Clumps of particles floated down onto asphalt that ran with cracks, stretching end to end across a wide bridge, soot and ash layered over it in a sheet of greyish-white.
Two strips of red steel railing ran along the bridge's length, parallel to one another and arching in the middle, pillars holding them up at even intervals, their paint flaking away at the lightest gust. Glass of streetlights planted between the pillars had shattered into shards that clung to their lanterns.
A boot materialised first, crunching on the road, already in forward motion. More particles coalesced above that heel, dragging upward into the shape of a shin, then a knee bent mid-stride, fully committed. By the time a second leg caught up, a coat had woven into being, flapping with no wind behind him.
Smoke plumes from a blaze consuming the architecture deeper inside Fuyuki illuminated his arms and face as they took form at last, a few particles floating over his crown and drifting away.
I swept my gaze around, passing over dark clouds that covered the sky for kilometres, a burning city in the far distance, pulling back to land on skeletons that crept along this bridge's road in waves.
Dragon tooth warriors.
Medea's.
No, not her. She couldn't sustain this many summons for long, even if I supplied her with all of my mana. Possibly a different version of her, then, connected to infinite mana via a Grail.
My walk continued toward them, both hands tucked in my pockets.
This Fuyuki bridge won't hold out for long. I concluded after feeling the ground beneath my feet quake slightly, vibrations travelling down through my feet and passing into asphalt with nothing solid to bounce back from. It's almost hollowed out.
Tilting my head sideways, I peered down, eyes fixed on a reflection of myself across rippling water beneath the bridge. My Servants are deeper inside Fuyuki; it'll take some time to reach them.
Another ripple spread across that reflection, and for one fraction, a glint of something sharp flashed to my side within that image, gone just as fast.
My hand shot out anyway, clamping down on the empty space at that exact spot, fingers crushing nothing but air. A humanoid outline shimmered as my palm closed, his spine already bent, body somersaulting away thrice in one fluid motion before that outline dissolved into the surroundings.
Anassassin, and one with a high-level of presence concealment.
I took a deep breath on my next step.
Ash hit my nose first, mixed with the charred scent of melted asphalt and the pungent tang of rusted metal. Underneath all three lay a subtle, dry scent of bone from those skeletons, closer to feeling like dust than something alive. But even among them all, there was no odour of a human body.
My ears gave the same read. I could hear the water churning metres below, pick up the metallic pillars nearby trembling microscopically at their foundations, even the electrical hum of my own brain. But another heartbeat besides mine, electrical hum, or flow of blood, all of it was absent.
"Fine."
That word was followed by a swipe of my finger.
The nearest streetlight swayed once. Its upper half slid off along a diagonal so clean that it held its shape for a long moment before gleaming cables whipped out of its casing in a bright scatter, severed halves toppling.
Gashes opened across pillars at my flanks, then the ones ahead, strokes tearing through flaking red paint and into the metal beneath, bright silver showing at the bottom of every wound, like those pillars had been bitten into.
Dozens of lines crossed and recrossed through air in a lattice that stretched over the bridge's full width, enclosing it fully from railing to railing.
In a breath, that outline appeared again, climbing an intact streetlight while jerking his head sideways, air splitting right past him, opening a deep wound across a pillar behind.
My knees folded, body coiling, calves tensing—
Gone.
Air detonated atop the streetlight, my shin slamming into his forearm, body airborne, his feet planted on the lantern below to brace.
Pressure burst from me, and every broken shard of that lantern blasted free in a single white ring, glass disintegrating mid-fall into dust. The pole beneath Assassin was already buckling, skull mask now visible as steel shrieked, impact bleeding down and dispersing through the ground.
Lantern after lantern shed its glass along the railing in sequence, a line of popping filaments and plunging shards that didn't stop until it had covered half the bridge.
Assassin's forearm snapped in two with a crunch, balance gone, body plummeting, but his free wrist wrenched up, a dagger thrown at my forehead.
My foot got there first.
Boot met steel mid-path, shifting that dagger's whole trajectory sideways, punching off course toward his own face, tip-first into the skull mask's left eye socket, burying itself to the hilt with a squelch, light in that pit fading out.
A deep exhale pushed out of Assassin's mouth, head snapping with the blade's own momentum, body following half a second later, twisting off the lantern and down toward the road in a sharp arc.
One foot landing on that buckling lantern, my knees bent again, bones locking, shins loading.
His body was still moving, and that meant he was still readable.
The road rose to meet Assassin, a hundred dragon tooth warriors visible beneath his shadow, bringing their swords up and pointing them at him.
He fell the last metre.
My foot lashed up into his spine.
A crack rolled across the bridge. His descent broke, body ripped horizontal, and he shot away over those skeletons' heads, pieces of bone mask streaming in his wake. Warrior after warrior in his path exploded, ribs and vertebrae blowing apart into dust trails that hung in the air.
His flight ended after crossing half the bridge.
Crashing down shoulder-first, he ploughed a trench through ash and asphalt alike, soot spraying off him in curtains, any skeletons in his way shearing into powder. One of his heels dug a furrow, body grinding for metres before halting, half-buried in a middle lane.
Assassin lay there, twitching once, presence concealment collapsing, revealing his robed form. Taking a few seconds to compose himself, he flipped himself over, torso jerking up to rise when—
Silver blazed to life beneath him.
A circle snapped into existence around his frame, rings within rings igniting in sequence, the light bright enough to throw his head and dagger's shadow up the pillar behind him.
Dozens of skeletons rushing toward him recoiled, pulling back.
Assassin moved before that circle finished brightening. Broken arm scrabbling, heels kicking, he dragged his torso out of the light in raw jerks, dagger scraping against his bone mask.
Gaining half a metre, he tried to lunge away. But threads crept out of that circle, swaying once before slithering over to find him.
The first thread looped his ankle. The second his wrist. Then the rest stopped creeping and poured, one after another, winding up his legs, ribs, both arms, crossing his back in a tangle that clinched tighter with every knot.
My threads spread him against the ground like a specimen, magic circle spiralling to a blur under him.
I walked over to him casually, silver threads extending out from the backs of my boots, connected to that magic circle on the ground.
Reaching him, I crouched near his head, hand dropping down to clutch the dagger inside his eye, blood seeping from it, down his cheek.
"Talk. Why is there no human around us? And why is this place saturated with that 'despair' I purged back home?"
...
..
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***
[200 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter]
[15 chapters ahead on P@tr3on = [email protected]/Not_Aaryan]
...
[Author's Thoughts]
And that's what folding someone without trying looks like. Izuru wasn't even breaking a sweat and Assassin got wrecked in about four seconds flat. Rough way to go.
Honestly though, if Cursed Arm had opened with his Noble Phantasm instead of saving it, Izuru might've been done in directly.
Noble Phantasm - Zabaniya: Delusional Heartbeat.
Basically he makes a literal mirror-image of you, meaning an image in the mirror or something and then crushes the fake's heart, and yours goes with it. Curse-type kill, no direct contact needed.
And yea... I know, it kinda looks very close to a Demoness Pathway ability, not gonna lie.
Anyway, have a wonderful weekend, everyone.