Beta read by Opal and FabledLife
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-???-
During his time living with Rin at the Clock Tower, being basically her assistant while also working freelance whenever he could and occasionally attending classes with her, even though it wasn't much of a help to him, plenty of experiences accumulated while living there.
One of them happened to be dealing with Phantasmal creatures. Phantasmal Species were those existences that deviate from their original form by the impact of factors alien to their ecology, those existences born from the thoughts of humans, and those existences that ascend to a higher order as a consequence of longevity.
Rin mentioned how they were classified into basically three different classes. Magical beasts, Phantasmal species, and Divine Beasts. And during his time as a freelancer working for the Clock Tower, there were moments when he was helping others deal with issues concerning those kinds of creatures. Though in most cases they were mad magical beasts rather than Divine Beasts or Phantasmal species, as most of such mythical creatures were long since gone or extinct from the face of the earth.
Technically, Rider's horse was a Divine Beast now that he thought about it.
Though aside from that, he was lucky enough to never encounter one in a dangerous scenario. And also never really bothered studying this particular subject too deeply in the past.
'I really regret that now. Just a few hours per day, and Luvia was even willing to get me a spot. Hah… no, I already owed her a lot back then; I can't just keep relying on her for every little thing.'
Furthermore, not once did his past self ever imagine that he would one day face such a creature.
"▅▅▅▅▄▅▅▅▅▂!!!!"
And it was chasing them.
As the roar of the dragon filled the air, the sound was powerful enough to make his lungs and organs rattle.
An actual dragon or just something that resembled one? Never had he faced a creature like this to make an accurate judgment. Dragons no longer existed on Earth and had gone back to the Reverse Side of the World. But that did not stop humans from knowing just how powerful they were, and Rin once mentioned the existence of a giant dragon carcass underneath the Clock Tower that was the source of all of the powerful, abundant magical energy in the air.
"Shirou," Lutecia called out with a slightly dry tone.
"Yes?"
"That looks like a flying serpent."
"Hopefully it is a flying serpent, but I don't think that a flying serpent should be able to roar that loudly and be that big." Unless it was a new type of creature found on this planet that bore a heavy resemblance.
"...And it's heading straight for us."
The timing couldn't have been worse; with the others still nowhere in sight, they had to make a decision whether or not to wait for them. "Maybe we just happened to be in its way? We did just teleport out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere.
"▅▅▅▅▄▅▅!"
Another powerful roar echoed across the sky, far stronger than the ones before it. The sound struck with enough force to make his chest vibrate and his heart pound against his ribs. There was a saying that a tiger's roar could inspire such intense fear in its prey that even humans might experience a moment of terror or paralysis when confronted by one at close range. Now, he understood that dragons possessed a similar ability. The sheer force behind that roar made it difficult to think clearly, even when they were still some distance away.
"Doesn't look like we just happened to drop into its path. It's looking straight at us."
"It looks rather angry, Shirou."
That it did.
Why? Even he couldn't figure that out. Perhaps they had entered its territory. Were dragons territorial creatures? From what he knew through general knowledge, it certainly seemed plausible, although those dragons belonged to his own world, albeit a different reality. This one could have entirely different habits. Whatever the reason, its hostility became increasingly obvious when its jaws parted, revealing rows of nasty teeth and a long, slithering tongue. A small bead of glowing energy formed between them, gradually expanding in size and intensity. Even from their current distance, the pressure radiating from it was enough to make his skin crawl and raise goosebumps along his arms.
"—▂▂▃▃▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅▂▂!!!!"
"Get away from that thing now, Lutecia!"
Thankfully, she didn't remain stunned for long. In the very next second, the girl accelerated away, sending his body jerking from the sudden increase in speed. The wind battered his frame as she flew, forcing him to brace himself against the rushing air. Thankfully, Ruben remained active and kept him from getting too jostled. Their decision proved to be the right one, because a moment later, a beam of pure destructive energy tore through the space they had occupied.
Bang!
No sound, no heat, just a bright light as his vision got filled with golden rays.
The sheer density was enough for the redhead to raise his hand, conjuring a particular shield almost through sheer instinct for survival. Yet he managed to stop himself at the very last second.
"Hn!"
The attack struck a floating island; rather than detonating against its surface, the beam pierced straight through it and continued along its path without losing momentum. A wide, charred hole remained in its wake, large enough to fit an entire house through. 'And I thought Nanoha's attack was too destructive…' The sight alone made his stomach tighten. He couldn't be certain, but the power behind that attack felt several times greater than the sniper shot launched by the Numbers during the auction.
"I-I barely saw it coming," Lutecia muttered, her voice trembling slightly. Even she had been shaken by what they had just witnessed. "T-The others…"
"I know, but we don't really have the luxury of worrying about them right now. In fact, I'd say we're in considerably more danger than they probably are."
The dragon had already changed its course, pursuing them without the slightest hesitation. Every beat of its wings unleashed powerful gusts that uprooted trees on the nearby islands, scattering branches and foliage through the air. Its enormous body twisted and curved through the sky with an almost serpentine grace, its crimson eyes fixed on the two fleeing figures with nothing but murderous intent.
'What did we even do to make it this angry?'
Aside from potentially teleporting into its territory, he couldn't think of anything. Even then, he doubted that a creature of its size and power would regard them as anything more than insignificant intruders, let alone something worth pursuing with such ferocity.
"Watch out!"
The warning came just as the dragon opened its jaws again. Another blast of energy shot towards them, closing the distance at an alarming speed. Lutecia immediately tilted their flight path, narrowly escaping the attack as it passed close enough for its force to buffet them.
"Ngh... Lutecia!"
His heart dropped.
"It's a-all right, I'm not hurt."
The speed at which the dragon was closing the distance made their situation increasingly difficult. "It's too fast…" At this rate, it would catch them soon. She couldn't fly any faster, and forcing her to maintain this pace for much longer would only exhaust her. Considering how easily the dragon had pierced that island, relying on their barrier jackets alone to keep them safe hardly seemed like a good idea, unless they descended much farther and tried to put some distance between themselves and the creature.
