Chapter 55: A Scuffle in the Park
A Scuffle in the Park
In the most abandoned and derelict park of Misaki Town, a great battle was taking place between two inhuman entities.
It was a battle that shook the sky and made the Earth tremble from its intensity. One that could determine the very fate of the world, depending on its conclusion.
However, despite the magnitude of the event, the inhabitants of Misaki Town noticed none of it. Through Bounded Fields and Runic Wards, all sounds and sensations were confined to the battlefield, to a point where even the agents of the Burial Agency remained unaware of the great showdown taking place in their vicinity.
And so, in the middle of the park, Demigod and monster continued to fight undisturbed, focused only on each other and themselves.
"Have at thee!"
"Ghk!?"
"Charge!"
"Ngh!"
A sword made of ice flashed in the light of the full moon as it swung, before it shattered when it made contact with a Divine hammer.
A burst of fire followed, aiming to burn away all in its path, but it was smothered by a powerful gust of wind.
A dozen knives, also made of ice, were thrown next, in a beautiful, intricate pattern that allowed none to escape, but they were all dodged or deflected.
Vlov Arkhangel, the Nineteenth Dead Apostle Ancestor, launched attack after attack, utilising his superior physical abilities and his Mystical Power with great efficiency and skill, but although he successfully kept Shirou on the backfoot, he was unable to actually land a hit.
Arkhangel's blows were lethal, his spells were potent, and he truly showed why he was considered one of the most dangerous creatures on Earth, but Shirou's extraordinary reflexes, immense speed, and borrowed skill from Monohoshi Zao had seen to it that he remained unharmed so far.
He hadn't been able to counterattack yet, too busy dodging and deflecting the attacks coming his way, but as long as he avoided injury, he could wait patiently for an opening.
Sooner or later, one would present itself. It always did.
"Knave!" Arkhangel didn't seem to appreciate Shirou's chosen tactic though. He roared angrily as he stepped in for a lunge, forcing Shirou backwards again, looking more enraged with every failed attempt to hit the redhead. "Is this all you have?! Stop cowering and fight fairly, dog! Where is your honour?!"
It was certainly strange for a Dead Apostle Ancestor to shout about honour, which was almost exclusively a human sentiment, but then, Shirou had learned over the past few minutes that Arkhangel was a very strange individual all around.
The longer the battle continued, the more the Ancestor seemed to lean into old knight-stereotypes. At the start, he'd seemed a bit old-fashioned in his speech and demeanour, like most Clocktower-lords, but now, he was shouting all kinds of ancient insults in Old-English and Russian, swinging his blade in highly exaggerated motions that could have come straight from a low budget medieval documentary.
Less like an actual knight and more like a child's idea of one.
At first, Shirou had wondered if that was perhaps part of Arkhangel's powers, like some kind of Geass that required him to act like a stereotypical knight in order to gain strength. It certainly wouldn't be the weirdest ability he had ever heard of.
After some careful observation however, he now knew that there was no rhyme and reason to it, no underlying cause for the strange behaviour.
Arkhangel was just as mad as a hatter.
"Curse your pox-ridden mother!" Arkhangel fumed when Shirou deflected yet another strike with Monohoshi Zao while taking a step back again. "Did she raise a craven?! Were you weaned off her tit too late?!"
"…" The redhead didn't reply to this insult either. Talking in battle was a sin after all, and he was frankly puzzled that Arkhangel didn't seem to understand that.
Though his behaviour was weird, his skills were the real deal, so it was odd that he made such a basic mistake as to waste time and energy on something as useless as trash talk.
Especially since it was clear Shirou wasn't going to react anyway.
"You won't even step up to defend your own mother?!" Shirou's continued silence seemed to anger Arkhangel more than any insult ever could however. He hadn't known that Apostles could turn red in rage, but apparently, Ancestors at least could, judging by the flush that appeared on Arkhangel's cheeks. "You pest! Come here, now!"
But Shirou didn't come. He remained at a distance, still not acknowledging anything the Ancestor said.
"Say something already!"
Shirou frowned at the order, nonsensical as it was, but in the end, he decided to reply, half-hoping it might convince the Vampire Lord to shut up already.
"Words are wind in battle."
One of the quintessential lessons his father had taught him.
"…" For a moment, the Ancestor froze, gaping at Shirou with a baffled expression.
Then all the anger came rushing back in.
"CUUUUURRRRR!" With a bone-chilling roar, angrier than ever, the Vampire Lord erupted in wrathful flames.
Shirou had known that people could figuratively explode in anger, he had even seen it happen several times, but this was the first time he ever saw someone literally explode in rage.
Apparently, his carefully chosen reply hadn't so much defused the situation as they had angered the bloodsucker beyond words.
With a wordless battle cry, Arkhangel threw himself at Shirou, dropping his sword in favour of revealing his fiery claws, aiming to shred the teen to smouldering ribbons with his bare hands.
It was an intimidating attack, one that would instil terror in anyone on the receiving end, but it was also so mind-bogglingly stupid that Shirou honestly wondered whether the Ancestor had taken leave of his senses.
For this was exactly the opening that he had been looking for.
Without his sword and his spells, Arkhangel's range was drastically reduced, giving Shirou half a second in which he could reach the vampire with his nodachi but the vampire couldn't reach him.
Perfect for dealing maximum damage.
With a silver flash, Monohoshi Zao severed the claws in a downwards strike, pulling Shirou along as it joyously threw itself at the enemy, before, in a motion so smooth even the redhead couldn't quite follow it, it reversed its course and cut off Arkhangel's hands as well.
The Vampire Lord didn't even have time to be surprised at his literal disarming before Mjolnir, held in Shirou's other hand, came swinging in from the other side, hitting the bloodsucker's head full on and obliterating it to tiny chunks, while sending the rest of the body flying off like a golf ball.
A perfect one-two from the redhead, only slightly marred by the fact that Shirou had not been in full control.
"Ah?!" He stumbled, slightly off-balance from the blow, before he frowned at his weapons after regaining his balance. The attacks, while planned, had been far smoother than he'd intended, far swifter too, hinting at the fact that he'd had some help, and Shirou knew perfectly well where that help had come from.
Really, sometimes, it was as if his weapons wielded him rather than the other way around, and he had to say it was a rather unpleasant feeling.
Though he couldn't argue with the results.
Locking his gaze on Arkhangel's tumbling remains, he held up Mjolnir and fired a blast of the Cleansing Power at the monster, the harsh white light washing over everything in its path, eager to destroy the unnatural creature.
But Arkhangel was not so easily beaten.
Even without his eyes, nose, or ears, the Vampire Lord could sense the lethal attack coming at him, and with a quick twist of his body, he spun out of the Cleansing Power's way, profiting off the fact it was only a straight beam-attack, easily avoided.
He landed on his feet, only stumbling slightly, before he fled as fast as he could.
It was almost comical, seeing a headless body run away like that, like something straight out of Leysritt's American cartoons, but Shirou did not laugh.
This was not a slapstick cartoon villain whose worst crime was imprisoning the platypus hero for a few minutes, nor was it a highly ineffective cat trying to catch a mouse. This was a monster, an abomination that had slaughtered thousands and would slaughter thousands more if he managed to escape.
He could not let him get away alive.
He fired another beam of the Cleansing Power, and then another, but to no avail. Arkhangel kept avoiding them, showing the sheer resilience that Ancestors possessed by continuing the battle even with his head destroyed.
It was a painful reminder that to Mystical creatures, the head was far from the most important part of the body. Unlike mortals, they weren't dependent on their brain, and they could easily go without it for a while, regrowing it later if needed.
No, Arkhangel's vital point was definitely not the head.
It was the heart.
