Your mind hardly registered the holy blade running through your body. Just the pain of the flesh rent by it.
You had hoped she wouldn't notice it. The dent in your blade created by your gambit. But Saber had, and your Tsubame Gaeshi had been dodged once again.
Struggling to remain standing you point off towards the temple with your free hand. "Go." You murmur your voice barely audible.
With a nod and a look of pity, the little bir- no the lioness charged off into the main temple courtyard.
Your legs finally collapsing beneath you, you release a strained breath.
"And I thought myself to be a fair judge of women." Taking a moment to pause, you chuckle mirthlessly to yourself. "It seems my skill in that area is equally lacking."
So this is how it ends. It's not a bad death, all things considered. For a mere wraith to have the honor of fighting a Heroic Spirit as if they were equals was already more than he ever could have asked for.
But still, for the briefest of instants, Sasaki Koujirou didn't want to die.
As your body fades away into nothingness, a humorless smile graces your face. "The Moon… it sure is beautiful tonight."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Lesser Grail destroyed, the Greater Grail system far beneath the Earth writhes under the pressure of prana. This was nothing like bearing the souls of the six heroes of the Fourth War. Eight heroes, one of which powerful enough to count as two spirits, fill the false Chalice to the breaking point.
Under the immense pressure, Angra Mainyu is pushed to the back of the Grail. For a split second, the original Grail regains control.
It needs to grant a wish, that much is certain. But every Master in the War has either forsaken the Grail or died. So instead, the Grail looks inward.
"I should have been a better King. If I had only made an effort to understand my subjects…"
"I should never have become a Guardian."
"That's not possible. Until now, my wish was already being granted."
"I don't want to die."
There's no time to pick one, all will have to be granted. Anything to get rid of the prana. Anything to preserve its own existence.
The first two wishes are easy enough to grant. Alaya isn't happy about the loss of one of its dogs, and another prospective dog, but the Grail isn't worried about that right now.
The other two wishes are harder to grant. Both beings no longer have a body, and [Caster's] wish involves reviving an additional being. Not knowing what else to do, the Grail simply sends [Caster] back into a world still in the Age of Gods, possessing the still-living body of her younger self. [Master of Caster] is shoehorned into a man in the far east. The arrangement isn't perfect, but the two should find each other given enough time.
But the samurai, the [False Assassin], no records exist of his original identity. You'll have to look for compatibility.
Scanning local reality…
Result: No matches found. Branching out further.
Scanning local Kaleidoscope cluster…
Result: No matches found. Branching out further.
Scanning local cluster group…
Result: 5 matches found.
A match finally found, the Grail acts immediately, pouncing upon the first option available. There's no time for reconsideration, the [Avenger] is starting to reawaken.
With a brief flare of prana, the wraith mistaken for Sasaki Koujirou vanishes from the World.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Your reentry into the land of the living is, ironically, quite peaceful. In contrast to the violent Grail War summoning, you find yourself lying on an incredibly comfortable bed.
The first thing you notice is that your body is much, much weaker, like it hasn't been used in months. Eyeing yourself over, you notice a decent amount of soft flab. However, the thing that grabs your attention is the two lumps on your chest.
If it wasn't for your prodigal rank in Vitrification, you'd be freaking out at this point.
Rising from the bed tentatively, you tenderly pull various medical appliances off of your arms and body. While the Grail supplied you with much about the modern world, many of the exact complexities were left out, much to your annoyance.
Taking a look in a nearby mirror, a young girl of perhaps fourteen stares back, her long purple hair hanging limply from her head.
You don't appear to be malnourished, but your appendages still feel and look incredibley weak, lacking any sort of muscle tone. You'll correct that eventually, but something else catches your attention. As you stare into your new reflection's eyes, a name appears in your mind. A name belonging to this body, and as such, your own new name.
Name: Ayase Yue (formerly a nameless samurai masquerading as "Sasaki Koujirou")
Age: 14
Sex: Female
Alignment: True Neutral
[INVENTORY]
Twin Swords (Taken as evidence by police)
The Devotee's Primer on the Wonders of Shinju-sama (At house)
Shikoku Island: From the Ancient World to the Age of the Gods (At House)
Servant Clothing (Astralized)
The Laundry-Drying Pole (Astralized, broken. May be reforged as a blade capable of being astralized.
