And whatever you made seemed to have formed the basic shape for them to use. But just because you can combine all the shards here, it won't mean a thing if you can't use it." He spread his wings wider as his smile became more predatory. "Let's see if you can handle that blade, boy!"
...
For a moment I looked at him, then lowering my sights at the sword, I let out a sigh before speaking out loud to the sword. I was not sure why, it just felt like I should get it out of the way just to be on the safe side. "I personally don't feel worthy to wield you, but until we can find you a new owner worthy of your approval, I will hold on to you. For now, are you willing to work with me for this fight?"
[Yes] The blade responded with a voice that was combination of all the shards' voices and with a bright glow of light. I lightly nodded at it before turning to Mitelt. "It is best to stay back. I do not know what is about to happen."
"But…"
"No buts" I interrupted her and looked her in the eye. "Right now, the both of us are injured, so I do not know what tactics we would use on this fight, and from the looks of things, this will be a very big one." I placed a hand on her head to get the point through. "In the event I get taken out, I will at least try to wear him out enough for you and the others to get rid of him, or least buy enough time for the reinforcements to come along. So please let me take this."
Mitelt bit her lip as she alternated her sights between me and her ex-boss, then with a sigh she looked at me with that same spitfire look in her eyes. "Fine, but you better return in one piece, got that?"
"Got it." I lightly patted her head before standing up and looking at Kokabiel who had been very patient all this time. With another sigh, I gripped the sword tighter in my hand. "Let's do this."
[Your orders be fulfilled!]
The blade shone brightly as I felt my Prana being drained somewhat abruptly, making me slightly wince in pain as the sword hungrily took in my Prana like a man who had come across an oasis after a week without water. From the palm that was gripping the sword, bright lines started to travel up my arm, stopping midway past my elbow and leaving me slightly heaving at the drained feeling I had. I had my doubts, but it seemed that having both Caliburn and Excalibur as the templates ended up creating a weapon with higher Prana consumption.
No matter, if this could help me deal with Kokabiel, I would take that risk.
"You done preparing?" The Fallen Angel spread his wings once more with his maniacal eyes shining a bright red in the night. "If not, too bad!" He rushed forward with a spear in hand, aiming straight for my chest.
Not a chance.
With a quick and somewhat loose swing, I deflected the spear and accidentally breaking the ground in its path. Without missing a beat, I grabbed the handle with both hands, feeling the heat from the sword as wind started to gather around the blade. Gripping it tighter, I brought it down hard to cleave him in half, but he barely sidestepped in time to avoid the edge, lightly clipping his feathers before a deluge of light blew past him and struck the already wrecked school, causing it to break apart and collapsed to the ground.
"SHIROU EMIYA!" The indigent sound of Sona's scream only served to hammer it home that I wrecked what's left of the infrastructure.
… Whoops?
"HAHAHA! Now this is interesting!" Kokabiel crackled as he took flight and summoned his magic circles again. "Let's see how you deal with these then!" I merely grimaced slightly at the number of glyphs appearing in the sky, each one promising a very painful death if I was not careful. I was going to need a lot of speed to deal with this.
'Thump~ Bump!'
"Have a dose of heavenly artillery boy!" He roared as he brought his hand down to unleash the arsenal in his control right at me. I made to move as far as I could when the sword glowed brightly and suddenly everything around me seemed to slow down to a snail's pace. I blinked a couple of times to make sure I was not imagining it, before turning to look at the glowing sword.
Was it another application of the shard? The closest one I could think of was from Excalibur 'Rapidly', but as far as I could tell, it was only to speed up your momentum a little, not slow time down.
'Or maybe not.' I frowned as I looked at the attacks aiming for me. It was a little hard to tell from all the glare, but the spears and bolts of elemental energy were moving really slowly. It seemed that either the Excalibur Shards were slowing my perception of time to the extreme, making me see things a lot slower, otherwise the shards may have gained some new ability that involved the Fifth Magic somehow.
