The sun has dipped completely below the horizon by the time you return with Tomoe-san to her apartment, the results of your earlier test having left you with mixed feelings for the battle to come. Kyouko, Mikuni Oriko, and Kure Kirika are all waiting patiently for your return, snacking on tea and pastries left by Tomoe-san before leaving with you to see the results of your practice. "What took ya so long?" Kyouko asks, spraying crumbs everywhere as she speaks through an open mouth full of biscuits. "Cuz it's been kinda awkward just waiting here with these two fer ya both ta come back."
"My apologies, Sakura-san," Tomoe-san responds, taking her shoes off and joining the others at the table. "Akemi-san and I had something we needed to take care of."
Finitora Freccia is an unmistakably powerful attack, more so than even Tomoe-san's
Tiro Finale or a bombardment from Mikuni Oriko's swarm of drones; but it comes at a great cost. The mana it requires from you to enable its self-replicating nature would be bad enough, but the additional mana it requires to forcibly halt the molecular movement of whatever it comes into contact with at near-absolute zero temperatures is what pushes it over the edge. Without Tomoe-san's Grief dampening at work on your Soul Gem it's likely using that attack would result in a near-immediate witch-out.
You'll have to continue to experiment, and see if you can drive the cost down while still retaining as much of its damaging impact as possible, but for now you have no choice but to hold it in reserve as a finishing move of last resort.
It really is a shame that you won't be able to remove the intangibility of the familiars, or else that attack might have been able to wipe them all out in one shot.
"I'm sorry to have left the three of you to stew like this," you say, finally joining the rest of your team at Tomoe-san's table once you exit your musings. "I know it can't have been easy, sitting here with the knowledge that there's nothing we can do about the familiars and their intangibility."
"Yeah, I'm really not looking forward to this at all," Kure Kirika says, kicking her legs like a frustrated child throwing a tantrum. "I
just got over having my legs blown off. I'm not really in the mood to have to go through that all over again."
"And you won't, dearest," Mikuni Oriko adds, placing a kiss on her lover's cheek to soothe her tantrum. "I know it. We'll just have to adapt to the situation we've been handed, and come up with a different plan."
"Ain't that easier said than done," Kyouko thirds, jabbing a half-eaten biscuit in Mikuni Oriko's face. "I mean, we already
know how each of us does against those things when we can't touch'em; remember that practice we had a few days ago, where we all got fucking clobbered by Mami's ribbon dummies? 'Cept this time, there ain't gonna be any do-overs when we die."
"Still, there has to be something we can do to increase our odds of victory." You say that, but you don't know what that
something might be.
For all your luck, it's probably a miracle. "We just need to put our heads together and figure out what that is."
"If I might, master, I've been giving some thought to your predicament, and I think I have the solution."
"I'm glad at least one of us does. What are you thinking?"
"If I use my Noble Phantasm when I'm in range of the witch and its familiars, I'm confident that I can completely negate their intangibility."
Archer's Noble Phantasm, a mystery called 'Unlimited Blade Works' which your servant has been hesitant to speak of to you. Previously, you had thought it to be some kind of trump card your servant was saving for the fight against
Walpurgisnacht,
but he's suggesting it can be used here as well... "What is it, and what can it do?"
"I'm afraid the time still isn't right to tell you that, master. When you see it, you'll understand why I've been so hesitant to tell you what it is. I'm only asking that you trust me as you have before."
What does that even mean, '
When you see it, you'll understand why I've been so hesitant to tell you what it is.'? What could Archer be hiding behind those words?
"I hope you understand my own hesitations in trusting something which you not only failed to inform me of initially, but are now asking me to allow you to use sight unseen?"
"I do, which is why I'm asking that you trust me. I know what it is, and knowing what I've seen of this world I know you wouldn't understand why I'm being so hesitant until you see it for yourself. So I'm asking that you trust me; and, if by the end of the night my answer has left you unsatisfied, then I won't mind whatever punishment you want to give me. I just hope it won't have to come to that."
Your servant has not been the most forthcoming that he could have been, all things considered. He regularly dodges your questions when you've asked him, he has outright neglected to keep you informed of basic concepts, and has so far been completely adamant in his refusal to tell you who he is, even when you've asked him directly.
Gods above, he's you. No wonder Sayaka had such a thorough distrust of you in those earlier timelines, if this is how the people around you saw you.
Still, you also knew that you were right, all those times when you refused to answer the questions of others, meaning it would ultimately be hypocritical of you to say anything else but
"Don't make me regret this" when pressed by your servant to trust him.
"Despite the issues we've had regarding your inability to answer my questions, you have still been a better ally than not. Don't make me regret placing my trust in you."
"I won't. You have my word."
You just hope that your servant's word is actually worth something. "Alright, Archer has just informed me that his Noble Phantasm is the answer we're looking for." Your allies look to you expectantly; it almost hurts to break their hearts when you have to say "Unfortunately, he wouldn't actually tell me what it is or what it can do. He only asked that we trust him at his word that it will work."
