Omake: One Punch-Servant 3
Emiya Shirou had been having some strange nights the last 2 days. And not only because of the supernatural War in which he had suddenly found himself involved, no. It was because of his dreams.
He had dreamed about a familiar, though younger, boy and his little sister watching an anime about an amazing and impossible man. About how the boy repaired the damaged relationship he had with his sibling thanks to this, and how he ventured into another world using some kind of absurdly advanced device, just to have fun.
But the world of adventures had become a nightmare, the death of thousands becoming a reality because of what the madman that created it had done. A seemingly impossible Quest to complete 100 Floors suddenly was presented to the Players, who had been forced to become 'Warriors'.
In the middle of this, though…the boy received a strange 'gift'. He obtained the power. The same one that the man he saw on that series had. Absolute power to overcome anything on his way.
And Shirou saw how he utterly freaked out about it. And, by a mix of circumstances and luck, became a 'Hero'.
This surprised the young Emiya and became the first of many things that started making him question himself. After all, if he had been in the boy's place, he would have never hesitated in how to use those abilities for others, not caring about himself in the slightest…but the boy was different.
Though he did use his powers for the good of others, he never forgot himself. Though he knew of the dangers that his fight entailed, he never once hesitated or pushed away the people that got close to him, from the girl that became his 'disciple' to the group who followed them because he saved their lives. He protected them, yes, but he also made sure they became stronger, that they never had to rely on him.
He turned them all into Heroes, too.
Awed by this and more, Shirou also watched as he faced the traitorous paladin, who revealed himself as the Creator. And even when he assumed the form of a seemingly Invincible God, the boy still did not surrender.
Because he had much to fight for. His friends, his sister waiting for him in the real world…and his own life.
Awe filling him beyond belief, the last thing Shirou had seen was how he reared back his fist and destroyed the Fake God, with a punch strong enough to shatter the heavens and bring down reality itself…
CLANK!
"GAH!"
"Emiya-kun!"
"I-I'm okay, Tohsaka!" groaned the red-headed Magus while he resisted the urge to fall down in pain, getting out of his recollection of what he had seen of Savior's past the past nights and back into the deadly problem they were currently in.
Namely, the sultry figure of the Servant Rider, crouched like some animal while her chain-nail (Which she had just used to try and stab Shirou and that the Emiya had barely deflected with his now broken Reinforced chair) spun wildly around her. Behind the purple-haired woman, Matou Shinji smiled sinisterly while staring at them with disdain.
"Too bad, Tohsaka. You should have allied yourself with ME instead of that loser." sneered the blue-haired boy with an air of superiority.
"Emiya-kun, did you already call Savior?!" questioned the twin-tailed girl, totally ignoring Shinji while worriedly holding the other boy's bleeding arm.
"Yes, I did it some minutes ago, he should already be here!" replied the Magus while taking a cautious step back, even as Rin gritted her teeth.
She was SO going to kill Archer if they got from under that sinister Bounded Field alive. It was just their luck that Rider would activate that fucking Noble Phantasm not only in the middle of classes but also when none of them had their Servant at hand.
Shirou at least had an excuse, what with the strange nature of Savior's Noble Phantasm preventing him from going into Spirit Form, but the only reason she didn't have her stupid Servant with her was because, after she berated him for the stupid stunt he almost pulled against Berserker, the white-haired man had become more annoying than ever, and had told her he was going to check out something 5 minutes before the Bounded Field went up.
Apparently irritated by how the Tohsaka heir was plainly ignoring him, the Matou boy pointed angrily at them while tightening her grip on the strange book he was carrying.
"Okay, that's it! Rider, kill them! That will show them just WHO the better Magus here is!"
Both teens tensed at the threat, even as the Servant of the Mount emotionlessly nodded and shot forward her weapon once again.