With everything happening so quickly, it took him a few seconds to gather his thoughts and focus on the problem. Panic wouldn't help either of them, and he needed to make a decision before their pursuer got any closer.
"Keep flying straight. I'll see if I can deal with it."
"Deal with it? How?" Her worried gaze shifted towards him, unconvinced by the suggestion.
"Trust me. You've already seen what I'm capable of, so you need to have a little faith in me."
They had been through enough together for her to have some confidence in his abilities, even if their time together hadn't been particularly long. The same applied to him. He trusted her to keep them airborne and avoid the dragon's attacks, just as she had trusted him to handle the threats they encountered along the way.
'Ruben's floating spell is still active, so I won't put too much additional strain on her. It's also helping keep me stable despite the wind. That should be enough. With how fast the thing is coming after us… maybe about a minute till it catches up. The area is too vast to hide properly or lose its pursuit. No choice but to either make it stop chasing us by scaring it off or going beyond that.'
Killing a dragon- such an absurd thing to say that he was confident enough that any Magus who would listen to this may end up dying from laughter.
"Just hold me by the collar and keep flying at this speed."
"Got it!"
With that settled, he turned to face their pursuer properly. The dragon had already begun preparing another attack, its jaws parting as energy gathered inside its mouth. Sucking up enough air that even the clouds began to move towards it. There wasn't much time to waste.
"Tch. Trace on."
A series of swords materialized around him, their blades pointed directly towards the enormous creature. Four Noble Phantasms took aim before launching in quick succession, each one cutting through the air towards its target.
Ding~!
"Huh?"
However, the dragon proved far more agile than its enormous frame suggested. Its body shifted smoothly through the air, allowing it to evade the first three projectiles with surprising ease. The fourth struck its middle section, producing a heavy impact that made the creature falter, though the weapon failed to pierce its body completely.
'D-rank should still be able to cut through even reinforced scales or hides; it worked before. But it didn't even leave a scratch and only made it twitch? So its body isn't covered in ordinary reinforced scales. It must have some supernatural properties the magical beasts I've seen before don't, enough to withstand a regular Phantasm like that. Should have expected as much. Even if this is another world, it's still a dragon, after all.'
That meant his regular weapons wouldn't be enough. He needed something with a much higher rank if he wanted to inflict any meaningful damage.
'E ranks are off the table, so should D. I don't know if it's similar to Berserker's God Hand, firing off several A ranks… let's try out B ranks, and C ranks.'
A bow materialized in his grasp, its familiar shape settling into his hands. At the same time, light gathered in his other hand and formed into a white Chinese sword, its hilt decorated with a yin and yang pattern. The moment its shape solidified, the weapon began to change.
Skrrrk. Kreee... Kshk!
While not typically what he'd used as a projectile, the blade itself always worked well against supernatural creatures alongside Kanshou.
Metal screeched as the blade twisted and stretched, its length increasing while its width gradually narrowed. The transformation continued until the sword had grown to almost twice its original length. Its pointed end took on the shape of a coned arrowhead, while serrated edges formed along either side, giving the weapon the appearance of a massive, saw-toothed projectile. Once satisfied with its transformation, he positioned the weapon against the bowstring and began drawing it back.
'It's moving too erratically; I can't predict its moves at all. I'll miss if I aim for the head; the reaction speed is impressive. Just get a bit closer so that I ca—Hm?'
However, just as he prepared to release the shot, the dragon opened its mouth and launched another enormous fireball. "Ah!"
In his stupor, the aim of his arrow went from its head to the other projectile, firing it in order to potentially cancel it entirely or at least deflect it.
Neither of the outcomes he'd prepared for came to be. The attack wasn't aimed at them. Instead, it shot upwards, heading towards something above their position before disappearing past the clouds ahead of where they were flying. It illuminated the sky in an ominous orange glow as he heard a distant explosion.
"It missed?"
Couldn't be; they flew in a straight line… The unexpected trajectory caught him off guard for a moment, but the reason quickly became apparent when the light around them suddenly disappeared.
A massive shadow had fallen over both of them.
"Ah!"
Lutecia let out a startled yelp, while his eyes immediately shifted upwards.
Rocks?
No, chunks of earth, entire sections of forests burning, boulders several times their size, enough sections of a shattered land to block out the sun. Enough to make him feel as small as an ant about to get crushed in a matter of seconds. An entire floating island had been struck by the dragon's attack, and now its shattered remains were breaking apart overhead.
Not even an island; it felt no different from having an entire mountain being dropped on their head!
"Stay close!"
The situation had gone from bad to worse. With the falling debris blocking their path and the dragon still pursuing them, there wasn't enough time to properly aim or launch another one of his weapons. Another curse escaped him as he abandoned his shot, reached for Lutecia's arm, and pulled her tightly against his chest.
"Shirou?"
He knew that he was worrying for nothing. Despite how dire the situation looked, Lutecia possessed incredible talent and a powerful device far more versatile and powerful than even his, which was just a basic barrier jacket. Asclepius contained all of the functions he had and more. So she wouldn't have gotten hurt by the falling debris or crushed, logically. In fact, if she maneuvered around well, there was even a large possibility for her to dodge all of it.
'But this is just speculation at the end.'
Despite his earlier certainty and trust in her skills, his body just moved on its own without even his mind keeping up. Dismissing his bow in an instant and grabbing her, he said, 'I trust Ruben… but not when a small mountain-sized piece of land is about to crush me.' Several Noble Phantasms appeared in his mind before forming a series of light around them, taking shape into different kinds of shields that surrounded them. Though his Reality Marble could make weapons of all sorts, including even shields and armor, they required much more energy, but at least they held on.
Bang!
"Ugh!"
The impact was great, once again, no different from a literal mountain falling on top of them, but the shields held, and he kept Lutecia fully covered with his body. His barrier jacket served as another layer of defense if somehow everything failed. But thankfully, the defense did not break, and the impact continued for several minutes, with those few gaps he could see in the shields showing the entire sky spinning.
