Chapter Text
Qikiptaaluk, 1865
If he took the time to compare the two, a German blizzard would feel outright friendly compared to the Arctic winds fighting his journey north.
Benoit's face was swathed by heavy protective wear, but the arctic wind pelted harsh ice through as if he only wore the scarf over his mouth. It wasn't farther than half a mile's walk to the site, but the crooked shanty he trudged towward was little more than a fuzzy silhouette shuddering in the wind. He grit his teeth and hiked his knees high so he didn't break through the crusty snowtop. He could handle the cold, but digging back to something resembling a meaningful pace after sinking to the waist was unthinkable.
It came into proper view before long, and earshot after that. The metal of the structure sung a despair-filled keen as the northern wind threatened to strip the corrugated siding away entirely, and each of the thousands of solid flakes beat a percussive hiss from the equipment shanty. A lantern washed amber across the snow, remaining stubbornly lit in rebellion of the blizzard. Benoit discarded his snowshoes once he felt foundation below his feet and threw the door open without announcement, blasting him with fire's warmth.
At the center of the room was something called an elevator, where most of the inhabitants of the shelter were milling about. Manning the contraption was a small mix of Einzbern attendants and onlooking native populace, who looked up either at his entrance or at the sudden synchronous curtsy each attendant greeted him with before returning to their final checks. Benoit paid none any mind, and only stood by the fire to warm himself for a few brief minutes before he'd finally be stepping onto the elevator.
"Master Franz." One of the attendants alerted from her curtsy with militant reflexes. Her face had a hard, permanent sternness to it, but she seemed relieved he didn't wander off in the blizzard. "We've ensured the shaft is prepared for your descent."
"Excellent," Benoit replied, peeling the protective items from himself until he wore only a sensible coat and suit. He raked a hand over his scalp, dislodging the ice caked into his silver hair. Relief. "With luck, we depart when the storm clears."
Ahem. One of the Inuk boys next to the attendant stepped forward after he cleared his throat, not brashly but without any great degree of shyness either. "And how long do you expect to be?" he asked in a controlled, neutral tone. Benoit eyed him and he shifted, uncomfortable under his piercing red gaze. He let him squirm for a few beats before answering.
"It may be an hour, it may be a day." A polite smile wrought itself on Benoit's placid face. "Should I breach our contract, Tagaq, it would be at the instant cost of my own life. My party will leave when our business is concluded, and you will have your reward as discussed." Extensively, he almost added, but he hated redundancy.
Tagaq didn't seem very convinced, but Benoit hadn't expected to convince him of his upstanding character. He strode to the bursting pack of rations his attendants had prepared for him and pulled it to his shoulder. "Shall I begin my descent?"
The boy - really only a teenager, Benoit never understood the human need to hand power to children - his frown twitched, but his eyes drifted away from him and toward the mineshaft. A heavy pause followed before Tagaq responded. "Both our peoples have honored that contract, but you understand it was us who agreed to your safety," he finally said, hands planted on his hips. Benoit's face remained still. Tagaq pointed a mitten to the elevator. "The spirit down there is not us."
"I understand," he replied, the grate making up the floor of the elevator rattling under his weight as he stepped aboard. "Send me down."
The homunculus at the control board engaged the lever with a conclusive thunk. The cables suspending the elevator above the shaft ground into motion and slowly lowered Benoit Franz Weins von Einzbern into the maw of the earth.
Fuyuki, 1865
This house was not hers. Zeniko Matou had two folios in the crook of her elbow, a frown pulling the rest of her face downward as she once again reexamined her presentation order while the third (and thickest) report was in hand. She stood in a mahogany hall that still smelt of freshly cut wood, in a house that was not hers built recently enough to not yet chase the earthy brick scent from the upper floors, and she peered down at her two problem cover pages through gold-rimmed glasses like they were uncooperative lab subjects.
They weren't necessarily uninteresting subjects to study and write, but fancying sponsorships had never been her role. Retiring her name at his request was one thing - even if the Association found enough in the basement to suspect her of any foul play, they certainly hadn't developed any records of the Matou family yet. And their records aside, the ally he'd selected for her in this war was courteous enough to amend the census to state Zeniko and her daughter came to Fuyuki months before any disappearances in London.
At the thought of the alliance she'd unwittingly been thrust into, her path of action was clear. Zeniko shuffled the three folios into a tidy bundle and knocked once, briskly, and let herself in the room her study was meant to be in.
