We found Nobunaga perched atop a brick palisade, with one leg crossed over the other and her chin nestled atop her palm. Her long hair swayed with the gentle late-noon breeze.
Against the setting Sun, I couldn't help but feel that she indeed looked like some distant tyrant that lorded over man at her pleasure, and led great armies into war. Perhaps, this 'majesty' was what her retainers saw all the time.
"Yo." I raised a hand as Rider set me down.
Her dark eyes briefly flickered towards me.
"What was so important that you had to bring me all the way out here?"
Minutes ago, I had been at the Einzbern castle. Now, I was at the very opposite end of Fuyuki, stood in the yard of a lonely house surrounded by tilled land and beaten dirt paths.
Nobunaga gave a slight chuckle, then tucked a stray bang behind her ear. "When have I ever led you astray, my Master? For all I have done, should my word not be enough?"
That was true.
"For all you've done, I know damn well you'd make me go to another country just because you thought it'd be funny." I crossed my arms.
"Verily, I would! What pleases me, needs only that fact to come to pass." She declared boisterously, raising a clenched fist towards the sky. A moment later, she let it droop until she was patting the wall beside her. "But that is that and this is this. Come! Sit beside me."
Raising a brow at the unprompted tirade, I climbed the wall. When I was fully seated, she turned to face me fully, dark eyes shimmering.
"Now, do you remember what you asked of me?"
"Assassin."
There was no class better suited to finding others than Archer. In fact, they were designed for long-range combat and scouting. Nobunaga, despite her legend, was easily capable of a complete remote artillery bombing so long as she knew where the enemy was.
She clapped her hands together loudly, "Indeed! Assassin! The request was mad, but you are fortunate that I hold you close to my heart-"
What?
"-Observe, my fool." She waved her hand at the... empty road ahead.
Her choice of words aside,
"There's nothing."
Just to be sure, I looked the road over once more. There was nothing at all that stood out. The constant rain had broken away some of the edges, and the concrete was rife with cracks... but that was only natural. Across from us, a series of power poles ran along the road leading into the city.
"Observe harder!" She slapped my back.
There really was nothing at all. I'd long removed my aviators.
"Ah wait a moment." She held up a clenched a fist near my face, squeezing tight.
I couldn't help but snort. "You're stupid."
"That says much about the one who summoned myself."
"So you admit you're stupid."
She let out a slight laugh. "Right, there."
Abruptly, the gentle hum of the cold winter breeze was interrupted by a sloshy thud. A moment later, there was another. Then another. In the distance, my eyes caught faint movement on the horizon. A dark figure crept along the road, stumbling and struggling to keep a steady gait.
"Finding an Assassin is a mighty task, for any other than myself of course." Nobunaga held a hand over her chest. "I found him, quite easily, if I may add."
I acknowledged her words with a hum, choosing to focus upon the approaching figure of the still-unnamed Assassin servant.
"But of course that would have been boring."
"Did you do that to him?" I raised a curious brow.
Surprisingly, Nobunaga shook her head from side to side, a grin playing on her lips. "It was not. What a loss, that it was not."
Then... he had run into another servant? That was hardly likely. All the servants were accounted for, even Archer, who was refusing to take on a physical form for some reason, content to loom over Rin like some wayward ghost.
I could scarcely believe that Shirou Emiya would do this.
"Curious, right?"
Assassin was... covered in a rugged dark cloak that made him seem less human and more a stray piece of cloth fluttering about in the wind. For that very reason, the white half-skull over his face was even more vivid. Yet, his appearance wasn't what made do a double take.
It was the lack of a master-contract servant supporting his existence, that he was fading away.
The inevitable fate of any masterless servant.
Servants were great figures of legend, and nothing stopped them from simply refusing to act as their masters pleased. A magus could never have that. Thus, the relation between Master and Servant was such that the latter would simply cease to exist without the former.
Of course, they could always be like Medea and simply take another for their Master... but that had its own troubles.
Then...
"What happened to his Master?"
"Beats me. He died a good few hours ago though, because no way Assassin would need to flee from a human otherwise." Nobunaga shrugged her hands. "Keep looking."
For a long minute, I failed to understand her words. Then, suddenly, a second set of footsteps joined into Assassin's slow crawl, imperceptibly mirroring the servant's gait.
