fate/x AU revue prototype - nanahikari

If only she knew that things would turn /that/ way.

For now, all that she could think is to run away – far, far away outside of Berserker’s radar and /that person’s/ barrier field as soon as possible.

The red mark of Master on her right hand shining ever-so-brightly inside the forest’s darkness, but she had opted that she won’t use any reckless measures right now. After all, her enemy is a Berserker, and the Master of that monstrous Servant is someone she knows so well.

Daiba Nana, a gifted sorcerer whom had met her years ago during a journey around the world. A magus without lineage, yet, the knowledge of witchcraft is like already at the back of her hand. Her knowledge and proficiency are quite infamous that she got a special place in Atlas Institute. Nana is also well-known as a young woman with a kind heart, friends to many and have a little to no foes.

The tall-haired blonde is like a polar opposite of her: Kagura Hikari, the sole survivor of Kagura bloodline, one of Three Forgotten Families that belonged the Holy Grail in the past. Her discovery of magic brought her on the conquest all over the world to find relics and the history of the Holy Grail War, a lone traveler and mostly anonymous to many.

Their meeting and path crossed as a single idea came into mind: in-depth research to revive the Great Holy Grail.

A catalyst that might grant your every wish, be it the mundane ones or to be something greedy like becoming God—who wouldn’t want the Grail to yourself?

.

The thought of Nana wanting to get the Grail for herself never occurred to Hikari, knowing that she always put others beyond herself, until their night of summoning.

They have formulated the perfect plan as they found that Tokyo is the destination for the next Grail War as the Church Association have said. Tokyo has been chosen because the two other Families of The Forgotten has gathered and built their own strength there.

Nana would like to summon a Caster for herself while Hikari got herself an Archer. Caster-type Servant got an abundance of Mana Pool, and they can make armies if necessary, based on catalysts that they have gathered. Hikari choose an Archer because they got a balanced status, not to mention that they are a good scout, seconded to Assassin class.

After the summoning, they would track down the other five Masters and they would work together until they could find the nature of this Grail.

.

Hikari clicked her tongue as she remembered that scene from a little while ago, the very betrayal that she could say she won’t forget for a lifetime.

“Master, are you okay to keep running like this?”

“It’s fine. I already imbued my own body with Mana, we can keep running all night if needed.”

“If you say so.” Archer straightened up. Her coat flickering in streaks of silver before she went invisible once more.


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.
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< Yet, thou serves with thine eyes clouded in chaos. / Thou, bound in the cage of madness. I am he who command those chains. >

.

Hikari still remembered when Nana started chanting the line to summon Berserker-class Servant. Aghast, Hikari took her step back as the concentrated energy exploded upon Berserker’s arrival. It doesn’t take Nana to waste any single second for her to order her Servant to attack Hikari.

Fortunately, Hikari’s life is saved as her own summoning has finished, revealing the purple-haired Servant with her big bow shielding against Berserker’s mace.

The fight between Archer and Berserker is quite heated and tight earlier, Hikari felt bad on destroying the research lab they had built for years, but all be damned as your life came in first.

‘If only I met you a few years earlier, Hikari-chan, I—‘

“Master, to your left!”

Her Servant materialized and dashed to her left. With the body of her bows again, she braced for the incoming impact. Archer then reflected the disrupted attack with a few of fire arrows scattering from their direction.

The Servant handed something to Hikari after the attack, which is turned to be a familiar-looking stake with Nana’s crest in it.

“I don’t know if we’re still pursued, but it seems that continuing to this way, another stake will come to us.”

Archer pointed at the vast forest before them. Even though Hikari is quite familiar with forestry around their joined atelier, everything felt different this night. Perhaps the magus didn’t count on her being warped inside Nana’s barrier that made her trapped inside this maze, or something to the like.

“Do you have a better idea, then, Archer?”

For the first time, Hikari studied how her Servant looked like up close. She was nowhere a muscular woman or any Heroic Spirit clad in expensive-looking armor. Archer has a purple hair that she tied to the side of her shoulder, she has her silver cape fluttering beyond her worn-out dark cuirass.

As strange as it might be, the supposedly powerful sniper has her glasses. It is one full-rimmed, hiding her sharp twinkle of jade green eyes captive.

“Will you mind if I carry you with me, Master?” Archer eyed Hikari. “We’ll go airborne until we arrive at the foot of the city.”

“… Huh?”

“Don’t worry, I have my Riding skill.”

“But there’s nothing to ride here, Archer.”

Archer sighed, “Is the frantic situation makes you forgot that I can utilize a Noble Phantasm?”

Hikari didn’t say anything else, rather, she drawn back her eyes from her Servant in embarrassed manner. Then again, this betrayal already made her exhausted, that’s to be sure.

They already ran away far from the atelier, they should be safe for now – but it is better to flee to the city rather staying there in the darkness of the woods.


x x x


“So, does Hikari-chan left the forestry yet?”

Berserker nodded upon the question, keeping their figure shrouded inside the mist rather than coming out for their Master to see.

Daiba Nana watched at the Command Spell imprinted on her left hand as she stood alone, bathing in the gloom moonlight gleam in their destroyed atelier.

The secluded house that they built a few years prior for their own research is decreased to a mere rubble, leaving only small parts of houses left. It is as if Nana wasted everything—her research data, her printed achievement, also her /friend/—in a single attack, but the tall blonde didn’t mind of it per se.

If anything Nana can be thankful of aside of the property damage, is that Kagura Hikari didn’t choose to be stubborn and reply on her taunt with full scale battle that might cause Nana to waste a single batch of her three-part Command Spell.

“The night is still long, Berserker. But it’s better for us to lay low for the night … before someone else detected us.”

Nana smiled to Berserker before they faded away, leaving Nana alone in her own ruins.

“Someday, someday you’ll understand, Hikari-chan. I know you will.”

[ She vowed to nothingness; but to the hollow part of the sickle moon. ]