They kept falling.
For a long time, enough for him to grow nervous that it wouldn't end.
'I don't know what's at the bottom; maybe we'll just fall on top of an ocean? I doubt it's never-ending.'
This entire time until the rocking of the shields suddenly came to a halt, that's followed after a powerful impact.
Pa!
"Hng—!"
At least the barrier jackets served as a good way to cushion their fall within; even reinforcement wouldn't have been enough to save him from getting a broken bone or worse.
Drip
Drip
Drip
From the small gaps, the only things that came through were droplets of water that dropped on his forehead; if it wasn't the rocks, then the sheer amount of water alone was dangerous enough to crush anyone. Seconds passed in silence and pure darkness. He waited and waited for what felt like hours until he felt like there was nothing more falling on top of them anymore. Opening his eyes, the first thing that came into view was the blank look of the purple-haired girl he was holding.
"...Are you hurt?"
No blood in sight; her shoulders looked fine without any signs of discoloration, and her eyes looked normal. 'Hah… right, barrier jacket, it would protect her from that as well.'
"You know, I should be the one asking that. Since you're the one holding me in a bear hug around weird shields."
"A-Ahahaha…" He couldn't help but chuckle awkwardly. She had a point. "I'm fine; Ruben is holding on, and these shields won't break so easily. I hope all the moving didn't rattle your brain."
"You know that I could have survived that, right?"
Yes, yes, he knew.
"Surviving and coming out unscathed are two very different things. Would you have been able to evade all of that falling debris of an island that big? You are fast, but I have noticed that you're not exactly the most maneuverable when you're going at such a speed."
Unless she had Servant-level reaction speed and agility, though that was not the case, of course.
"..."
The silence itself served as an answer.
"It's not every day that we get chased around by a dragon and have an entire island fall upon us. So of course I wouldn't be that familiar with this situation. I-I usually have my Garyu to protect me." She muttered with a slight pout, only for him to just embrace her further, with the girl accepting his gesture and stuffing her face against his chest.
"It's fine; even I wouldn't be confident to evade so many things even if I could fly."
"Liar, you could have just shocked it with your sword thingy like an automatic gun…"
Would you look at that, his Magecraft and Unlimited Blade Works reduced to the simple name of sword thingy. It wouldn't be a lie to say that he didn't find the name a bit appealing, given it came from her. Still, with a warm smile, he said nothing.
"How long are you going to keep stroking my hair like that?"
"Sorry, it's just so addictive given how soft it is. Sorry."
He wasn't lying. They truly were very soft to the touch, as if stroking strands of silk. Both of them used the same shampoo, so why was her hair that much better than his? Then again, Rin once suggested he just let his hair grow out past his waist, and maybe then it would look smooth.
"...I didn't tell you to stop."
"Ah, of course, Your Majesty."
"Humph. I know you're trying to get a reaction out of me; I won't fall for it." She said; to him, it sounded like a challenge. "Do you think it's still after us?"
At that question, he closed his eyes and listened carefully. Aside from the sound of water and some rocks tumbling down, the noticeable sound of wings flapping was missing. However, it could be far away enough for him to know. "Hard to tell; I can't see anything or hear anything. It could even be outside, just flying around waiting to see if something's moving."
"So we just wait here and hope that it leaves after an hour?"
"Nch nch nch, trying to sleep on the job, Lutecia? I don't remember raising you like that."
"..."
"I was kidding." He quickly added.
"...Napping now doesn't sound like a bad idea."
"Oi, don't fall asleep when we might get crushed under here."
His words did not visibly bother her one bit. In fact, the girl just burrowed her face even further into his chest as if they were pillows! "It's fine, I trust your constructs, Shirou. Still, we could wait here for half an hour in case it is still out there."
A viable decision, but not efficient.
"The others must be worried sick about us, or possibly are already on this planet. We can't just stay here and do nothing for an hour. Can you get in contact with them?"
The girl began fidgeting with her device, fully concentrated, until she raised an eyebrow.
"Eh? Weird, it's not responding? I got no signal."
"Well, we are on another planet."
"No, even if we were on another planet, my communication should have worked. Something is blocking it."
Well, that complicated things a bit. Not being able to get in touch severely increased their problems, but not to an impossible degree that they would be stuck here.
"All right, let's just explore our surroundings and get an idea of where we are exactly."
She nodded, then pointed above them.
"What happens if you dismiss these shields?"
"Uh… a chance that the rocks will crush us?"
He could make a few steel pillars around them to keep things stable. Yet just as he was about to do exactly that, the space next to them began to glow from the appearance of a magic circle.
"Fine, I have an idea."
With that said, Asclepius shone along with the circle, and from that a bulky figure emerged. The chitinous-like exoskeleton still managed to reflect light from its glossy surface within the cramped space.
"Make us a pathway, ah, but don't do it quickly; it might collapse on us." Garyu wasted no time understanding the situation and placed both arms above his head and against the shield, pushing it, with a slight tremor happening beneath their feet, until the shield lifted along with several large stones. Seeing a small opening, Shirou rushed over while holding Lutecia by the hand, jumping right through it and finally making their way outside right as Garyu got dismissed and the cause of the rocks crushed the space that was within the hole.
"Phew, that was close."
"Yeah."
Now that nothing was chasing them or they weren't being crushed by a fallen island, Shirou finally took the time to observe his surroundings once more with more focus. Thankfully, rather than sending them down into the abyss or upon an endless body of water, they ended up just falling upon a much bigger island. Even after the other ones had crashed onto it, the land kept on floating from the looks of it.
Why were the islands even floating?
The con—"Ugh!"
"Shirou!?"
Now that both were outside of battle, the man had unconsciously undone his device's protective spell and kept the barrier jacket active in its basic state without risking pushing his Magic Circuits too much. A bad idea, he realized quickly, for the sheer density of energy in the air had already outgrown that of Mid-Childa.
"R-Ruben!"
