The walls of Paris are blackened with ash when they arrive beneath the evening sun. Hundreds, even thousands of wyverns lay perched atop the manifold walls of the city, a mass of green and red scales menacing with fangs and claws that could rip a man from head to toe. There are even a number of black heads amongst the swarm, looming over their lesser brethren, exhaling gouts of flame with every breath.
Kana should feel fear. Somewhere, instinctively, she knows she does. Just one of them could kill her if she let up her guard for even a second, and the red and black ones could probably take her out with ease. But right now, she just feels anticipation, fear tempered into action. There is no more fear, no more worries. There is only the mission: Save her brother, kill the Witch, and end this anomalous history.
It certainly helps that she currently has a giant army of skeletons tens of thousands strong, as close to combined arms warfare as the ancient world gets. Archers, spearmen, winged cavalry, all are at her disposal. She even has heavy artillery in the form of Caster and a dangerous vanguard force through Lancer. And with every wyvern this army strikes down, even without the conscious efforts of Medea to expend what little mana it takes, another warrior rises at her command. It is the perfect army for the war she is fighting.
Though, Kana admits, she'd be happy to have some skeletal MBTs right now. But some things simply did not exist in antiquity.
"We're less than an hour from Paris," Medea says beside her, atop the wyrm's head with her runic arrays already primed and ready to fire. "When we join the battle, there will be no changing the plan."
"Then it's a good thing we don't need to," Kana replies confidently. A pillar of blue light burns from the walls of Paris, and she takes a furtive breath. "Right. There it is, right on schedule."
'I could blunt it a bit.'
"Don't. You still need to kill Atalanta." Her withering stream of fire had ended by then, and the skies were completely clear of arrows. Still, Kana was taking no chances. The Huntress had to die. Balmung was bad enough; her Noble Phantasm could likely wipe out their entire force without a sweat. Until then, Medea was under escort.
Besides, she saw this coming. This was what Anti-Army Noble Phantasms were made to destroy. But the funny thing about the beamsword kind is that, well. Their area of effect can often leave something to be desired.
The blade that felled the Sky-Demon Fafnir falls. A cascade wave of ether chews through the ground at blinding speed, and wipes out a group of dragon bone warriors, leaving not even bones to regenerate in its wake. But where one group fell, there are hundreds of others. Hundreds of army-groups, each hundreds strong, numerous enough to easily respond to wyvern assault with weight of numbers, but spread out enough that a single Noble Phantasm cannot wipe out the entire army. "It seems to work," Kana says with relief. Another pillar of light burns into being at the walls of Paris, but it is not nearly so concerning now. "We won't reach Paris intact, but enough will."
"He's just using it," Mashu notes with concern. "I thought Noble Phantasms were expensive!"
"Not necessarily, but most are. Anti-Army ones definitely are." Kana lets out a breath. "He's definitely getting support from the Grail. Still, enough will reach."
"I suppose," Mashu says, "…But I don't like just moving forward, getting hit with Balmungs the entire way, and not retaliating at all."
"It is the way of war," Jeanne comments sadly. "Sometimes, the best action is not to act. Trust in the plan, Shielder."
"What she said," Kana nods. "Still, I concur. Caster, how close do you have to be to turn wyvern bones into warriors?"
A cruel smile plays out across Medea's face. Her arcane array lights up, a wall of runes and promised destruction. "Not very."
She opens up, tearing into the wyverns on the walls, just as Balmung howls yet again and consumes hundreds more of her warriors. Her forces are immediately bolstered by the newly-risen, knitting themselves together on the city walls. Pandemonium erupts across the line as wyverns are suddenly attacked from behind, and the bone apocalypse flares up in their very ranks.
Kana grins at the counterattack, though the light of Balmung continues to burn and flare with frustrating regularity. Medea's assault loses efficacy with every barrage as wyverns take to the skies and her viable targets shrink in number. It does plenty to shatter their cohesion, what little integrity the wyvern horde had to begin with cast against the stones, but it won't win the war for them. Reading the mood, Medea's army redoubles its pace; the expenditure in mana is significant, but it is nearly time to charge.
Five kilometres from the gates of Paris, however, as the first squadrons step into lands that are properly Parisian, black stakes erupt from the ground and powderise them. More and more rise at dazzling speed, up and down the line, painted an ominous orange by the setting sun. The road to Paris is soon blocked by walls of jagged black.
