V1C6

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It had not

been enough.

Nzambi had

been wounded by my blow, but it had failed to destroy her Saint

Graph. Beneath the soft surface of her body lurked an incredibly

hard layer. My Freischütz

had been allowed to pass through, but my axe had not.

She looked

down at the glaring gash I had opened in her chest in irritation,

then reached for one of the many hands dangling from her body. Then

she tipped her head back, with her mouth agape like an anglerfish,

slipped it between her teeth, and bit down hard. With a crunching of

bones, the Command Seals faded from it – and from many of the other

hands too, which crumbled into dust.

She’s…

eating them? Eating Command Seals?

With my foe

preoccupied, I took advantage of the lull in the fighting to retrieve

Koharu from the ground and retreat with her clutched in my

arms. I made it back to where Pran was waiting, and turned to find

that my foe’s wound had closed entirely. Even her cape was as good as

new, with no tear to be seen.

“Your

nature eludes me, spellcaster. Though I understand those branches you

wield, at least. The grasping claws of poor, vengeful souls. Rather

fitting for you, I think.”

The

desiccated hands dropped to the ground, one after the other.

“Still, I

swore an oath to take care of any who fled through these gates, and take care

of them I shall. That branch of yours is certainly bothersome… but

I doubt it can save you from these.”

She gave no

signal, but still the two war elephants advanced. They smashed two of

the pillars standing in the hall with their foreheads, and then

curled their mighty trunks around their toppled remains.

“Surely

it can’t…? Wah! It can!”

The pillar

one of the beasts flung at me must have weighed several tons. With

Koharu slumped on my shoulder, we just barely dodged out of the way.

I had no idea that an elephant could be so dexterous.

The other

took the signal to charge, wielding its pillar like a battering ram.

“I have

no more interest in you. Perhaps I shall seek out that boy next. His

dear little head would look wonderful dangling from my neck.”

Nzambi stepped up to squat on one of the war elephants’ trunks, and

it obediently scooped her up onto its back. “Hm. Or perhaps he has

gone and hidden himself away somewhere.”

We turned

to run from the two advancing elephants, only to find our way blocked

by more ranks of the walking dead.

“I’m…

I’ll be fine, Erice. Get the boy… away from here…” Koharu had

come to. She stumbled a little at first without my support, but soon

enough raised her sword once more and set to cutting down the

advancing zombies. It was clear that she was on her last legs, but I

had no choice but to hope that that would suffice.

With a

magus’ tactical thinking, she had already attempted to heal herself.

Seven-tenths of her Command Seal had vanished from the back of her

hand, but it would take more than that to repair the damage from her

collision with the wall, and her right arm was in no better a state.

Whatever that blade was that Nzambi had stabbed her with, it had been

no ordinary weapon.

It must

have damaged her magic circuit somehow. Oh, Koharu…

—-

The war

elephant’s thunderous footsteps shook the floor as it lumbered toward

us. Nzambi’s voice echoed around the corridor from the beast’s back.

“You

should know very well, that outside of this citadel sprawls a kingdom

of the dead.”

A ‘kingdom

of the dead’? I had no idea what she was talking about, but I could

sense nothing. Perhaps if I were a proper Master, I would have more

insight.

“All

those who have tasted death become my children, and how very dear

they are to me.”

“All

those who have tasted death”?

It took me a moment to comprehend the true scale of what she had

said. Was she simply spouting nonsense in an attempt to break our

spirits? Or could it be possible that the Servants here had been so

easily overwhelmed, rendered incapable of marshalling their full

power, because of Nzambi’s sorcery?

“Although

some are terribly forgetful. All I do is recall the memories of death

that they have forgotten. Memento Mori, as they say. Come, Galahad.

No more hiding behind a little girl’s skirts. Face me like a knight,

and let us see how you

died.”

We were not

so green as to fall for cheap taunts. I flashed Koharu a glance, and

she responded wordlessly: she was not to undo her Possession if she

could at all help it.

