling. Ibaraki pushed down harder, and the blade pushed down – before stopping entirely as the staff simply refused to move any more.
Caster let go, and made a gripping motion with her gauntlet. The staff stayed where she'd left it in mid-air, just as immovable as before, while wind surged around it, drawn into a sphere above Caster's palm. Ibaraki pulled back – too late. Caster thrust the sphere out at her, and a typhoon in miniature blasted Ibaraki back once more.
She landed on her feet, and was in motion, using every ounce of her power to make her stronger, faster. With a kick, a car flew at the Master of Caster, but had hardly reached half-way before it turned into a flock of bronze birds. These wheeled around, razor-sharp beaks glinting in the distorted sunlight as they sought Ibaraki.
Faster.
She was already lunging forwards, and the heat around her half-melted the birds before they got within sword-range. Her bone blade did the rest, and with a snarl of effort Ibaraki swung.
The wave of fire and force that surged forth hid Caster and her Master from view. Cars flipped end over end, clearing a space in a cone in front of Ibaraki. She charged through it, plunging into the flames and readying another blow.
Faster.
Once again, she found herself above the street, emerging from a portal – but this time, she didn't waste a moment, blasting yet more fire straight down. When she landed, it was blade-first, and the earth trembled at the impact of an oni striking the ground with all her might. Ibaraki didn't hang around, but shot straight from the crater she'd made at where she knew her victims were.
Faster. She couldn't let up, not for a moment, or Caster would move on from these parlour tricks and
really let loose. There she was, up ahead, pulling her staff free of whatever stasis spell she'd put on it to block Ibaraki's sword…
… hadn't everything been on fire a moment ago?
Caster's eyes twinkled, and Ibaraki noticed the tiny sphere of flame hovering above her palm, shining like the sun.
Oni were very resistant to fire. Ibaraki in particular could walk through an inferno unscathed, thanks to her natural resilience and her prana burst, and even being inside a burning castle bothered her not one bit.
She had no desire to find out what Caster could do with two blasts of demon-fire, all concentrated into the size of a peach.
Ibaraki had a moment to throw herself to one side, barrelling straight through another car, before a lance of white-hot flame speared the air where she'd been. Ibaraki turned to follow its path as it speared though three cars without slowing down.
"Redirecting energy is a staple for magi who lack power," Caster was saying to her Master. "As below, so above – just as a small man must learn to use his opponent's force against him in a wrestling match, a weak magus must use what is already there as his weapons. It doesn't have to be magic, either! Air, fire, there's a lot you can do if you're efficient enough.
"But with those kinds of elemental spells, they're useless if you miss, so it's often worth spending a little extra prana to add some kind of redirecting or homing component…"
Ibaraki cursed and scrambled away as the streak of fire came back as an arrow of light. At the last moment, she dodged, and even she felt the heat as it passed within a foot. Ahead of her, it circled back.
Ibaraki risked a glance at Caster. The other Servant was fiddling with her staff. Dammit. She had no time to waste fighting her own attacks like this, she needed to get in and stop whatever Caster was doing!
The fire bolt surged in, and Ibaraki narrowed her eyes. Screw this. There was one way out of this, and that was head-on. She thrust her hand out, and gathered up yet more power from her brimming well.
Just before the flame struck her, she released it – and swept her bone blade through the resulting explosion. The double shockwave felt like a punch in the gut… but when it cleared, the bolt had vanished.
Ibaraki wasted no time, and leapt.
As she closed in on Caster, the Servant of the Spell twirled her staff in a full circle and struck it on the ground. A ripple expanded through the space around it in all directions, and Ibaraki felt herself slow, then stop, hanging suspended in mid-air.
… she couldn't move. She had no leverage to move herself through the air, and her frantic swipes did nothing but spin her in place. Ibaraki gathered power for a flame blast, although to attack or push her groundwards she didn't know-
With another spin of Caster's staff, and another tap on the ground, a hazy bubble of wind sprung up around Ibaraki – and suddenly all the air within vanished into it. Ibaraki didn't need to breathe, so what…?
The flames flickering around Ibaraki's hand died, starved of oxygen, and she realised.
Ibaraki swiped at the wind shield, trying to make a hole, but it was just out of arm's reach. She gritted her teeth.
Outside, Caster was doing… something. While saying something to her Master, she gestured with her gauntlet, drawing faint blue circles in mid-air. What they were meant to be, Ibaraki could not guess, but she didn't like the look of them at all – especially not when, with a wave of Caster's hand, they flew out and placed themselves in a larger circle containing Ibaraki, most of the street, and Caster herself.
She looked very pleased with herself, and Ibaraki was struck with an intense desire to wipe that smug expression off her face. She sat, cross-legged, in mid-air, and thought.