The Western-style door fell shut behind her with an oiled click. Today was a decisive meeting with a true ally, not that shifty local mage he'd promised her allyship to without consultation. This was no mere sponsor. "Grandfather," she said, focused on the figure seated at her desk, striding forward with a neatly organized stack of papers and profiles she'd written over the years. "I've compiled a shortlist of candidate species that may be worth your time to consider."
She neatly separated the stack into three smaller stacks of varying length before him, her handwritten Cyrillic text flowing down the pages in even rows of cramped, tall handwriting. Reports on Acrididae, Apidae, and Lampyridae were spread evenly across Zeniko's desk and she stepped back once placed, clasping her hands behind her back as she waited for his response.
Zouken raised his thinning eyebrows at her after scanning over the first pages of the options she'd presented. "You've already made your choice."
"I have," Zeniko confirmed, pushing her large gold-framed glasses up the bridge of her nose. "Though I will follow whichever you prefer otherwise."
Zouken nodded in satisfaction at her obedience. "Good girl." Then, after a moment, he took the Lampyridae stack in hand. It was significantly thicker than the other two. "Tell me about the potential you see with these."
Zeniko's lip curled into something resembling a smile for half a moment before falling back behind her stony demeanor. "A firefly specimen from a hidden island in Greece. Each stage of life produces different alchemical thaumaturgy and they have a more diverse skillset than the other candidates as well. You'll find they have quite the interesting capability as adults."
She kept careful watch of her grandfather's face as he flipped through the Lampyridae report while she spoke. It had been years since she actively feared him, and especially felt the immunity from his anger carved in red beneath her gloves, one of the critical reasons she was here and not still in London.
"How might they perform against Tohsaka's servant?" Zouken's eyebrows raised again, pinning Zeniko beneath his cold red gaze.
She crossed her arms across her chest, tapping bicep with forefinger in thought for a moment. "If Tohsaka summons the Archer she's got her eye on, they're our best chance to eliminate her without the guarantee of a strong servant. Acrididae are more powerful and are well-suited to crowd control. Apidae are more intelligent and capable of understanding more complex orders - both excellent traits, but it's difficult to predict a war without a template."
It wasn't that the war's composer didn't provide the Matou clan with a neat stack of her own notes on the subject, complete with incomprehensible theorems and inane scribblings about Servant Class efficacy. While it was to be expected that Tohsaka would make her shared notes intentionally garbage to stunt Zeniko's foresight, she planned to meet with her new 'ally' to force a better explanation for the glorified sketchpad of a so-called prodigy.
"Therefore Lampyridae are better suited to the war for their more flexible range," Zouken finished for her, idly sifting through the pages upon pages of information. He looked back up to her, something like cruel mirth in his eyes. "And of the degradation?"
"More severe than Apidae in most cases, but the effects are nowhere near the extent to which Acrididae hunger," the words came off her tongue in a reflexive, emotionless drone. "In my autopsy of Yelena, her brain was significantly more infested than I'd anticipated. It warrants further research, but not within myself yet."
"That being said, it may be worth keeping a batch of Acrididae on hand for their decomposition effects." The words hung in the air for a moment while Zeniko allowed herself to indulge in a very small, brief smile. "I never did find what remained of Basil."
He smiled in return at that, a tricky look replacing his usual stern expression. "Perhaps the locusts as an ace in the hole then." Zouken steepled his fingers and Zeniko coolly shook her head with a closed off expression.
"In all honesty, I only included Acrididae to be respectful to your tastes," her voice took a flat droning effect, as if she'd rehearsed her argument. In all likelihood, she had. "Frankly, I despise the wretched things. They are effective aggression units, yes, but the drawbacks are far too extreme."
A hard look crossed Zeniko's pale eyes. "I'm the first to admit my weakness. There is zero chance I would survive the first stage of the implantation process, let alone the second. I highly suggest another species if the Mak- Matou are to win the war."
Her momentary slip of the tongue was noticed, but thankfully not acknowledged. It had only been a matter of months since Zeniko had changed her wolf's name to sheepskin to better blend in with the Japanese locals, and to her it was only a matter of time before her victorious return to London with a successful attempt at achieving Third Magic. The 'Matou' pseudonym meant as little to her as the rest of the Makiri wasting away in Russia she'd abandoned to their own complacency decades before.
