Thanqol

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Hmm?" said Lancer. "Oh, sorry... I was just reading about a historical nation called "Nippon". Did you know their "Samurai" had blades called "Katana" that were folded over 10,000 times and could cut through the armour of modern main battle tanks?"

What had she placed her trust in? Perhaps it simply been herself - which was a frightening prospect. Everyone hedges, worries, calculates contingencies and backups - and in that split attention they create weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Every so often someone arose who did not have any of that hesitation, and they were the greatest and most terrible rulers all throughout history.

Perhaps, though, it was her books. That might somehow be scarier.

"I..." gasped Aeglesia, still touching her chin where Saber had held it. "I think that's a myth?"
"Nonsense, it's cited by numerous historians," said Lancer. "Now, the Varangian is right about the axe and the shield. Will you listen to her?"
Aeglesia fidgeted, looking down and holding the edge of her shield tighter.
"What about a "Wazikashi"? I read that those also pair well as an off-hand weapon." said Lancer.
"I want to fight as a Roman!" Aeglesia blurted out, staring at the ground and blushing.
"Hmm," said Lancer. She glanced again at the samurai illustration in her book, then sighed. "All right, we don't have time to fully retrain you anyway. But if you want to fight as a Roman you'll need sisters in the line; you have an implement for formation fighting and the formation will be essential. Varangian, we will both bear shields identical to hers, and we will cover our faces with helmets identical to hers. Though the rules prevent us from intervening directly, if the enemy pri - royal is confused and strikes at us by accident then we can get away with some aggressive self-defense."
"Really?" said Aeglesia, eyes sparkling. "You'll be handmaidens for me??"
"I think the term "Kosho" is more appropriate," said Lancer. "But anyway, no, we cannot demand the field of battle. It is part of the system here that Princesses -" she froze and looked at Aeglesia, who stared at her blankly. "- do not battle decisively unless stakes have been selected. So we must kidnap one of the enemy royal's "Kashin" in order to draw her out. You will handle this, I will prepare the field of battle."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Alright!" said Aeglesia, taking a deep breath. "Here I go!"

This was not an age that had forgotten its swordsmanship.

Aeglesia had been studying the blade since she was a child - most people do to some extent, it's part of gym class. If you're particularly into it then you can take various elective classes with your local blademaster - maybe the local Queen runs a course, or there's a Handmaiden passing through town who'll teach advanced techniques. Many kids study the blade to some degree or other, but to stick with it as long as Aeglesia has and taking the princess title... well, for all her nerves about being in a genuine war of spirits, she's also a regional bronze medalist in dueling.

That is to say that her bladework is good. She knows how to stand and how to move, she understands reach and distance, and she's even not entirely surprised by fighting someone whose size is unpredictable. Dueling is a mixed martial art where shapeshifting, magic and various unique heart weapons are all permitted so she's got an eye for tricks and is quick on the uptake. Even the fact that she's evidently not trying to kill doesn't seem to hold her back at all; the level of control she has over that in particular seems unreal.

So, a solid foundation. A perfectly respectable warrior. But it's definitely not enough.

The first reason she'll lose is because she's not a Servant - simple differences in experience, composition and raw power means that she's just not on the same playing field. The second reason she'll lose is because you're not wearing a shirt (isn't she cold? oh. oh yeah, okay, she is). The third reason she'll lose is an array of minor flaws, mostly coming from overthinking things and trying to come up with clever plays in situations when solid fundamentals would do her better...

But the main reason she's going to lose is the shield. It's a stupid weapon, a heavy Roman style tower shield made for formation fighting, and sized too large for her. She's out on a limb with it, too - it's clear that her swordfighting classes didn't involve the use of the shield, and what moves and techniques she does have are ones she came up with herself. But at the same time it's clear that this is where her heart is. She's inscribed the exterior of the shield with runes of health; an opponent who strikes them heedlessly will break them, invisibly weakening themselves until they're too sick to fight. That's a cunning move and you get the feeling there are a lot more ideas like that banked up inside her.

So the shield is at once her biggest limitation and the source of all her potential. Without it she's a solid 6/10 swordswoman and isn't likely to be any more than that. With it, she might flourish into a legitimate combatant - eventually.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"The Gods of Rome are not dead," said Lancer. "Distant, perhaps. They were so in my time - withdrawn to the stars and planets, waiting for us to rediscover the rituals that might summon them. But instead I have found here a kingdom of Epicurians who do not even attempt to win their favour - though neither, I suppose, do they anger them. A curious bargain for the world to have made."