In the Moonlit World, the heart was the very centre of someone's being. It was the most important organ of them all. It held the greatest significance in Magecraft and to many Magical Creatures, it was their only weak point.
So too was it for Dead Apostles.
By striking Arkhangel's head instead of his chest, Shirou had wasted a golden opportunity, which was twice as frustrating since he had known all along that he should have targeted the heart for maximum damage.
But for some reason, the head had just seemed like a more logical target, and both his arm and Mjolnir had moved without further thought.
Now he was stuck fighting a headless body, trying to finish the botched job without much success.
Shirou took off in pursuit, chasing the vampire across the park while still firing off beams and lightning bolts, though with no more luck than before.
The Ancestor's movements were too quick and nimble, and the distance between them was too great.
Their roles had been reversed. Now, it was Shirou who was fruitlessly chasing Arkhangel, launching attack after attack, only to grit his teeth every time those attacks were dodged or avoided.
On top of that, the Vampire Lord's head was steadily regenerating, undoing Shirou's only success so far.
Shirou did notice though that the healing process went far slower than before. When he'd blown himself up earlier, to get Shirou off of him, Arkhangel had healed fully after a mere moment, but now, it took him many precious seconds to even just get started on the neck.
It showed just how much more powerful and effective a Divine weapon like Mjolnir was when compared to mere Magic. The sheer conceptual weight behind the hammer ensured that the wounds it caused were far harder to heal and dealt far more spiritual damage than any mortal weapon or spell. Such was the power of the gods, one of the reasons they'd been so feared in their day.
In fact, the only reason that first blow hadn't outright annihilated Arkhangel, regardless of where it landed, was because Shirou was still too weak, too human, to properly wield that conceptual weight.
In the hands of Thor, even a glancing blow from Mjolnir would have obliterated the Ancestor on the spot.
But Shirou was not Thor, so Arkhangel yet lived.
A curse almost escaped the redhead's lips when the Ancestor, now almost fully regenerated, ducked below a stream of fire and widened the distance between them even more. Time was running out, and soon, Arkhangel would be back at full strength if Shirou did not think of something fast.
It was hard to think under such pressure though, and the redhead devised and discarded several unrealistic plans in mere moments, before he was hit by a flash of inspiration.
Rather than blindly chasing after the vampire and throwing ineffective attacks its way, he should take a page from his father's book.
He should set a trap.
Easier said than done of course, but Shirou had a good idea as to how to go about it.
He continued firing off lightning bolts, so not to rouse suspicion, but rather than just running after the vampire at random, he adjusted his course slightly, forcing Arkhangel to change his accordingly. They swerved a little to the left, and then a little more, and a little more, again and again.
Soon, they were running in a rough circle, with a diameter of about fifty metres. Just large enough that the headless body didn't notice it and just small enough that Shirou's plan could work.
He then dismissed Monohoshi Zao for now, freeing up his left hand, which he then used to draw Runes at lightning speed. Runes which he embedded into the earth beneath him, spreading them out across as large an area as possible.
On their own, each of these relatively simple Runes wouldn't do much.
Together however, they were a potent weapon.
Every second, the redhead created at least five more Runes, placing them on the circle's circumference, slowly creating an improvised Magic Circle.
It wasn't perfect, far from it even, but it was enough for now.
When he had enough Runes primed for his purpose, all of them as of yet inactivated and thus largely undetectable, Shirou squeezed a bit of extra speed out of his legs, suddenly veering to the right.
Predictably, this caused Arkhangel to turn even more to the left, in an effort to avoid him.
Straight into the centre of the Magic Circle that the redhead had prepared just now.
Shirou promptly activated the trap, sending a burst of power through the Runes, and the Magic Circle lit up with bluish green light, the effects quickly taking shape.
While making the Magic Circle, the redhead could have chosen to use Magic of the offensive kind. He could have doused the area in hellfire for instance, or generated a tornado of slicing winds, or brought down the mother of all lightning bolts.
It wasn't any of that.
Hellfire, tornados, and lightning would have wounded Arkhangel, definitely, but the Ancestor would just as definitely have recovered afterwards, likely in mere moments. There was no guarantee that even his strongest attack would permanently kill the Vampire Lord. Not with how resilient he'd already proven to be.
To deal permanent damage, Shirou needed to hit Arkhangel's heart, his most vulnerable place, with Mjolnir, the redhead's most powerful weapon, preferably while the weapon was infused with the Cleansing Power.
And that meant he needed to lock the monster in place long enough to aim and swing.
Hence, the Runes. All of them variants of Isaz, the Rune of Ice and Standstill, with a single instance of Tiwaz, the Rune of the skygod Tyr, whose domain included air.
And so the Magic Circle didn't unleash a devastating attack, but instead froze the air within its borders in place, from the ground to about a metre up.
Every molecule in the affected area stilled, temporarily escaping the hold of the laws of physics, thereby locking Arkhangel's legs in place.
If the air did not move, flesh could not move either, undead or not, and so, the Ancestor was completely trapped.
A perfect opportunity.
Shirou hadn't even waited to confirm the trap's success before he'd launched himself into the air, flying over the affected area to escape the effects, and he swooped down at Arkhangel, who could no longer dodge.
Within a fraction of a second, he was almost within range, holding Mjolnir at the ready, the hammer glowing white from the sheer amount of Cleansing Power running through it.
The Vampire Lord was there, paralysed from the waist down and helpless, scrambling to escape without avail. This was a chance he was never going to get again, and he absolutely could not waste it.
By now, most of the head had regenerated, from the chin and the jaws to the ears and nose. Only the hair and the eyes were still partially missing.
Arkhangel had almost recovered.
Just in time to be obliterated again.
Time itself slowed down to a crawl as Shirou approached, and he saw, with perfect clarity, every single movement either of them made.
He felt Mjolnir's comforting weight in his hands, sensed the impulses travelling across his nerves to his muscles, and relished the familiar thrum of power in his bones.
He saw how Arkhangel tensed up in dread, observed the panicked twitches in his arms, and took in a deep breath in anticipation when the Ancestor turned his upper body towards him.
They locked eyes, as the Vampire Lord had successfully managed to regenerate them in the fraction of a second he had left before the blow landed, and Shirou gritted his teeth, anticipating a pitiable look of fear in those eyes.
Only for his stomach to drop when he saw not fear…
-But calculating indifference, followed by confident satisfaction.
And the redhead knew he had messed up.
Quick as a viper, Arkhangel's left hand shot upward, grabbing Shirou's wrist just before he could bring Mjolnir down, effectively neutralising the blow.
Had he tried to grab Mjolnir itself, he would have lost the arm for the trouble, so instead, he targeted Shirou's body directly, with success.
"No-! Ghk?!"
The redhead didn't even have time to regret his mistake before the Ancestor's other hand slammed against his chest in an open-palm blow, cracking his ribs and nearly collapsing his lungs.
"Gah!"
Then, the Ancestor pulled on Shirou's arm, turned halfway around, and threw the redhead over his shoulder, slamming him into the ground hard enough to fracture his spine and drive all air out of his already battered lungs.
Vaguely, in a far-off corner of his mind, Shirou couldn't help but be impressed as well as horrified by the swiftness and alacrity of Arkhangel's counterattacks, and both his awe and his horror only increased tenfold when he felt how his Magic Resistance, his ability to cancel or weaken all Mystical attacks against his person, far outstripping that of the Ancestor, smashed his own Magic Circle to pieces as he came down.
The Runes immediately lost all potency, and the air molecules started moving again.
Just like that, by using his brain and a masterful shoulder-throw, Arkhangel had managed not only to get back the upper hand, but also to free himself.
Using Shirou's body as a tool.
It left the redhead absolutely gobsmacked, his brain spluttering and glitching as it tried to catch up.