Zouken was predictably displeased at her pushback, but Zeniko didn't earn his immediate ire at least. He rose from where he sat, towering over her like a silent monolith as he circled behind her. She didn't turn, following his movement only with her eyes.
"What you say is true, I loathe to admit. The Matou have become weak in recent memory. Perhaps I expected too much of you." It sounded like he was inspecting one of the specimens she'd pinned behind glass and mounted on the wall. He wasn't quite at her six, perhaps her eight – if memory served correctly, her grandfather was likely examining her locust display.
Zeniko grit her teeth, but kept her silence. He was right, of course. He was always right. "I'm not so prideful to lose this war before it begins, however. Yelena was a child, but she was also your progeny," Zouken continued, his footsteps resuming as he continued to circle her. "Which subspecies did you implant Vasilisa with?"
"The fireflies," was her immediate response, head turning halfway toward him on impulse. "Though she fought the procedure and rejected the gift. She wasn't able to use their capabilities out of childish rebellion alone. The other subjects with less... spitfire were more successful. Among the Acrididae subjects, there was no such success."
"I see." He stopped just before he would have re-entered her field of vision. "I will review your options, with my own findings. Your bias in favor of the fireflies is too glaring to overlook, Zeniko."
Because they're the best option. But she held her tongue. Even if her life was on the line, even if she was the chosen Makiri to take part in this new Heaven's Feel, Zouken's wrath was best avoided when necessary. "Naturally," was her more measured response, though she couldn't hide her reluctance. "I trust you'll make the correct decision, grandfather."
He chuckled. She failed to see his humor.
1868
Jack's rough, calloused hand was much more gentle than he'd thought himself capable when he took Ruth's hand in his to help her off the ship. He wasn't a fan of not knowing the back of that hand as well as he used to, considering the bloody red design that had appeared like a great Rorschach upon it, but he was grateful for it nonetheless.
"Watch your feet, angel," he reminded her just as gently, "You don't need to be tripping on nothing right now."
Ruth turned her nose up at him playfully and harrumphed. "Jack Morgan, don't you start that with me."
Her lilting sass carried across the dock, drawing the eyes of the local dockhands working the shipyard. Jack held his offending hands up in surrender, reeling back just as playfully.
"I ain't offering because you're an invalid, Ruth, I'm offering because I'm a gentleman."
Ruth stopped in her tracks, Jack following suit only a pace after her. Her deep brown eyes were narrowed, arms crossed. Despite how she was obviously displeased with him, to Jack she looked like an angel.
Ruth was stunning against the sapphire blue backdrop of the ocean. Her dark curls were gently taken by the breeze, but not as much as the long skirt of her dress. Her calico skirt was alive in the wind, the hem of it hissing over the top of her boots. Miraculously, her hat was still firmly affixed to her head but God, she needed the miracle.
That's why they were here. And Jack was willing to take any omen as a sign of their fortune in finding the one he was searching for.
He realized his playfully nonplussed face had melted into something too soft and quickly shaped up. "What's wrong, darlin'?" Jack asked, knowing he was earning himself an earful for not instinctively knowing.
Ruth's eyes narrowed further. She sucked her cheeks at him for a moment before marching to him and taking his hand in hers. "I never said I didn't want your hand, Mr. Goodsprings," she spelled out like he was learning to read again. She'd been patient with him then, too.
"Where is it we'll be staying, Jack?" Ruth asked, finally dropping the game. She'd intertwined their arms as they walked and leaned just a bit more of her weight on him than she normally would. He didn't comment on it, but his rough hand curled over her forearm protectively.
"Well," he said, patting her arm in reassurance, "It ain't quite the Ritz."
An elegant blade tore into the carefully wrapped parcel on the table, ripping the twine and paper with hardly any pressure exerted by its wielder.
"I understand your point entirely, Matou-san, I assure you," the Devil said pleasantly, gesturing lightly with her dagger as she spoke. "But unfortunately, it would only work in theory."
Zeniko watched as the Tohsaka woman gutted her package, abandoning the wooden crate it had come in to a cluttered corner of the basement. She stood behind Tsuru Tohsaka, her narrowed eyes doing their best to burn a hole through her skull while the taller woman dug through layer after layer of protective packaging.
"If you understood my point, you'd share my opinion," Zeniko replied tersely, arms crossed. She was tapping her finger against the well-worn fabric of her suit impatiently.