She snaps her book closed and turns it over in her hands; the colour shifts to a deep and warlike red, expanding three times in size. She opens it and places it on the stump of a fallen tree, revealing a page of maps. "There are two sources of mana I can identify on the board, both controlled by our foes. The first is a Sunshard, the catalyst for this ritual. The second is the temple shrine that even now will be fortified by Archer and, I expect, Berserker. However, my Master presents a unique opportunity for us to acquire a third. As a Princess -"
"A princess," corrected Aeglesia.
"That's what I said," said Lancer, irritated. "A Princess -"
"I'm not a Princess," insisted the centurion girl. "I'm only a princess."
"Please," said Lancer, touching her head. "What?"
"If I was a Princess we wouldn't even need the plan, we'd have already succeeded," said Aeglesia.
"Am I having a stroke?" said Lancer.
"It's very simple!" said Aeglesia. "I'm a princess, which lets me fight Princesses, and if I win I'll get to become a Princess and they'll be demoted to princess. And when I'm a Princess I'll have all the mana we need!"
"... Perhaps you are right, varangian," said Lancer. "Perhaps the Gods are dead."
"Anyway, the only one nearby is Princess Jezara," said Aeglesia. "I mean, Princess Qiu is also nearby, but she's the strongest and I don't think we could fight her. But with your help we can probably beat Jezera!"
"The nature of this conflict means we will only win the prize without friction if the victory clearly belongs to my Master and not either of us," said Lancer. "Our roles in this battle will be to lend her all the indirect support we can manage - sharing our arsenals, disorienting and goading the enemy, manipulating wind and weather. Success will secure our strength for the remainder of the campaign."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

Blurring of the light. The touch of water to burned lips. Still relevant, despite everything.

"Love and hate," said the Uncrowned King. "The Gods love and they hate. They hate and they love. They build terrors so they can raise us above them. They raise us above so they can smite us for our hubris. Is this the secret of the galaxy? Perhaps I understand now. We thought what happened to us was a curse. Perhaps it still was, but not for us."

Four assistants came forwards and built a tent over you; a thin layer of fabric, but it took the edge off. A mercy.

"Thank you for your insight, Praetor," said the Uncrowned King as warships began to lift from desert bunkers behind him. "It is clear. The Gods had a purpose for you. In following it, you paid the price of suffering. In following it, you came far and were raised high. The suffering is the point. There can be no greatness without it. My people will remember this lesson during the trials ahead."

Ember!

"Once, there were sunsets on Capitas," said the Star King.

"There aren't now. They've engineered them out; multiple suns have been put in place and networks of star amplification light and wavelength diffusion have made it so the stars can be seen even at the daytime. The colours of sunset have been spread out and deployed aesthetically for maximum effect. But once the Azura capital was a normal planet, rotating a star. There were beginnings and ends to every day and every season. And of all these days, one of them had to be the final one. When the Grav-anchors, orbital Megaliths, and Reality Edicts were due to come online there was one final sunset and one final night to wait. There was anticipation. There was joy. There were not celebrations of this final death before immortality. And for failing to mourn this final death of day, Hades cursed the first city on Capitas to behold the ever-day. The earth opened up, the citizens transformed into crystal statues, and one of the great cities of the Azura was petrified in violet amber. And so it remained -

"- until we came.

"When the Star Kings invaded Capitas, my ancestor Kohil the Bright fought on the streets of the frozen city. She climbed the Waterfall Throne and prised these gems from the unweeping eyes of the Azura Vizier who sat there. These she reforged into weapons of regrets that would consume the destroyed in nightmare contradictions of lost chances. She wielded them until her own regrets caused her to banish herself into a world born from them. I took them from her void because I alone amidst my pack had never made a mistake and so had nothing to look back upon, and I still have not."

The pattern, the story, it's war cant and affirmation - as much braggado as it is the very nature and secret that lets her wield such a terrible esoteric. Goaded into speaking it she is also goaded into coming into the open, crystal weapons held high, ready to finish this in glory to the Gods.

Dyssia!

The Generous Knight dies. And dies, and dies, and dies, and dies.

And howls with laughter all the while.