How could this have happened?! The Ancestor had shown no hint of such raw intelligence before! How could he suddenly be that smart?!
Shirou was thrown in more ways than one, and then Arkhangel made it worse, by lifting his boot and slamming it down on the redhead's face.
His nose shattered, his lips split, and his skull probably fractured in multiple places as well.
"Hrngh!?"
Shirou tried to throw up his right arm, to swing Mjolnir at his enemy, as much to chase him away now as to harm him, but he didn't get further than a few centimetres before Arkhangel created a new sword and stabbed it into his wrist in the same motion, pinning his arm to the ground.
"Guh!"
Then the boot slammed down again.
"Argh!"
His other arm was pinned too.
"Ngggh!"
And again the boot came down.
"Kchhh!"
Durable though he may be, Shirou was almost unable to withstand the repeated blows, dark spots dancing before his eyes as the Ancestor kept stomping on his head. His strength was truly tremendous, and Shirou's bones creaked under the sustained assault.
His limbs felt heavy, as if weighted down.
His mind was clouded, darkness creeping in at the edges of his vision.
His head was spinning, and he almost missed how Arkhangel nodded in satisfaction, before he created a dagger, aiming to stab it into Shirou's heart to finish the job.
As if it was no big deal.
That could not stand!
The idea of being killed as an afterthought, of dying here and letting this creature escape to kill thousands more, instantly cleared Shirou's mind.
His confusion disappeared, and was replaced a white-hot rage that pushed everything else to the side.
The swords pinning him in place shattered.
His wounds healed.
And his eyes turned blue.
'CRACK'
Accompanied by a deafening clap of thunder, loud enough to shake the windows and give heart-attacks to all pets in the city, a gigantic bolt of lightning descended from the heavens, falling down like the Hammer of God.
Right upon the two combatants.
"AARRGGGH!"
Arkhangel was slammed against the ground like a mountain had come down on him. His veins exploded from how quickly his blood heated up, and his flesh was seared right of the bone.
The attack had been completely unexpected, utterly out of nowhere, and the Ancestor flailed in confusion, groaning in pain as he healed, before his eyes widened in shock when he no longer saw Shirou beneath him.
Instead, the redhead stood across from him, none the worse for wear.
He was completely healthy, not even a trace of blood left from his earlier injuries, with arcs of lightning crackling across his body. As precarious as the situation had been a few seconds before, he was now back in the fight, ready for round two.
But rather than take advantage of Arkhangel's confusion, Shirou remained at a distance, warily studying the Ancestor as he recovered from the immense blow he'd just been dealt.
He'd made a very lucky escape just now, but the past few moments were a very clear warning nonetheless not to underestimate Arkhangel if he knew what was good for him. Though the Vampire Lord might seem like a lunatic with delusions of grandeur, he was immensely powerful still, and more than worthy of his rank of Dead Apostle Ancestor.
As adept as Shirou was at killing Dead Apostles, Arkhangel was a different beast entirely. That was crystal clear now.
So when he approached the healing Vampire Lord again, it was with the appropriate caution, and he took the time to assess the situation first.
He wasn't the only one. Arkhangel too kept his distance for now, peering right back at Shirou with a similarly analytical gaze.
He had been spooked every bit as badly as the redhead by their short and furious exchange. He'd allowed his rage and insanity to control him during the battle, believing that he didn't need anything else to win, and as a result, he'd nearly died, twice.
So he kept a far tighter lid on his emotions, breathing in deep to still the rampant noises in his brain, also taking a moment to observe before he acted.
With both of them now fully healed, it seemed as if the past few minutes had been nothing but a dream. If it hadn't been for the damaged surroundings and the residual traces of Magical Energy, it really could have been.
Even Arkangel's clothes seemed to have regenerated with him, leaving him just as pristine as before, for some nebulous reason.
Perhaps because fighting naked wasn't knightly?
In any case, for the first few moments, there was silence.
Before Arkhangel broke it first.
"I am sorry."
"…Hm?"
An apology?
Shirou blinked in surprise, wondering what on Earth the vampire was referring to, but Arkhangel continued unprompted.
"I abandoned my knightly demeanour during our battle. I gave in to my rage, believing it to be sufficient to defeat you, when it evidently was not." He explained, his lips tightening in shame. "I underestimated you, and in doing so, I shamed us both. It shall not happen again. You have my word it shall not."
"…Right." Shirou had no clue what the proper response could be to such a declaration, so he didn't even try.
"This time, I shall kill you most chivalrously and without fail." Arkhangel proclaimed, brandishing his sword, holding it up above his right shoulder, pointing downwards. "Prepare yourself. This time, I won't be so easy to defeat."
In response, Shirou lifted Mjolnir, holding it before him, aimed slightly upwards.
For a single heartbeat, neither of them moved.
Then Arkhangel swung his sword.
Sending a wave of white-hot fire at Shirou.
And the battle began anew.
Although the battle between Demigod and Vampire Lord was quite intense, no one outside of the abandoned park noticed anything amiss. Not a single sound escaped the boundaries, nor a flash of light or a plume of smoke.
Shirou's Bounded Fields and Runic Wards, though hastily erected, were very potent, and more than capable of holding up against the violence inside its borders.
Of course, if either combatant had made a serious effort to break them, they would have surely smashed through the defences like they would through a thin sheet of ice, but since neither would profit from such a move, they had so far refrained from doing a thing like that, allowing the Wards to continue doing their job.
All that was to say that Shirou's efforts to keep out bystanders, limit the collateral damage, and preserve the Secrecy of the Moonlit World were wholly successful so far. Rin and Lorelei would be proud if they knew.
Unfortunately for the redhead though, he might have sealed off the area from the rest of the city, preventing any outsiders from entering the park, but he had failed to account for the beings that were already in the park when he and Arkhangel had arrived.
In particular, for the itty bitty spider that was sitting in a tree nearby, watching the fight with something as close to awe as a spider could possibly get.
It was, at first glance, a normal spider, with eight legs, eight eyes, and a hairy, black-coloured body. It wasn't unusually big, or of an unusual colour. A mundane person would not have looked twice at it, and even most Magi wouldn't give it a second glance.
But while it was indeed mostly normal, it did have something special about it. Something that elevated it above a mere arachnid the likes of which you could find at almost every place in the world.
This spider had a mental link, a link to its Queen, which granted it greater intelligence and better senses than its ordinary brethren. A form of limited sapience even, much less than a human, but far above even a dog for instance.
So when Demigod and Dead Apostle Ancestor had come down in the park with a mighty crash, it had not fled, like most other insects, but rather decided to approach the two titans to take a look.
With its greater intelligence, it had quickly deduced that something momentous was taking place right now, and that its Queen might be interested to know what was happening exactly.
Now burdened with glorious purpose, the brave little spider had climbed up a tree and used its better-than-normal senses to observe the battle for a while, bravely clinging on to the branch despite the gales of wind trying to send it flying.
When pitch-black thunderclouds began gathering overhead and lightning began falling from the skies however, coupled with roaring flames that ate everything in sight, it quickly decided that caution was the better part of valour after all and hastily retreated.
Insects didn't like fire, and this little fellow was not enhanced enough to be able to suppress those instincts.
It had collected enough information anyway. Now it just had to inform the Queen before the battle ended and the information lost its value.
It ran as fast as its little legs could carry it, away from the Earth-shattering violence and out of the park.
Had the spider possessed even a tiny bit more Mystery than it did, the Bounded Fields and Runic Wards would have detected and stopped it, ending its valiant attempt at reporting back to its Queen before it had even started.
But since it hadn't been given anything but minor sapience and better senses, it managed to slip beneath their notice, making a clean get-away.
Then, it used its mental link to its Queen to track her down, in order to bring her the information it possessed.