Tsuru tutted at her (the gall) and easily cut through another layer of twine, lifting a yet smaller package from the matryoshka. "Your theory work is solid, I'll give you that," she admitted before looking back over her shoulder and her eyes as dark as the sea met Zeniko's frostiness. "But realistically, what do you think would happen if you tried that spell in practice?"
She didn't dignify Tohsaka with a response, instead choosing to meet her gaze unblinkingly. Zeniko's lip curled unpleasantly when she eventually averted her eyes from the other woman.
Tsuru Tohsaka was a real piece of work. And unfortunately for Zeniko, she was the piece of work Zolg- Zouken had deemed acceptable enough to accept an alliance offer with on his granddaughter's behalf.
"Ah, here we are," Tohsaka's tone shifted to something more pleased. When Zeniko's pale eyes turned back onto her, she was holding a large, strikingly red jewel up to the light in awe, turning it slowly to inspect its inclusions.
It was the size of her enclosed fist and the sharp lines of her command seal that stretched to her palm bled into the red jewel almost seamlessly. It glittered a deep, rich crimson beneath the lamplight of the Tohsaka basement.
"This," she said tremendously, turning around to show Zeniko more closely. Tsuru's usually placid face was alight as she watched the Matou woman for her reaction, "is how I'll win."
Zeniko didn't laugh. Instead, her pale eyes slid to study the gemstone impassively. It was most certainly a jewel, one she could clearly envision her peers squabbling over if only for its size and purity.
"Is it," was her bland response. Tohsaka's lips pursed curiously.
Tsuru rolled the thing around in her hand again, watching how the refracted red light played across Zeniko's flat face. "I can't say divinity suits you," Zeniko added, arching a thin eyebrow. "Doesn't this make you a heretic? To your holy church?"
Tohsaka hid a smile. "I'd hardly go that far."
She curled her palms around the thing like a dragon coiling around its hoard. "Why would it be heretical for a forgotten god to kneel as my servant in pursuit of something truly holy?"
It sounded like she'd rehearsed that line in anticipation of this very jab. Zeniko shook her head in distaste, hating the strange taste of defeat in her mouth at that. "Your hypocrisy never fails to amaze me."
"I'm a complicated woman," Tohsaka conceded, the edges of her mouth curling in a catlike way that made Zeniko nauseous. Her eyes flickered from the jewel, to Zeniko, then back to her catalyst before reverently placing it back in its box.
"What about your catalyst?" she asked, busying herself with tidying her worktable. Zeniko scoffed, giving her pause. Tsuru looked at her again, this time curious.
Zeniko raised her eyebrow again. "You can gloat all you want. I have no interest in telling you my plans."
Tsuru's piqued face turned rotten with a rancid, smug smile. "You don't have one, then."
"That's not what I said."
Tohsaka hummed. "I know. I can read between the lines."
She left Zeniko flabbergasted and went back to her work as if she hadn't said anything at all. Zeniko stepped around her, refusing to let her turn her back after such an outlandish accusation. Tsuru hadn't left the jewel alone for long, evidently only deeming that small corner worthy of being uncluttered. Or rather, less cluttered. Just looking at the mess raised Zeniko's blood pressure further.
"You don't think I have one."
"Mm," Tsuru hummed affirmatively, eye pressed close to an optic. She'd held the jewel against the lantern's gaslight, inspecting... whatever it was jewel brokers inspected in their crystals. Zeniko had no interest in any of Tohsaka's business, and even less in the woman herself.
She still had that catlike smirk on her face, though. It made Zeniko entertain the thought of driving the ridiculous lens through her eye socket. Several somethings under her skin were excited by the thought and writhed their agreement to the idea where they lay deep in her body.
"I'll tell you this much. My catalyst isn't nearly as dire to have as yours since I'm not foolish enough to think I can control a god," Zeniko snapped, palm slapped to the uncluttered portion of the workbench to punctuate her point. The dull thud resounded in the small room. Her cheeks itched with larva.
Tohsaka reacted to the sound at least, drawing away from her optic and staring at Zeniko with an unreadable expression. All of her expressions were unreadable, really; Tsuru's motives were difficult to pin down even when they weren't discussing the war, and even more obscured when they were.
"Thank you for the advice," she said cryptically and Zeniko bristled even more.