Rin's mind raced (Despite already knowing that not even her gems could do more than distract the Servant) even as Shirou put himself in front of her, raising his arms and doing his best to Reinforce them despite knowing how futile it would be. The Tohsaka Magus was already considering just try her luck and spent all the jewels she was carrying in a last-ditch effort to save their lives or at the very least take Shinji down with them…
…when the windows of the hallway at their side shattered, the sound of countless small 'stars' spinning through the air filling the area before many of them impacted against Rider's chain, making it go off course.
The blindfold-wearing woman had enough time to see that they were honest-to-Zeus shurikens before she felt an electric surge run through her weapon and into her, only her Magic Resistance saving her from falling down paralyzed.
A small figure jumped through the window even as the Servant pulled back her weapon, the mysterious newcomer landing in a half-crouch before the two blinking Masters before bringing out several more of the throwing stars seeming from nowhere, five on each hand, which suddenly ignited with lighting, fire and some kind of shining orange energy.
"I won't let you hurt anata's…I mean, Kirito-san's friends!" called out the figure with an adorable voice, making Shinji gap in disbelief. "I swear it on my Ninja Way!"
"What." deadpanned the twin-tailed Magus, even as the Emiya looked in shock at the newcomer, because he recognized her.
Barely taller than the Master of Berserker was and with a similar hairstyle to his companion, the young girl was wearing what seemed like a fantasy-like version of a blue-grey Ninja uniform, though noticeably different to the one he remembered from his dreams. Some strange, star-shaped decorations held her twin-tailed brown hair, and the crimson scarf she wore flapped epically to some inexistent wind. Completing her 'costume', a half-mask covered her lower face, and a strange headband with the kanji for 'Kunoichi' covered her forehead.
All in all, she seemed more like some moe character from a fantasy anime than anything else.
But Rider was not fooled. The gorgon had, after all, seem several warriors in her life, and even if they had all met their foolish end at her hand, she knew how to recognize someone who had survived countless battles with just a glance.
The seemingly unthreatening little girl in front of her wasn't someone like that, no. She was one that had emerged VICTORIOUS from countless battles, and that had seen things that would have driven lesser men to madness. Even more, that she had managed to actually hit her chain with those small shurikens while in mid-air was nothing short of mindboggling.
"Yo-you are…one of Savior's friends, right?!" shouted Shirou while breaking the shocked silence that had filled the hallway. "How…?!"
"He's busy getting everyone out of here and having someone treat them!" informed the kunoichi without abandoning her stance, making both Magus blink and look in shock towards the windows, just noticing how a black-white blur of speed seemed to be moving every single unconscious student out of the school and into the field, while another figure they couldn't quite see clearly seemed to be healing the damage that Bloodfort Andromeda had done to them. "I volunteered to come and help you out while he did that! You can refer to me as 'Dragon Shinobi'. Now, leave her to me…"
"Is this supposed to be a joke?! You think that little girl stands any chance against my Servant?" mocked Shinji while laughing aloud, not noticing how the newcomer seemed to twitch at his words. "Go and show her who is the real Servant here, Ri…!"
A sudden rain of shurikens made the Matou Master squeak, only a well-aimed kick from his Servant managing to save his life via falling face-first into the ground.
The purple-haired woman had just managed to make use of her extreme agility to evade the attacks herself when the kunoichi vanished and seemingly teleported in front of her. Rider had enough time to 'see' how Shirou and Rin looked dumbfounded at the falling shuriken with which the pseudo-Servant had somehow switched places before she had to bring forth her chain go evade being stabbed on the face by the dark-looking kunai the girl had somehow materialized on her hand.
Medusa allowed herself just a fraction of shock at feeling it actually create a small crack on her weapon's links before she was engaged in a brutal melee clash…while her opponent rambled in despair.
"I'm NOT a little girl; I haven't been one in a long time dammit! I-it's not my fault that I materialize with this appearance when we're summoned, if it was for me I would gladly appear with my more mature looks, but NO, Fate's stupid rules make me materialize looking like before I hit my growth spurt…! Uuugh, but I DON'T care, you know?! So, what if you have a gorgeous body to fight right now?! Kirito-anata accepted me long before I stopped looking like a child with a growing problem, and that's enough for meeee…!"