Already, the spider could taste the sweet flies it would surely get as a reward, drool leaking from its mouth and jaws.
Where before the battle between Shirou and Vlov Arkhangel had been a rampant and chaotic mess, with terrible explosive force, wild, unrestrained attacks, and various overt uses of Magic and Mystery, it had now turned into something much more restrained.
Arkhangel had suddenly abandoned his Berserker-like manners, and had instead begun fighting like an actual knight. His icy blade cut through the air in practised motions, his footwork was impeccable, and he'd said not a word since his change in demeanour, no longer wasting a mote of energy or attention on empty trash talk.
Meanwhile, Shirou tried to match him as best as he could, with Mjolnir, Monohoshi Zao, and whatever other weapons he could Project on the fly. Since he was not nearly as well-trained or experienced as Arkhangel however, he found it difficult to hold his ground, and needed to use various other abilities too in order to keep up with the Ancestor's rapid attacks.
"Hm!"
With a soft grunt of exertion, Arkhangel stepped in with a masterful feint, completely throwing Shirou off-balance by pretending to target his inner thigh, before swinging his sword at the redhead's neck instead, aiming for a quick decapitation.
Shirou used his power of flight however to right himself again, before he intercepted the attack with Mjolnir, catching the blade on the handle, simultaneously priming Monohoshi Zao for a counter, a counter he had shamelessly copied from the nodachi's Third Wielder.
Before he could complete the move however, Arkhangel's blade exploded in white-hot flames that washed over Shirou and his surroundings, forcing the boy to close his eyes and disengage to avoid the bright flash, breaking his stance.
A quick lightning bolt ensured that Arkhangel couldn't press the advantage however, and with his immense resistance to fire, Shirou was able to resume the battle quickly, none the worse for wear.
He parried and blocked a couple of similar attacks after that, managing to avoid injury despite Arkhangel's impressive swordplay, though it did cost him a lot of ground, as the Ancestor kept pushing him back.
The loss of ground was worth it though, as every hit, faint, and lunge taught Shirou more about the monster's techniques, sufficiently so to somewhat accurately predict his next move.
Every attack was stopped a little easier than the one before, and after he'd successfully countered Arkhangel three times in a row by predicting his moves, Shirou decided the time was ripe for an attack of his own.
When the Ancestor stepped back a bit after another failed offensive, to get his bearings after a parry, Shirou took a brazen chance and aggressively swung Mjolnir at him, expecting him to take a step back, as he'd always done before whenever he saw the hammer coming at him.
But Arkhangel didn't take a step back.
Instead, he suddenly went down on his right knee at the very last moment, thereby ducking below Shirou's swing.
Then it was the redhead who had to scramble back when the Vampire Lord lunged at his legs.
"A valiant attempt." The Ancestor praised him after Shirou had made a narrow escape. "But your intentions are far too obvious."
…Lesson learned.
Gritting his teeth, Shirou looked at Arkhangel's sword, Tracing it again and again in the hopes of learning something useful, but as the construct had only been created half-a-minute before, it taught him nothing new.
Against normal sword-wielding opponents, or as normal as sword-wielding opponents could be in this day and age, Shirou had quite a leg up, in that he could Trace their weapon to learn about their history and their style of fighting. It made countering them significantly easier, as he would be made aware of all their tricks and wiles, which was a tremendous advantage in any battle.
Arkhangel however didn't really have a main weapon. Much like Shirou himself, he created weapons on the spot, out of ice, which meant those weapons carried almost no history for Shirou to Trace. How could they, when they were literally only seconds old?
Hence, the Ancestor's techniques remained out of sight, and his style was still an unknown. Even now, after their lengthy battle, there was almost nothing Shirou really knew about Vlov Arkhangel.
And since he was only a novice with the blade and the hammer, that put him at quite the disadvantage against the ages-old sword master.
Fortunately for the redhead however, he did have one tangible advantage over his opponent, which made protecting himself a little easier.
The Cleansing Power.
The scorching light that burned away everything that Shirou considered unnatural.
Arkhangel had been hit only once by the Cleansing Power, when Shirou had infused his hand with it and punched the Ancestor in the face during an unguarded moment, and the fact that the resulting burn mark on his left cheek was still unhealed despite his potent Regenerative Abilities was enough to make him avoid it like the plague ever since.
Being permanently wounded had evidently spooked the vampire quite badly, sufficiently so that whenever he spotted even a trace of the harsh, white light, he was quick to retreat, feeling no compunction about abandoning even golden opportunities in order to avoid Shirou's most potent weapon.
Whenever he was in a pinch, Shirou only needed to make his hands glow, and whatever attack Arkhangel was launching would be promptly aborted.
And so, neither of them was able to land a solid hit, something that increasingly seemed to annoy the Ancestor.
That frustration soon reached its peak, and with a grimace, Arkhangel locked his blade with Shirou's, before he suddenly took his left hand off the sword, aimed his index-finger at Shirou's face, and shot a tiny but highly precise burst of fire at the redhead's eyes, almost akin to a bullet.
As resistant as he was to fire, the redhead reacted on instinct, averting his face to shield his precious eyes from the flames, before he hissed when his feet were suddenly trapped in a layer of ice.
Off-balance for a fraction of a second, he had to act fast to parry the swing coming from the upper-right, but he couldn't avoid the fist that hit him on the nose, audibly breaking it again.
Shirou barely had time to register the pain though before he had to block a two-handed overhead strike that aimed to cleave him in two, grunting in exertion as he forced Arkhangel's blade back up and away from his forehead.
Only for the Vampire to ram his pommel in Shirou's face.
Another overhead strike followed, and then another, and another, coming down on him without any finesse or style.
Arkhangel was hacking at him as if he were a tree to be felled, uncaring about the damage to his sword as it came down upon Mjolnir time and again, pinning Shirou down through brute strength alone, each blow containing enough force to topple a fully-grown elephant.
Pound for pound, Shirou was stronger than the Ancestor, but through the use of torque and lift, Arkhangel aptly negated that difference. His sustained assault gave Shirou no respite, which was made even worse by the fact that he had no opportunity to break the ice currently trapping his feet.
Already, his knees were buckling from the strain, close to giving in, and when he went down, which was inevitable at this rate, Arkhangel would undoubtedly knock him on his back and finish him off.
A perfect demonstration of how an armoured knight might defeat another armoured knight.
On his own, Shirou had no way out of this predicament. Neither Mjolnir nor the Cleansing Power could help him if he simply didn't have the time to use them, which meant desperate measures were his only option.
Desperate measures that the Vampire Lord was surely anticipating.
But if Arkhangel had taken the time to look into Shirou's eyes, he would have found no desperation there, no fear.
Because Shirou wasn't alone.
Not truly.
He had Monohoshi Zao, which carried within it the legacy of its Third Wielder.
The Third Wielder, who had specialised at deflecting such powerful strikes with laughable ease.
A skill that was now at Shirou's disposal.
"RAH!"
Letting out a primal roar, Arkhangel gripped his sword tightly, tensed his core muscles, and swung his blade down at Shirou, aiming to knock him on his back at last…
-Before he tripped over his own feet when his blade encountered not a hammer, but a long nodachi, which did not block, but flicked his sword off to the side with but a featherlight touch instead.
With such a sudden lack of resistance, Arkhangel's own strength sent him stumbling to the right, and then to his knees when the nodachi sliced through his calves in a lightning fast attack.
His flow had been interrupted.
Shirou promptly tore himself free from the ice trapping his feet, and he swept his leg at Arkhangel's knee with enough force to dent a steel wall, aiming slightly upwards.
The kneecap shattered with an extremely satisfying crunch, and Arkhangel's legs were swept up into the air, causing him to smack down onto his back as his face contorted in pure agony.