Physical strikes were out. She didn't have the reach or the leverage. She could try to shapeshift, lengthen her arm and break the seal that way… but Caster would only expand the bubble. Her flame had been taken away from her – even though it fed on prana rather than fuel, it still needed air to burn. She glared, yellow eyes staring hatefully at Caster.
Caster noticed, and
winked. With a twist of her gauntlet, Ibaraki's bubble began spinning, with her taken along for the ride – upwards, sideways, rotating in all three axes. She couldn't even tell which way was up, let alone start to think of a plan of escape. Ibaraki was pretty sure that Servants couldn't get seasick, but it looked like Caster was intent on finding out the hard way.
Inside the bubble, Ibaraki couldn't hear herself growl in rising frustration.
Damn her, damn her,
damn that Caster! Not enough to trap her foe, she had to prevent her from getting her bearings at the same time. The world spun crazily around Ibaraki – sky and ground changed places at random, and she could only make a guess at where Caster and Waver Velvet were right now.
It was time. Ibaraki could only see one way out of this.
Once more, power rose inside of her – but instead of blasting through her whole body and emerging as fire and force, it went to one place in particular.
One red claw clenched, incandescent with power. Ibaraki couldn't aim, but then, she didn't really have to.
"
Great Grudge of Rashomon!"
Something left at great speed, punching through Caster's little bubble as if it were… well, as if it were nothing but air. With the rush of oxygen, Ibaraki ignited once more, directing her flame upwards to push herself down.
Caster had noticed, of course. But Ibaraki suspected she would be too busy to stop her.
Ahead, there was a streak of flame. Faster even than Caster's stolen bolt – this was visible only by the insane devastation it left in its wake, and the trail of blazing heat and burning objects.
It jinked left and right, then shot for Caster, growing in size and intensity.
A shimmering field that Ibaraki could only guess the purpose of faded into existence ahead of it, and Ibaraki didn't even need to look to see Caster's smirk.
It was wiped off her face when the streak changed course, smashing through the walls of a nearby house to emerge behind the Master-Servant pair, and
slam into a hastily-raised plane of force from behind. Only then, paused for that brief instant, did it finally become visible.
Once upon a time, Ibaraki had faced a hero, and lost. She had managed to survive and escape, but her right hand had been severed at the wrist. She'd learned to fight left-handed, grown stronger for the experience, and returned to claim it…
…only to find that her right hand had developed something of a life of its own. Thus, her Noble Phantasm took form – the Great Grudge of Rashomon, the severed hand, reclaimed amid fire and destruction.
Ever since, it had been just as unruly and eager for destruction as any other oni. It was really only a matter of letting it off the leash.
Now, it battered at Caster, a great red claw the size of a horse. It was the great oni come again, and its might and terror were unstoppable.
Caster's shield exploded, sending back every bit of force it had been struck with – but Ibaraki's right hand wasn't so weak, and powered through the blast. A sweep of Caster's staff created yet another portal, and the hand appeared high in the sky.
It shattered the ground an instant later, creating such a shockwave that even Ibaraki was hard-pressed to keep her feet. Debris pelted Caster and her Master, changing to feathers as it passed through a silver cloud expelled from Caster's gauntlet.
Obviously, the hand wasn't just a projectile that Ibaraki fired off. It was still her hand, and if she wanted it to go around an obstacle and burn those behind it to cinders, why, that was exactly what it would do. In its wake, there was only fire.
Where the Great Grudge of Rashomon passed, things melted or burned, one of the two.
Caster's hold on Ibaraki weakened, and she dropped to the ground. As soon as she hit, she was off, hammering into Caster's guard – this time, no more than a simple plane of force like the first that shattered when Ibaraki hit it.
Ibaraki grinned. Not so clever when she had to defend against two sides at once, hm?
Time to make this a little more complicated, then.
Ibaraki skipped aside, crashing through the low wall at the side of the street to land in a small garden. It quickly began burning, but no matter.
Her hand struck at Caster again – from above, from the side, from below. Caster wasn't smiling any more, but frowned in concentration, eyes flickering this way and that to try and find the hand before it struck.
It emerged, diving low and accelerating in a charge that left a trench carved in the road. It batteed against yet another protective spell, and skittered off like the rest, looping upwards to come back from another angle. Caster's eyes followed it…
…and missed Ibaraki herself coming on the trail of her hand. She smashed into Caster, bone-blade first, and no shield, portal or
anything stood in her way. She had just a moment to savour the look of panic on the other Servant's face before Ibaraki was on top of her. With a cry of victory, she placed a claw on Caster's face and
smashed the foolish mage into the road.
"Not pleasant to be on the receiving end,
is it?" she snarled.
"Hmm, I wouldn't know," came a voice from behind her. "If you didn't like my painting, darling, you could have just
said. You've quite ruined it, I'm afraid."
Ibaraki whirled. Caster waved merrily from next to her Master, looking very
unsmashed.