-

Suddenly

the internal broadcast system flared to life, projecting Ms.

Fujimura’s voice around the arena.

“Code

Crimson has been invoked. The barrier around the Colosseum interior

has been deactivated. All survivors, proceed to the central

battlefield.”

The barrier

she referred to was the forcefield erected between the battlefield

and the seats to ensure that no harm came to spectators during a

match. Deactivating it was highly unusual.

The

announcement played once more. I doubted that anyone else listening

it would know the true significance of Code Crimson. I

don’t know about the rest of the announcement, but that bit must be a

message for me. I

touched a finger to my forelock, but my call went unheeded.

Where

are you, Ms. Fujimura?

At that

moment, my phone ringtone blared. Karin.

“Hey,

Eri! You alive? Still in the stadium? Listen, I’m super sorry, but

the kid gave me the slip! I’ll seppuku myself later, okay?”

“Guess you get to live. Pran’s with me.”

“He’s

what?!”

“Are you

barricaded up over there?”

“Damn

straight! We’re holed up in an empty stable just next to the arena!

Got quite a few other survivors with us, too, and some of the

fighters are helping us hold out, but they’re knockin’ on our door!

I’m not sure how much lo- Crap! Momi, left!”

I heard a

muted crash through the speaker, like something colliding with an

iron cage, followed by the trumpeting of an elephant. Hannibal’s

final remaining war elephant, most likely – probably alongside the

man himself.

“That

announcement just now was Caren’s voice, right? Is everything okay?

Can we trust it?”

“It’s

real. Can you get to the central arena from where you are?”

“I think

so. The shutters are down, but we can blast our way through.

Apparently we can use Noble Phantasms now.”

“Then do

it! Before it’s too late! I’ll-” A muffled boom echoed through the

speaker, followed by static, and then the line went dead.

I turned to

Koharu. “Let’s go. We need to get to the arena.”

“But my

teammates might still… I mean, there could still be competitors

there, and you’ve seen what they can do. It’s as dangerous in there

as it is out here. And what was that Code Crimson they mentioned?”

“It means

you’re going to get your wish.”

She gave a

little noise of surprise. Apparently she had understood what I was

getting at.

“I see.

In that case, let me lead the way. I’m more familiar with the

Colosseum.”

—-

“A little

late for directions, don’t you think? How could heading further

inside help you, anyway? Are you hoping to checkmate yourselves?”

Still

squatted atop the elephant, Nzambi rested her head on a bored hand.

“A trap,

of course. Not appealing at all. I would prefer to leave it for my

children.”

Another

charge, and, a few seconds later, another crash. The war elephants’

advance upon us had reduced the artistic interior of the hall to

rubble. Zombies seemed to spring out of every nook and cranny,

reaching for us with grasping hands.

I followed

Koharu’s lead, desperately trying to keep myself and Pran from harm.

-

Midway

through our flight, Koharu stopped and turned. It was her turn to

shout a taunt at our pursuers.

“Come,

proud allies of Hannibal! Have you mistaken that woman for your

master? I see how you strain under her yoke. Allow me to end your

suffering!”

Nzambi’s

eyebrows knotted in irritation. “Such ignorance. These kind souls were stolen from their forest homes to watch their

comrades die on the battlefield. Do you truly think you can appeal to

their better nature?”

She stood

up on the elephant’s back and levelled her sword at Koharu.

“Enough

of this. I shall crush you and be done with it.”

With a

bellowing bray, the war elephants charged straight for Koharu. The

knight stood waiting, sword clutched firmly in hand.

-

I hardly

dared to look as the two collided with a violent crash… and then

there was silence. The first thing Pran and I could make out was the

beams of sunlight streaming into the corridor through the rising

cloud of dust. The impact of their clash had torn a hole in the wall,

opening the corridor to the open stadium in the middle of the

Colosseum. The enormous battlefield lay before us once more.