I recognised those footsteps immediately.
There was only one man I knew who walked in that quiet and creepy yet decisive way.
Assassin peered over his shoulder, then hastily jumped away as a kick passed just where his head had been. The foot struck the road, and the asphalt exploded under the sheer force behind it. Cracks spread all over.
I couldn't help but whistle.
"I'll be damned. That's Kuzuki, isn't it?"
Nobunaga hummed. "So now you see, why I just HAD to call you! Your strategy worked. That suicidal bastard found Assassin all on his own."
"Kuzuki?" Rider murmured.
Right, she was still there.
"Caster's master. Well, not master, more husband? Boyfriend? I don't know. They're both old as hell. Do old people even have such things?"
Rider was decidedly unamused by my confusion. "I wouldn't know."
"Gah, right, I doubt you interacted with anyone that didn't want to kill you."
"I did not."
That was... kind of sad. No, actually, it was super sad. I needed to set her up on a date or something.
"Say, what kind of guys are you into-"
Nobunaga slapped my shoulder.
"A...Are you attempting to court me, Master?" Medusa was less embarrassed, more utterly baffled by my words. "I do not think-"
"Gah! Silence! Both of you!" Nobunaga shouted, waving around her fist, "First, he gets another servant without telling me and now I have to watch my surprise get ignored! I say nay! Nay! T'is supremely unfair!"
I stared at the Archer in silence and realised that she was right.
"Well, later, Medusa."
The Rider only lowered her head.
That had to be good enough for now.
I snapped my fingers and then I was standing between Kuzuki and the Assassin servant. The quiet man's fist snaked through the air, stopping only an inch from my grin.
"Henry?" He inquired rather plainly.
I nodded, still grinning, "Henry."
"Your hair is a different shade." He noted, gaze passing all over me, then past my shoulder to the surprised Assassin. "Move. I must finish him."
To that, I held up a hand.
"You will stop me?"
I shook my head. "Nope. Just wait a bit. I have some questions for old boy over here."
He held my gaze for an intense moment, then nodded and lowered his fist.
"He will die here."
"And I have nothing against that."
There was no world in which I would want to stop Kuzuki from having his revenge. I had set him on that path, on that rainy night back when I found him dying against a tree.
But, first, my curiosity had to be sated.
I took precedence over all.
With a faint chuckle, I whirled around and crouched down, peering into the slits carved into his skull-mask with shimmering blue eyes.
"Since you're about at the end of the rope anyway, why not help me out a little?"
He stared right back, but offered no words. His face shifted towards Kuzuki for a brief moment, before coming right back. Then, in a gruff and aged voice, the masked servant spoke out,
"I will not-"
My hand moved to grip his skull.
"He'll be quick. I can be worse. It's not like you can really do anything at this point, either."
Quiet fell upon us once more, leaving only the howl of a wind that grew fiercer and fiercer until Assassin's cloak began fluttering rapidly along it.
"And, I'm positive your Master wasn't good enough to warrant not giving him a lil' kick in the balls in the grave."
"Anything... would be too little for that creature." Assassin spoke slowly, "A thousand cruel fates upon him."
I grinned, "Who then? Come on, old sport, share."
He involuntarily made to shake his head, and I let his skull go.
"I do not know who my Master was meant to be. Merely that the one who used me in this war was rattled by some foreign threat and made a puppet of him as a precaution."
So... someone had grabbed his original master, then stolen the servant as preparation to fight someone else.
"And... did it work? That precaution?"
At that, the servant let out some choked mockery of a laugh. Soon, he broke into a cough.
"That I am here, is proof that it failed. My... master is dead. His fate was one too light."
"Instant-kill, huh?"
The servant nodded. "He breathed. Then, he cursed a name and died."
That was rather interesting. A conflict entirely unknown to me had made a corpse of his master. Nobunaga was right. This truly was a loss. I had never even met the man.
In the end, there was only more question left to ask.
"Who was your master?"
"Zouken Matou."
"...What?"
Zouken was dead?
-
Hope you enjoyed.
Please, do comment so I can know if I did it right or messed up somewhere.
Also, does anyone know why Zouken is dead? It actually happened right in front of you guys a couple chapters back.