Chapter XXXIX: Test of Valor

Romani's image blinked out after he promised to keep an eye on all of our vitals — comms were "still spotty," as he said, owing to the greater density of mana in the air and the larger time differential. Getting in contact with Chaldea's home base was going to be much, much harder to do away from Ley Line Terminals in this Singularity, it seemed.

He did not, however, leave without offering a parting warning to Aífe: that if Mash's vitals got anywhere near the red, he was sending the rest of our Servants in as backup, no matter what she thought about her test of our strength.

Aífe had only offered him a smile and said, "Don't threaten me with a good time, Doctor."

Good grief. Connla, Aífe, Cúchulainn, and apparently even Queen Boudica. Were all the Celtic heroes going to be complete battle junkies?

Only once Romani's image had disappeared and the line was cut did Aífe turn to Mash and say, "Your Doctor Roman is a good man. A bit flakey and something of a coward, but a good man, nonetheless."

Mash blinked. "He's been taking care of me for almost as long as I can remember."

Aífe nodded, like she'd had a suspicion confirmed.

"Then it seems at least he has done one thing right."

She turned and walked away, going back the way we came through the large set of double doors. Mash turned to look at me, a question on her face, but all I could do was shrug, because I didn't have any answers, either.

"Does that make the Doc Mash's father?" Rika whispered a little too loudly.

"Seems like it," her brother answered.

"So, Da Vinci-chan as the mother, then…"

"That's not…!" Mash sputtered. "I-I don't think Miss Da Vinci and Doctor Roman have that kind of relationship!"

I didn't either, but the way they acted sometimes made it a lot harder to say that out loud with a straight face. It might have been another thing that they were trying to keep out of view of the twins, because come to think of it, they hadn't really had a disagreement like the one about the hours he was keeping in front of Mash and the twins, had they? What did it say about their trust in me that they were willing to argue about it in front of me?

Maybe I was supposed to be flattered.

"Enough fooling around, you three," I said. "Let's go get this over with."

Rika shot to attention. "Hai, Senpai!"

Ritsuka shot his sister a look of fond exasperation. I pretended she hadn't done anything out of the ordinary — because, in a way, she hadn't — and started after Aífe as the rest of our group fell into step behind me.

"Besides," I threw out over my shoulder, "Romani still wears his wedding ring. Whatever else is going on, I don't think he's the kind of person to be unfaithful."

The bugs I had on the twins ground to a halt for a handful of seconds as what I'd said processed in their brains — I could picture almost perfectly the identical stunned looks on their faces — and then they jolted back into action to catch up with me as our Servants brought up the rear. Lancelot stayed behind at first, watching us go, but after we'd left the room, he went off to the side and the bug I had on him started going up as he climbed a set of stairs. I didn't have any idea what he was planning on doing, so I tasked a small portion of my swarm to keeping an eye on him.

The last thing we needed was the castle's stone knights springing to life in the middle of Aífe's "test" and ambushing us.

"Maybe Doctor Roman is a widower," Rika whispered conspiratorially to Ritsuka, "and Da Vinci is the first woman he's opened his heart to since his wife died. And…and…and he still wears the wedding ring because he doesn't want to forget his first wife!"

"Sure, Rika," said Ritsuka in the voice of all parents humoring their children. "That's definitely what's going on."

"It's so romantic, Onii-chan!" Rika gushed. "We're witnessing the power of true love right before our eyes!"

Somehow, I managed to hold back the snort that threatened to rip itself out of my nostrils. Mash wasn't anywhere near that reserved about the sigh she let loose. "Senpai…"

The courtyard was still empty when we made it all the way back outside. I stretched out into my swarm, searching for Aífe's wayward son and the guest he was supposed to be bringing back with him, but there was no sign of either of them, not within my range, at least. Lancelot, on the other hand, had made his way to the top floor of the keep and was watching us from the window like some kind of stereotypical princess waiting for her prince to come rescue her.

As long as he was just watching, I decided, I would leave it alone. No need to draw attention to it just yet.

"They're slower than I was expecting," Aífe murmured, looking out towards the gate. "Connla should have returned by now… So maybe they did run into trouble on the way back."

"There's no sign of them anywhere nearby," I confirmed.

Aífe looked at me curiously, but I didn't offer her an explanation as I swung my bag around and finally got the chance to unzip it. The two cylinders that were my puppets were pulled out without any trouble, and I held them out, resting on my palms, as the rest of the group watched. Come to think of it, I'd never let my ravens transform in front of Ritsuka and Rika, had I? I didn't think even Mash had seen them in action yet. Not for real. Not outside the simulator.