"I'm not advising you," she corrected in a low, scathing voice. "I'm calling you a fool. If you can't control your servant, you're putting my victory in jeopardy."
She was close enough to see the dusting of freckles across the elegant bridge of Tohsaka's nose and watched her nostrils flare just a little at her words. Her eyes, a blue dark enough to be mistaken for black, looked on at Zeniko with an uncomfortable focus. Matou didn't look away. She would not be cowed by this woman.
Tsuru set the optic down and mirrored Zeniko, leaning her weight on the table. Their hands were only inches apart and Zeniko itched to slap her away. She leaned down, closer to Zeniko's stature. "If I lose control of my servant, it won't be before another master dies," she finally said. "Do I need to explain the Makiri's contribution to the ritual to you?"
It was such low-hanging fruit. Too low. Zeniko's snarled expression deepened, carving unpleasant lines into her face.
To anyone else, Tohsaka wasn't acting suspicious. But Zeniko had the unfortunate experience of three years closely working together in anticipation of the coming weeks. Tsuru's words were just a little more clipped than her usual gloating, her face just a bit more closed off.
Her mind raced with the possibilities before a simple solution revealed itself before her. It was laughably simple.
"You plan to take a second servant," Zeniko breathed incredulously, a dawning smile wrenching itself upon her mouth and crawling across her cheeks. "You'd order a god to commit suicide the second he doesn't suit you?" She barked an uncharacteristic laugh, taking a half-step back.
The corners of Tohsaka's mouth tensed. There was her arrogance again, she was happy Zeniko was speaking her plans aloud. That she wasn't the one to say it. "So long as we kill another master first, the divine spirit problem can be easily solved with these." Even though she was talking about herself, her left hand inched forward to trace the outline of one of the circles emblazoned on Zeniko's hand.
Zeniko drew her arm back like she'd been touched by hot iron.
“It’s not a bad strategy.” She wouldn’t lie and say it was a bad idea. The Makiri curse gifted to any master was something all servants were privy to, god or no. And Tohsaka was relying on it as a trump card.
“We’ll meet after summoning. I hope your god kills you when he weighs your heart.” It was said brusquely, with little more weight than if she’d told her she was ugly.
Tohsaka just smiled. It should’ve been neutral, but it looked sickeningly sweet on her face. Like rotten meat. Zeniko’s stomach crawled, and so did the larvae beneath her flesh. “And your summoning will go the same.”
In spite of the recent construction of the Matou house, the basement air was dank.
It was sturdy, lovely construction, Zeniko had to say. Her grandfather was much more of an architect than she was; his work here far surpassed the rather utilitarian worm pits she had in London in terms of artistry. The stairs arced around the centerpiece, spiraling downward to the landing closest to the leyline.
An unshapen outline of near solid filth lie in the center of the circle Zeniko had drawn in her crest worms’ glowing innards, all peat moss and mud sprinkling off what could loosely be described as a human body.
It had been given a royal burial, possibly a warrior. The amateur resurrectionist she’d bought the bog body off of didn’t know more than that, and she’d only had so much time before the Mage’s Association put two and two together about Basil’s death. A department head can only disappear for so long before they suspect the cold, unfeeling widow who never could muster even the appearance of care for the man.
Zeniko came to a stop at the head of the circle and looked to her grandfather. His mouth twitched into a frown, but after a moment, nodded.
She took a deep breath, letting the air freeze in her mouth as she exhaled and her poor, pathetic little circuits engaged at her will. "Fill."
It was painful, of course, but that never stopped Zeniko. Her back was ramrod straight, her chin held high. She was born for this.
"Fill."
Zouken's face was impassive as ever while he oversaw her ritual, both of them illuminated only by the glowing insect innards used to draw the circle. There were to be no alterations to the ritual; Berserker was far too risky to chance on, and it was more likely than not the Einzberns had already summoned it given their proclivity.
The only unplanned aspect of the summoning ritual was peeping maroon eyes over the ledge of the basement stairs. Vasilisa's eavesdropping technique could use work, but far be it for Zouken to discourage her.
Zeniko was far from an ideal candidate and they both knew it. It wouldn't hurt to allow her daughter to witness the scene, if only to commit to memory for the next attempt.
Elsewhere, a circle drawn in Ruth's gratuitous supply of quicksilver ignited with pale light.
