[X] Have the Shielder to switch position. The shield proved itself impervious to attacks so far. Whoever the new adversary is would find that their attacks to be blocked.
-[X] Do your best to protect the exhausted master as you all make your way to the Church.
"Shielder, switch position."
The abrupt order made Mashu glance back at Hinako, whose pace slowed. "Archer's attacks are a ruse to cover for another assault. Clear the way with your shield and let us through."
The Demi-Servant's brows furrowed faintly, but she nodded all the same. "Archer could very well aim true next time." She pointed out as she complied to the request.
"Not a worry. Keep going." The haughtiness rankled on her a bit, but the confidence with which Hinako spoke stopped Mashu from retorting. No use for it. Not
now.
"Master?" She called out to Ritsuka softly, putting the exchange with Hinako to the back of her mind. "I'm going ahead."
"G-go for it." The Master gave a shaky smile, the bodily toll clear on her frame —
her body can't hold out much longer, even if her mind can. Without further ado, Mashu nodded back and bounded off towards the cemetery grounds. The grounds here are more intact, but there are still tell-tale signs of devastation. Unnaturally packed earthworks, scorched grounds, as well graves dug before being hastily covered back, filled the enti-
"▃▃▅▆▆▇▇▇▇!!!"
"
Mashu!"
A mere second after the roar, Mashu Kyrielight's life almost came to an end.
A crude club-like slab of stone fell upon her, the bulging arm gripping it brimmed with muscle as dark as charcoal with blood red veins running through. The air rippled violently around them, the hulking giant having barreled towards the Shielder with speed far beyond her imagination.
The monster's eye flashed red, and for one instant, she saw —
vivid with crimson blood, bisected diagonally and messily — her death.
Next instant, her body
shifted.
The unsynchronized instinct filled her limbs, becoming a blur in time, moving not in sync with the rest of reality, a distant approximation of her liege's-
A massive shockwave tore through her reverie and the surrounding of the newly created crater right in front of her feet. Mashu gritted her teeth, slamming the tip of the shield down so as to hold her ground. Even without the Demi-Servant instincts, as she watched the giant
wrench its weapon off the ground with ease, she knew one thing for certain.
A single direct hit will kill her.
Despite her status as a Shielder, such force behind not multiple hits, but one single hit from the —
doubtlessly Berserker — Servant is impossible to weather. Even a scant few hits on the shield will knock her off her balance, and after that... best left unsaid.
So how does one fight an opponent that is far faster and stronger? Simple. One
doesn't. One
survives instead.
"▃▃▅▆▆▇▇▇▇!!!"
A single horizontal stroke passes right in front of her shield as the Demi-Servant moved back —
dominant foot first — to cleanly dodge. The followup backslash is angled downwards —
dominant foot acting as an anchor — into the ground.
Stall for time by sl- Her eyes widened as the giant flexibly made a roundhouse kick, pressing her ever backward and unable to counter.
But it doesn't matter, Mashu thought as she looked at the corner of her eyes. Master, Director, and Hinako all have circled around the juggernaut that she faced. And she is glad that at least, they are safe.
Caladbolg II is an excellent Noble Phantasm. There are many weapons that he know of capable of inflicting an A Ranked Anti-Army blast, but it is one of the rare few that
is a sword. Thus, it makes for an
exceptional Broken Phantasm. His sight hones in on the target, emptying his corrupted mind to the presence of the two Masters. The fate of the enemy Servant in the face of the juggernaut is an expected eventuality.
He sees the black-haired Master turn, her crimson eyes facing him. An interesting one, to possess such a powerful sense for danger. Even more peculiar is the fact that she is stopping in her track, steel rebars held tight on her hands like swords, trying to protect her less gifted compatriots.
...What a sordid reminder. But it is a futile gesture regardless.
He released the arrow, the Broken Phantasm ready to bathe the cemetery in a blast of magical explosion.
If nothing else, Hinako is prepared. The Broken Phantasm's entire power can be counteracted should she discard her physical body and draw fully from the World. Ritsuka and Shielder will survive the aftermath, if injured. The Director would die, however.
...To think she'd have to risk her identity to protect someone she barely knew. But for now, humanity comes first.
So imagine her surprise when she saw space and reality itself
bending right in front of her. Hinako noted, for scant moments, an elegant latticework of cracked space which, in slow frame-by-frame view, reversed the direction of the arrow
back towards Archer.
The next moment, the buffeting force of air nearly knocked her back as the arrow launched back in a crackle of purple light. The distant skyline that Archer inhabited lit up.
There are no more skylines now, Hinako mused as she watched the vivid explosion echoing violently.
Her focus was broken, however, when the ground all around her erupted in a cavalcade of skeletal construct. She stopped herself from whacking them when they made their way towards Berserker instead.
"Άπαγε!" Hinako watches as thaumaturgical sigils lit up on these special constructs, lifting the Berserker against gravity for a moment before in the next, flinging him almost contemptuously through the tree-line and faraway into the distance. It would seem that, at the very least Berserker and Archer would not make a reappearance soon.
She then looked at the spell caster. A hooded woman, flanked by more of the armed constructs. She carried with her a single staff on her left hand. Her cloak flared through the air, a rainbow coloured pattern embossed on the cloak, aimed at Hinako and her erstwhile allies. Though that isn't what most would focus their attention on, in regards of the woman.
No, it'd be the fact that she is missing her right arm. Well, that and the fact that her presence marked her as a Servant.
Hinako spoke first. "My thanks, Servant Caster."
The identified Servant nodded, halfway between curt and cautious "...So for what purpose do you come here?"
"Sanctuary. This is a Church, is it not?" She looked around, at a thoroughly exhausted Shielder who is trying to lift Ritsuka, who
had collapsed under the collateral blast of wind from the reversal of the Broken Phantasm. "At the very least, you are sane and not affected by the devastation much."
Caster looked at the remnants of her right arm. "That is true, yes." She looked at the group before nodding. "Very well, we shall speak inside. There is much to learn and much to share.
"I welcome you to this humble shelter of mine... Chaldeans."
Prologue End.