"Surprised? My art is uncommonly good, I'm told. The eyes follow you around the room… and sometimes act autonomously as an illusion, you know how it is." Caster put her hands on her hips and laughed. It wasn't very ladylike at all. Ibaraki seethed.
"How did you replace yourself with an illusion while under attack? The Great Grudge of Rashomon is not so weak that you can… can
multitask while it has you as its prey!"
"I suspect you rather underestimate how good I am at multitasking, dear… but in this case, the answer is simple. Since when were you under the illusion I was
not replacing myself with a double?"
Ibaraki did not dignify that with a response.
Except her hand, descending from above with the force of a falling star. It crashed into Caster with an explosion, shaking the street. Where the Servant of the Spell had been was nothing but a scorched crater to match the many others now littering the area.
"Still an illusion, I'm afraid," said Caster, stepping from behind a ruined car. "Now, really, are you sure you wouldn't rather surrender?"
Ibaraki ground her teeth, and eyed the open ends of the street. With her Noble Phantasm active, she may well be able to escape. Damn her pride – Caster was not playing fair, and Ibaraki was more than happy to come back and crush them later, when they were less ready.
"Caster." The Master stepped up, looking dishevelled. He swallowed, and said, "She's not going to back down. As expected of Berserker…" He bit his lip. "We've made the offer. Do it, Caster. We can't let her keep on causing all… all
this…" he finished, waving his arm vaguely at the street.
Caster nodded, and passed her staff from hand to hand, looking a bit sheepish.
"Ehehe… this is going to sound a bit creepy, but… hold still, Berserker! I'm not going to hurt you, I just need to stop you from running away for a while!" Reaching out with her gauntlet, she
gripped… something. Slowly, she began to twist, and Ibaraki's eyes widened as she felt reality lurch.
All around her, the circles Caster had drawn earlier flared to life, and an intricate design appeared on the ground between them.
She had to get out of there, fast. She pumped prana into her limbs, and turned to run, her hand flickering back to her side for an extra boost if necessary-
"Adding imaginary numerical axis, preparing inversion, creating existence of spatial template! Forming mirror road, radius one hundred metres, inverting Mirror World connections!"
The world… boggled.
Ibaraki landed on her feet, sword in hand, and looked around frantically. Nothing seemed to have changed, although she knew bone-deep that something was wrong. She was in the same place she was before, and everything seemed to be the way it was, so what had-
Ibaraki noticed the change, and bristled. Turning to Caster, she whispered, "Wh- where did you send us, mage?"
All around her, the sky was covered in distortions, as though the entire street were inside some giant crystal.
Caster twirled her staff and struck a pose, as if she were in some stage comedy. "Aha! Praise me, praise me! I was
almost certain that would work, and it did! Berserker, Master, welcome to the Mirror World. Anything we do here won't damage the city, so let's really go wild!"
Caster's master collapsed onto trembling knees. "Caster… I don't want to believe it, but… did you just transport us
through dimensions?"
Beaming, Caster nodded. "Yes! Well, no. Sort of! If other dimensions are like the infinite reflections in a pair of mirror, then this is just the mirror's surface itself. I had to create a false space using the real world as a template, so it's really just an approximation – but even a forgery by the great Da Vinci is guaranteed to be of universal quality!"
Her Master shook his head, looking stunned. "My God… even if it's not the true Second Magic, to create a space so quickly…" He looked up, and Ibaraki met his gaze. His slack expression firmed up into a resolute frown. "But you're sure, Caster? Berserker won't harm anyone else in here?"
"It's a pinkie promise!" Caster waggled the little finger of her enormous metal gauntlet at him.
"Then… then I can freak out later." He took a deep breath. "Berserker!"
Ibaraki blinked, then cocked her head. "Yes, human?"
The kid stood up, and put his hands on his hips in what was probably supposed to be an imposing stance. Ibaraki just stared at him curiously. "My name is Waver Velvet, and I am the Master of Caster. You are trapped, and for your crimes I will eliminate you. Surrender, and we can end this quickly and painlessly." His voice softened. "Please. Just give up, and it'll be easier for everyone."
Oh? How
generous of this little brat to offer her such terms. Ibaraki's eyes blazed, and her lip curled.
"'Eliminate'? 'End this'? Little boy, your words betray you. If you mean to
kill me, say so. You don't have the guts, and neither does your giddy Caster. From my perspective…" Ibaraki smirked, showing tusk. "Your Servant has trapped her biggest weakness in a cage with a monster. Some genius she is! I'll fight, and because the two of you are
weak where it counts, I will win.
Surrender?" She swiped her blade to one side and stared straight into Waver Velvet's eyes.
"Right now,
I am the only warrior in this entire universe."
Her power, boiling over as it was, flared – and for just a moment, the flames licking at the end of her hair blossomed into life, forming the shape of great wings before vanishing.
Waver Velvet took a half-step back.
Ibaraki smiled.