Agony which turned into terror when Shirou swung Mjolnir right at his chest, aiming for the heart.
Letting go of his current sword, Arkhangel rolled to the side just in time to avoid the lethal blow.
Gritting his teeth when Mjolnir hit nothing but dirt, Shirou lifted the hammer and tried again.
Only for Arkhangel to grab his heel and pull him off his feet as well.
Now also on the ground, Shirou made a grab for the Ancestor, hoping to get into a grappling match, where his greater strength and Cleansing Power would almost certainly see him to victory.
But Arkhangel knew that too, and rolled out of Shirou's reach again.
Opening himself up to Monohoshi Zao instead.
Shirou didn't fail to capitalise on the opportunity, and when the Vampire Lord tried to prop himself up, he sliced the creature's arm off with the nodachi, sending him back to the ground, before cutting off the other arm too for good measure.
He leapt to his feet, using his power of flight to his advantage, and kicked the Ancestor in the floating ribs to stun him, before lifting Mjolnir again.
Only to have to retreat a few steps when a veritable blizzard erupted before him, the horrid ice spikes slicing into his skin despite his immense durability, rendering him unable to finish the job.
By the time he'd suppressed the storm of icicles, Arkhangel was also standing again, looking none the worse for wear.
The shattered knee, severed arms, and broken ribs were nowhere to be seen, and despite already knowing about the Ancestor's regenerative powers, it still ticked Shirou off to see how futile his efforts had been.
Huh, so this was what that was like…
No wonder most of Shirou's enemies always seemed so cross with him. This really was plain cheating.
The shoe was on the other foot now however, and it drove home once again that victory was only possible through either Mjolnir or the Cleansing Power. The only weapons in his arsenal that could deal damage that would not be erased in a fraction of a second.
And thus the weapons that Arkhangel always made sure to avoid at any cost.
Because of that, they'd ended up in a stalemate, with neither combatant able to inflict a decisive blow.
They'd cut off each other's limbs, broken bones, and tried to pin the other down in various ways, but nothing seemed to work.
And so, they retreated for a bit, to size the other up again.
"You are a novice with the blade." Arkhangel remarked after a moment, eyeing Shirou's hands with a discerning look. "Slightly better with a hammer. You have fought mainly with your bare hands though."
"…?!" The Vampire's analysis was startlingly accurate, and Shirou couldn't stop his eyes from widening slightly in shock.
"That you managed to survive for so long against me despite being a novice is a testament to your raw talent." Arkhangel continued, complimenting both Shirou and himself in the same sentence. "But you must have realised by now that I am beyond you. This is no insult, but simply a statement of fact."
That was debatable. Shirou would readily acknowledge the Vampire Lord was a much greater warrior, with far more skill in the blade, but the gap in actual power between them had seemed rather narrow so far. Narrow enough that the battle could still go either way.
"That I will kill you eventually is a foregone conclusion. An ending that became indisputable once you challenged me. However, I shall admit that it will take some time for me to bring you down, time that I do not have." Arkhangel lamented, before he made a grand gesture with his arms, like a king granting mercy to an unruly subject. "So, as I am currently quite a busy man, I shall allow you one more chance to run away. If you do, you have my word that I will let you escape unharmed."
"…"
"I most urgently advise you to accept this offer, for your own sake."
The offer to let Shirou flee unharmed was sincere, surprisingly enough, but Shirou spotted the dishonesty in the Vampire's words all the same. Arkhangel might claim he was beyond the redhead in any and every way, but his frantic dodges of Mjolnir and the Cleansing Power, as well as the still-present burn mark on his cheek, showed that it was not only magnanimity that had prompted the offer.
Arkhangel too knew that the battle could still go either way, and he was trying to disengage, unwilling to gamble his life in an ultimately, for him, useless battle. He had nothing to gain and everything to lose from continuing his fight with Shirou, so he wanted out.
But Shirou wasn't going along with that. There was no way he was going to let an Ancestor get away from him, no matter how dangerous the battle might be.
At the risk of repeating himself, Arkhangel positively reeked of blood, and Shirou would not be surprised to learn he had killed hundreds of people already since entering Misaki Town, if not thousands.
A hero could not possibly stand for that.
"A pity." Arkhangel sighed, apparently having read Shirou's intentions off his face. "You zealots are such a troublesome bunch. Sometimes, I almost wish that-"
He attacked.
In the middle of his sentence, without the slightest change in his expression, the Vampire Lord raised his blade and fired a concentrated beam of scorching fire right at Shirou's face.
A perfectly executed surprise attack.
It might seem dishonourable, and perhaps even out of character for the knight-like Ancestor, but to attack while still speaking was actually a tried and true tactic, used even by the actual knights of old.
If you could end the fight in a single move, why wouldn't you?
Shirou had been prepared for such an old trick however, and he dispelled the flames with a mental command.
Only to then be faced with a whirlwind of razor-sharp icicles, aiming to slice him to ribbons.
Whirlwinds were no problem however, and Shirou easily directed the icicles upwards, into the sky, before he generated a pulse of flame of his own that melted them into water, which then descended onto the battlefield again in the form of a harmless summer rain.
A rain that promptly evaporated once it came into contact with Arkhangel's flames.
Within moments, the two combatants had been engulfed by massive clouds of steam, as Arkhangel tried to obfuscate Shirou's sight.
A clever tactic. It might have worked too, if it hadn't been for the fact that the redhead possessed a minor form of Clairvoyance, more than enough to see through mere mist.
So when the Ancestor tried to jump him from the side, Shirou was ready to meet him.
Their match of swordplay resumed, and once more, Shirou was swiftly forced on the defensive despite mainly using Monohoshi Zao this time.
It was getting really tiring to be pressed so hard all the time, and more than a little frustrating too, but Shirou could not deny that Arkhangel was just the superior warrior. Frankly, he should be glad he was keeping up at all.
For now, he should play it safe, and try to learn as much as possible about his opponent before attacking again.
So with that in mind, Shirou activated his Clairvoyance to the fullest and he looked.
The dawn was only a few hours away, bringing an end to another fruitless night, when Ciel, agent of the Burial Agency and former host of Roa, spotted a figure from her perch on Misaki Town's rooftops.
A most unwelcome figure.
Naturally, being a hard-headed, confrontational sort of person, she didn't hesitate to make her displeasure known.
With a flourish, she pulled a Bible from an inner pocket of her robes, a small pocket version, one of many she carried with her. This one had no real value aside from it being a copy of the Good Book, financial or otherwise, so she didn't hesitate to tear out several pages, fashioning them into a Holy trident.
It was a crude construct, hastily created with subpar materials, but like all weapons of the Burial Agency, it carried behind it the Faith of over a billion people and a history of over two-thousand years.
It wouldn't be sufficient to kill the unwelcome figure, or even seriously injure her, but if it hit, it would hurt like hell, which was enough for now.
Unfortunately for Ciel though, the moment she threw the trident, she knew it would not hit.
Her target possessed keen senses, and she noticed the attack with seconds to spare, allowing her to easily dance out of the way, displaying a grace and elegance that was wholly appropriate for someone with her supposed rank.
The grace and elegance of a princess.
The trident smashed into the sidewalk, penetrating deeply, before it fell apart into book pages again, which quickly scattered in the wind.
"How rude." The target of Ciel's anger remarked, before giving the nun-turned-temporary-student a half-smile, easily spotting her despite the darkness of the night. "Must we do this every time we meet, miss Executor?"
Arcueid Brunestud, Princess of the Moon, was treating the attack like it was naught but a prank between friends, as if Ciel had thrown a twig or a tomato at her rather than a trident, and although the nun knew it wasn't meant as an insult, that sheer nonchalance she displayed, as if Ciel were a mere fly, was extremely vexing nonetheless.