A mental prod and a bit of magical energy turned my ravens on, and before the groups' eyes, the two tubes that were my ravens' stealthy storage forms unfolded, sprouting a pair of wings, legs, and a head each as their feathers unraveled in a display that looked as impossible as it was graceful. I would probably never understand the exact mechanism, and the sensation from my puppets was too strange to make heads or tails of, like I was trying to parse a sense that my human brain didn't have a section for, but no one else had to know that. They could just be as awed and amazed as they wanted.

In an instant, a pair of ravens sat, balanced on my palms and eerily still. Their eyes watched the assembled group, unblinking and unerring, and their heads swiveled with the smooth grace of a human being instead of the jerky bobs and twitches of an actual bird.

"Whoa," the twins breathed, and Rika added, "They're like Transformers!"

"Transformers?" Mash asked curiously.

"It's an old series that's been adapted to a bunch of anime and movies," Ritsuka explained. "It's about a war between two groups of sentient robots that can transform into, like, cars and trucks and stuff."

"Don't forget the dinosaur versions!" Rika scolded him. "The dinosaur versions were some of the coolest ones!"

"Right." Ritsuka sighed. "Who could forget Beast Wars? Especially when you spent ages trying to get T-rex Megatron."

"Wow!" said Mash, fascinated, like she'd never heard of such a thing. "There was a television show like that?"

She was so well-adjusted usually that it was easy to forget sometimes exactly how sheltered Mash had grown up. But when you did remember, the idea that she could be so taken in with the idea of something as ordinary as a sci-fi cartoon aimed at children and young teenagers was actually more sad than it was incredible.

One of these days… But I'd already made that promise, hadn't I? That I was going to get the full story behind Mash's life from the Director, once she got her body back. Olga Marie Animusphere, just what had your father gotten up to before his untimely death?

"Several of them," Ritsuka answered. "Plus animated movies, comic books, and then a few years back, there was a live action movies series —"

"We don't talk about that one," Rika said solemnly. "Those movies don't exist."

Ritsuka rolled his eyes. "Right. I forgot. Because it's just a dumb, half-hearted plot stapled to a bunch of explosions and CGI, right?"

"Exactly."

"Better be careful about those comparisons," I interjected into their little byplay wryly. "If you meet a true puppet user, I think they might take it as an insult."

I let my arms drop a little, and then swung them up and threw my ravens into the air. They spread their wings and flapped, taking off into the sky with speed, and after a brief moment of disorientation at having two more sets of much more human-like eyes, I was looking down on our group from above. My bird's eye view.

It didn't really show me anything I hadn't had a look at before, but the extra angle was incredibly useful for the finer details that bugs weren't really built for sensing.

"I see," said Aífe. "So, you specialize in familiars, then. Some form of golem?"

"Something like that," I agreed.

Huginn and Muninn cawed, circled above us a couple of times, and then I sent them off to widen the net.

"They can only go so far," I warned Aífe, "but I should be able to see Connla and Boudica coming from quite a ways off like this."

"Useful," she remarked.

"It's too bad people didn't start building truly tall structures until the Industrial Revolution," Emiya drawled. "An Archer's eyesight would put even those ravens to shame."

"Well, there's nothing to do about that," Arash said, smiling slightly. "Even Rome wasn't building skyscrapers in this era."

"Wouldn't the Leaning Tower of Pisa count?" asked Ritsuka.

"Not for another thirteen-hundred years, Senpai," Mash answered him. "The Leaning Tower of Pisa wasn't fully constructed until the middle of the fourteenth century."

"A shame." Emiya shrugged. "At that height, I could have given us a look at four kilometers out in any direction, down to the number of buttons on the enemy's shirt."

"Wow. Four kilometers? That's amazing!" said Rika.

Arash's mouth twitched like he wanted to say something, but he kept it shut.

Just then, Huginn caught sight of a dust cloud in the distance, rapidly moving, and when he swooped down to get a closer look, it turned out to be…a chariot? With two riders, pulled by a pair of white horses that were galloping at a speed no normal horses could hope to match, and one of the riders was a familiar young boy. The other was a voluptuous woman in white with a shock of bright red hair who also happened to be holding the reins. She also carried a sword and a simple, round shield was strapped to one arm.