The ship shudders and writhes. Spectacular explosions of blossoming branches erupt up through the floor. Acorns fall like rain, hatching into flightless birds with vicious spurs. Each drop of blood transforms into a wasp and together they swarm in vast clouds. The Generous Knight is the world, and the world is a monster.

"Die?" she half-barks through a wolf's jaws. "Die, I? Oh, you do not understand, child." She raises a twisted bird talon and tears off the mutated part of her face. She takes a moment to calm herself, and then continues in a voice ragged and wet "The Gods love me," she said. "The Gods love the Skies as much as they hate us. They can't help themselves. They torture us and they exalt us. They kill us and they make us..." tens of thousands of butterflies swirl behind her in the shape of wings. "Immortal. Enforcing beauty is insanity? Does this galaxy look sane to you!?"

She ripped open her dress. No longer perfect blue scales, but a monstrous, chimeric combination of every animal and monster. In this deathless galaxy, she dies not by the power of Demeter.

"We believed in the false lights of science once!" screamed the Generous Knight as enormous insectoid limbs ripped themselves out of the hull of her starship and began crushing Portuguese ships in their talons. "But we are wiser now!" colossal muscular legs shattered her Warsphere, smashing it from the inside like an egg. "We thought that we were being punished!" a twisted, nightmarish head ripped its way up out of the last fragment of clean, white armour. "But we are the punishment! The Endless Azure Skies is the instrument the Gods use to end corrupt civilizations!"

The Generous Beast looms above the tattered remnants of the Portuguese fleet. It was never worth learning their names. They were always going to end like this, torn apart by the greatest surviving monster of the Age of Knights. The Eater of Worlds and the other horrifying warbeasts of the Tides trace their lineage back here, to this prototype pilot in her newly enhanced mech suit.

"And the Skies," she rasped, this bloody avatar of an interstellar titan monster, abomination against everything she held dear, "will be our reward."

Dolce!

"Oh yeah, for sure," said Hestia, taking a bite of ice cream. "It fuckin' sucks here, I don't know what to tell you."

*

The light begins to fade from the Cancellation, the dying days of Summer. As the heat fades and the noise quiets the Biomancers come out. Ones and twos, groups and legions, flocked in their white coats. They perform tests and take measurements of the Summerkind eggs, they direct drones to clear graffiti and dismantle monuments, they talk in the low, soft voices of scholars and work with the steady diligence of engineers. They're all so inoffensive in speech and shape, all so invisible in their obsequient lack of personality. There's no friction within them. Their whole ideology is to make the galaxy run as smoothly as possible, and that starts at home.

Except. For one.

The sharp voice rings out like a bell in a ship of quiet consensus. The grumbling stands out like the ringing of a bell, the splash of yellow like a black sheep's wool. It's a matter of degrees - he's still quiet compared to what he used to be, more conforming than you ever imagined him, but some part of the Ancient Craftsman - of Iskarot - of a friend you knew in another life was always touched by the contentious energy of Ares.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Lancer held up her hand - wait! She was, after all, changing.

Shining light burned away her armour and panoply. In its place she adopted modern civilian clothes - a soft violet vest over a crumpled white shirt with rolled up sleeves and a partially undone forest green necktie. A laurel wreath sat atop hair that artisans might have worked for hours to get so casually messy; a tangled bun pierced through with multiple hairpins. Green-edged half-rimmed glasses took the glare off the dark circles beneath her eyes and an old and heavy book appeared in her hand. The combined look came together to imply that she was a librarian and a scholar, but with an implicit Imperial destiny - like the 'nerdy' girl who only needs to take off her glasses and let down her hair in order to become a heartstopper.

"I have no interest in your death, Northerner," said Lancer, snapping open the book and reading from it as she spoke. "But I read that your people became loyal friends to Rome. That is all the recommendation I need."

She snapped the book closed and looked up, green eyes burning bright. "This world sought to crush us. Four Servants in alliance sought our deaths as their opening gambit. I say they did not bring enough! So I offer you an alliance: swear by the Old Gods to fight as my Varangian and I will exalt you and yours above all others."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

It took a certain kind of willpower to get up in the morning knowing that your entire day was going to be cringe.

Out of bed. Jumping jacks! Hi-ha! Hi-ha! Put the lungs into it, work those muscles! Do it in front of the mirror! Your body might not be anything like what those old superstars looked like, but - say it out loud now! This is what peak performance looks like! Nobody ever got anywhere with shame or self awareness!