Sufficiently so to nearly tempt her into throwing another trident, an urge she only just managed to suppress.
"Leave." Was all that she said instead, the word coming out as a growl.
"No." The good humour disappeared from Brunestud's face, and she frowned a bit in disapproval, something which, paradoxically, rather gladdened Ciel to see after the previous indifference. "No, I shall not leave."
"Roa is mine."
"He is not exclusively yours. There are many others who have suffered from his atrocious deeds, me included."
That Roa had left a trail of victims in his wake was not something that Ciel could or would deny, but all the same, she wasn't willing to relinquish her claim on revenge to anyone, not even to her fellow victims.
It was by no means unusual that others came to try and claim the Serpent's head, but most of the time, she'd bribe or intimidate them into leaving, which tended to work rather well, considering she was a high-ranked agent of the Burial Agency.
Unfortunately though, her usual tactics did not work on Brunestud. Ciel didn't possess anything that the blonde might want to have, nor was she confident she could defeat the princess in battle. In fact, she'd almost definitely lose if it ever came to a confrontation between them, making any threat on her part utterly hollow.
Hence, Ciel's burning dislike for the woman.
"There are other Ancestors for you to hunt." The blue-haired nun tried another approach, knowing that Brunestud had sworn to destroy all the Ancestors. With some luck, the woman would be distracted, giving Ciel more time to find Roa herself. "In this city even."
"I know." The blonde woman nodded, pursing her lips slightly. "Two more. The Knight and the little spider."
"…So it's indeed the Spider-Queen?" Ciel asked, momentarily distracted herself by the confirmation that the rumoured Twenty-Sixth Dead Apostle Ancestor had indeed reappeared again, more than three decades after she'd seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth. "She is here?"
"She is." Brunestud nodded, before clacking her tongue in annoyance. "Though I could not tell you where she is hiding right now."
"Hunt her down then." Ciel suggested, carefully schooling her face into a serious look. "I'm sure you can find her, and Vlov Arkhangel too. In the meantime, I will focus on Roa. We'll cover the most ground like that."
"Nice try." The half-smile returned to the Moon Princess' face as she easily saw through Ciel's ploy. "But Roa is my priority too."
"Tsk." Ciel made an unhappy noise, but that was all she did. All she could realistically do at this point.
Clearly, Brunestud wasn't going to be distracted or dissuaded from hunting down the Serpent, and that meant that Ciel's only hope was to beat her to it. To get Roa before she could.
In other words, there was no more time to waste on idle conversation.
But before she could leave, there was one more thing that had to be said.
"Leave him alone."
"Huh?" Brunestud blinked in confusion, and the sight of her deceptive doe-eyes, so pretty and seemingly innocent, rankled Ciel fiercely. "Who?"
"The boy." She clarified, her tone terse. "He is uninvolved. Don't drag him into this."
"…" Brunestud hesitated for a moment longer, still not looking too sure of who Ciel was talking about, before she responded. "Are you talking about Shiki?"
"Yes." Ciel gave a sharp nod, wondering for a moment who else she could be talking about. How many other local boys did the Moon Princess know? "You should stay away from him."
"He owes me." Brunestud gave a sharp jerk of her head, pursing her lips again. "He is assisting me with my hunt. I am confident he can be of considerable help."
"You are only putting him in danger."
"He can handle it."
"No, he cannot!" Ciel bristled. "Even if what you say is true and he can fight Dead Apostles, is that really worth ruining his innocence for?"
"Innocence?!" Brunestud nearly scoffed, her eyes going wide in disbelief. "Do you… Do you even know what he is capable of?"
"I am not talking about any abilities he might have! Regardless of how powerful you think he is, he is still a boy who is in over his head-"
Ciel promptly cut herself off, realising she was getting too heated, too emotional in her defence of her supposed underclassman at Metropolitan Misaki High School.
That wasn't good. Arcueid Brunestud might never have been described as a particularly cunning creature, but she shouldn't show her any weaknesses all the same. Especially not ones that were so easily exploited.
Ciel might have no idea what kind of feelings Tohno Shiki was eliciting from her, why she felt so warm in his presence, but she did know that she should follow her own advice and not get him involved in any way.
To him, she was just Ciel-Senpai, a mysterious but kind girl who'd suddenly appeared at his school, and she very much wanted to keep it that way.
"If you absolutely need a flunky, there's a Magus wandering around town, also hunting Dead Apostles." She changed her approach, feeling no shame or compunction whatsoever about throwing the redhead under the bus. "Feel free to involve him."
"Are you talking about Shirou?" Brunestud asked, her smile turning a bit wider. "I already asked him for his help. He agreed."
"…Is that so?"
Ciel knew that she had literally just suggested to the blonde woman that she seek the redhead out for help, but all the same, she once more felt very vexed that those wide, pretty, red doe-eyes had swindled yet another man into her service.
"Good luck on your own hunt, miss Executor." Brunestud smiled kindly at her, and the fact she was probably genuine in her kindness was more annoying than any insult could ever be. "But know that I will be the one to kill Roa, no matter what."
"…" Ciel chose not to say anything in response to that. It would only have been an angry remark or brazen insult after all, so nothing of any value. There was just one thing that she did have to say. "If you hurt Tohno-san in any way, I will repay you a thousandfold and more, granddaughter of the Crimson Moon."
"Do not call me that!"
Brunestud's dislike for her infamous grandfather was well known, and for the first time in the conversation, she looked outright agitated, taking a step back as if she'd been slapped across the face.
Satisfied with the reaction, Ciel left, turning around and heading back the way she came. She'd said everything she wanted to say, and now there was nothing to do except tracking down Roa, faster than her rivals.
But even as she walked away, taking twists and turns and hopping to and from rooftops, she continuously felt the burning sting of those fiery red eyes in her back, even when she'd long since disappeared from the Moon Princess' sight.
It seemed she had hit a nerve.
Good.
While the two inhuman ladies squabbled over who would get to kill Roa and keep Shiki for herself, Emiya Shirou and Vlov Arkhangel were still wailing on each other without end, trying to find a way to break the tedious stalemate.
By now, Shirou had learned a few more things about Vlov Arkhangel, things he hoped might help him put an end to the battle sooner, preferably in his favour.
For one, he was pretty confident in stating that Arkhangel came from Russia, or at least the area that was now called as such. His more colourful insults, uttered in old-Russian, were a reliable indication of that. Furthermore, if he had to guess based on what he'd seen with his Clairvoyance, he'd say that Arkhangel was roughly four-hundred years old, meaning he'd lived his mortal life in the heydays of the Tsardom, perhaps even under Ivan the Terrible.
The redhead had never been to Russia, much less past-Russia, so he didn't know much about the place, but he did know it was a harsh and cold land, with a lot of strife, both internal and external. A country plagued by war, famine, and disease. Doubly so in the seventeenth century, when its reckless expansion across Eastern Europe had begun in the wake of the Thirty Years' War.
Anyone who managed not only to survive but also thrive in that land, especially as a knight, had to be the hardy sort, strong and indomitable, and that was perfectly reflected in Arkhangel's swordplay.
His attacks were measured but fierce, focused mainly around lunges, strong swipes, and hard counters. He wasn't very agile, but he was swift enough to dodge Shirou's more dangerous attacks nonetheless, and several times, he'd almost succeeded at wrenching Shirou's nodachi out of his hands with a quick twist of his blade.
His stance was solid, his shoulders were squared, and his feet never lost contact with the ground for long. Every step was made with great force, and Arkhangel almost never overreached, keeping his limbs close to his person to maintain his balance at all times.
Any attacks he launched were very well aimed, adeptly targeting the weak spots in Shirou's armour, such as the hip, the elbow, the ankles, the wrists, and the inside of the hands.
