Fate\/World Novel Chapter 64

Chapter 64: Chapter 64

A/N: I bear good news. As of the latest written and posted Chapter, the servant summoning arc has officially begun.

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For the longest ti, the Grand ranked magus that I’d co to admire simply... stared at . None uttered a word, none dared move. For all intents and purposes, soone should have attacked Maio, but it was only fair that no one wanted to risk having Touko Aozaki turned their way by the Herbalist, no matter how absurd it all sounded.

In the first place, sothing like a poison or whatever should have been nothing for a person of her standing. It didn’t take a genius to glean that. No, she definitely had her own reasons for listening to him. I was curious, but I was shalessly looking forward to fighting her again too.

My heart drumd in my chest. My fingers trembled as I raised them.

Yes, I felt fear, beyond a doubt. Touko Aozaki was undoubtedly soone far beyond the likes of Inorai, Bazdilot Cordelion or Sancraid Phahn. But, that strange fear of fighting soone decisively beyond

was what I lived for. It was what I loved this life for.

It ant learning all that much more if I ca out of it.

"That’s a good look. Not sothing I’d expect from a magus, but good. It makes

look forward to this." Touko smiled thinly. "Sowilo. Manaz. Isa. Naudiz. Jera. Uruz. Ansuz."

I tilted my head. "The runes you used last ti. From Elder Futhark, was it?"

Rune Magecraft. A system closest to my own unique spellcrafting and spellcasting, that made spells by stringing together ’characters’ known as runes where I saw the whole of magecraft and all its systems as ’characters’ from different ’languages’. Apparently, it was a lost art that she re-discovered and propagated throughout the Mage’s Association.

She nodded and held up one finger. "You analyzed them already, good. As a reward, one more, of three from an older ti. Mine are replications, but I imagine it will be sufficiently entertaining."

Huh.

"Then I guess I’ll show you sothing interesting too."

The ’clash’ so far was nothing more than an amiable discussion. That discussion ended when Touko breathed out a small cloud of smoke and began writing in it with the lit tip of her cigarette.

In the blink of an eye, she finished. When she did, the very world around us heeled. The air beca numbingly chill and froze as I watched. Haphazard branches of frost burst forth.

"Fuga."

They never even reached my barriers. With that word, the cold she’d imposed disappeared and a great flash of heat made the entire hall into a furnace. The elents clashed without rhy or rhythm. Touko smiled gleefully when I shot out of the flas, leaning back just in ti to avoid a kick that would have ripped her head off.

She wrote again, this ti thunder erupted from the air, from right within the narrow distance left between us. The thunder roared. Then it was gone. When the light cleared, the Grand was gone entirely. The floor imploded under my feet, and Touko was already standing below, a hand on her side.

Her crimson eyes glowed a fierce blue.

"Your defense has a glaring flaw, Hal. It only stops tampers with the space between us. What about sothing that begins within you?"

Her eyes grew brighter, and for a mont, I blanked. My vision disappeared entirely. For a second, my barrier faltered, more because I was surprised than anything else. I’d never encountered sothing like this before in my life.

That was enough.

She struck before I ever even touched the ground, delivering a haymaker straight from the very depths of hell itself into my guts from the side. She spun, and kicked the sa place in that sa motion.

I was thrown against the wall. Then, of course, expectedly, the runes she’d inscribed on my body exploded too. The activation was too fast for

to interfere with and it was all I could do to mold infinity to form within my own body to isolate the damage before I imploded too.

As a result, much of the flesh under my ribs was torn to shreds. But that was where the damage ended. Honestly, it looked a lot nastier than it actually was. I barely even felt it... nah, that shit hurt like a BITCH.

Touko never moved after hitting . She was holding her cigarette to her lips and even nodded her head in sothing that felt like a complint.

"That was smart."

"That was bloody nasty." I clutched my bleeding guts. Feeling the warm blood seep into my hand, I grinned wider. "But damn if it wasn’t cool. Mystic Eyes?"

I made sure to avoid her gaze, but that ant I was forced to look at her feet instead. That stung my pride a little.

"Mhm. ntal Compulsion with a bit of my own tinkering... but you already know that, right?"

"Yeah..."

That was the issue with Mystic Eyes of that particular nature. They influenced the world by sight alone. Looking at them, ant getting caught by them, regardless of distance and whatever obstacle ca in between.

The solution to that issue was a pretty simple one.

I fished my aviators out of my pockets and pushed them on.

Sight action-based Mystic Eyes stopped working the mont the other person put on a pair of Mystic Eye Killers, no matter how strong. In my case however, that ca at a cost. Judging by the manic grin that split her face, she knew that too.

"Now my eyes don’t work on you... but you can’t analyze or dismantle my spells anymore."

I t her expression with an equally manic one. "It looks like I’ve been had."

She was just as good as I was at analyzing magecraft, but not better. No one could be better. Except her expertise wasn’t a by-product of her eyes. However, just because I couldn’t see mana anymore, did not an I lost my fine control over it, or all the spells in my arsenal.

I rested my head back against the wall, a hand over my knee, and stared right into her eyes.

"What are you going to do now? Run? Surrender?"

"Nah... I’d win."

She clapped her hands twice, nodding. "How exciting. You’ll go far in the Clock Tower, I promise. No, I’ll be sure to spread news of this myself. It seems amusing enough."

I snorted at that.

"You’re not doing this cause of his threat at all, are you?"

Touko tilted her head with an amused smirk. "I’ve been found out, it seems. No, so death threat from a pathetic runt ans nothing to . Poison. Utterly boring. But, it did let

get the score even so..."