Nzambi had

leapt from her perch a second before the collision, and alighted

before us without a care in the world for the destruction around her.

The bellowing of the elephants was distant now, and I spared a

moment’s pity for the poor zombies who must have been blown far and

wide by the blast.

-

“So this

is the Holy Lance, hm? A child this young?” Nzambi peered at the

boy as she spoke.

“You’ll

find out soon enough.”

I ushered

him behind me. At that moment, Koharu appeared over her shoulder,

streaking toward her like a bolt of azure lightning.

Nzambi

deflected the strike with a nonchalant swing of her blade, sending

the tall knight flying. It was almost as though she’d seen it coming.

Dammit!

Koharu!

She struck

hard against the interior wall once more, but this time slid to

the ground as two separate figures: the girl Koharu, and the knight

Galahad. Her Possession had come undone; likely, it had been unable

to bear the damage she had accrued. From the look of him, Galahad had

hardly escaped unscathed either.

“Perhaps

a Heroic Spirit from the future, drawn here from the Throne?”

Nzambi closed on Pran. “No, I cannot imagine so. Well, whatever the

case, any Heroic Spirit must know death. My knife will tell me true.

What do you say, little golden child? Shall we spill your guts and

find out how you died?”

What do

I do? I’ve got to buy time somehow… but how?

If Nzambi’s

gaze turned to Galahad and she elected to turn him into one of her

zombies, I doubted we could escape with our lives. My best bet was to

draw her attention to Pran, but…

Before the notion could fully occur to me, I was running. I bound my

'branches’ together into a blade - a shortsword, simple, fast and

accurate – and planted myself firmly in front of her. I was well

aware that my weapon could harm the boy I wanted to protect just as

easily as my enemy: a quite literal double-edged sword.

“I won’t

let you near him!”

“Do you

mind? I thought I had said I was done with you.”

Nzambi’s

blade – her enormous knife – and my branch-sword clashed, and

locked together.

“He’s…”

I swung my blade upward, placing my trust in the techniques he had

once taught me. “Dammit, he’s my Servant!”

My foe

easily batted the blow aside. “I think not. You are nothing but a

spellcaster, and I know your kind well. Magi, spellcasters -

miserable creatures all, caring only for their own gain, and nothing

for the lives of others. It is the value you see in this child that

makes you so desperate, nothing more.”

I knew that

better than anyone, but… but!

“He’s my

Servant! I don’t care if he’s useless!”

“Hahaha!

So tell me, would you make him a toy to satisfy your affections? How

cruel, how cruel! How do you expect someone useless to take pride in

themselves?”

“Then let

me be alone! It’s all I need!”

At this

close a range, it was impossible to muster as much force as my axe

could. The crushing weight behind Nzambi’s swing forced me back, and

my blade began to come undone. The recoil sent one of its constituent

branches lashing backwards, coming close to striking Pran. I

immediately retracted my blade. My own defence was nothing compared

to what would happen if that touched him.

“…Nngh…”

Seeing

their prey snatched away before their very eyes, the evil spirits’

anger swelled. Gore sprayed as I began to lose control over the

defiled blood they inhabited. Black blood oozed from the countless

wounds their wrath opened across my body, even from behind my

eyeballs, and dripped to the floor, defiling this sacred

battleground.

“Well

now. It seems that if you do not satisfy that loathsome branch’s

hunger for spirits, it will devour you instead.”

“So…

what?” None knew that better than I. My Erlkönig and my

Freischütz,

of which only a few bullets now remained, were not tools that would

blithely heed my command. They were evil spirits in their purest

form, and they were always watching for an opportunity to turn

against their master. But even so…

“You’ll

never touch him!”

“Pitiful.

I can hardly watch. Even the child has better sense than you.”

Nzambi

leapt forward to plant both hands on the ground, then, with her body

still in midair, uncoiled her legs like a spring to land a

devastating kick in my abdomen. If there had been any air left in my

lungs, I would have screamed. The blow sent me flying, bouncing

across the dirt floor

of the arena. One of my ribs cracked from the impact, and I fought

for breath.

