Sakura & Demon (4)

Several minutes earlier, Okita was preparing to face Berserker. She initially thought she would have to fight her way through his army first, but it seemed that concern was not valid.

For some reason, the army had turned against her enemy and started attacking the clones of her companion. She had an inkling about the how, but she preferred to keep her suspicions to herself. It worked for her, so why question it?

Her opponent didn't seem as carefree as her, though. She might not be able to understand exactly what he was saying, yet his enraged shouts were enough to tell her that he was cursing to hell and back at the fact that his supposedly unstoppable cavalry had turned themselves on him.

'Perfect opportunity.' She thought. Although Berserkers could be a wild mass of destruction, they could get easily distracted, more so if the battle hadn't even begun. Of course, there were exceptions to that rule, especially if that particular Servant had incredible battle instincts. Fortunately for her, this one seemed more of the commanding type than an actual fighter.

With that in mind, Okita dashed at fast speed toward her opponent, hoping to catch him unaware. She was disappearing and appearing in flashes like some magic trick. Once she was in front of Darius' war elephant, she disappeared again only to reappear in front of the Persian King.

Her right hand which was carrying her sword was drawn back, while her left hand was outstretched forward as if to work like some kind of scope to help her make her attack more precise.

She immediately went for a quick stab to the heart. A simple and efficient kill on the unaware Servant... Or that is how it seemed at first. Before she was able to plunge her weapon into the flesh of her foe, Darius blocked her attempt with one of his axes.

He roared in anger and used his other ax to slash diagonally at her. Okita didn't plan to get hacked, so she used the ax blocking her weapon as a standpoint and somersaulted to avoid the attack.

Once Saber landed on the head of the giant animal, she once again lunged forward. Darius rose from his throne and jumped back to avoid the incoming slash, which instantly cut his former seat in half.

This obviously made him angrier if his louder shouts were anything to go by. Berserker wasted no time and closed in on Okita with reckless abandon, doing mad swings at her.

Saber tried to block one of those attacks, but the pressure behind them was enough to make her legs buckle slightly. That told her that it would be a bad idea to do so continuously, so she opted to dodge or deviate the attacks instead.

Fortunately for her, Berserker's swings, although powerful, were relatively slow. That allowed her to evade the swings with relative ease. The bad thing was that she wasn't fighting just one opponent, though. The war elephant under them was using its trunk to attack her at any given opportunity.

Trying to get rid of the distraction, Okita stabbed her sword on the animal's thick skin... regretting that decision soon after. It seemed she had underestimated the defense of the damn animal. She had planned to produce a small but deep wound; a quick thrust in and out. However, her sword didn't travel much downward, and when she tried to pull it back, she found out it was a little stuck.

Her opponent didn't plan to let an opportunity like this pass, so he quickly closed the distance between them and started his assault. As the space they were in wasn't that large, Saber didn't have much room to free her sword, which caused her to let go of the handle and retreat to the head of the elephant.

Now weaponless, Okita had to dodge every attack without being able to retaliate. Her Strength Parameter wasn't the best, so at most she would trouble him a bit if she went for kicks and punches.

A few minutes passed like that, with 'close calls' becoming more frequent as time went by. Parts of her pink kimono had been ripped by Berserker's giant axes, and even her skin had suffered a few cuts here and there from the relentless swings.

Despite being on the defensive for some time, the opportunity to reverse the current situation didn't take long to arrive. Darius' mount swung its trunk once again to land a good hit on Saber after she gained a tiny distance between her and Berserker. Taking advantage of this, Okita lightly jumped just enough for the limb to pass a few centimeters under her feet. Nevertheless, she didn't stop there. Using the still moving trunk just as it was going past her as support, she jumped once again over her foe right at the moment he did another attack, even kicking the back of his head in the process and making him stumble forward a little.

Okita quickly ran to where her sword laid stuck before pulling it out with as much force as she could. Immediately, she went to attack the man who still had his back to her.

Although his reaction was fast considering his height, Saber still managed to make a slash wound on his arm before he hit her chest with the cheek of his ax.

The air was knocked out of her lungs momentarily as she took off from the back of the elephant and crashed some meters away from the animal. She was quick to get up from the ground, yet the moment she did so, she fell to one knee while releasing some coughs—ones she tried to prevent by putting a hand on her mouth, which caused it to be stained in red.