[Abnormal state detected.]
[Verifying…]
[Excessive presence of Mana in the body.]
[Calibrating…]
[Reducing exposure…]
"Gah!" The shift from his normal self to pain and back turned out to be jarring enough to keep his mind straight. Almost dropping him to his knees were it not for Lutecia keeping him stable. Her words and Ruben's were straight out of his mind for a few seconds.
Thankfully, the barrier jacket began to glow again with more intensity until he felt his body relax.
"Hah… that was something."
"What happened!?" Lutecia asked incredulously, looking over him, worried. He felt a bit bad for his earlier reaction, but he couldn't help it. The massive influx of energy caught him off guard the moment he deactivated his barrier jacket. Well, not to a degree that felt like his body was going to burst; it was still uncomfortable.
"I'm fine, hah… hah… I just need some time for my body to get used to the a-atmosphere and the high amount of Mana in it."
"Oh, you sense it too? But I don't feel much different."
"Hard not to, especially with a body like mine. Mages in my world are used to an atmosphere that is considerably thinner with mana compared to what's here. It's a bit overwhelming if I'm not careful." The Age of Gods many kept talking about, the golden age of magecraft. If it was anything like this or somehow beyond, no wonder many would go crazy just to live here. "You don't feel strange?"
She shook her head after checking herself. "No, I just realized that I could maybe use more spells without getting tired; I'm not sure. It's like a slight buzz, and that's about it."
To that outcome, he noted before getting up and patting his clothes, before wandering around. The terrain itself had a small forest, in the distance lush green grass growing upon the hills, and even a waterfall nearby. Without knowing the context, just looking from his eyes alone, one would imagine this to be a wonderful paradise of sorts. Birds flew away into the clear sky. Everything looked like a scene pulled straight out of a fantasy book.
"Any idea where we are?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
If Lutecia herself could not connect with the others, it would be no different for him. Just trying to connect again on his end proved that to be true.
"I don't see that dragon around anymore, Shirou."
Really enough, it had indeed disappeared. Though they had not remained trapped inside the rubble for something exaggerated like an hour, barely five minutes had passed.
"It probably thought there was no way we would survive that kind of impact. A creature like that was definitely just trying to drive off intruders from its territory."
"So that means it's intelligent?"
"Most likely, at least wiser than those zombie creatures."
Surveying and exploring the area did not yield much to their current predicament. The place was pretty simple—woods, trees everywhere, filled with fish and some wildlife that were pretty recognizable, finally enough despite being on another world, and aside from the abundant level of mana in the air, the place was pretty peaceful. Enough for both of them to just sit down on top of a grassy hill with the wind blowing at their hair while gazing at the sky covered in clouds.
Granted, doing so in the open when they just got attacked by a bloodthirsty beast was not exactly a wise decision; his eyes remained glued to the sky for any trace of that divine beast.
"Any good news?"
"None. Communications are truly down. Something is definitely blocking us. Sorry, Shirou."
"Don't be. Could it be possible due to the high concentration of mana in the air?"
He never truly grasped the technology of this world, knowing full well that it was a mixture of both supernatural and tech, so that possibility was just something he threw out of the blue, letting Lutecia, who had a very good grasp of it, use it for a possible conclusion. Only for his hopes to diminish upon seeing her shake her head in denial.
She tilted her head from one side to another, thinking before eventually shaking her head. "That should have only made it stronger and more stable, rather than blocking it out. So let's cross that off the list."
A list?
"I didn't know we had a list."
"We do. I made it up now."
A tricky situation. It would have been easier with at least one of the other members here as well. Either Nanoha or Fate would at least have some knowledge about this scenario or even know what was going on. He couldn't expect Lutecia to have all the answers like this.
"Let's assume that this is the world we were supposed to go to, and it's a secret base of that researcher. Maybe this thing that is blocking us is something man-made, like a device blocking out all signals?"
The girl gave it some thought, tapping her chin while closing her eyes and humming quietly.
"Possibly. In order to avoid any and all traces of him being tracked, this kind of measure would make sense. But he is also crippling himself by cutting his own communication to the outside world."
"Heh, you would be surprised. A person so deep in his research of creating artificial life, to the point of possibly being the same level of obsessed as Jail, wouldn't care about communication to the outside world. He would probably just be locked up in his own workshop for months on end without leaving, just to work and research."
She gave him a curious look. "You seem familiar with those kinds of people?"
Because he was.
"When I used to work as a freelancer, there were times when I would accompany a group of mages where we would hunt or capture other mages to bring them back for various reasons. They either committed a bad crime, broke the law, or were working on something forbidden. Either way, one common trait amongst such people was that they would get so engrossed in their research that there were even cases of some staying in their workshop for years without leaving."
Researchers and people like Jail were no different to them in his mind; just these ones were dealt with a much more advanced form of technology combined with magic.
Lutecia made a look of pure disgust.
"Ew, disgusting. It must have smelled bad inside if they went so many days, so many times without showering properly."
"Pft-hahaha." He laughed, unable to stop himself — not because she said something funny, but because, to some extent, it was the truth. "You can't even imagine it. Some would keep corpses of their failed experiments lying around, which would begin to rot. Just remembering it gives me a headache."
"They would capture people and dissect them? Why are you so surprised? Jail is basically like that; do remember that he was trying to dissect me, and I got captured."
"Ah."
He couldn't blame her for not knowing. After all, you figured Jail would try to keep a good image of himself toward her. But he did not doubt that for Jail to arrive this far in his accomplishment of creating artificial life, it wouldn't have been without some sacrifices and horrifying experiments.
"Let's not think about him too much. Should focus on how to get in contact with the others."
She nodded.
"If what's interfering with our communication is indeed something created by that researcher, then we have no choice but to try and find it and destroy it. That's our only option."
"Then we should think about how to find where to find it. This place is just…"
Words did not need to be said when looking at their surroundings. Just from a quick glance, there were at least several dozen islands of various sizes to be seen. Small ones no bigger than a house, and vast ones like the one they were on, easily big enough to house a small village of at least a hundred people. The issue came from where to go in the first place. If they went the wrong way, then they were just wasting time. But they also could not just remain here and do nothing.