"…what." repeated the Tohsaka heir what was going through everyone's heads, even as Rider arrived to terrifying realization. The so-called 'Dragon Shinobi' was more agile than her.
Oh, the Servant of the Mount was certainly faster and stronger, but the girl in front of her had clearly lived her whole life fighting enemies like that all the time. She actually was taking every advantage that her small body gave her to stay a step ahead of the gorgon and even inflict shallow cuts on her, weaving her body around the chain (Which was very cumbersome when fighting someone so close) as if she could predict every path it would take.
Knowing that it wouldn't end well for her if she kept going like that and that it would be better to end the fight before those others outside could come to help, the purple-haired woman kicked forward, forcing the pseudo-Servant to block with her arms and sending her flying backward thanks to the difference of strength. Taking advantage of the moment, rider backflipped herself to the side of her 'Master', who was already screaming at her for her earlier stunt, and prepared to throw her chain…when she froze at the deadly feeling in the air, Shinji's squeak of terror confirming her fears.
She couldn't actually 'see' it, because of her special blindfold, but she almost felt over every inch of her skin when her opponent brought the massive and eight-pointed THING (Because there was no way that monstrosity of metal was actually a shuriken) over her head, letting the gaping Masters see the strange and dragon-like markings it had over its surface before it started glowing with an eerie light.
Shirou had enough time to think the words 'Ultimate Skill' before the kunoichi threw the Fuuma Shuriken with a silent chant.
"Fly, Yamata-no-Orochi."
The demonic weapon roared to life, cutting through the air as it released a cutting miasma all around itself, breaking anything at the hallway's sides that were still whole.
The Servant of the Mount ignored her Master shrieking in terror in favor of grabbing him and throwing herself backwards down the pathway, launching her chain forward like a growling snake, hoping to slow down the abomination of steel.
It cut through her own weapon as if it was made of butter, leaving her with a useless piece of chain that was still falling down as the thing screamed towards them.
Once again, her unreal speed was the only thing that saved them, even as she 'accidentally' used Shinji's head as a ram to break down the door of the classroom at their side and dive in, feeling a cut appearing at her neck's side just before the Fuuma Shuriken flew past them and cut THROUGH the wall, flying somewhere outside of the building.
She fully ignored her Master's shouts at her to do something even as she brought up her broken chain and took advantage of the cut she had been inflicted to widen the wound, letting flood flow freely from her neck and into an unnatural pattern into the air in front of them.
They had to get the fuck away from that monster (And it was quite ironic for her to think that) who looked like a cosplaying little girl if they wanted to survive. Ignoring whatever the two other Masters were shouting even as she felt the pseudo-Servant running down the hall towards them, she called her trusted companion to appear from the seal.
With a burst of speed and destruction, Pegasus shot out of the badly damaged Classroom, flying the sky with Rider over it and a screaming Shinji barely hanging to her for dear life. As she neared the half-completed edge of her Blood Fort, the purple-haired woman realized with a grimace that she would have to deactivate it while barely having gotten anything from it (As expected from a plan coming from the incompetent idiot she was trying to save)….when a familiar voice screamed to her from down below, glaring her way from the destroyed wall of the classroom.
"Like HELL you're getting away! PINA!"
Rider had enough time to realize that the last word had actually been the calling of a Noble Phantasm before she felt her whole self SHAKE as an unholy roar filled the air, Shinji screaming again and almost pissing himself from fear as an enormous shadow shot past them, faster than even her know clearly terrified Pegasus, before turning around in midair, unfolding its massive wings as it growled at them, his red-blood eyes seeming like the promise of their doom. It was the size of a truck, with fangs longer than the Servant's arms and a mouth that could have swallowed her ride whole.
And it was a beast of POWER. A creature from the highest and most powerful Species of Phantasmal Beasts known in the world, which had long-since gone extinct. Medusa did not care that it had bluish feathers instead of scales because that did not change the nature of the being in front of her, over the head of which the kunoichi now stood, also glaring at them, was.