Cell phone (on hand)
[YUUSHA PARAMETERS]
Strength: B
Endurance: B
Agility: A+
Range: D
Yuusha Aptitude: C
Fairy: Nikias, a dark purple hawk.
-Granted Power: A katana with a myriad of micro-blades on its cutting edge that shift back and forth at high speeds, allowing you to cut through even the toughest armor.
Patron: The Last Pythia, the final Oracle of Delphi before the Temple of Apollo's destruction.
I'd like to discuss Yuusha Aptitude. While primarily being the trait that determines the likelihood that one will be chosen as a yuusha, it also determines one's growth as a yuusha as you mankai and receive more fairies. At higher ranks, yuusha will receive a new fairy with a wholly new power. At your rank, you will usually only receive a fairy that upgrades your current power or gives you a power that's related to your patron deity. At lower ranks like E, yuusha will be lucky to receive a new fairy at all, and if they do it will always only be an upgrade to their current power.
[RETAINED SERVANT SKILLS]
Eye of the Mind (False): A
A natural talent to avoid danger on the basis of an innate 6th sense, intuition, or prescience, where accuracy of instinct has been augmented by experience. At this rank, penalties incurred by visual obstructions are minimized.
Knowledge of Respect and Harmony: B
Prevents any decrease in the effectiveness of a technique, regardless of how many times it is used against the same opponent. At this rank, attacks cannot be perceived by the enemy.
Vitrification: B+
A serene state of mind. A mental protection that nullifies mental interference. At this rank, one can limit their fighting spirit in order to conceal their presence.
Tsubame Gaeshi: N/A
The fabled technique of the legendary Sasaki Koujirou, said to be able to cut down a swallow mid-flight. Due to her skill being so great, in her old life Yue was able to create a technique that rivaled that of Noble Phantasms using only pure skill. It starts with a flash from this world, followed by two absolutely simultaneous, over-lapping flashes that disregard the concept of time and space, producing a slash attack that arrives from three different directions by momentarily using the Multi-Dimension Refraction Phenomenon of the Second True Magic to transcend speed, dexterity, feints, and many other elements.
Reference : Highschool of the Dead. A purple-haired girl who is good with a sword and living during the modern era? That's my main idea. I wonder if he kept his divine skill with this new body.
Reference : Highschool of the Dead. A purple-haired girl who is good with a sword and living during the modern era? That's my main idea. I wonder if he kept his divine skill with this new body.
He'll probably need to adjust, but in comparsion to chopping through dimensions, figuring out how to swing the sword in a new body shouldn't be particulary hard.
I'd rather not Washing Pole; the thing was broken anyway, and I'd like to do a quest for a new sword to go with a new life.
Oh, the Drying Pole is busted to all hell. Its only value as of right now is a training blade and a keepsake. The only combat it'll be seeing is against mundanes.
Also, as for your other comment, it isn't Madoka. This was never planned to be Madoka.
The Washing Pole, Monohoshi-zao, isn't broken. The nodachi itself isn't strong at all in fact, the blade is long but frail, an extended fight against Saber and Excalibur had, for example, chipped away the edge of the blade. Sasaki Kojiro's Noble Phantasm isn't his blade, but his technique. Tsubame Gaeshi is a transcendental strike born from his divine-like skill, causing an inter-dimensional refraction phenomenon allowing him to strike several times simultaneously, but it doesn't depend on one blade in particular. Kojiro could replicate it with any decently made sword.
Edit : Oops, broken as in broken and unusable. Sorry, I spent too much time on forums.
The Washing Pole, Monohoshi-zao, isn't broken. The nodachi itself isn't strong at all in fact, the blade is long but frail, an extended fight against Saber and Excalibur had, for example, chipped away the edge of the blade. Sasaki Kojiro's Noble Phantasm isn't his blade, but his technique. Tsubame Gaeshi is a transcendental strike that born from his divine-like skill, causing an inter-dimensional refraction phenomenon allowing him to strike several times simultaneously, but it doesn't depend on one blade in particular. Kojiro could replicate it with any decently made sword.
Oh, the Drying Pole is busted to all hell. Its only value as of right now is a training blade and a keepsake. The only combat it'll be seeing is against mundanes.
From other, less-in-your-face examples of the genre, Pretty Cure also seems to be a popular or semi-popular series with girls not shying away from actual combat.