As I lay

sprawled, I suddenly felt the entire arena shake violently. The roar

of an explosion rolled from the other side of the Colosseum. I heard

clamouring voices, collapsing walls, sustained gunfire, shouts and

screams. Somewhere in the middle of it all, I thought I heard Karin’s

voice.

Through the

earth, I heard the confused hubbub of battle.

-

My eyeballs

were blocked with clotted blood, and sheer agony had rolled them back

into my head. I forced them into place with my fingers and tried to

struggle to my feet.

Before me

stood Nzambi, with her knife to Pran’s chest.

I have

to stop her.

My fingers

clawed furrows through the dirt as I dragged myself onward, seeking

him.

Praying

that there existed something in this world so pure that it must not,

could not be tarnished. Praying that there existed something in this

world even the omnipotence of the Grail could not replace.

If not, how

was I ever to move forward?

-

“You

don’t seem to fear me, boy. Why is that?”

The child

gazed silently back up into Nzambi’s crimson eyes.

“You

aren’t a snake.”

He gently

set his fingertip to the point of her blade.

“So I’m

not scared of you.”

“…What?”

Nzambi warily made to withdraw her knife, only to find it stuck fast.

“Is that… It’s cracking?! What have you…?!”

A white-hot

glow spread across the outlandish blade from the child’s finger. It

flared fiercely for a moment, and then burst apart.

—-

After a

moment, the heat and light receded enough that I could make out Pran

standing alone. He sank to his knees, then collapsed to the ground, as though all strength had been drained from his tiny body.

Where’s

Nzambi? I can’t see her!

The

dusk-skinned woman had vanished without a trace. I reached out with my

senses, seeking. Perhaps she had temporarily relinquished her

physical body and returned to her transparent spiritual form? That

would present its own dangers, but in any case, it seemed that for

now we had one fewer threat to worry about.

Galahad

approached the boy, taking care to keep his own two swords as far

away from him as possible. Koharu, now a young girl once more,

staggered to where I lay huddled on the ground. She winced with pain,

but bore it bravely.

“Erice!

She’s… She’s here! The Stigmata!”

“Finally…

She’s here… with Lucius…”

-

As though a

dam had burst, a wave of berserk Servants and resurrected corpses

rolled across the open arena.

The pair entered from the upper seats far above, where they had a commanding

view of the sorry state of the arena. He took a moment to survey the

scene below him and then quite literally flew down the gentle curve

of the outer wall. She lay clutched in his arms, clad in her

ever-present black sailor uniform.

The great

cape that fluttered from his shoulders was dyed in his colour: the

purest, deepest red.

-

Code

Crimson, it was called. The scarlet summons.

Its red was

not the red of danger. It was the red of Rome. Of the proud battle

standard of the Roman army, and their patron, Mars.

The

Grail had build a thousand-year empire, and the cries of the populus

called its defenders to their posts.

Now they

had come, those defenders of the peace, and they would do their duty.

Manazuru

Chitose, the Stigmata – and at her side, Lucius Longinus, the Holy

Lance. They had answered the call.

-

“I’m

sorry I’m late. The train was delayed, but we came as fast as we

could.”

Chitose did

not sound particularly apologetic as she alighted gently on the floor

of the arena.

“I seem to recall doing

most of the legwork.” Lucius responded, a little peeved.

“Well, of

course you did. I worked up a fine sweat dealing with that mess in

Shinjuku. Even the best of us need a break once in a while.”

Chitose’s

Command Seals shone dully even as the pair bickered. These were no

cheap imitations; they were true Command Seals, of the old world.

These four arcane symbols were what had earned her the moniker of the

Stigmata.

-

Recognising

what that light signified, the Servants around her flocked to her.

Perhaps, with their minds lost, they behaved no differently to

startled beasts… or perhaps even in their berserk state, their

warrior’s instincts acknowledged her as a worthy foe.