Shower. Wardrobe! Put the fuckin' laurel wreath on the head Aeglesia! You have an entire wardrobe full of identically coloured and shaped black pants, black turtlenecks and black hoodies that practically guarantee that nobody will ever look at you. But you don't want that! Today they're going to look! A real Princess would have servants for this. They'd be able to glide out of bed on a waterfall of rosepetals and have their hair woven into perfection by flocks of hummingbirds. They wouldn't have to spend thirty minutes buckling up their armour, checking their gear, making sure their hair was bouncy but not frazzy. They wouldn't fumble when they hefted their giant stupid heavy tower shield that's too big for you but you got the wrong size and it took all your savings and you're stuck with it now - but they didn't use shields anyway! Despite how tactically cool and what an incredible canvas for showing off your heraldry a shield was! Many advantages! And if she ever found herself with friends then they could learn cool shieldwall techniques together! Many advantages!!

She used her spare hand to slap her cheeks. That's it! You're not nobody any more Aeglesia! You're not boring old Meng Yao any more! Nobody's going to ask you about your capsicums. They're going to ask you to slay the Swamp Giant - and you're going to tell them that you're not going to have time today because you'll be saving the world from a world-threatening threat! But you'll be back for the Swamp Giant later! With a Legion at her back, a Sunshard in her baggage, and a properly sized shie - no, she'd just master this one! The fact that it was too big was a cool and quirky advantage, and once she had more magic then she'd figure out how to use it to send energy waves or absorb energy waves or - or something!

All she had to do was prove that in this historical battle royale, Rome would crush every other civilization's champions. Easy! The only thing that could stop Rome was giving up on being Rome - and she would never make that mistake.

*

"I understand the scholarly consensus has turned on Gibbon," said Lancer, looking at the burning star in the sky. "And that Christianity, in retrospect can't be really blamed for the destruction of Rome."

She didn't say anything further. Lancer believed in Marcus Aurelius' Stoicism. Controlling her emotions, speaking only wisdom, embodying virtue in her person and her deeds. It would lessen her to say what her irrational emotions said when she looked up at Bohemond with his holy spear, that she felt like she should absolutely blame this shit in general and this guy in specific for the end of the Roman Empire.

"Even if Christianity wasn't to blame, the Crusades certainly did not help," suggested Aeglesia.
"No, no," Lancer waved her off halfheartedly. "They were there to help. An Imperial electorial crisis was hardly unprecedented. The structural problems ran far deeper and that was just the final kick to the whole rotten edifice."
She trailed off, duty to Rationality complete and unable to bring herself to stall further.
"All right," Aeglesia said, gripping her hands on her shield in determination. She had to get this right! "Looking at it rationally! Bohemond is merely a land-hungry invader wrapping himself in the cloak of righteousness in order to get political support!"
"Well put," said Lancer laconically. "Let's go further. That spear he wields - what is it?"
"D-didn't he say that was the Lance of Longinus?" said Aeglesia uncertainly.
"He would say that, yes," said Lancer. "But I am the cosmically ordained spear specialist here, and I can tell you that when you look past the flashy lights, that is just a standard issue Roman pilum. Likely cast in one of the Capua manufactories in batches of a thousand. Even if," here she slowed down, once again her duty to Reason preventing her from emotively dismissing something she lacked evidence to dismiss outright, "this somehow is indeed the spear that pierced Christ, why should that grant it any supernatural abilities at all? Christ was not a violent man, and Longinus was allegedly cursed for his crime and not granted a weapon of awesome destruction as a reward. One would imagine if he had something like this he might have fended off that eagle - I mean lion - that came to eat his liver every night."
"So... it's a fake?" said Aeglesia.
"Worse than a fake," said Lancer. "It is fanfiction. Give me a real spear."

Aeglesia put a pilum in Lancer's hand. In every way it was the mirror of Bohemond's holy relic, but as a leaden thing of military utility without even a glimmer of divinity to it. Lancer hefted it up to his shoulder in a professional, Olympic pose, judged the distance and air, took her time...

And threw it right through Bohemond's chest.

It punched through his holy armour and crusader tabard. The golden spear fell from the Angel's hand and dissolved into light. He reached up to clutch the javelin, wings folding on himself, and he fell like a struck swallow from the sky. Only near the ground was he able to recover enough strength to avert a fatal collision and bring himself up into a limping retreat back towards his newly conquered shrine.

