I bring to you thread necromancy!
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Zouken Matou fretted.
An impossibility.
An action that none could or would believe, especially from those who knew of the old man.
Such as Shinji and all who bore the name Matou did.
But still, from the feverish haze of heat that ravaged his body, it appeared to the boy that his... grandfather was fretting over him.
The normal fear that the Matou scion held for the patriarch of his family was subsumed by the fading in and out of awareness, incinerated by the burning heat that radiated from beneath his skin and frozen by the cool air that surrounded him. The lack of his normal fear to color his vision allowed to see that the old man was worried.
The soft muttering was something he couldn't quite catch, and which his mind shied away from fully comprehending.
The words felt wrong.
Meaning, they held. But the manner they strung together, that was wrong. It offended his ears. His sensibilities. Behind those words, he could hear a dull roaring.
And it was not only him.
He could see her... Sakura, his new sister, shuddering at the murmured words every now and then as she looked after him. Shinji was fairly certain that she couldn't hear the same roaring sound that grew and faded, that familiar sound of the sea and yet so very alien, as if they belonged to waves that had never crashed upon the shores of the world.
And yet, even as he looked at Sakura. He could see how... hollow she was. Perhaps, that was why she couldn't hear the roar of the sea.
NPC. A vague part of his mind murmured.
Darkness squirmed in her interior like a mass of shadows. Worms, his mind murmured. Code, the back of his mind murmured.
Every now and then, the world... shifted.
Soft cooling aquamarine hexagons filled the world, interlocking and supporting each other.
Where Sakura walked on the hexagons, light blossom like flowers before inverting into impossible straight lines that glowed and faded swiftly....
But where Zouken walked as he murmured his words, darkness flared and sparked before fading away, light drunk as cheap wine by the shadows.
And still he could hear the sound of the waves, soothing as they washed over wooden hulls and became foam. The scent of alcohol hung heavy around him. The hint of a devilish smile surrounded by smoke from a pipe.
An annoying presence, and yet one that was comforting, like an irrepressible older sister who would tease him and yet made sure he was safe.
An idle part of Shinji's mind wondered... was this magic? Was this how Grandfather, Sakura and... Uncle Kariya had seen the world? A world of light that glittered and sparkled, an ephemeral existence that was unseen by the dull and crude world?
As his grandfather's words droned on, Shinji's world faded to darkness as weariness overtook him.
And in the darkness, he could heard faint laughter amidst crashing waves, as if daring the world to stay the same.
And the darkness squirmed... and perhaps it did. Perhaps, it was an endless mass of... something.
***
Puella Magi Schuetze Aurulent
Part 7 : The all encompassing embrace of the sea's depths can be as bad as the burning wrath of fire...
***
Shinji remembered her. She wasn't loud and aggravating like that Tohsaka, nor was she clingy and adoring as his fans were.
She just was.
There would be a smile at his jokes, as bad or poor as they were.
A willingness to work with him.
She had that something that drew him, even when he threatened her and tried to bully her into submitting in the first round. She just shook her head at him. Her servant, that ever talking pink haired Paladin of a Rider, had not been as understanding when her mistress yielded in defeat to spare him from being deleted in combat.
Or perhaps, he did, hadn't he smiled and said something at the end? "For a friend, huh?"
Even at the end, when they were both k... no, deleted by the Moon Cell... she had still been a friend who died to let him go on.
And that, that was what drew him forward to win the grail.
Not for the money, nor the wish of infinite possibilities.
But to prove that her death had not in vain.
And so, and so... he progressed.
Always one step further... always another day, as those around him were winnowed one by one.
Hacking the arena to gift his Rider, Dragon, with a horde of wealth for her to scatter in a storm, to drown their enemies in a hail of fire.
The treachery of the old man's Archer proved no match for the deluge of golden fire of his Rider. Honor could and did cripple one who was used to fighting treacherously with ambushes and assassination techniques.
"Honor and Pride before all else!" That statement of the old man had brought a frustrated look to that archer of his, who bore a certain villainy that even his El Draque could appreciate.
And so, they drowned in fire despite the archer's attempts at assassination and use of poison.
The trickery of the twins provided no defense to his own skills at manipulating the arena and his code casting. And thus, in the end, they too fell. Unable to bring to bear their might against him in the coliseum, the tricks of Caster were futile and useless.
"Ahhh~ you're just like everyone else," were the last words uttered by the digital ghost and her servant.
It was amusing how in his attempts to eliminate him by deceit and abuse of the system only netted that dog of Harway a disqualification and an undignified end as the penalties inflicted upon his assassin by the Moon Cell made it possible for his big sister to bring him low.
"Just like how history bore out, huh... you foreigners always cheat. But it was a fun fight, I'll give you that," The last words uttered by the crimson haired assassin. There was a hint of respect there, from the servant if not the master.
With the dog dead, it was only reasonable for him to start planning on how to deal with that pompous show off with his Saber. He was so confident that he didn't bother to conceal who his servant; Gawain, the knight of the sun. Assuming of course that they both made it past their next challenges.
The Lancer of Tohsaka proved to be... unbearably annoying in how he was disrespectful of him. But then, what else could one expect from the servant of that one? In the end, her words were meaningless. Her attempts to get him to make a wish to change the world was utter nonsense.
This was a game, and wishes were idiocy. He was in it for the prize money and the title. Nothing more, nothing less. Really. And so to her last words, he had responded as his Rider, of his El Draque cackled. "Just drown in your ideals, Tohsaka, and... die."
How could he not, when the last words of hers, to be remembered by him was a desperate plea to overthrow the world as it was. To bring ruination and conflict to all. She truly was a devil woman.
There was never any doubt that with the strength of his servant, that ludicrously overpowered knight, that the Harway representative wouldn't make it to the end.
Overconfidence was the downfall of the Harway scion. He might have been young, but one did not become the premier gamer in Asia by being stupid. And so, he had done his research, readied his trap.
And the Knight of the Sun fell in the darkness of night with only the roaring thunder of the Golden Hind and her escorts to guide him into the underworld.
The memories of those who had fallen before him stained his hands red. He might have been young, but he had walked the fine line between life and death, the razor thin blade of existence and non-existence.
And so, he entered the sum of all knowledge, the heart of the idiot god that knew all and had no sense of self. There had been something more, hadn't there? He vaguely remembered fighting someone else before he ascended into the Eye that gazed upon itself.
[MU]
There had been emptiness and a false existence amidst featureless monuments, hadn't there?
The sound of the waves, soothing as they washed over wooden hulls and became foam surrounded him. The scent of alcohol hung heavy around him. The hint of a devilish smile surrounded by smoke from a pipe.
An annoying presence, and yet one that was comforting, like an irrepressible older sister who would tease him and yet made sure he was safe.
While he was with her, he would always be safe. Even in a sea of data and knowledge.
He had made a wish, hadn't he? To be with her, and for countless new games.