A dragon. The little girl had a goddamn dragon as her Noble Phantasm.
"…it's not fair that you get to appear all adult when I can't, you know?" whined the pseudo-Servant while looking down at her trusted partner.
"Kyuuruu…" rumbled the member of the Dragon Kind while, somehow, rolling his eyes.
"…yes, I know I say the same every time we're called to the mortal plane, but it doesn't make it less true."
Rider was about to take her chances to try and get away when her instincts screamed at her to dodge, with more urgency than they had done in her whole life. Unable to do anything else, the Servant of the Mount jumped down, ignoring her Master's screams as she stared helplessly at her beloved Pegasus.
Half a second later, the claws of the dragon had already closed around the Phantasmal Beast, all its power and speed meaning nothing against a creature that was above even its own level, being also a Noble Phantasm.
That was when she saw the incoming shurikens and she had to twist herself in midair to dodge. One of them just SO happened to hit Shinji's Book of the False Attendant, making the Matou boy scream as it caught fire.
Then the girl's kunai hit Rider on the hand, piercing it. It was just 'bad luck' that it was also the hand that was holding her Master, which forced her to let go of the screaming boy from the pain.
Luckily for Shinji, even as the Servant of the Mount deactivated her Bounded Field and vanished, turning immaterial after feeling her connection with him severed, the roof of the Archery Dojo was there to stop his fall. And the ground inside too.
From the hole on the wall of what had once been a classroom, Rin and Shirou STARED, the Tohsaka trying to stutter a coherent word and failing as she pointed from the DRAGON to the Pegasus it kindly let go before the beast vanished into dots of Prana.
She had never felt gladder from having made an alliance with the boy at her side then right then.
Archer chose that moment to appear, also STARING even as Pina roared to the heavens and vanished, together with his rider, just a second before Savior appeared at their side in a burst of speed.
"Oh…I see Silica took care of that, uh? Well, if you could call the obviously evil priest to cover this up it would be a great help, you know? I'm going to go check if whoever fell into that Archery Dojo is still alive."
Even as his Master nodded dumbly, still staring at where the kunoichi and her beast had disappeared, the Caped Servant vanished again just as Archer managed to say what everyone was thinking.
"What the fuck just happened?"
Sadly for him, that reminded Rin of his existence.
Meanwhile, pulling his consciousness back from his disgusting familiars, Matou Zouken's rotting body reflected absolute shock from where he stood in his house's basement.
The Emiya boy's servant was already an anomaly big enough, not only for his impossible Class and his absurd power (Surpassing that of even Berserker), but it seemed that every single one of the other Heroes he could call forth were almost as ridiculous or terrifying as him.
Even if Rider had been at full power, the old Magus wasn't sure if she would have been able to best the Dragon and his master without actually using her ultimate Noble Phantasm. And he had the sinking feeling that the massive beast hadn't used his full power either.
Shaking his head to try and banish those disturbing thoughts, the head of the Matou family once again delved into the minds of his Familiars, the sickening Crest Worms that were retreating into the sewers under the school giving him some more information about the catastrophe that his useless grandson had caused…when they went totally blind.
Freezing, Zouken realized that, suddenly, he was unable to see, hear or even FEEL anything from the Worms he had stationed all under and around the school area, only able to feel the ones he had inside the currently unconscious Sakura.
And then a sinisterly shining pair of red eyes filled his vision, a happy and ever-cheerful voice echoing everywhere through the very mental link he had with his Familiars.
A voice that came from the [Darkness]. A voice that was [Darkness]. A voice that commanded the [Darkness] itself, and that was the reason why his Worms hadn't simply died but 'ceased to be'…
"I fouuund youuu…"
Opening the eyes of his 'body', the old Magus took several steps back, even as the many Crest Worms filling the basement suddenly started squirming in primal fear.
His eyes suddenly roaming the unusually darker area, Zouken realized for the first time in centuries how sinisterly Dark it was down there…