"I think we have to go back to where we came from."
Just seeing how quickly her head whipped toward him in disbelief, he could understand why she was like that.
"You want to go back to where that dragon is after we barely managed to escape it?"
"Think about it. The teleportation spell, or device, or whatever it is. It was supposed to send all of us to the same area. Something must have gone wrong, as expected, and the coordinates have deviated. If the others have not joined yet, then they are most likely trying to find us, and the only way they'll be able to find us is…"
"By checking the place where we first appeared," she finished his words with a look of understanding.
"Bingo."
Now that she understood, their plan was clear. Getting up and stretching his arms a bit, a faint notion flashed across his mind.
"Still, this place is quite wonderful. I imagine having a house here would be a dream for many."
While he did enjoy Mid-Childa and how amazing the place was, it could not really encapsulate the sensation and raw beauty of this place. It was almost fairy-like.
"Funny, Mom said the same thing," Lutecia added with a smile on her face. "She always liked natural places like this. Far away from everything and every problem, where we could just live in peace and quietness. She would have liked it here."
"What about the dragon?"
The girl chuckled. "She would have already given him my name and tried to befriend it."
Befriending a dragon… Even he wasn't that crazy to attempt such a thing.
"Well, let's hope we don't encounter our angry friend when going back. There is no kitchen around where I can make it some food to befriend it."
With a planning mind, they began moving and retracing their path to where they first appeared. Rather than flying directly to their destination, the best approach was to fly from one island to another. Doing so, just in case they wouldn't get spotted by not just a dragon but any other similar types of creatures. And most importantly, to find anything that could possibly be related to the jammer blocking their signal. If it was some sort of device, then it would be on one of these islands.
"Unless the jamming field covers the entire planet?" he suggested after a bit more contemplation.
"Um… I don't think so? Even Doctor Jail had a hard time creating a small field that jams magic and devices. And that field was barely bigger than a room; it only had a range of a few meters. To make anything the size of a planet and not get found out requires a ridiculous amount of power."
The device he recalled being used on the train during his first deployment. And Jail, by no means, was any lesser in terms of his expertise in such things. In fact, one would even consider him beyond many of these researchers. After around a dozen islands surveyed and finding nothing, they continued flying to another island. This one was right beside the island that was blasted away by the dragon.
"That thing really has a lot of power," he said, absentmindedly watching the destruction of the pieces that had fallen underneath and where they came from. "How high would you rank this creature compared to the people we know, Lutecia?"
The girl pondered before shrugging.
"I'm not sure. It's hard to give an accurate reading given we only had a brief encounter with it. But if I were just to take into account the first attack it fired at us, I'd say maybe closer in terms of power to an A-rank mage. No, maybe S-rank."
Without a doubt, that thing was dangerous. It wasn't every day that a creature could manage to withstand getting pierced by one of his projectiles. They continued their course, repeating the same cycle of flying to the closest island and him observing the place by using Structural Analysis. Using the spell a handful of times on each island, depending on its size. Lutecia, as well, would be sending her insects to the nearby islands that they wouldn't go to in order to survey the place and find anything suspicious. Given his abysmal luck, repeating the cycle a handful of times with little issue, while pleasant, didn't make him any less on edge, especially with how peaceful the entire place was.
"Then that dragon really just left entirely?" he said, even as they got closer to their initial destination; that creature was nowhere to be seen.
"I know that I shouldn't be disappointed or worried that everything is going well; it is still strange. Maybe it went off to hunt something else?"
"Possibly, but still keep your eyes sharp."
Was really at times like these as Lutecia grabbed onto him and they flew that Shirou genuinely hoped for his barrier jacket to eventually give him the ability to fly. Had he possessed that ability, the earlier chase he had against the dragon wouldn't even have happened, and at least he would have gotten a better opportunity to hit that creature.
"We're close; be careful. I think it would be better to call back your insects just in case."
Another island, this time with them going inside the forest to stay under cover without being spotted.
"If we see the dragon again, what then?"
"I will handle it."
"What?"
A smirk got plastered on his face as he gave her a small thumbs up.
"Just trust me; I know what I'm doing."
"..."
He hoped to see a nod, or the girl reluctantly trusting him and then opening up a possibility to surprise her in the future, but the look he kept getting now was that of suspicion and weariness. As if he was the one about to do something troublesome rather than putting his life in danger.
"You don't trust me?"
"It's not that I don't trust you; it's just that I trust you too much to do something stupid that somehow will end up working, but doing so will put me in such a stressful state that I will start questioning if you're alive or dead."
Well, that was kind of too specific. Given how certain she sounded, he even felt kind of hurt. "I don't feel like I have done such things frequently enough for you to say things like that."
Of all things, the girl just gave him a dry side glance. "Really?"
Making a face like that with so much certainty made it difficult to say anything against it. Sure, there were a few incidents, but he wouldn't say that it was that frequent.
"In any case, don't worry. I'll be able to handle the creature without putting my life at risk."
To show that she would believe him, he raised an eyebrow when she raised her arm, showcasing a pinky finger.
"Promise?"
He wrapped his own pinky finger around hers.
"Promise."
The two of them continued going to the island and observing and checking stuff, with Shirou also keeping an eye on the sky, until Lutecia said from behind him that they were almost there. He nodded, also recognizing some of the islands floating around from the time he had been teleported in previously. This time both of them kept close to each other in case the same creature were to attack them.
"Wait, look ahead. What is that?"
Lutecia pointed in the distance, where there also stood, and floated, the same thing as everywhere else: an island, but this one being on a different scale entirely and as big as an entire mountain with several connected forests and structures to it. Just from standing here, he could still make out the details to some extent, and it really was enormous. Easily the size of Mid-Childa.
"Can't believe I missed that when I first teleported here," he said, with the purple-haired mage nodding.