Queen Boudica, it had to be.

"Heads up," I told the group, "they're on their way. They'll be here in…" At the speed they were going, my guess was, "about three minutes."

"Alright!" Rika turned to her brother and Mash. "Game faces, everyone! Let's get ready to kick Queen Booty's booty!"

"Right!" Mash agreed whole-heartedly.

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"As much fun as it would be to see you jump straight into battle with Boudica," said Aífe, sounding amused, "I have no doubt that my mischievous brat of a son has explained all of nothing to her, so the fighting will have to wait until she's brought up to speed."

"Need time to come up with a plan of attack?" Emiya asked cockily.

Aífe snorted. "It's simply more convenient to avoid any unnecessary misunderstandings. Unless you would prefer her to think you were truly an enemy and attack with the intent to kill?"

No, that really would be one of the worst outcomes of this situation. Not that I didn't think we could handle that sort of thing, but…

"Chaldea's not in the business of killing potential allies," I told her calmly.

"We'll take whatever help we can get!" Mash agreed, immediately undermining the confidence I was trying to project.

It was true, we could use whatever allies we could manage to snag, but negotiating when the other side knew exactly how desperate you were closed down way more options than Mash probably realized. Power dynamics were more equal when only you knew exactly how weak your position was.

As Brian had told me so long ago, reputation was everything. You needed to appear strong, even when you were half-dead.

Nothing to be done about it now, I guess.

Aífe just smirked. "So you will, it seems."

Another two minutes ticked by slowly, but long before Boudica arrived on her chariot, my bugs felt her coming from the vibrations of her steeds' hoofbeats as she entered the range of my powers. At the speed she was moving, I couldn't land anything on her safely and securely, but her horses kicked up such a ruckus with their passing that I could track her just as easily as she moved through the radius of my control and approached the castle.

Long before that, everyone else could hear her coming. She rumbled down the road we'd followed like thunder, and as she came closer, the Earth itself seemed to shake from the raw power of her horses' hooves.

"She's here," I announced almost entirely unnecessarily.

The words were barely out of my mouth before Boudica came stampeding through the castle gate, heading straight for us. Mash gasped and threw herself in the way ("Master!") to protect us, but it turned out she hadn't needed to even bother, because the horses and chariot suddenly swerved in a way that would have toppled any ordinary chariot and bled off their momentum swiftly. They came to a stop on the other side of us about halfway between where we were and the entrance to the keep, and the horses each let out a snort as they shook their heads like they hadn't just made a trip stretching probably at least a hundred miles.

Her Noble Phantasm, it had to be. Or one of them, at least.

"Queen Boudica," Aífe greeted the woman holding the reins.

The so-named Boudica swept eyes the color of seafoam over our assembled group and didn't so much as bat an eye at us. She turned instead directly to Aífe.

"Queen Aífe," she returned respectfully. She dismounted her chariot and took a few steps closer. "Your son informed me there was something urgent that needed my attention. He was very insistent we get here as quickly as possible."

"Holy crap," Rika muttered as the three of us got a good look at her, "she's Queen Booby, too!"

As irreverent as she was being, Rika wasn't wrong. Queen Boudica had been blessed with a curvy, hourglass figure, and her white outfit had enough cleavage to feature in any teenage boy's raciest wet dreams. In fact, she looked almost like she would spill out of her top at any moment, but some mystical force seemed to be keeping it all neatly contained.

At the very least, none of the Celtic Servants we'd yet met were charging into battle wearing nothing but body paint.

"Yo, Mom," said Connla, leaning over the chariot's protective wall. He gave her an irreverent wave. "I brought Queen Booty!"

"Ha!" Rika burst out with a broad grin. Her brother groaned.

"He's also been calling me that silly nickname," Boudica added, grimacing.

"Rika," said Ritsuka sternly, "look at what you've started."

"I regret nothing!" Rika proclaimed proudly.

"As I expected, he only did half the job," Aífe drawled dryly. She nodded our way. "You might have seen we have guests?"

Now, Boudica turned our way, scrutinizing us more closely. "Yes, I did notice that. Three Servants among them…but the rest are humans. Is there some reason they're here? I can't imagine you'd allow prisoners to roam so freely if they were from the United Empire."

"Implying that there are any greater bonds than the threat of my violence," said Aífe, amused.

Taking that as my cue, I stepped forward and addressed her directly. "We're from the Chaldea Security Organization."