"Great throw!" cried Aeglesia, trying to clap against the hand that was wrapped up in the shield - before instead figuring out and then banging against the shield instead. Many advantages! That was a military clap!
"Every legionnaire is trained in the javelin," said Lancer modestly. "Now, let's go and see if we have finally found someone on this new green earth who is not hip deep in fox schemes."

Breathless Dead

Bella!

The Uncrowned King nods in failed understanding. He moves so that the sun is behind him, casting its shadow as a bitter mercy on Bella. But he is not a solid object. He is a swarm of locusts in the shape of a person, and as they shift and flick about tiny chinks of light shine through him and they sear like daggers.

"I have sent someone for water," he said. "But we have no need for it, so it is all deep underground. Please, understand we wish you no ill will. We only wish to understand. We have been awaiting your coming for a long time and there has been such work to prepare ourselves for it. Pray, tell us what you can. We will listen."

Ember!

[Damaging First Of The Pack; remaining stat is Esoteric Fires]

The Alpha takes the blows with surprise; it has been some time since she has fought a peer, and she has never before faced someone like you. In her surprise her true instincts are revealed - she does not fight with pawns, does not fight with words. She fights with high intensity energy weapons.

She leaps into the air and snatches one of the cables that link to the Reactor of the Star Kings. She plugs it into the base of a pistol and lands in a firing crouch. Shot, shot - advance and wheel. It is a battle of light and ribbon, the strengths and limitations of a Plover in the body of a woman. First she dances to keep the ribbon cable away from where you might sever it, and then she cracks it like a whip dumping charge from her pistol back into the cable making it burst with crackling electrical energy.

It is a fearsome approach, but she has no other; her attention is so split with her dreams of conquest she has only had the time to properly develop a single art of war.

Dyssia!

"Well, yes. Obviously," said the Generous Knight, as the Skies burned around her. Ancient trees sickened and died, branches crashing to the earth. Fields of lavender wilted and sapphire blossoms fell like rain. "Either objective beauty exists, or it does not. Either truth exists, or it does not. And for those of us with soul enough to recognize truth and beauty when we see it, what morality could justify letting these other creatures squat in hideous squalor? Should we laud them for their ugly drawings like children, telling them there is no need to improve or better themselves because they are perfect just the way they are? Should we hand off the galaxy to species whose highest ambitions are to transform themselves into talking skeletons or piles of paperclips? Is the natural end of sentient life to upload ourselves into computers or ascend to pure energy?"

This, then, was the Endless Azure Skies at its most pure.

"No. They are wrong. We are right. To pretend otherwise would be an act of cowardice. We believe in our perfected flesh. We believe in the beauty of Zeus' skies. We believe our culture has meaning, and everyone who died for it died for the greatest cause that ever was. If we doubted this then we would die as humanity died; splintered, isolated, mutated, pointless little gods."

Dolce!

"Oh goodness no," said Hestia. "The Azura hate this stuff almost as much as you do. To them this place is infrastructure - like plumbing. It's meant to be out of sight and out of mind, carrying away the shit so they don't have to look at it. The second they think this is more trouble than it's worth they'll have Liquid Bronze decommission himself and promote a new biomancer in his place."

Hestia sighed, turning her coffee cop over in her hands. "Ah. Shit. You know, I kind of miss it? Ever since they figured out entropic digestion there's been no biological waste products. Everything gets rendered down on an atomic level and exhaled as pure hydrogen. But there was something... special about taking a newspaper into a toilet in the morning and just being closed off from the world for a while. Probably more trouble than it was worth, but still."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Archer fell to one knee. At first he rubbed his jaw, wiped the blood from his eye, made to rise - but then he paused in remembrance, and offered a prayer, looking up at the sky as anointed blood touched the earth. Every wound was sacred in such a war. Every mark of battle brought one closer to the Lord and the Lord's resurrection.

"Forgive my ancestor, O King of Kings, for she does not understand of what she speaks."

Two blackened shadows rise to either side of the kneeling Servant.

"Like Thomas, she doubts the Resurrection. Believing only in death she shall not have eternal life. She who believes only in the spear..."

Two flashes of murderous darkness closed in on the kneeling crusader.

"... let her die by the spear."

The detonation of golden light tears through the forest. Trees are ripped up by their roots. Boulders are shattered into powder. The earth howls and lies flat. Nature's tempest is but a shadow compared to this, the weapon that spilled the blood of God. The Holy Spear rises bright above the ruins of the woods, and in its light there is no place for shadows and no place to hide. Saber's shadows are burned away to nothing.