"Well, we were pretty distracted by the dragon, so let's not blame ourselves for that."
"Doesn't seem like there's anyone who came here yet. Guess it will take longer than we anticipated."
He was not particularly afraid of being stranded here. Having put his faith in the others, it was at most a matter of time before they would come back with a way to go back to Mid-Childa. 'Strange. Still no dragon.'
He shook his head, thinking to himself that it didn't matter if it was here or not. For now it wasn't here, so it was best to use their luck. He told Lutecia that they needed to go down there, with her looking at him with a frown but still nodding.
"There should be something on that island. It's the biggest, and it's our only chance, I think, aside from just waiting."
"It could also be a bad idea, for all we know."
He kept his silence and focused his eyes ahead, only to find nothing, before he shook his head and asked Lutecia if she could use her insects again for reconnaissance. She looked at him before raising her hand, and a magic circle appeared as a swarm of insects from earlier gathered around before she sent them ahead.
"Hm?"
But as they got closer, before anything significant could even be done or observed, Shirou watched as every single one of those things summoned by Lutecia began to fall one by one, completely unresponsive, before disappearing into the never-ending abyss below.
"What just—"
"There's an anti-magic field!"
It did not take long for Lutecia to figure out what was going on, explaining that part in both surprise and a tiny bit of anger after having lost so many of her summons.
"It's all around that island."
That only made the place stand out even more, though he did wonder how the island could keep floating if it had an anti-magic field. Regardless, that just guaranteed they had to go there and possibly find something that could help them.
"If there's a field around it, I won't be able to fly over there."
That did make things a bit more troublesome. If that giant island were a bit lower, then he could potentially use a glider along with his jacket's floating system, and that would work halfway before being shut down by the anti-magic field. But given the island was a bit higher than their current position, it made that option impossible.
"How high can you fly?"
"Eh?"
"Are you sure this is safe?"
"Trust me."
"You've been saying that a lot lately, and each time it's getting harder and harder to say yes."
"But it's still not impossible to say it, right?"
Her hold around his chest tightened, with both of them floating higher and higher until they were several hundred meters above, almost reaching the clouds.
"Is that enough? I can't get any closer because of the field."
A brief look and some rough guesswork in his mind were enough for him to get a somewhat good feel of the distance.
"It's perfect. Now just hold on to me and let go."
Lutecia hesitated. Her arms stayed locked around his chest for a beat longer than needed, her fingers digging in, and then she let go. The magic circle underneath them came to life, and their bodies caught the air, and for a moment she hung there while he dropped alone, falling straight down the side of the island. The rock face slid past his eyes in a blur of grey and green, and the air pulled at his jacket, at his hair, at the corners of his mouth.
He raised one hand, and light gathered over his palm and spread outward into a wide triangle with a crossbar at its middle, the cloth stretched tight over a frame of projected metal. The glider snapped into place above him, and the frame bit into his grip. "Oof, hold this part and don't let go no matter what." The fall turned to a glide, and the pull of the air flattened out, and Lutecia dropped in beside him and caught the crossbar with both hands, her wings folding away.
They crossed the gap between islands at a slant, and the edge of the mountain island came up to meet them.
Then something washed over his body. Not wind, a thin push, like the pressure change when a door opens into a sealed room. The light on Lutecia's gloves stuttered and went out. Ruben's jacket dimmed on his chest, the green dying to a faint pulse.
"It really is an anti-magic field," Lutecia murmured, her voice higher now. She looked at the glider's frame in his hands and back at his jacket. "But why isn't yours disappearing?"
He shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. Maybe because my nature differs from the magic of your world."
Neither of them was certain of the answer. The glider carried them over the rim and down onto a slope of dry grass, and the frame dissolved the moment his feet touched. He turned once, taking in the trees, the rock, the sky.
Lutecia clicked her tongue. "Searching this whole place is going to be a pain without my summons."
He crouched and pressed a palm flat to the ground. Structural Analysis ran out through the stone and came back with soil, roots, and a buried shelf of bedrock. Then, in the middle of the reading, a hole. A patch where the picture simply stopped, as if someone had taken an eraser to the earth.
"Found something."
"What is it?"
"Not sure. Something down there is keeping the spell from touching it."
Lutecia's eyes narrowed. "That sounds like it's obviously something. The anti-magic barrier, maybe? The thing cutting off our communication?"
"Could be." He stayed low, turning it over. A blade did nothing against a machine buried in rock, not unless he was willing to cut the island in half, and that would bring the mountain down on both of them. 'Should I just dig below until—'
"—!?"
"Ah!"
Both reacted at the same time, flinching at the familiar sound of the creature that chased them.
'Why now of all times! Tch, even if I start now, it'll take time, and the dragon isn't going to give me any.' Which left only one answer. Deal with it first.
A sword would not reach that far, and letting a creature like that get too close was just asking for trouble.
His bow would be just like earlier.
A thought crossed his mind the moment he took a familiar stance he'd take every time in kyodo — despite the weapon no longer even being the same kind. The bow was the one he had watched a certain archer use more times than he could count, and for a long while Alteration had let him reshape that style to fit the typical asymmetrical model, but he didn't.
'I still don't know why. It just clicked.' Rin had asked about it once. All he had given her was that he no longer thought about it, and the look she had returned was hard to read. Part of him suspected she had pictured something unflattering.
"It's coming from far away," Lutecia whispered. Without her device, her voice carried a thread of worry that hadn't been there before. Take away her power, and she was as breakable as anyone else.
"I know. It'll be in my range soon." He rose, and his hand closed on empty air. "Fuuuu… Trace, on."
Circuits lit under his skin, running up his forearm in thin lines of heat. Reinforcement settled over the string, then over his eyes, and the far sky snapped into focus. A white body wound through the clouds, scales throwing back the light, still small as a thumbnail. 'At this distance… around five kilometers at most, approaching fast. Less than two minutes if I'm being generous.'
An arrow formed across his fingers. The string went back until his knuckles brushed his jaw.
Pa!