Boudica's brow furrowed. "Chaldea…Security Organization?"

"We're here to correct this aberrant history, what we call a Singularity," I went on. "Our job is to find out the cause that made it deviate, remove the source, and get proper history back on track."

"I'm…sorry, I don't understand," said Boudica. "Correct the Singularity? Get proper history back on track?"

"They arrived here via some form of spatial transference magecraft," Aífe told her. "Quite literally appeared out of thin air. I sent Connla out to investigate, and he escorted them back here."

'Escorted,' huh. That brushed over a whole host of things and removed a lot of context, but I wasn't going to quibble over it when there were more important things to deal with.

"It's called Rayshifting," I said. "The mechanics are too complicated for me to explain, but the gist of it is that we're from the far future. Almost two thousand years from this time, in fact."

Boudica's eyebrows rose towards her hairline. "The future? The actual future? That means that you're time travelers? Real, honest to goodness time travelers?"

"Come with me, if you want to live," Rika said, affecting as deep a voice as she was able.

Really, Rika? She couldn't have made a reference with more class than Terminator?

"Senpai?" Mash asked curiously.

"I've been waiting to use that line since Fuyuki," Rika reported smugly.

"Yes, we're time travelers," I answered bluntly. I pretended Rika hadn't said anything at all. "A mage claiming to be possessed by one of King Solomon's demons has been dropping Holy Grails into different places throughout history, creating these Singularities. One was in a Japanese city called Fuyuki in the year 2004. One was in France in the year 1431. Both caused history to go awry when a wish was made on the Grail, and our team had to go in and retrieve them so history could be corrected."

"And you think there might be another Holy Grail here in the Roman Empire?" asked Boudica, catching on quickly.

"Yes."

"The United Empire did not exist in history as it was recorded," Mash added. "That's why… We think that one of the Servants who is part of the coalition of past emperors must be the one in possession of the Grail."

Personally, my money was on Romulus, since he seemed to be the head honcho managing things from their headquarters. On the other hand, I hadn't thought Jeanne Alter would risk carrying around the Grail while she was running around the country and fighting, but I'd been wrong about that, after a fashion, hadn't I?

"But…normal humans couldn't hope to fight an army of Servants," said Boudica.

"Hence why they summoned us Servants to assist them," Emiya replied. "Arash and I are here as part of the forward team, to protect our Masters and help them correct this Singularity, but we have several more in reserve to serve as reinforcements, if necessary."

"Two Servants and a Demi-Servant don't seem like much of an expeditionary force," Aífe commented. "Not against what could be twice that, for all we know."

"It was decided that it would be more effective to make allies out of Servants native to the Singularity," I told her. "After all, the fact you're here means that the Counter Force thinks you're the right people for the job. It works out better for us in the long run if we can record more Saint Graphs and pick up more contracts, too."

Understanding dawned across Boudica's face, and she looked to Aífe. "That's why you called me here. They want help, and you think I could give it to them."

"Three on one hardly seemed fair," said Aífe, smirking. "Since I count for at least two Servants, I thought one more would even the odds up a little."

Boudica sighed. "You have such a backwards way of doing things," she complained, and then she smiled. "Well, it's not like I don't understand that way of thinking. I'm sorry, Masters of Chaldea, but I won't lend you my sword that easily. I can only entrust my sword and my chariot to those I can entrust my back."

Now, it was Arash's turn to sigh. "Well," he said, "I guess there really was no avoiding a fight, was there?"

"What a strangely hopeful person you are," Emiya drawled, chuckling.

"I know Queen Aífe already told us that Boudica would challenge us as well, but…" Mash grimaced. "I was honestly hoping that we wouldn't need to fight."

"I'm sorry," said Boudica, smiling apologetically. "It's not that I don't trust your skills… Well, no, I suppose it's exactly that. So even though it's a burden, I'm asking you to prove yourselves to me."

"Is this what you'd call a breakdown in negotiations?" Rika asked wryly.

"I guess so," Ritsuka replied.

"No," I told them both. "This isn't a breakdown in communications. Both sides are perfectly aware of what they want. What you're seeing now is the art of compromise."

And it put me back on familiar ground. True, my "compromises" during Gold Morning had often been more verbal than physical, but even though the comparisons weren't clean, this reminded me of my recruitment of Sophia — Shadow Stalker — right as things were really going to shit.