"Ancestor, when you plundered the English churches you imagined yourself strong," he declared with a voice of thunder. "But they knew you to be weak. For though their mortal flesh would die, it is your immortal soul that would be destroyed. I, Bohemond of Antioch, wielder of the Lance of Longinus, holiest relic of Christendom, now bring you your long destined judgement."

Of Diaofei and the dragon there was but the sign of a bloodstain on the ground. The fox - Bohemond's master had the same idea as you, and with the apocalyptic energy filling the air there was no time to hunt her down.

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

Archer smirks when the blow comes. He leans into it. The raw iron valkyrie blade cuts into his master with a shuddering impact like chopping wood.

Not like - the fox glamour falls away, revealing that Archer had been hauling a wooden log on his back, disguised with an enchanted leaf. In the moment when Saber's blade catches in the wood he strikes like a serpent, cutting sword answering the false blow with a true one. If Saber had committed to the attack she would be dead.

"Vengeance is mine, sayth the Lord," said Archer as they part. There was an angelic devilry to his teasing smile. "So, no. After all, what will happen when you drink your fill of vengeance? Will you return to the North, hitch your plough and tend your family? I don't think so. If there's one thing the Southerners never understood about us it's that no matter how much they gave us it would never be enough."

He steps about, holding his blade indifferently. This is no master swordsman and no match for the Saber class - his proof is in his arsenal and in his cunning. To stand his ground like this means that he believes he can bring it to bear in full.

"This ends tonight, ancestor," said Archer. "So come, and become another detail in my glorious history."

Sunshards: Chaos Sequence

"Now," said Cyanis. "We go now."

Cyanis had always been a creature of instinct, and above every other instinct: hunger. Once the tunnel was complete and she was amongst the hens then came time for savagery. Every careful lie, every patient breath, every moment pretending to be a good girl came apart the moment that she caught the scent of blood. Beneath the coat of angel fur, fangs.

Archer was the same.

He folded his angel's wings and dived towards the earth.

*

The talents that make a good killer are not the talents that make for a good soldier.

An affinity for lurking in the shadows becomes cowardice before the battle howl. A short blade does not have the reach of a greatsword. Padded civilian clothes are no proof against weapons of war. The highwaymen die like dogs, and with each one the great abacus of coin, favours and mana clicks lower and lower.

"I only need one," murmured Assassin, signing the next letter and all the price it represented. "A king must be lucky every time."

Another wave - the shudder of crossbow bolts. Again Opalis is the target. She writhes free of Saber amid the battle and scrambles for cover. Interposing between her and the assassins is Diaofei, bleeding freely, whirling and striking quarrels out of the air. She is no mean warrior, but even devoted entirely to defense she cannot keep pace with the onslaught. Where she falls short she takes the bolts to her own body. A second bolt joins the first. Then a third. That is all she can take, and she falls.

*

"What are you doing!?" said Actia.
"Finishing what you started," said Assassin mildly, looking up from his desk.
"I left nothing unfinished," snarled the fox.
Assassin had enough experience with kings not to question that tone. He held up his hands.
"Everything has played out exactly according to my calculations," said Actia. "I have it under control, and I do not need you going behind my back -"
"I only desire to serve you, Master," said Assassin, standing up and bowing. "I will, of course, call off my men."

*

The killer stands above Diaofei. The knife is in his hand.

He raises it without hesitation and goes for the kill.

*

"That was uncalled for," said Assassin, sounding politely hurt.
"Was it?" snapped Actia. Two command seals burn on her wrist.
"A waste of resources," said Assassin. "I offered my obedience freely, there was no need to compel it. Regardless, my ability to influence events has come to a close - Archer will conclude things from here."

*

Diaofei pulls herself to her elbows. Three bolts. But the killing blow had not come. Saber must have reached her in time...

A valkyrie stands above a scene of slaughter. An angel of the raven god, sent to judge the worthy dead. She finds none here. They died without valour or skill and there is no place for cowards in Valhalla.

And then, a vision descends from the heavens. An angel of the lamb god, sent to judge the worthy dead. He finds plenty here. They died in service to the Lord, and there is no sin that a Crusade cannot wash away.

"Ho, honoured ancestor!" calls Archer, haloed in light. "It does my heart good to see our people were as fierce in your day as they were in mine!"