Well in that case…
I gripped the sword harder as I ignored the feeling of my Prana getting drained more, then jumped high into the air before imaging the burst of air that Saber used with her sword. The sword responded to my thoughts and launched me with a huge burst of Prana that brought me straight at Kokabiel. It was oddly satisfying seeing the expression on his face slowly change from a demented smile to a shocked look as time seemed to speed up and I raised my sword to strike him down. A brief flash of light and I found myself descending slowly to the ground while Kokabiel was lying in the middle of a freshly made crater, the look of incredulous surprise on his face making me wish I had a camera on me.
"What the heck just happened?!" I overheard Ise yell out in shock as I hit the ground lightly. "One moment he was about to become shish kabob, the next he appeared over there and Kokabiel is the ground! How the heck did he move that fast?!"
"Indeed." Kokabiel shook off his surprise quickly and stood back up with another crazed smile. "It seems that [Rapidly] has attained one big upgrade. So it only begs the question, do the other have it?"
Let's try that out then.
The sword glowed briefly as I leaped forward and started to lay heavy attacks at him, the resulting swings let loose a torrent of energy that dug up a lot of earth and sent the others stumbling back. The fallen angel however was not going down easily as he matched some of my attacks easily and managed to get a few hits at me. I ignored them and concentrated on utilizing the shards as best as I could, sifting through the memories of the past users and understanding the manner it was utilized.
There, I got one.
"Twelve wings of the Holy Dragon!" I briefly commanded the shards of [Rapidly] and [Destruction] to activate and changed the form of the sword to a single bladed longsword that glowed brightly and let loose twelve blasts of energy that resembled the wings of a dragon, each one far exceeding what I had conceptualized as they hit Kokabiel before he could attempt to dodge them. Without stopping, I raced forward and swung hard. Kokabiel jumped back in time only to yell as part of his chest got cut deeply.
"How?!" Kokabiel looked the Excalibur and saw his blood gleaming on the edge of some invisible edge that extended past the blade edge. "Oh~ clever, creating the illusion of a shorter blade so I won't notice the attack." His smirk went wider. "Very nice~"
Okay seriously, I think I understood the feelings of the Chicago magus when he complained about the creatures that came after him. This guy was really disturbing me.
Okay, regular attacks was not going to cut it, and whatever heavy attacks that do work were something that needed more time and manpower, both of which I was lacking since the others were down for the count, so unless I could make doubles of myself…
'Thump~ Bump!'
I looked to the sword in my hands to find it glowing and the Prana levels rising slightly. Out of a hunch, I applied my Projection onto it and found that it was trying to tell me something.
Maybe…
'Let's give it a shot.' I gripped the handle harder as I focused on the image I had in my head. For a brief moment, I experienced the sensation of getting pulled at the limbs and heat coursing through my body, before it died down and I heard another gasp from the others to know that I was done with that action and I opened my eyes to see the result.
Well, call me a Monkey's Dead Apostle. This was definitely NOT what I had expected.
By my sides, I was seeing different copies of myself, each wielding a smaller version of the Re-forged Excalibur that had the design elements to represent their individual properties. My clones seemed to reflect them in their choice of clothing that made me think modern versions of the Servants I have met. But only one caught my full attention.
After all, the one wielding Excalibur [Mimicry] was a splitting image of Archer with a more modern update of his clothes.
"Okay then." I stepped forward while glancing at the clones. "Shall we pluck his feathers and knock him down a few notches?"
"Hmph~ that's fine and all, but one question to you." The Archer-lookalike rested the blade on his shoulder and gave me a smirk that reminded me so much of that fellow. "Think you can keep up with me?"
… Even his tone and words were alike damn it!
...
A/N : The Story Needs More Power Stones ;)
PS : if we can reach 400 Stones by the end of the week, I will throw you an extra chapter
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if you want to read ahead of the public release you can go to my p atreon :
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