She spotted

the pocket of resistance among her enemies – a rag-tag group of

surviving citizens and Servants who still maintained their sanity –

and called out to them in a voice that carried easily across the

battlefield.

“Make

your way around to me! Lucius and I will deal with them!”

—-

Those words

presaged a massacre.

In one

hand, Lucius readied a greatshield summoned from nothingness; in the

other, he gripped his crimson spear. Roman soldier and Master stood

back-to-back, cutting down their enemies faster than I could follow.

“Overwhelming” barely seemed fit to describe the sheer power that

accompanied each flourish of the Holy Lance.

-

This

was the might of the champion who had emerged from the Holy Grail

War. Lucius Longinus, the centurion

who met his fate atop the hill of Calvary. The Lancer of the Seven

Heroic Spirits. The strongest Servant, who had stood victorious atop the melee of the Holy Grail War and delivered

its prize to Chitose’s hands.

No matter how illustrious the

heroes whose souls they reflected, the Heroic Spirits of Mosaic City

were but pale shades before his majesty.

-

We

retreated warily, careful of our surroundings. Even as we distanced

ourselves from the unfolding bloodbath, Koharu’s gaze remained locked

on the battle.

“Did you

see that… Erice? That… That strike? What are those… on her

hands and feet? Are those… Black Keys?”

It was

little surprise that she was so fascinated. Chitose took neither the

Black Keys nor Gandr for her weapon. This display of violence, so

unbefitting of a magus, was something particular to her.

“They’re

called Sacri Clavi. They’re replicas of the nails used to pin the

Messiah to the cross…”

Or more

simply Holy Nails: a conceptual weapon imbued with the concept of

“binding”, born from the Command Seals adorning each of her four

limbs. With every strike, square iron nails briefly manifested around

her limbs to skewer her enemies, wicked and indomitable. An

empty-handed pile bunker.

“Or so

Lucius told me once. You wouldn’t believe how hopeless she is at

teaching anyone anything useful.”

“Holy…

Nails?” Koharu shivered. She seemed nothing short of awestruck by

this living legend.

But I

doubt she herself is so pleased.

I knew

Chitose would regard this battle as her greatest shame. She had been

forced to acknowledge the breakdown of the city’s peace and

personally take up arms against its people and their Servants. It was

grim work, and she would not have undertaken it gladly.

She had

tried to safeguard against this possibility by distancing me from my work, but it hadn’t been sufficient. An outside enemy had appeared in

Mosaic City, and its arrival had been a long time in coming.

—-

Finally the

wave of chaos began to recede, and I managed to regroup with Karin.

Usually she would greet me with a cheerful grin or by chiding me for

my carelessness when I returned from a job, but this time she could

only blanch at the sight of our injuries. If Pran had been in the

same sorry state, she might have fainted on the spot. However,

fortunately there wasn’t so much as a scratch on him, and the sight

of him – seemingly in an entirely different world to his

surroundings, as usual - seemed to relieve her immensely.

That wasn’t

enough to excuse him from a furious telling-off, though. He looked a

little shell-shocked as he stood next to a wounded and bloody Kouyou.

-

The

wings of the battlefield had been transformed into a temporary

evacuation point, and the air was heavy with exhaustion and that uneasy relaxation that takes the place of terror once it recedes. People huddled

together in anxious groups, rejoicing to find each other safe and

well, finally contacting family and friends. A group of pigs raced

past me, squealing shrilly. Pigs? What on earth

are pigs doing here?

Of the

competitors I had seen earlier onscreen, I spotted at least Minamoto

Yoshitsune and her Master having escaped infection. The young samurai

stood a little way from the rest in her own corner of the

battlefield, attracting uneasy gazes as she stacked her collection of

severed heads into an enormous pile.

