Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Diablos Ex Machina ( Chapter 28 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

AN: Short chapter.  Really just bridging to the climax.  But I have to keep them divided, as I get a little wacky with the narrative again next chapter (Note: Arashi heartily dislikes writing in 1st Person, yet is writing fanfiction for visual novels that always use 1st person; Arashi must be a masochist).


Escaping Fate
Chapter 21
Diablos Ex Machina


It was over.
Yuushi stumbled as I slashed at him, almost backing right into a sword and cutting himself at the shoulder.  The magus scuttled about, trying to place distance between us, seemed to think that situating swords in my way would hinder me somehow.  He tried plucking one from the ground, only to find it would not budge.  He might have forgotten where exactly it was we were, and that nothing here moved without my intent.
“They say only those ready to risk their lives should take a life, so I hope you’re prepared,” I said.  The swords between us seemed to shift—or I seemed to weave through them without deviating from a straight line—and I raised Caliburn over my head.
A shadow shot across the sky, tearing through the dawn light.  I swung the blade on reflex, but the weapon passed into nothingness as my spell failed and the boundary of the Reality Marble crumbled.
And me along with it.
It felt like every atom in my body screamed for oxygen, and I fell to my knees, Avalon once more in hand, and had to lean on the scabbard to keep upright.  My vision tunneled and swayed as if I were drunk, while every centimeter of my skin felt as if it were swimming in heat.  My muscles wobbled beneath me and I could have sworn that it felt like someone had grabbed me by the hair as my scalp felt prickly.  I forced my eyes to stay open and on Yuushi.
The magus stared back at me as one who had just escaped death by a hair’s breadth.  The ghostly white of his hair and skin made his expression look even more shocked, though I’m not sure whether he was more terrified by his inability to access prana, the fact that I almost cut him, or that something had collapsed the Reality Marble from without.
“Senpai!”
I tore my gaze from my enemy and tried to focus in on Sakura’s voice, still at the window of the orphanage.  Dots of darkness and light blurred my vision and I could only make out her vague silhouette, now taking on miniscule amounts of light as we approached morning.
Dammit…
Just…cooperate for a minute, body…
I coughed as something inside me tore loose.  The taste of blood followed.  Whatever had been holding me together before wasn’t working anymore.
The sound of a low hissing made it to my ears, and I groped around, trying to find my balance and turn around—
An undulating mass of fanged worms.
All I could manage was to lean against the scabbard as the mass, ignoring Caren and Tohsaka completely, came straight for me.  I could literally feel the malicious intent, the feeling that somewhere in there, old man Zouken was ready to make me his next meal—
But an odd sense followed, disturbing and skin-crawling, similar to a twisted wantonness, and my eyes widened and began to focus.
It was in time to watch the mass leap right over me and come down atop the spent magus behind me.


The desire within it could feel the desires within the others.
Their screams for release.
The malice cared not.  Food for itself was enough to spread influence and power, and warp the reality around itself—
So darkness consumed upon darkness, and the desires within Setsuka Yuushi were granted their wish for release.


Any scream or cry that guy gave was drowned out by the rasping of the bugs moving about one another.  Unlike Caren, who would have still had available prana to drain when she had been attacked by the demon, Yuushi was empty.  Feeding directly on him would be…
I coughed again and spat out blood, then tried to get to my feet.  A pulsing sensation ran right down my spine to my legs as I did so, and I made it completely up only to fall face-first into the ground.
“U—aghhhhhhhhhh,” I heard myself groan into the dirt.
I could raise my head just enough to see Tohsaka and Caren beyond.  Tohsaka looked more cognizant than before, though the entire side of her shirt was burnt away and the skin showing looked like the leftovers inside an old stove heater.  Caren had stopped any bloodflow from her neck, but she was still holding her hand there tightly…
I had Avalon, but I didn’t have any prana to give it, and even at that, it wouldn’t do any good in destroying this demon.
For those I couldn’t save, and those I will…
What hubris, if I can’t even save four people from one threat—


“Yumi-chan!”
She jumped from the window down to the earth below, past that mass of shadows that felt both like her and not her at all, to Shirou’s side.
He was breathing unevenly, blood running from the corners of his mouth.  She tried to pull him over onto his back, and he cried out in pain, his free arm curling around his side.
The other held the golden and blue scabbard tightly.
She put her hands over his and tried to flow her prana into the device.  She understood that it did not work like that, that the sheath was nothing more than a figment of his mind given shape, and that even if the real one were present placing her prana into it would do nothing.
But she could think of nothing more to do.
She had been saved, he had been saved.
She wanted to be able to save him, so he could save others.
She wanted to see that face of his, once more.
The expression that told her, explicitly, without any words, that it was alright to hope, and dream, and live on—


The demon ripped open Setsuka Yuushi and ate him from the inside.
It then turned to the center of itself and reformed, resembling once again the dragon-like demon from before, only larger, greater, with moving scales and fangs within fangs.
The enemy of a wannabe-knight must look appropriate, after all.
It moved around to face Shirou Emiya, and found itself kneeling over him as well.
Salvation, itself cried.
The demon would give them salvation, from this world and reality—
Yumi’s desires.
Zouken Makiri’s hatred.
The pleading lives stolen by Setsuka Yuushi.
They came down upon the enemy…


I forced every bit of willpower into my arms, grabbing Yumi and pulling her down while rolling us over so the demon came down atop me instead—
It stopped, gibbering just beyond my face.
“Senpai!  Yumi-chan!” Sakura was screaming.  Something like ropes had bound up part of the creature, like a bridle and bit in its mouth, keeping the jaws from snapping down on us.  I could feel the same stifling air as before, the mana in the air being sucked right out by every breath this thing took, and I could feel the flow of energy from the creature itself moving into the strands holding the creature back.
“Sakura, let go!” I tried to shout, but I’m not sure how far my voice carried.
Those fanged worms now moved along the strands, following the flow of prana, and if she didn’t let go…
Yumi was whispering something that I couldn’t hear, and I tried to move us so she could get out, but nothing listened to what I was telling it to do, every muscle in my body too exhausted and pained to care—


She stared at the illusionary phantasm, at the dream-like illusion that had saved his life, and saved hers.
She didn’t know who she was asking.
She just had a plea, a prayer, a wish.
“Please, I don’t have the power…but save him!  Save him so he can save others!”