On top of that, Arkhangel didn't eschew the use of Mystical Arts either. Most storybooks portrayed knights as generally being opposed to Magic of any kind, but even if those stories held a kernel of truth to them, Arkhangel had clearly never read them. Instead, the Ancestor complemented his attacks with Mystical Arts at every opportunity.
It had to be said though that there wasn't a great variety in his spells. So far, the Vampire Lord had used only fire and ice, and as far as Shirou could determine, that was all he was capable of.
The redhead had theorised at the start of the battle that Arkhangel's Principle, the power that his Idea Blood gave him, was related to heat, and so far, he'd seen no evidence to suggest he was wrong about that. The Ancestor either used great amounts of heat, in the form of his flames, or he removed heat, thereby creating ice.
Of the two elements, fire had been the Ancestor's definite favourite so far. He used it all the time, in the form of regular bursts of scorching flames whenever he saw an opening, fired from his hands, feet, eyes, and sometimes even his mouth. They were flames hot enough to melt rock and turn sand into slag, and Shirou could easily see how any Executor or Enforcer in his position would have long since been burned to a crisp.
However, as stated many times before, Shirou was very resilient against heat, and after he took a straight burst of Arkhangel's hottest flames to the face without even flinching, repaying the Ancestor with a punch to the gut that had made him heave up a few drops of blood, the fire-based attacks became much rarer, generally only used to distract anymore whenever the Cleansing Power came too close for Arkhangel's liking.
"You are stronger than I thought!" The Ancestor snarled after they disengaged again, still looking at Shirou with frustration, though there was a healthy dose of respect mixed in as well now. "I am surprised I have never heard of you before. Might I have your name?"
"…Shirou." The redhead replied after a few moments.
"Rejoice, Shirou, for I acknowledge you as a worthy opponent." Arkhangel thundered, his sword changing into a spear, as if to signify the fact they were about to enter a higher form of battle. "Know that none have been given this honour since the previous Nineteenth!"
Arkhangel's boasts spoke of his arrogance, but the boasts were not empty, nor was his arrogance unwarranted. His scent, the scent of blood, ash, and frost, intensified nearly threefold, and Shirou could almost see how Magical Energy started gathering in the Ancestor's limbs in quantities far beyond what he had seen before.
This could be dangerous, and Shirou increased his own body's Reinforcement to almost perilous levels in preparation for the intensification of the fight.
It likely wouldn't be enough however, not if Arkhangel had truly become three times as strong, and his mind raced to find something else to use to his advantage.
Then his eyes flitted upwards, and he was struck by a flash of inspiration again, as he realised he still had a weapon in reserve. One he should have used far sooner.
"Now have at thee!"
One moment, the Vampire Lord was standing at a small distance from Shirou…
-The next, he had disappeared, the ground he had been standing on cracking from the force of his leap.
Shirou didn't even have time to blink before the Ancestor had already crossed the distance between them, and then he was eye to eye with the creature, pinned down and paralysed by the bloodthirsty glare that was levelled at him.
Until he realised that a spear was heading towards his throat at supersonic speeds and that he should do something about it right now!
With a strangled shout, Shirou dropped to the ground, feeling how the spear passed through his hair, before leaping backwards so hard he came down twenty metres away, on his backside.
Arkhangel made to pursue, but before he could blitz Shirou again, the redhead counterattacked.
From above.
With the crack of thunder, lightning came down upon Arkhangel, forcing him to scramble backwards to dodge the searing bolts.
Shirou had seized control of the thunderclouds gathered overhead, and now, he began pulling down the lightning, raining it down on his opponent, who had no choice but to run for his life.
The bolts came down by the dozens, on and around Arkhangel, and the Vampire had to use every bit of his newfound speed to dodge them, having no choice but to completely abandon any attempts at attacking Shirou directly.
While the bolts might not be infused with the Cleansing Power, they were extremely powerful nonetheless, and both Shirou and Arkhangel knew that if they hit, they might cripple the Vampire Lord for long enough for the redhead to deal a more lasting blow.
But Arkhangel would never have made it to the rank of Ancestor if he let minor surprises like this bring him down.
Within mere moments, he'd acclimatised to the attacks from above, and with another masterful feint, he completely threw off Shirou's aim, making the lightning bolts go wide.
Shirou immediately adjusted, but, unfortunately, 'immediately' was not quick enough.
Once again, the Ancestor reached him so fast he could barely keep up, and then he had to use every bit of focus and strength he possessed to survive the onslaught of blows coming his way again, far swifter than ever before.
For a moment, he feared he was done for.
But then he realised he didn't feel much harder pressed than the previous time, despite the considerable increase in speed.
Arkhangel might have become stronger and faster, but his style had become much sloppier, much easier to block and avoid. In fact, based on what Shirou could glimpse of him in-between the furious attacks, it was almost as if the Vampire Lord couldn't quite keep up with his own speed either.
Strange, but Shirou definitely wasn't complaining. It was probably the main reason why he could still deflect the swords and spears that Arkhangel practically threw his way.
On top of that, Arkhangel also stuck annoyingly close to Shirou, always keeping the distance between them at less than half-a-metre at most.
That was so close that it became outright impractical for both of them, and as much as Shirou struggled with his opponent's close proximity, Arkhangel too was hindered by the small distance. Swords and spears might be weapons for close range-combat, but not that close.
Still, Arkhangel stubbornly refused to widen the distance, stoically accepting the discomfort that his clinginess brought him.
But why? It made no sense. At least not as far as Shirou could see.
Until he spied how Arkhangel's eyes flitted upwards for a fraction of a second, towards the clouds above them, and how his lips curled up in a smug smirk.
Then it dawned on Shirou.
Arkhangel was sticking so close because he was trying to avoid the lightning strikes that had hampered him so much! He was making it impossible for Shirou to use them without also hitting himself.
He thought that Shirou was afraid of his own attacks.
That… wasn't even such a strange theory. Most, if not all Magi who used lightning were in no way immune to their own Craft. A misfire could have deadly consequences for them, which meant using it at close range was out of the question.
So yes, Arkhangel's theory was quite understandable.
But also a terrible miscalculation.
Shirou was no mere Magus. He was the successor of the God of Thunder.
He couldn't be harmed by lightning, the very thing he was most associated with. To the contrary, he gained naught but strength from it.
Arkhangel should have known this. Shirou had been struck by his own lightning before, during this very battle even, and it hadn't harmed him then. It had only reinvigorated him.
But it seemed the Ancestor had already forgotten about that.
Strange, but Shirou wasn't going to complain. Not when this worked out perfectly well for him.
He waited until Arkhangel had finished another string of blows, and then reached out to the heavens…
And brought down the lightning.
"RAAAAAAAAH!?"
For a moment, it seemed as if the dawn had come early.
A thousand lightning bolts came down upon the field, together nearly as bright as the sun, accompanied by a crack of thunder loud enough to almost drown out Arkhangel's cry of surprise and pain.
The ground exploded into bursts of dust and melted sand, the oxygen in the air ignited on the spot, and the puddles of water nearby started boiling spontaneously from the sheer heat and power that fell upon the Earth.
It was Armageddon, and when the dust settled, the tide of the battle had turned completely yet again.
Shirou still stood upright, arcs of lightning crackling up and down his body as his eyes flashed an electric blue, signifying the power that raged through his system. The power he had just seamlessly absorbed.
Arkhangel however was on the ground, lying on his stomach, with his hands on his head, curled up slightly to protect his most vulnerable areas from the violence Shirou had just unleashed upon him.
He was scorched and bloodied, large swaths of his skin having been burned away to reveal the charred muscle underneath. Most of the flesh on his back was gone, partially revealing his spine, which had blackened from the heat, and his limbs were so damaged it seemed as if someone had taken a cheese grater to them.