Kyouko groans leaning over the table as she asks "So how're we s'pposed ta trust Redman when he won't even say what he can do?"
"I asked him the same question. I don't know why, but he's been reluctant to share any information about himself with me thus far." You've had this feeling for awhile now that your servant is ashamed of who he is. His words that night as you, he, and Tomoe-san and Caster sat around this very table were enough to spark your initial suspicion, but his constant deflections and avoidance of his identity have all but solidified in your mind that, whoever your servant was in life, that person is someone whom he has grown disillusioned with and ashamed of.
Again, just like yourself.
"However, despite his reservations and constant deflections whenever I've asked him, what Archer is prepared to offer is still our best chance of surviving if his claim is truthful; and I for one am willing to give him the benefit of the doubt in light of our total lack of other options. It's highly likely that we'll have to stall out for time to give Archer the time he needs to activate it, but he's given his word that it should work to defeat the intangibility of the familiars. "
Your phone buzzes in your pocket, and your hand, hoping that perhaps Madoka is calling to wish you well before the battle, reaches down to grab it. Your hopes of hearing Madoka's voice are dashed when you see the familiar [Unknown number] displayed on your caller ID, and you answer saying "McRemitz-san, where are you?"
"Shit shit shit fuck!" comes McRemitz-san's response on the other end of the line. It seems she's caught herself at a bad time.
"It's started. You and the other girls need to get your arses in gear right now!"
The words "it's started" can only mean one thing, but to go charging in blindly, and without Archer, would be suicide. You need to know what's happening on the ground. "McRemitz-san, I need for you to calm down, and tell me what's going on."
"I was doing some tests yesterday on the necklace Sister Hope gave me when I went to that sermon the other night, hoping that maybe I could get something out of it." McRemitz-san had one of Sister Hope's rosary necklaces
inside your building and didn't think to tell you?
"Then just a few minutes ago, I pinged movement inside the Bounded Field I set up around the apartment, so I went to check it out. When I got there, I saw one of the familiars flailing around underneath the table I left the necklace on. I got my arse out of there right quick, and I don't think it saw me, but-"
You don't get to hear the rest of what McRemitz-san was trying to say, because your grip slackens, and your phone falls form your hand onto the floor. McRemitz-san had one of Sister Hope's rosary necklaces inside of your building. She found
one of the witch's familiars inside of your building. How many hundreds of those necklaces must there be, scattered about the city in the hands of the people who attended Father Despair's sermons? "They're all going to die."
"Akemi-san?" Tomoe-san leans over, the look of concern on her face looking as strong as ever since you picked up the phone. "Who's going to die?"
"Everyone who was given one of those necklaces," you say, your dulled fingers fumbling about on the floor for your fallen phone. As the strength in your fingers returns, you hear a sound as loud as a thunderclap just above your, but the black sky is cloudless this night. "McRemitz-san said she found a familiar underneath her table when she left her own rosary necklace there. They'll appear inside peoples' homes. They won't have any way to fight back; or even to see what's killing them. Gods above; it'll be a massacre."
The faces of your four allies drop the instant the words leave your mouth. You hear another thunderclap overhead, and you bring the phone back up to your ear. "McRemitz-san, meet us at the fork in the river as soon as possible."
"I can be there in a little under twenty minutes if I run as fast as I can."
"See that you're not a minute late," you say as you hang up;
though you fear even that might be too late. You don't bother to return your phone to your pocket as you stand, saying "Let's get going."
It barely takes your team any time at all to reach the fork in the river, and the growing loudness and frequency of the thunderclaps above your head only confirms your guess that that point will be where the battle is to begin. The writhing waters are dyed pitch-black, and the thunderclaps are a constant din.
No, you realize, watching as the
sky is split open from within. They aren't thunderclaps.
They're the sound of something breaking free from its egg.
The egg of the mountain... Elsa Maria is about to hatch.
The sky erupts into shards of glass,
and from the fork in the river rises a massive shape; black with a vibrant white outline, and shaped like the American's Statue of Liberty, holding a burning torch in its outstretched hand shaped like the sunburst emblem of the 'Church'. "A 'Black Mountain' indeed," you say, watching the massive statue rise until its full height is reached and it towers over you and your allies. "It certainly lives up to its name."
You brace yourself for the crashing wave that the witch's appearance is sure to bring with it, but the wave never comes. When you look out again over the water, the answer is obvious;
that isn't water at all. Through the blackened sky, you can see that the writhing waters of the river are actually composed of hundreds upon hundreds of familiars. "... And he asked unto him, 'What is thy name?'," Mikuni Oriko says with a trembling voice, her hand tightly clenched around the crucifix hanging from her neck as she looks out at the mass of familiars comprising what had once been the river. "And he answered saying, 'My name is Legion, for we are the one who is many'." Standing beside her lover in silence, Kure Kirika can do no more than to offer her a hand to squeeze for support.
"How the fuck are we s'pposed ta beat this?" Kyouko asks, placing her hands on her hips.
How the fuck indeed.
How the fuck are you supposed to beat this?
[ ] Wat do?
