Chereads / Fate/Monster of the Abyss / Chapter 16 - A small lead starts the hunt

Chapter 16 - A small lead starts the hunt

The trio watched the ensuing battle between Saber and Lancer with various degrees of interest.

Raito was more focused on examining everyone present. With his 'Rainbow Mystical Eyes' activated, he was meticulously studying their outward appearance, the way their body and od/prana inside behaved, and then their soul/Saint Graph for any abnormality or any foreign elements.

Morgan's demeanor for once was cold and calculative as it usually was before her husband came into her life and awoke all her suppressed emotions. At the moment, she was keenly observing the battle.

Lancelot was doing the same, except his focus was not on the fight itself but on one of the combatants, Saber, the King of Knights.

When Lancer received the order to use his Noble Phantasm and dropped one of his spears, Morgan commented: "As if anyone would fall for a such cheap trick."

This got Raito's attention, and he directed his gaze back to the duel.

"You know, the honor. Knights usually value that stuff. Your Fairy Knights are just an exception. There is a chance for an oversight on her part. Artoria of the panhuman history is not the same as a fairy you are familiar with. She might not expect a fellow knight to set up a trap in a duel."

Having said his piece, the white-haired man continued with what he was doing no longer interested in the fight between those two.

It had continued for some time before Saber was lured into a trap and injured by the cursed spear Lancer previously 'discarded'. Irisviel, the Einzbern homunculus posing as her Master, tried to heal her, but all her attempts were fruitless.

"Disappointment." Morgan muttered. Due to the sheer stupidity of the reason behind that injury, she felt strong secondhand embarrassed. 'I would've never made such a mistake.' – she thought. She was so disappointed in her little sister that, for a moment, she entertained an idea to not step in even if she would be about to get killed, but soon she discarded such thoughts.

"Berserker, prepare yourself. The moment the conflict escalates, we will make our appearance. Control yourself. Do not attack."

"Morgan, I have found my target. From now on, you are on your own. You are in charge. The plan stays the same. I know you will inact it perfectly."

She nodded at him, and the next second, he was gone. He didn't teleport, no. He just nullified his presence and started running in the direction of one of the buildings. During the training session earlier, Morgan was able to follow his movements, but now she realized just how easy on them he was going back then. The thing was, just now, he hadn't merely concealed his presence. He nullified it to such an extent that not the onlooker like Morgan nor even the world could detect him. It was more accurate to say that he slipped out of reality itself.

It was easy for Raito to intercept Kirei Kotomine, but then came the tricky part. He is the Master of Assassin and the prime suspect of being one of an Outer God's minions. How exactly was Raito going to incapacitate and scan the target without his actions being detected by aforementioned parties?

Meanwhile, Rider made his entrance, interrupting the duel between the two knights.

The following conversation made Morgan question the mental capabilities of the King of Conquerors. That was until Artoria said something ridiculous:

"And further, I am a rightful King of Britain. I could never lower myself to a mere retainer, even in service to a mighty king."

'Rightful King of Britain?! Who gave you that right? It was Merlin who cooked up that scheme to make you one. And it was me who inherited the Dark Magic of British Islands. It was me who was born the rightful Queen of Britain!' Morgan was seething with cold righteous fury, and the nature around her reflected it.

Raito decided not to interfere. He had already told her everything he wanted, and now it was her turn to speak, with her actions that was.

Thankfully, Rider's next disrespectful words managed to appease the angry Fairy Queen and infuriated the King of Knights instead.

'I need to control my emotions. His skill really messed me up... Ah! I get it. This whole scenario, it is a test. He is taking a page out of my book with this method. You want to test me? Fine! I will pass your little test with flying colors!' A determined look appeared on her face.

When she finished sorting out her thoughts and emotions, she heard the boisterous moron's loud proclamation:

"Heroic Spirits, born again through the Holy Grail, gather here and now! Those too craven to show themselves will draw the scorn of Iskandar, the King of Conquerors!"