"Right," Kana says blandly, not so much remembering as she is reminded of something she already took into account, "I forgot about Dracula."
'Rude! At least he could have made it a cool forest or a killing field or something. Now we can't even go in!'
Balmung blows through a section of the wall just then, slaughtering hundreds of bone warriors without a trace. The wall reforms instantly, preventing any sort of breakthrough.
'…I stand corrected. Still rude.'
"We could break through the wall with time," Jeanne observes, "But with our forces clustered like this, there won't be much left to siege the walls by the time we do."
"Caster, spread them out and send them to ground," Kana says. Her brow is heavy with focus, and she thinks hard about the one thing she never took to like fish to water: the mechanics of magecraft. "This is on a scale unlike what we saw in Orleans. So either he somehow changed his territory from Orleans to Paris and got it further reinforced… or he's always somehow claimed all France, and with Paris as the heart of France…" She claps her head. "…Fuck me I hate this subject. It's so arbitrary."
"Focus," Jeanne urges, and she claps a hand on Kana's shoulder. "Don't think about the full extent. Just consider how it works and how we can unravel it."
Kana inhales sharply. "Right. Ultimately, Vlad's Noble Phantasm relies on his dominion over a territory. Declaring it Romania lets him use his stakes with ease. The mana he has just lets him splurge a bit. So… so in order to break the wall… We need to contest his dominion over the land!" She snaps her fingers and turns to Medea. "Caster, I need you to—actually, never mind. Territory Creation would take too long. Dammit!"
"I would also lose access to the leyline in Orleans sustaining this army," Caster observes wryly. "So even if it were quick enough to matter, no."
"DAMMIT!"
"...I can do it."
Kana and Jeanne both look at Marie, the Queen clasping her hands together. "I am still Queen of France. This is still my realm. I just need to get close enough."
"…Marie, I'm glad for the support, but you don't have the Skill. Just standing around won't—"
"I have a second Noble Phantasm," Marie states confidently. "I can break those walls. I just need to get to the front."
Kana blinks. That might actually work. She's desperate anyways, and was already considering bringing Marie there just to see if it could work – or if she could huck a big enough gemstone to blow through the wall. "Alright. But we need to make sure you survive to do it. Jeanne, would you accompany us?"
"Of course," the Saint says gladly.
"B-But, senpai…" Mashu starts, but Kana pre-empts her.
"You need to stay here. Medea still need protection in case Atalanta tries something cute." Kana looks her in the eye, burning with steely determination. The same strength of character that so attracted her to Ritsuka. There's none of the joker in her right now. "Trust me on this. We'll need you once we break those walls wide open."
Mashu frowns. She nods. "Alright. Stay safe."
----
'Unleash your Noble Phantasm, Archer! I won't ask again!"
Atop a tree amidst the forests around Paris, barely peeking through the canopy so that her green-blonde hair blends in with the leaves, Atalanta the Huntress scowls. 'Leave me, Ruler. You have no right to command me.'
'I am your Master. I have every right.'
'I follow you because you were strong, and you could grant me the wish I seek.' She glances out at the battle currently in progress, the bone-white swarm still outnumbering the mess of green, red, and black. 'That is hardly true anymore. You are not my Master, Command Seals be damned.'
The Witch is silent for a time. Atalanta prepares herself for the consequences. 'Is that your final answer?' She asks, her mental voice low and dangerous. 'You dare stand against me now?'
'I told you. You will pay for the atrocities at your hands. I never agreed to be party to the slaughter of children.'
'All war demands sacrifice. You Greeks are so antiquated.' Atalanta gets ready for the order that never comes. Instead, she feels the connection between her and the Witch wither to nothingness, a useless thread. 'Until you repent for your arrogance, you will receive no support from me. Stay out of my way, Archer. Or you will die in a most gruesome manner.'
'Fair.' With no small amount of spite, the Huntress ends her contract with the Witch. She will perish in a few days without a new Master to ground her, but it is just as well. She has no interest in enduring any longer than she has to. Instead, she casts her eyes to the battle for Paris, as a gargantuan crystal spire erupts from the ground, and bathes the evening-baked hills in a hundred dazzling colours, dreamlike in their hue.
She does not say anything when the leaves rustle around her from a sudden light breeze, and as a one-armed man in blue walks up behind her.