Hah. What an amazing woman.

She deserved sothing interesting indeed.

"Oh, let’s start again then."

She wrote sothing in the air, a foreign letter. One I had no hope of understanding with my eyes bound. But, if I took off the binds, she’d pierce through Infinity once again so there was no choice. What I did know however, was that the words she spoke were not related at all to that one rune repeated again and again.

"Agni Jvalana Agni Vai??vānara."

The world was painted by a great fire.

A great storm of fla. It danced and coiled and prickled shyly. Then, abruptly, that imnse red-hot fire leapt for . It lted away the floor. It lted away the walls and the windows. It burnt the very air and spilled into the forest outside.

There, it tore through the trees and the grass and lted the wet soil. When finally it settled, the serene forest outside the remaining tower burned brightly. A proper hellscape. It was incredible to witness. I was sure that if there was indeed a hell, then it surely looked sothing like that.

Amidst it all, Touko Aozaki stood easily as ever, smoking her cigarette.

She definitely used fire just to one-up my use of Fuga.

"So, was that supposed to do sothing to ?"

I grinned. Untouched. My defense had parted the sea of flas easily.

"Not really. But we know this is my victory, Henry."

"It really isn’t~ I an, you can’t even touch

anymore even though I know you really want to. I an, I’m just so fabulous."

I wasn’t risking being caught by her eyes again, and I definitely had the firepower to do her in.

"But, for this display, let

show you sothing interesting."

Touko raised a curious brow. She watched as I brought my hands together. One open as if it were reaching out for sothing, the other clutching it like a gentle lover.

"Cursed Technique Lapse: Blue."

A blue orb ford behind , shimring in the night. Shifting and coiling, it pulled and clawed at the world around it.

"Cursed Technique Reversal: Red."

A crimson orb ford behind , a re inch away from the blue one. It roared and snapped, driving everything away in a rage.

What I was about to do was impossible, yet as simple as pushing the two together and mixing them into the one. Gently, the distance closed. The orbs began to fizzle and groan with the world.

Then, the process went haywire. My control slipped and the spells began erratically fizzling in and out of existence. Sothing bad was about to happen if I didn’t stop. Unfortunately, I had no intentions of stopping whatsoever.

That was, at least, until Touko suddenly threw up her hands.

"Wait, alright, I give up. This is your victory too. You’re going to kill yourself and everyone else here if you release whatever that is."

With a shrug, I let the individual spells go.

"You’re ssed up in the head, kid." She sighed, tapping a foot against the floor. "I think this is the first ti I’ve lost with the other person threatening to commit suicide... so, I suppose this is sufficient. Go ahead, gloat."

I pursed my lips and stepped up to her. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled out a notepad and a pen, holding them both out to her.

"What’s this supposed to be?"

"Autograph, please. And your number too."

"...Is this how people hit on each other nowadays?"

"No, I already have soone so I’ll have to reject that flirt even if you’re a mil-... Er. I just think it’d be cool to have you as a friend."

She stared at

for a good few seconds, possibly awestruck by my handso face in such close proximity. Then, she sighed again, and rudely pulled my offerings from my hands.

"Here."

I looked between her and what she’d written several tis before turning around and unceremoniously tossing the notepad outside, into the burning forest.

"Heh."

"...Why you little-"

She never got to enact her revenge for that stunt, as the rest of the people in the towers-... haha, ’tower’... filtered into the destroyed room the mont she raised her hands to choke

out.

Inorai inspected the damage with quiet disconcern. She narrowed her eyes at , but not much else before abruptly turning around leaving.

"I see the issue has resolved itself. I have more pressing matters to attend to now so... toodles."

Lord Byron fell to his knees in despair. The old guy was probably losing it from all the property damage and all the money it would take to fix it. But hey, he deserved every single bit of the suffering headed his way and then so for what he did to his own daughter. The other ’daughter’ Estella stood quietly by her father’s side, along with a grinning Maio.

Then there was only the Professor and his little posse. He looked like he wanted to run into a wall, headfirst instead of dealing with his sister, or even any of his disciples at the mont.

"I’ve lost yet again, it would seem." Touko eyed Maio. "And even if you do kill , I’ll take you with ... or you could turn yourself in? Surely, that is the better option for a pathetic idiot like you."

"M-Miss Touko-" Byron started, but she cut him off by raising her hand.

"I’m not upset. This kind of thing is exactly what I’ve co to expect." She glanced my way. "Besides, it’s been a rather interesting experience. I’ve discovered a new field to study, even."

Hm... What were the chances she was going to fuck

over later?

Reines interrupted them.

"Wait, hold on. If he turns himself in, the Iselma themselves beco the ones to decide his punishnt. You might as well be letting him off scot free..."

-

Though, she said that. There really was nothing else to do. When Maio inevitably surrendered, he was ’arrested’ by the Iselma family servants since the damages were restrained to their ’property’. Personally, it was a distasteful conclusion to the incident, but, beyond a doubt, the El-lloi gained much politically and possibly even the Princess of Silver as a ’hostage’. However, that information was never made ’available’ to . I just bothered the Professor about it till he gave up and confessed.

Instead, I left the Iselma Towers with a hefty sum as paynt for their offense against , and a good few runes for

to tinker with just for the love of the ga even though I’d cause a terrible amount of damage just for the hell of it.

But, the greatest and worst outco of that little incident was the sudden reputation that ca with clashing with a Grand, not once, but twice, and coming out on top no less. It made things a lot more interesting at the Clock Tower... to say the least.

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Hope you enjoyed.

You can find 7 swarthy Chapters at patre0n/Bleap