'What idiot would react to such cheap provocation?' Morgan thought.

Then, the golden Archer materialized on top of a lamp-post.

'Ah. Right. That one. Too big of an ego for his own good. I should capitalize on that.' She added.

After some exchange of words between the King of Conquerors and the King of Kings, the latter was offended by the fact that no one was able to recognize him and someone even dared to 'demand' him to reveal his name, so he opened the Gate of Babylon ready to launch weapons at the offenders. That was the sign for Morgan to act.

("Husband, now.")

("Got you.")

This way, Morgan made her debut in the 4th Holy Grail War.

Meanwhile, Raito had already captured his target and was sitting leaning on the wall of a building nearby with a perfect view on the scene. He chose that place not to enjoy the spectacle but rather to be able to intervene at any time in case anything went wrong. He was going through the memories of the priest to find out when and where the contact was made. Unfortunately, he couldn't find anything.

The initial reason behind investigating Kirei Kotomine was his strangely empty soul. Upon closer inspection, it looked as if it got 'sucked dry'. Even his Origin was affected. Delving deeper into the matter, Raito discovered a growing problem. Quite literally growing inside his soul was a potentially huge problem. And it explained why there wasn't anything about his encounter with the Outer God. He was turned into a living incubator for its spawns, so of course, to prevent any information leakage, the first meal the parasite had was that containing memories of its 'parents' meeting.

Good thing that Raito already had some proficiency in Spirit Magic and learned the basics of Dark Magic, as he was able to create an artifact to hypnotize the priest into believing in both soul and mind that everything was normal, and he was going to delete the memories of the last hour from the priest's mind. This way, no one would suspect Raito even if the abnormal memory loss was detected.

It was especially at times like these that Raito was reminded just how convenient and absurd Magic really was.

He was pullud out of his musings when his recording ended, and Morgan refuted his words:

"Ignore his claim. He is my husband. The ring is the proof. Today, I am a wife, so I will let you go. Starting tomorrow, I will be acting as a queen I am." She said that, paused for a moment, and then added, "If you ignore his warning, he will simply kill you, but I am different. If you as much as think about harming him, I will know... and death will be mercy." Her eyes turned obsessive, lifeless, and the madness could be seen deep inside those pupils. However, the next moment, she seemingly returned to normal, but Raito was sure that he was fucked. The look in those eyes was not a mere imagination, but the answer Morgan was giving him.

'I think I flipped a switch that shouldn't have been touched. Haha. I'm in danger. Thankfully, I have some experience in this field, so maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe I would even enjoy it... Who knows? We'll see how it goes. For now, I have more pressing matters...'

He once again directed his gaze to the figure of the unconscious Kirei Kotomine.

The easiest way to deal with the problem was to kill him and be done with it, but... It was too good of a lead to simply discard it. Those stinky grotesque monsters managed to hide so well that neither Gaia nor Alaya could find them. That was until they would show up by themselves, in which case it would already be too late. Only small trails like this one had a chance to reveal their location, so he had to take the opportunity when it presented itself.

However, before Raito could continue, he had one last thing to do.

("Lancelot, we are leaving.")

("...Artoria.") He completely ignored her.

("If you attack now, I will ask husband to conduct a personal training session for you.")

He visibly shuddered. It may have been confusing for the general public, but Raito had a different question: 'Have I inflicted a mental trauma to a Knight of the Round Table? All of them are legendary figures with a lot of experience. None should have a weak mental fortitude, so my training should be bearable, right?'

("No, please!")

'Is that a desperation I hear in his voice? I didn't break him, right? He should be fine, right?'

("We are leaving.")

("Yes!")

'Right... Now, I am a monster, even in his eyes... But it wasn't that bad. I mean, the real deal was much worse, and they weren't actually in danger of permanent death like I was at the time... Ah! I understand! It's not that my training is wrong, but being a Berserker, Lancelot's mental fortitude dropped significantly. Morgan was fine after going through the same. Mostly... Yeah... I am a monster.'