The shot left with a crack that rolled across the hill and kicked the grass flat in a ring around his boots. Fast as a bullet, it crossed half the sky, and the dragon swerved long before it arrived. 'It isn't taking chances this time.' At that range, he had no hope of landing on the head, and the arrow went wide anyway. Still, the creature had flinched from a shot that wasn't going to touch it. 'So Bakuya did hurt it enough to be cautious, even without piercing the scales. Internal damage, then.'
He loosened another.
And another.
More.
Three shots quickly turned into five, then seven, and soon ten.
Arrows left in quick succession, streaks of light drawn across the sky in long, straight lines, and every one of them missed. The white body bent around each in turn, rolling, dropping, twisting away. 'Faster than earlier. Much more nimble. Then I'll stop aiming where it is.'
He drew deeper.
The air around the bow caught fire in colors, violet and gold and a green like deep water, and the hillside threw shifting patches of light across the grass. Lutecia's fingers dug into the back of his barrier jacket.
The next volley left in a spread, a dozen shafts fanning out across the sky. None of them were meant to land. They crowded the dragon's path and kept it twisting while he reached for the best projectile he could think of to deal with a creature this slippery.
'It dodges what it sees. Then it needs to see something it can't dodge.'
Light gathered in his left hand, slowly this time. The hilt came first, black and wrapped in worn crimson cord, then a guard flared like the wings of a hawk. The blade followed, a long straight length of dark red, glowing from the inside like iron pulled from a forge, a hairline of white running along its center. Heat rolled off it and bent the air above the grass. He had never seen the man who owned it hold it, but it knew its shape, and it knew what it was for.
Turning the sword in his grip.
The blade drew out, thinned, and folded in on itself until it was a slender arrow of red, the head narrow as a spear tip, the shaft burning like an ember. He set it to the string. Red crept up the bow's limbs and across his knuckles.
Hound of the Red Plains.
"Hrunting."
The shot left with a crack that kicked the grass flat in a ring around his boots. Fast, faster than anything he'd shot that day, a red bullet drawn across the sky in a single line, several times the speed of sound. The dragon saw it and twisted its body barely at the last moment to avoid it.
Or so it thought.
The arrow did not miss. It tilted in the air, bent, and came around after the white body like a hound that had picked up the scent.
"▅▅▅▅▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅!!!!"
The dragon dropped, folding its wings and diving into a spiral. The red streak followed it down. The dragon climbed in a sharp arc, and the arrow climbed behind it, closer by the length of a heartbeat. A twist, a roll, a dive between two floating islands, and every turn it made, the arrow made too, bending, tilting, never losing its mark.
Bang!
It would never have been able to fly faster than it, the projectile meeting its target and forcing a painful howl from its jaws.
Shirou was already drawing again.
A second sword formed in his hand, a second crimson arrow, and the string snapped back before the first had reached its target. Each successive use of Hrunting drew more energy than the last. 'At this rate… I can't go over three… maybe four.'
The second red bullet left the bow and cut across the sky behind the first, chasing it, chasing the dragon, the second line of ember burning through the clouds.
"▅▅▅▅▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅!!!!"
But rather than dodging it or running away as he'd hoped it would.
It retaliated.
The dragon's jaw opened.
"—!"
A white beam tore from its throat and swept across the sky in a single stroke, catching the second Hrunting a hand's width from its scales. The arrow burst into red sparks. The beam kept swinging through the last of the spread arrows still hanging in the air, and shaft after shaft burst into dust along its path. The beam died. Dust hung in the air like smoke, and out of it two crimson eyes fixed on the hill.
'It's really intelligent; understanding it couldn't dodge it after only one of them… shit. Now it knows exactly where I am.'
"Shirou—" Lutecia's voice had climbed. "It's looking right at us."
"I know. Stay behind me."
His body felt warm, circuits having worked overtime in this past hour alone with everything he'd trace. The shields in particular, consuming far more than swords did, did not help.
"Hah… I am the bone of my swords."
The first line of his chant whispered from his lips, a faint force from within taking hold and increasing the pressure he felt.
Light gathered in his left hand and took the shape of a broad sword with a spiraling blade, wider at the tip than the base, the edge curling like a drill bit. He turned the sword in his grip, and the blade drew out, thinned, and folded in on itself until it was a jagged arrow, and when he set it to the string, a redness spread from it across the grass and up his arms. His circuits screamed. His teeth clenched against the heat crawling along his spine.
Wind climbed up around them, and Luticia made a small sound against his back.
He kept his eyes on the dragon and waited.
It came for them.
The gap between them shrank in seconds, white scales filling more of the sky with every heartbeat, the roar rolling across the hill hard enough to rattle his ribs. Its mouth opened. The glow inside its throat built from pale to blinding.
"Now. Caladbolg!"
The beam came out, and Caladbolg left the string.
The two crossed.
The beam tore past the arrow close enough to scorch its path and struck the island behind him, chewing a groove through the grass and the rock beneath it. The arrow flew on, and instead of driving into the creature, it climbed. It arced over the dragon's head, and those crimson eyes followed it up in confusion.
'You were never the target.'
The arrow struck the island above. The stone broke along a seam, and a whole shelf of rock came away from the sky, and the mountain dropped. Whatever power was keeping it floating broke apart in an instant.
The dragon had half a second to turn before the debris hit and drove it down out of sight. The roar that rose from underneath was angrier than any before it.
"Is it dead?"
The whisper barely rose above the hiss of settling grit. Lutecia's fingers had twisted into the hem of his coat, watching alongside him for any signs of the creature.
"...I don't know."
Several seconds passed, and nothing moved inside the dust. The cloud thinned and slid down the slope in grey sheets, and when the air finally cleared, no trace of the creature remained. No shed scale, no smear of blood, not even a claw mark on the broken stone.
Lutecia leaned out past the jagged edge and looked down. He joined her. The drop went on and on. Chunks of the fallen shelf tumbled away, shrinking to pebbles, then to specks, then winking out one by one with no splash and no crash, nothing to stop them.