How many heads had I had to knock together over my career to get people to focus on solving the actual crisis of the day instead of bickering pettily? Too many, it felt like.

"Well," Arash said, shrugging helplessly, "I guess there's nothing to be done except to do it. Let's get this over with, shall we?"

"Indeed," Emiya agreed. "Master, Ritsuka, Taylor, step back. If Aífe and Boudica want a fight, then that's exactly what we'll give them."

Dutifully, Ritsuka and Rika started backpedaling to give the Servants some room, but I took steps forward instead.

"Just a second," I said as I reached down for the knife in its holster. A deft flick of my fingers undid the strap holding it in place, and then I slid it from the sheath in a reverse grip and held it out in offering to Arash. "This should be a little sturdier than that arrow you used against Connla."

Arash's eyebrows rose slightly, but he took my Last Resort and started testing the balance. He flipped it, rolled it over his hand, and switched grips smoothly, and he even tossed it up and caught it out of the air.

"It's a great dagger," he said, "but are you sure you want to let me use it, Master? I was actually just planning on asking Emiya to make something for me."

Not a bad plan, and I felt a little silly for not considering it myself, but I wasn't about to back down now that I'd made the offer.

"That dagger made it through the end of the world," I told him. "I think it can handle a simple spar."

Arash's eyebrows rose even further, and after a moment, he smirked. "Well, with an endorsement like that, how could I refuse?"

I stepped back and kept going until I was next to the twins, and once I was safely out of the line of fire, Emiya and Arash turned their attentions fully to Boudica and Aífe as Mash hefted her shield. It never stopped amazing me that a girl who looked so ordinary otherwise and who was so meek and mild-mannered in Chaldea could heft that massive thing like it weighed nothing at all.

Maybe it was just because she didn't carry herself the way Brutes tended to. Capes with high level Brute powers knew how strong they were and walked around either like they were untouchable or were surrounded by cardboard. Mash didn't do either, and I think that was what threw me off.

Across from our team, Boudica drew her sword and led with her black buckler while Aífe took hold of the shaft of her spear with both hands, shifting into a stance that looked something like the one Connla had used.

A moment of tense silence passed as either side sized the other up, trying to get their opponents' measure. Nobody seemed to be blinking, and they were so tense and so still that I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd stopped breathing.

Then, Aífe and Boudica exploded into action, crossing the minute distance in an instant. Mash threw herself in front of Arash — whether that was a conscious decision or a subconscious belief that he was the one with a weaker defense, I didn't know — while Emiya spawned a pair of his familiar twin swords. Boudica's sword rebounded off of Mash's shield as Emiya diverted Aífe's spear with the same sort of technique he'd used against her son.

For a frozen second, they hung there in the aftermath of their opening attacks, readjusting their strategies and recalculating our Servants' skills and abilities. An instant later, the moment vanished, and they threw themselves back into battle with renewed fervor.

My eyes and my brain both struggled to keep up. Aífe's red spear became a streak of color, opposed by Emiya's own smears of black and white. Boudica's sword flashed with every strike, glinting off of the blade of my Last Resort as Arash dove in to fight her up close, retreating only long enough for Mash to block a retaliatory blow.

"Whoa," one of the twins breathed. I wasn't sure which one.

Briefly, I'd seen Arash's skilled knife work at play before. Always, though, it had been quick flashes, and I'd never actually seen him go into a fight solely with a blade instead of his usual bow. Boudica's technique was polished and functional, and it was obvious she knew how to use her sword and shield to great effect. It was also obvious, however, that for as good as she was, Arash was just as good, if not better. He got in close, close enough that the extra length of her sword became more of a hindrance than a help, and he was quickly forcing her onto the backfoot.

Boudica, it looked like, could hardly get an attack of her own in. Arash was too close and too good with my dagger, giving her so little room to maneuver that her shield had become more of a hindrance than anything else. It seemed all she could do to keep the blade of Last Resort from landing any solid blows.

It was almost like Arash was determined to prove he didn't need his Noble Phantasm to be an effective force on the battlefield, whether that was at close ranges or long.

Emiya's fight with Aífe, however, was swiftly heading the opposite direction. With every passing second, it was clearer and clearer that he was massively outclassed. They were moving too quickly to see clearly anymore, too quickly for me to make out the individual blows and counterblows, but every few seconds, there was the crack of shattering glass as another pair of his shortswords broke under the relentless assault of Aífe's spear.