His mood dropped significantly, but despite a slight absentmindness, he teleported the duo of Servants back into the common room of his mansion without a hitch. While he was at it, Raito decided to make it up to the King of Knights for inflicting a mental scar on one of her people by healing the unhealable wound on herself. Dealing with Lancelot would wait.

Just as everyone started leaving the scene after overcoming the shock from the recent events, the hunter had finally sensed the connection between the spawn and its creator, his actual prey.

He checked the futage his drones were transmitting to make sure that there was no one left besides himself and the unconscious priest lying to the side, and then opening his eyes, he muttered:

"Just as planned."

Morgan and Lancelot witnessed the instant chenge in the scenery one more time and found themselves once again looking at the table that was still projecting the port's storage area they just left. The latter was told to enter his spirit form.

After some time, only Kiritsugu Emiya, Maiya Hisau, Irisviel von Einzbern, and Artoria Pendragon (Saber) were still displayed, leaving the area. Curiously, the creator of this technological wonder and his target were both nowhere to be found. Morgan deduced that it was either an anti-spy defensive mechanism at work or her husband's abilities exceeded the detection capabilities of his drones, with the latter being the more likely scenario.

She wanted to understand how the hologram worked, so she decided to inspect the table more closely. However, before she could start acting on her decision, Raito appeared next to her, holding a lantern looking artifact.

"Your smartphone contains the user manual for this table. It can do more than just show holograms. Seriously, Morgan, explore the contents of the things already in your possession before switching your attention to other things in this house. You may be in for a lot of pleasant surprises."

"Fine. It is...?" She asked, pointing at the looking out of place lantern in his left hand.

"The Master of Assassin was made into a living surveillance camera and an incubator for the spawns of an Outer God, whose identity I still have no idea about. This is the container I have made to isolate and keep alive the 'egg'. It has a connection to its parents, so for the foreseeable future, I will be busy with creating a system of searching artifacts to help me locate the enemy using this connection. The sooner I am done with it, the better."

Suddenly, Morgan addressed Lancelot: "Berserker, go into your room and sleep."

He obeyed and tried to move through a wall in his spirit form, but unexpectedly bumped into it, creating a comedy scene. Although he wasn't affected much by this failure and properly left through the door.

After this embarrassing display, the room descended in an awkward silence.

Finally, Morgan mustered up courage and asked: "Husband, how about we move into the master bedroom? I believe we all are a little tired after today's events and need some quality time. You have already seen my answer to the condition you put forward for me." Coming closer to him, she put her arms over his shoulders and, looking straight into his eyes, continued in a resolute yet containing a hint of bashfulness voice: "I am ready to become yours in all soul, mind and body. I am ready to put you as my first priority over everything else. But I have my own condition. Make an oath on your soul that you will never abandon and will never betray me. If you agree—"

She didn't get to finish her words when she was interrupted by him exposing his soul to her, accompanied by him saying:

"For as long as you love me and stay loyal to me, meaning you won't betray or/and abandon me yourself, I will do the same for you. I vow on my soul."

Then she felt it entering her, establishing a bond, consolidating their promise. She felt the instinctual need to validate it somehow, so she proclaimed:

"For as long as you abide by the vow, I am yours. I agree."

At that moment, a new connection was established between them, something that binded their very souls beyond that of Master-Servant as it was before.

As they relished in the feeling of their newfound intimacy, their heads were coming closer to each other, and bofore long their lips met.

'Maybe I have lost Britain, maybe my dream was never meant to come true, but I definitely won't lose him. Never! From now on, he is mine forever. I will make sure of it."

The look in her eyes once again turned lifeless and obsessive, but this time, instead of disappearing, it just continued growing in intensity.

Raito was the definition of the phrase: "If you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you." As his own eyes slowly gained similar expression.

Their problems and goals were forgotten, and one thing remained clear: they wanted each other. Now.