-

Hannibal

was the last Servant to fall before Chitose and Longinus’ unstoppable

onslaught. Koharu watched his end herself, unable to do anything for

him but witness his final moments. She fell to her knees in the spot

where the Holy Lance had pierced him through, and heaved a heavy

sigh.

Yoshitsune

and her master stood at her shoulder, and after a moment offered some

words of consolation. I had no words I could offer her; only the regrets welling up within me, as they always did.

-

Chitose had

contacted the Caren Series in the other wards and was in the process

of confirming the situation there. Koharu occasionally glanced at her

from afar as she revealed that she had come to a decision.

“We can’t

allow this Nzambi to wander Mosaic City as she wishes. I will contact

the rest of House Riedenflaus and set to work pursuing her. She

certainly left no small amount of promising evidence behind. We

should start by identifying her Master…”

Karin

did a double-take. “You’re going to what?

Now?! Let yourself

rest for five minutes, sheesh!”

“Hm? Very

well. It has been so long since my last fox-hunt.” The latter

dubious encouragement came from none other than her own partner,

Galahad. What was he trying to accomplish with that?

I tried to

talk her down as logically as I could. “Koharu, think for a minute.

If you push yourself in your current state, you might never use

magecraft again.”

“Then I

will no longer be a magus.”

I struggled

for a response in the face of such foolhardiness… but fortunately Lucius had arrived, and he understood her on a deeper level than I.

“I know

you regret not being able to save your comrades, Riedenflaus, but it

would mean nothing to chase this Servant alone. Now that we know her

true name and capabilities, we can put together a proper plan.”

“The

Roman’s right, Koharu. Right now, you and Erice need to be focusing

on not being half-dead. You yourself said this Nzambi wasn’t even

hurt, for goodness sake!” Karin’s concern was plain to see.

Koharu sank

into thought. I knew full well that she had thrown everything she had

into facing Nzambi, and yet it had not been enough. In the end, it

had been the woman she respected more than anyone else who had needed

to clean up her mess. She doubtless felt that she had shamed herself

and her dead comrades both.

It was her

Servant’s interjection that snapped her out of her fugue. “Let the

little lady do what she wants. You don’t have any right to be

lecturing her about anything, Longinus.”

“Sir

Galahad, I see. Just what are you defending? Look around you. Do you

feel nothing, to look at this awful scene?”

-

“That

will do, both of you.” Just as Koharu’s fury with Galahad’s

arrogance was about to hit boiling point, Chitose returned from her

inspection of the evacuees. “The situation is still in flux. You

should be using your brains to plan, not to bicker. What’s more, I

still can’t seen to get in contact with Caren. Caren Fujimura of

Akihabara, I mean.”

“I wonder

what’s wrong… The city’s normal functions are currently paralysed,

aren’t they? Could that be because of the failure of an

administrative AI?” Koharu ventured hesitantly.

She

shrugged. “Not possible. She’s alive, that much I know.”

Ever since

the breakout of the infection, the entire Akihabara ward had been

thrown into a state of chaos. An emergency team should have long

since been dispatched to the Colosseum, but there was no sign of

them. Interpersonal communications were still down, too; the best we

could manage was expending Command Seals to communicate via

magecraft.

None of it

pointed anywhere good.

“We know

she’s got to be somewhere in the Colosseum. I’ll go look for her.”

“I’ll go

with y-”

“You stay

here, Karin. You and Kouyou need to take care of the wounded.”

I flashed

her a smile to try and salve her worries, and suppress my own fears.

Chitose wordlessly gave the go-ahead.

“Wait.”

The child called out, but not to me. Rather, to someone I never would

have expected.

“Chitose.

I need to tell you something.”

“Tell me

what?”

“A dog

called to me. A black one.”

He’s

still going on about that dog? I was sure that Chitose would

laugh it off… but instead she froze. Her confident smile had never

faltered, even while surrounded by enemies a few minutes before, but now it was nowhere to

be seen.

“It said

to tell you something.”

“A black

dog… And what did this dog say?”

“That

death had come for you.”