"–Your origin shall be silver and iron on a stone foundation." Jack wasn't unsure of himself, but clumsily stumbled through his incantation. It wasn't like he hadn't read the spell written hastily on pulpy paper, he just... still, after everything miraculous that had happened to them, Jack couldn't quite believe it was real.
When he'd been a boy back in Pennsylvania, he'd seen doctors perform magic to put desecrated miners back together again. They'd stitched and bled and incised the good men of the mountains; all normal doctoral practice.
He'd seen his father, nearly torn in half by a collapsed shaft, on the neighborhood doctor's supper table. The doctor was a Dutchman, and spoke little that Jack had been able to understand. But his sleeves rolled up, his arms covered in blood up to the elbow, he worked to save his father's life.
Jack, not yet ten, had been there when it happened. He'd heard the canary fall silent, but had insisted to his father to bring their load back with them rather than face reprimanding from the foreman. Jack senior paid the price for his son's adherence.
The good doctor worked for hours. He'd answered the door, bleary eyed, but his gaze had sharpened when he understood there was a sobbing little boy with a bloody grown man slung across his shoulders on his doorstep. He got to work quickly.
With one hand, he sawed a horrible cacophony through Mr. Goodsprings' ulna while Jack held the limb firm; with the other, his hand pressed to the gaping hole where what remained of his liver sat and a soft glow radiated from the carnage. He'd been muttering under his breath, too fast to pick out anything he said other than something foreign. Jack watched his father's liver regrow in a matter of moments, watched the torn remains of his internal organs become whole again.
The doctor wasn't who'd taught him this ritual, but he was the first to prove to Jack that powwow, witchcraft, or whatever they called it was possible.
Just because it was possible, doesn't mean Jack was comfortable with it. He stood awkwardly at the head of the circle, arms restless at his sides. The marks on his right hand itched uncomfortably.
Where Jack was unsure, unfamiliar, with magecraft, Benoit was not.
In the depths of another mine, one even more impossibly distant than the one Jack's father had nearly lost his life in, he stood confident in his perfection, every part the image of an ideal master.
The mine was deep enough that he stood comfortably in only his suit, the bitter cold of the wasteland above a distant memory this far down. Magical energy practically oozed from the sculpted walls; the Einzbern catalyst perfectly in line with a powerful leyline.
His baritone was steady with the importance of his summoning. He would not rush this. "My great ancestor, Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern, the wall to block the prevailing wind."
She was a part of him, of course. Benoit and every other homunculus created by the Einzberns had a fragment of her tucked neatly within him. His heart thrummed with pride, purpose.
And within the circle, the Throne.
Cold.
She was so cold, when did that happen? Her skin prickled, and since when does she have skin to prickle anyway?
As she became more aware, the more she knew something wasn't right.
Her heart was already afraid upon waking from its slumber, ice plunging through her veins. None of which she had been aware she still possessed.
She could sense something around her, something still loose and inquisitive but binding nonetheless. Curious grasping tendrils encircled her – whatever of her there even was – without touch.
She was petrified. Until the tendrils moved on and even more terror seized her.
No.
Come back.
Blindly and fumbling, she reached toward the reaching tendrils without grace. It had moved past her, moved on to search for something else. Someone else. Please. Don't leave, anything but that. Outstretched fingers curled around the spiraling strands and contact left her electric and more awake than she's been in... months? Years? Centuries?
She didn't scream. She didn't have vocal folds yet for that, but the jolt that rocked through her was the epitome of winter; all at once, she was aware.
She touched that tendril, unseen save for the shape of what it wasn't, and became acutely awake. She saw glimpses of everything she's ever dreamed of, glimpses of everything she'd been afraid of, and glimpses of cold blue eyes in the mirror that she knew.
She screamed around her forming larynx, a choked and strangled sound. The tendrils had reacted to her touch, instead wrapping around her like a spider preparing a stupid damselfly foolish enough to get caught in its web. Too late she started to fight against it, the fear of being awake and alone abandoned for the terror of fighting for her movements to truly be her own against the pull of the tendrils.
New skin burned like iron to inhuman flesh where they touched her, tying and binding her all while those terrible eyes seemed to penetrate her very soul. What a terrible miscalculation, she imagined Morgan tittering. What a terrible fate you've found yourself in again.
She thrashed. It would do nothing, but she thrashed nonetheless. She wouldn't have fought if she could have freed herself. She was so, so terribly cold.
And then she wasn't.