I could feel the strength behind her attacks even from so far away. She didn't seem to be holding anything back at all.

Emiya did the only thing he could: he retreated. Every lost set of swords was a step backwards as he made just enough room to replace the broken pair, and it was also a step away from the other fight. The red spear swung and thrust like lightning, unerringly seeking the vulnerable vitals that even Servants couldn't survive losing, and it was taking everything Emiya had just to avoid instant death.

He stepped back and back and back, and Aífe kept moving forward and forward and forward. CRACK — another pair of swords shattered. Emiya stepped back again as a new pair formed in his hands. The red spear stabbed towards his face and he took yet another step back to brace himself so he could push it up with the blades of his swords.

And then, unexpectedly, Aífe abandoned her spear and got in close, and she threw her fist forward in a punch so perfect that entire textbooks could have been written about it. Emiya had no room to dodge, so he did the only thing he could and crossed his swords so that the flats of the blades formed a kind of shield against Aífe's fist.

CRACK — under the force of her punch, his swords shattered again, and the strength behind it was so powerful that Emiya actually stumbled backwards several steps. Aífe, a savage grin on her lips, retook her spear and pressed the advantage towards the now defenseless Emiya.

"EMIYA!" Rika cried.

"Trace, on."

Swords formed midair, at least a dozen of them, and they shot towards Aífe like arrows, forcing her into retreat, now. They landed almost like artillery shells, blowing out divots in the courtyard's ground and then disappearing an instant later.

"Roll out. Bullet clear."

More swords appeared midair as Emiya righted himself. One hand rose up like a general ordering his troops.

"Freeze out. Sword Barrel Full Open."

Emiya's arm came down again, and the swords took off again, tearing towards Aífe as she backpedaled now. Her red spear flashed as she dodged what she could and deflected what she couldn't. The shattered remnants of the flying swords flew about around her, vanishing before they could hit the ground.

But the swords didn't stop coming. The instant one wave flew forward, another was already forming in their place. It was like a gatling gun of flying swords, a steady fire of weapons that had no business being treated like projectiles, all aimed at Aífe. The briefest of pauses happened between waves, only long enough for Emiya to adjust his aim and tweak the trajectories towards his target.

Suddenly, Aífe was the one on the backfoot, desperately trying to avoid attacks coming from too many different angles to block with the effortless ease she'd had before. She didn't look hard-pressed, not going by the expression on her face or the efficiency of her motions, but she had no room for attack, no advantage to press, and it was only a matter of time until something gave one way or the other.

That something, it turned out, was not Emiya or Aífe, it was Rika.

"Guh!" she gasped from next to me, stumbling on nothing. "H-holy shit, Emiya. How much energy are you gonna blow through with that?"

"Rika!" her brother cried.

"Master!" was Mash's echo.

And for just a short moment, Emiya paused to glance back at her.

The brief respite was all Aífe needed, because in that moment of pause, she dropped to her knees and slammed one hand to the ground. A circle of runes lit up around her palm, glowing as they burned with power — and then, quite suddenly, I couldn't feel my ravens at all.

What the fuck?

Whatever she did, I wasn't the only one affected, and I definitely wasn't the main target, because the wave of swords Emiya had been preparing fizzled and vanished, unraveling. Emiya's head swung back around so fast I felt a pang of sympathetic whiplash, and he gaped at her.

"What?"

Aífe's savage grin was filled with triumph. "Anti-magecraft runic spell. Disrupts all forms of magecraft in range."

She kicked off the ground into a sprint, hefting up her red spear.

"Which means you lose!"

The red blade gleamed. The sharp tip shone. She was going for a killing blow.

Shit!

My ravens were still disconnected and I couldn't use another spell, so I lifted my arm and took aim — but my magic circuits spasmed and refused to channel mana into the mystic code. Her runic spell hadn't just disrupted my control of my ravens, it had also affected my ability to use my mystic code, as well.

"Rika!" I snarled, already knowing that I wouldn't be able to explain myself in time.

Use a Command Spell! I wanted to tell her.

But she wasn't going to be fast enough, either. There was no way for us to help Emiya.

Three blurs moved towards Aífe. The black one pushed itself between her and Emiya — Mash hefted her shield. The bluish one got right in front of her, stopping her in her tracks — Arash held the shaft of the spear in one hand and my knife against Aífe's throat in the other. The white blur resolved behind her — Boudica held her sword against the side of Aífe's neck.

"That's far enough, Aífe!"