The smelt of burned flesh filled the air, and Shirou winced despite himself at the gruesome sight, one that resembled that of the victims of the Great Fire.
The Ancestor's breath was raspy, his body shook like a leaf from the aftershocks, and when he lifted his head, the sight of Shirou being completely unharmed by the attack that had just struck him down filled his eyes with dread and horror.
"Kch."
But even though he had been turned into a piece of charred meat in the blink of an eye, the Vampire Lord did not give up.
With grit and determination that were frankly inhuman, he rose again, taking a step towards Shirou, a formless icicle appearing in his hand as his wounds slowly started healing.
The Divine lightning had struck deep wounds that were difficult even for an Ancestor to heal, but the light of the full moon above gave him some respite. A measure of extra power that he desperately needed right now.
"Hng!?"
But Shirou easily slapped the icicle from his hand and knocked him over, throwing him flat on his back, before taking a step forward himself.
He advanced, raising Mjolnir overhead as he channelled the Cleansing Power through the weapon, aiming to slam it down on Arkhangel's heart. Mjolnir alone would probably already be lethal, and with the Cleansing Power added to the mix, death was guaranteed.
"No." A whisper passed through Arkhangel's lips, his eyes wide and fearful as he looked at the approaching redhead, crawling back as best as he could. "No. I cannot die here…"
His words were many things, a plea, an expression of faith, a prayer to a god, and a declaration of willpower. They were spoken not only to Shirou, but also to himself and to the cruel world that had forced him into this position. A complaint to a brutal but inescapable reality that had made him into a monstrosity to be hunted.
And despite knowing he shouldn't hesitate, they caused Shirou to pause for the slightest of moments.
For at that moment, for that mere, fleeting second, the Ancestor's eyes, filled with fear, confusion, disbelief, and awe, did not seem like the eyes of a monster.
But like those of a human.
Set in a thousand-yard stare, they seemed to look not at Shirou, but at some distant past, and the redhead stilled again, reluctant to break what seemed to be a flashback of happier times.
…Hold on.
A flashback? In the middle of a fight?
That sounded familiar.
Wasn't that what often happened in Illya's anime right before the one having the flashback rallied again?
…Oh no!
Shirou's stomach clenched and panicked sweat broke out on his forehead, and he moved as fast as he could, swinging Mjolnir at Arkhangel with every bit of speed he possessed-
"I cannot die here!"
But it was too late.
This time, the words were not a plea.
They were a command.
And then everything went wrong.
In the span of the single metre that Shirou crossed between the Vampire and himself, the temperature dropped from a normal autumn night in Japan to that of a Siberian winter, generating a pulse of displaced air that sent the redhead stumbling backwards.
Shirou's breath became a mist, all the plants that had survived the earlier violence were covered in frost, and the many small fires all across the park were snuffed out in an instant in the freezing, bone-chilling cold.
Every bit of heat disappeared in an instant, as if they'd been thrown into space, and the air distorted from the immense blow that it had done to the molecular integrity of its molecules.
Had a normal civilian been present at the scene, they would have died on the spot, and even most Magi without the appropriate measures would have perished from the shock alone.
To Shirou however, the sudden cold was unpleasant, but no more than that.
Far worse was the sudden appearance of a massive dome of ice overhead, covering the entire park with its sheer size.
From one second to the next, it appeared, out of nowhere, a titanic mass of frozen water that seemed to grow thicker by the moment, and Shirou drew in a sharp breath in alarm when he realised its purpose.
It was blocking his lightning from coming down!
It was a shield the size of the park!
Continuing his sudden demonstration of powers far beyond what he'd shown earlier, Arkhangel then blew at the ground, as if to cool it.
Within moments, the ground around him became covered in ice, ice that spread across the entire park, freezing everything it touched.
The ice encased Shirou's feet too, trapping him for a moment, but he wrenched himself loose quickly.
When he took a step backwards however, he nearly slipped, unable to get traction on the ice, which was so smooth it resembled a mirror, with not a single rougher spot where he might get some grip.
Then, the Ancestor waved an arm, and a veritable blizzard of snow and hail sprang into existence, coming straight at Shirou.
But with his own control over the wind and the sky, he managed to safely divert its course.
The spear of ice that was thrown at him next had to be blocked by Mjolnir however, and with such unstable footing, it was now Shirou who ended up flat on his back.
Raising his head, he saw how Arkhangel easily climbed to his feet, unhindered by his own ice like Shirou had been unaffected by his own lightning, before another spear appeared in his hand.
Shirou's upper hand in the fight had been very short-lived, and the tide had now turned against him again. Without warning, Arkhangel's power had grown explosively again, putting the redhead on the backfoot once more.
The redhead had wondered, at several points throughout the battle, what Arkhangel's Principle, his Authority, could be, eventually settling on heat, as that best corresponded with his shown abilities.
But now that the Vampire's control over ice had proven far, far greater than his control over fire, to the point where every previous use of flames became mere parlour tricks in comparison, Shirou realised he'd been wrong again.
The true Authority of the Nineteenth Dead Apostle Ancestor was not fire, or heat.
It was ice.
"Oh my, little one! That is very interesting indeed!"
The itty bitty spider, the very one who had spied on Arkhangel and Shirou in the park, had at last returned to its Queen to bring her the news, receiving a very warm welcome.
"You are such a good little servant!" The Queen praised it, feeding it all the sweet little flies it could want and more, just as it had hoped. "Ah, but I do wonder what I should do with your information. Should I keep myself out of this, like my dear Vlov wants? It would certainly be safest for me, wouldn't it?"
The spider did not reply. It wasn't intelligent enough to make such judgements, so it didn't even try.
"On the other hand, I do not want him to die either." The Queen continued, nervously rubbing her secondary hands together. "And I do have such a frightfully bad feeling about this. Maybe I should do something to help him after all."
There was still no reply from the spider, who merrily continued eating the flies.
"He'll be cross with me, but not for long. He might act rough, but he's such a sweetheart and a total softie underneath. He'll probably even say something like 'you helped me, so I help you'." The Queen adopted a low-pitched, overly serious voice as she parroted Vlov's likeliest answer, before giggling to herself. "And frankly, I could use his help. Yes, I could definitely use it. I'm in a spot of bother, you see."
The little spider made no sound yet again.
"Not one for conversation, are you?" The Queen looked fondly at her little, mute servant, before her gaze hardened. "Alright, I've decided. I'll send some proper Dead Apostles to help Vlov out, just in case. I don't have any with me right now, but I can make them. Simple enough."
Then she took a step forward.
"Though it will cost me a lot of power to make so many new servants so quickly, so I'll need all the nutrients I can get."
She swiped the itty bitty spider from the bench, and then she ate him.
As spiders do.
"Kch!"
Shirou only narrowly dodged a swipe from Arkhangel's sword, and he quickly hovered back a bit, outside of the Vampire Lord's immediate range
Overhead, his thunderclouds were still unleashing lightning bolt after lightning bolt upon the park, but Arkhangel's dome of ice was withstanding the blows perfectly well, rendering the attacks ineffective.
Shirou himself also threw lightning at the Ancestor whenever he saw an opportunity, but similarly to the ice dome, Arkhangel called walls and mountains of ice into existence to neutralise the lightning, shielding himself with little effort.
With so much ice being thrown around, the ground had become covered in frost and snow, to the point where walking on it without slipping was nearly impossible for Shirou. To make matters worse, ice spikes erupted from the ground whenever his attention slipped, stabbing into his legs and lower torso at every unguarded moment.
The only way to escape these attacks was to take flight, and Shirou hadn't touched the ground in many minutes now, unwilling to expose himself to the strikes from below.