She was on her knees, knelt on hard stone in a dimly lit enclosed room. The chill had left her, now spreading in intricate frost patterns on the stone beneath her fingertips. Her hands were the deep, snarled black of rot and decay. They were ugly. Her stomach seized at the thought.
She vomited on the spot, fingers digging for purchase she wouldn't find in featureless stone. She vomited until she was out of even bile, though what came up was detritus and not real vomit. After all, she wasn't a real person.
Her shoulders were shaking, spent already from expelling her filth. The puddle of silt and decomposition was proof enough, even if the knowledge of what she was and what was happening was being pieced together in her mind like beads on a necklace.
Assassin looked up, her skull prickling with the knowledge she was being watched by someone suddenly and terribly important to her. The woman standing before her wore deep gray and she didn't need the mental connection forming between them to understand the disgust she felt for the woman and the sick before her. She met her master's eyes tentatively and dry heaved again, though there was nothing left to come up.
"Are you my servant?" the woman with Morgan's eyes asked, repulsed by her.
Her voice was low and guttural for a woman. Not like herself, not like Morgan. But the derision in her voice was easily that of generations of those who look down on others; this woman was clearly a noble of some sort. Even worse.
Shame washed over the guilt already eating her alive. "Assassin," she choked out. Her fingers dug painfully into stone. She wondered where the softly pulsing green light was coming from in the room she'd been summoned in as her jaw trembled. "Guinevere. I have no sword to be called yours, but use this fool who has toppled kingdoms as you must."
Her master's already downturned mouth puckered unpleasantly. Assassin didn't dare stand from the floor, pinned in place by her agonizing stare. "Guinevere," she echoed flatly. Displeased.
She wished she was dead again. “Yes, master.”
The woman exchanged a look of contempt with a similar looking, much taller man at her side. Her brother, perhaps. “Explain how a queen only famous for lying around will help me win the holy grail,” she said coldly and Assassin choked on a lack of bile.
“I can’t do anything,” Assassin replied, hollow. “But the people around me will destroy themselves no matter what.”
Her master’s lip curled and she noticed a mole above it. Outside of her eyes, she really looked nothing like Morgan.
She wasn’t a tall woman by any means and her gray suit hung off of her, ill fitting for her small frame. Her hair was a wavy, deep blue bound in two thick braids over her shoulders, and her haughty arching eyebrows matched, though they and her eyes were partially hidden by large round glasses.
“And how do they do that?”
This was worse than hell.
“I drive them to madness,” she responded mechanically. This was her punishment, and she was grappling with what that meant.
“My Noble Phantasm. It’s a miasma of the mind. Everyone around me fights for me or because of me, and they die. And I’m left.”
Her master exchanged another look with her brother. “Dissipate into your spirit form for now, Assassin,” she said in lieu of any reaction at all. “We’ll discuss how freely you share information about yourself elsewhere.”
She could only oblige.
Oh, this wouldn't do.
Caster stood amidst devastation, hands pocketed as he took in his surroundings.
It was once a workshop, at the very least. It was shaped like a long military bunker, with himself situated at the very butt end. Despite his distance from the end, it was totally trashed. Workbenches, tables, furniture, and both alchemical and mundane lab equipment were all flung away from the very spot Caster stood by what had apparently been quite the dramatic blast.
As he stepped out of the circle to inspect the mess, it became obvious that coils and beakers weren't the only thing destroyed by his entrance.
"Aw crap," Caster muttered to himself, staring at the crumpled remains of what had been his master. Outside of the summoning circle he'd manifested within was a second line about 10.439 meters down the narrow workshop.
He'd at least gotten the blast radius right... if he'd drawn the circle outside a closed environment.
Caster tutted his tongue sympathetically and did his best to close what was left of his eyelids, but it didn't really work. "Poor bastard..."
It's not like he knew the guy. Shame he died so gruesomely, if he was smart enough to know what he was summoning. The fact he'd calculated a hypothetical so closely and failed for such a small oversight was enough to get Caster's sympathy.
Now he had to go through the trouble of finding a new master. Moving on quickly, Caster took a moment to admire the reinforcement spell placed on the workshop bunker. It really was such a pity.
Trotting up stairs from where his master has entombed himself, Caster rubbed the fingers he'd used on his pants. There was another door at the top leading out, he ducked to open it and came face to face with a child.