"How far down does this go?"
"Hah… Your guess is as good as mine." He stepped back from the edge.
She brushed dust from her sleeve, though her eyes kept sliding to the bow in his hand. "You told me once you could shoot an arrow four kilometers away. Seeing it is different from hearing it."
"I'm not the only one who can shoot that far. Nanoha, Fate, even Hayate could do it." He shrugged and let his arms hang loose. They were still burning, and she didn't need to know that.
"They use spells. That's easier than pulling a string hard enough to throw an arrow that far."
He scratched his cheek. Put that way, it did sound impressive. Those three had devices doing the heavy lifting, while every meter of his shot had come from his own arms. "Want to try?" The offer slipped out before he thought it through, and he turned the bow so the light ran along its curve.
Lutecia held up both arms, sleeves sliding down to wrists barely thicker than the bowstring. "Which part of me says I can pull that?"
He laughed, and the sound bounced off the broken rock, out of place after the noise of the last few minutes. "It's not as heavy as it looks. I can make you one."
"You can?"
She took a full step toward him, eyes wide. He pressed his lips together to keep from grinning like an idiot. Every day a little more of that straight face of hers cracked, and every crack made the trouble of keeping her safe worth it.
"Sure. Smaller, lighter, any color you want. You're a summoner, so your hands are free most of the time anyway." The shape of it was already forming in his head, the length of the limbs, the draw weight, where the grip should sit so small fingers could close around it.
"I don't have the strength to pull a string that can fire at four kilometers."
"Who said anything about shooting that far? I didn't start there either."
His palm came down on her head and messed up her hair. She swatted at his wrist and glared up through the wreckage of her bangs. "Really?"
"Really. I started on a small target in a yard, and it took a long time to get decent." A small lie hurt no one. Most of what lived in his hands now had been borrowed, not earned, and explaining that would only confuse her.
"Tiana told me something different."
His mouth opened, closed, opened again. Somewhere along the way, that story had reached her, and he had never thought to guard against it.
"Just trust me. I can make you any weapon you want. Not as strong as a device, but in a place where magic gets cut off, it helps. A dagger, for example." He tapped two fingers against his hip, hoping the change of subject would carry them somewhere safer.
"No. I want to shoot like you." She considered it, brow creasing. "Make it small. Purple. What about arrows?" Both hands came out toward him, palms up, as if the bow might drop into them right there.
"That's easy, I can just prepare—"
Crack!
Something split beneath his boots. A tremor crawled up through his legs and raised the hair on his arms, and Lutecia went stiff beside him. By then it was too late. The ground swelled like a lung drawing breath and burst.
"Argh!"
"—▂▂▃▃▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅▄▄▄▄▅▅▅▅▂▂!!!!"
Rock sprayed in every direction. The blast from below threw them both into the air, and out of the hole climbed the dragon. An island had been dropped on its back, and its scales shone without a single scratch. 'It used the dust as cover. It circled under the island and bored up from below.' Every second they had spent talking, it had been tunneling toward them.
"Shirou!"
Lutecia tumbled through the air. With her device dead and her wings gone, she had nothing to catch herself with, and her arms flailed in the empty sky. Above her, the jaws opened: rows of teeth and a long, wet tongue, a head the size of a car. No light gathered inside. It meant to swallow them whole.
His hand shot out, and a dagger on a chain left it, coiling around her waist and hauling her back behind him. Then nothing stood between him and the dragon but air. The world slowed. A thousand thoughts ran through his head every second, and his hands moved long before any of them settled.
"Rho Aias!"
A single petal of light bloomed from his palm, then four, layering over each other as the shield swelled outward. The jaws snapped down.
Clang!
The mouth jammed against the top layer and stayed there, propped open, teeth grinding against light with a shriek like nails on glass. It bought him one breath and nothing more. Deep in the throat, a glow was already gathering, brighter with every heartbeat.
"Damnit!"
The curse tasted of grit and blood. This thing was still a dragon. His weapons had hurt it, but hurting wasn't enough. It had to die in one strike. Kanshou and Bakuya could cut it open and still not stop what was building in that throat. Blade after blade flickered through his head and fell away, and the longer he searched, the clearer one became. A sword he had never wielded and never once seen that man wield, yet it sat in his Reality Marble all the same, waiting.
[Magic Circuits state strained, emergency switch activated. Stored Magical Energy in use. Barrier Jacket deactivated.]
A cool sensation washed over him, feeding into his being of an energy that belonged to him but was stored within Ruben.
It stirred at his call and tore itself out of the ground in that world of swords. Light wound around his hands and hardened into a great blade: broad and gold, a blue gem set into the guard, a dark wave pattern rippling down the flat along its whole length, the edge bright and heavy.
Despite Ruben's help, his circuits screamed under the strain of holding two Noble Phantasms at once, but he pushed through the burn.
The shield held.
The dragon's throat bulged, and a sickly yellow light poured across the clearing, painting the trees, the grass, and his own arms in its glow.
"—O sword, let thee be filled."
Then, out of all that yellow, a small blue spark.
He let the shield fall apart, closed both hands around the hilt, and nothing remained in front of him at all.
"Balmung!"
Whoosh!
Ethereal blue met yellow head-on.
The two lights shoved against each other and split the clearing down the middle, one half blazing gold, the other drowning in azure, and the sound of their meeting went past thunder.
One flat, monstrous boom rattled his teeth, hammered his chest, and bent every tree outward from the center. Grass tore loose by the roots and rose in a wall. Beneath both lights, the ground cracked, groaned, and began to lift.
The once clear blue sky was now a kaleidoscope of a myriad of colours stemming from the two lights.
But both could not coexist for long, for one side grew dominant in an instant, carving away at the other like the sea and crushing any and all resistance. The anti-dragon property coming into full effect, an ether-powered weapon from the age of gods swallowed what tiny embers of yellow until nothing remained.
"▅▅▅▄▄▄▄▂▂…"
Nothing but the drowned roars of a terrified beast.
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