Reeling back from being practically face to face with an equally started kid, he let the cellar doors swing open fully. They crashed to the ground, sounding far louder than they should for the awkward silence that stretched between Caster and the kid he hadn't noticed thanks to his Servant strength, who'd apparently been sitting on the doors.
Still, he could tell the kid was a mage. And if there's a child mage, that means...
"Do you have parents?" Caster blurted before coming to his senses and straightening himself up to look less like a crazy lost white moleman in what the Throne had swiftly provided was not typical for this area.
The kid's brow furrowed at the crazy lost white moleman emerging from her basement.
"My dad," she said, pointing down the way he came and his heart broke a little.
"No mom?" he asked, heart sunken. She shook her head.
Crap. Well, he had two options. Take the child to a town somewhere, because there was no way a man like his master had apparently been would have a workshop anywhere near civilization. Find a willing family to take her, find a master, and find the war? It was the moral option.
"I heard a boom," the kid said, the worry he'd interrupted set back on her face. "What was that?"
"An experiment," Caster answered honestly. "I got out okay, but your dad's gotta stay down there for a while."
He was such a dick.
"How long?" she asked, and Caster realized how young she was. He'd orphaned a kid barely old enough to start her schooling.
His mind raced. If his master were as present in his kid's life enough for her to know where he was and wait for him to come up, the kid would also know what's coming up.
"Did you two have plans soon?" he asked in a much more age appropriate manner.
Her lip trembled. "He said we were leaving for Japan tomorrow with one of his..." her voice trailed off and she looked at him with sudden recognition. "One of his new friends."
That's basically an heir if he ever heard of one, right?
"Alright, little miss." From the step Caster was on, he was basically at her eye level. "I know what to do, you don't have anything to worry about. What's your name?"
The girl raised her gaze a little to meet his covered eyes, her lip trembling. "Rosa."
"Alright Rosa," he said with a reassuring smile, "We're going to play pretend for a few weeks, okay? Does that sound fun?"
Rosa said, "I'm going to find dad," and Caster let her. He stepped aside, because he wouldn’t hide the truth from her and you can't warn a child that young for bones broken to shards and insides turned out. You can't warn anyone, he told himself when a primal, guttural scream echoed up from below.
After two hours, fourteen seconds, 54 milliseconds, Caster descended back down the cellar steps.
Rosa's sobs had quieted by that point, but she could only shake and hold her father's broken remains. Caster knelt by her side and put a reassuring hand on her tiny shoulder.
"Little miss, we have to go," with more urgency that he'd really need if the kid was old enough to get nuance. "We still have to go to Japan. And if we do that, we're going to have to play that pretend game."
Then, his voice softened just enough for himself to really notice. If this guy had called the servant he was summoning his friend, even knowing just what he was summoning, he really was a good man. "As your dad's friend, I want to carry out his wishes."
Even not having met the guy, if the components of the experiments he'd destroyed upon summoning were any indication, he had a pretty solid guess as to what that wish was.
She stared up at the dark lenses covering his eyes, trying to see behind them. Rosa slowly pulled away from her father's corpse, instead wrapping her shaking shoulders in shaking arms.
"What kind of pretend game?" she made out.
"I can do something special," he said conspiratorially, and she perked up a minute amount at that. "But it's a secret. Can you keep secrets?"
Rosa nodded, and he whispered in her ear. Her brow furrowed, but she nodded. "I don't know what that is," she said uncertainly, "But if you think it'll be fun, I don't mind. Dad said you two were working on something like that together." Tears welled in her eyes again.
Caster clapped her shoulder. "Perfect!" he exclaimed, smiling broadly. "All you have to do is call me Master, and you can be Caster instead! I don't have a name anyway, so I don't mind you taking it from me."
"You don't have a name?" Rosa looked oddly stricken by this, and her wobbling lip threatened another wave of crying.
Biting his lip, Caster threw in the towel. He'd be straight with the kid, she toughed out seeing her father dead in the worst way and was brave enough to feel sympathy for a nameless being. He'd respect her the way he'd have respected his other master. "Alright, I do have a name, but you can only call me it in private, okay?"
Wordlessly, Rosa offered a pinky to him. In this time period, Caster really was limitless - he understood the non-sorcery ritual she was offering him without help from the Throne. He lifted his pinky in return and the unbreakable pinky promise was made.
"You can call me Mr. Maxwell," he decided.