'Dammit. Why at a time like this?' She inwardly cursed. Why did her illness have to flare so often recently? It was abnormal in every sense. She couldn't help but wonder if either Nobunaga or the other man had something to do with it. It was the only explanation she could come up with in the meantime.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud and a small shake on the earth. Looking up, she noticed her foe had jumped off from the war elephant to stand before her. The pink-haired girl frowned a bit as Berserker snarled at her with clear hatred in his eyes.

A complicated look flashed through her face as she seemingly debated something. In the end, she sighed in resignation before a hardened look made its way into her face. Exhaling lightly, her Magical Energy began to converge in her form with great speeds.

Darius took notice of this, immediately recognizing it as a dangerous occurrence. Acting upon his instincts, he dashed at her, trying to finish her lest she did something that would cause trouble for him later on.

The distance between them was not that great, so he didn't have to run much to get to her. The idea of kicking her momentarily flashed through his mind, but he discarded it in favor of doing a decisive blow with his weapon instead.

Yet, just as he was about to hack her head, a flash of blinding light emanated from Saber, causing the Persian King to come to a halt. Just as he did though, a sudden pain assaulted his left arm—or better said; what used to be his left arm.

It didn't take long for him to register the sudden lack of weight. That realization came accompanied by a roar of pain.

Clutching where his arm used to be, Darius turned around to spot the culprit of his recent wound. Gone was the pink kimono. Now she adorned a white uniform that reached her thighs with a black sash around her waist covering it. A similar colored scarf hung around her neck, blowing wildly from the rampaging winds in the distance.

Her back was facing him, and despite the much smaller stature, she released a pressure that didn't fall short of his, it was maybe even higher.

Okita slowly turned around to meet his eyes. Where before there was an aura of weakness, now there was a certain strength behind her demeanor. Her gaze was firm and resolute, not like before. Albeit momentarily, she had forcefully undergone Ascension to overcome her opponent.

She was lucky enough that Berserker had come close to her just as he finished the process, allowing her to make a crippling wound on her opponent. If having Ascended made her chances of winning about sixty percent, then now that she had cut his arms they were a good ninety percent.

Of course, Darius wouldn't bother about odds. He only knew one thing, and that was that the woman in front of him had become something he had to kill at all costs.

Okita watched as he unleashed a volley of — what she assumed to be — curses at her while dropping one ax into the ground and picking his fallen limb. He quickly bit his former hand, which was still gripping his weapon before tearing the rest and throwing it away. He then picked his fallen ax and pointed it at her.

Berserker now had an ax on his right hand while the other was in his mouth with some mangled flesh from his former appendage. If Okita was affected by the gory scene, she didn't show any of it on her face.

As if on cue, both dashed at each other when the sound of thunder from the distant battlefield resounded. Although it was a little hard for Darius to run with one less limb, he still managed to keep his balance.

A little before they were at striking distance, the dark-skinned man made a wobbly horizontal slash at Saber. Okita, already predicting it, ducked under the attack and quickly did a thrust to his waist. Sadly, the height difference prevented her from striking any area like the lungs or hearth.

The piercing came, and yet Darius did not grunt. Instead, he smiled as much as his full mouth allowed him to. His muscles tightened around her sword, preventing her to pull it out and creating a similar situation to the one before with his mount. Speaking of said animal, she quickly noticed its trunk coming down at her.

Despite the danger, Okita wasn't fazed. If her opponent didn't want her to pull her sword out, then she wouldn't do so.

Saber swiftly twirled her weapon and swept it to the side, creating a nasty wound on Berserker. With that done, she sidestepped just as the elephant's trunk impacted on the ground, blowing dirt everywhere and generating a small cloud of dust.

Taking advantage of the accidental cover, she jumped at Berserker, intending to finish him off. Using his instincts, the said man put the ax in his mouth on the way of Saber's sudden strike.

Ignoring the clanging sound produced after their two weapons met, Okita spun her body and delivered a kick to her opponent's head. She could only move it slightly from its original position, but that was enough of a distraction for her.

She used her previous kick to fix her posture, allowing her to dodge the upward swing Berserker had made to get her off of him.

Spinning in mid-air, she slashed at his raised limb, severing his forearm from the rest of his body. The tall Servant roared as gravity made her touch the ground, but Okita didn't stop her assault. She capitalized on his momentary distraction thanks to her previous attack and slashed once again at his thigh with quick precision, shifting behind him after doing so.

She muted his screams as she continued to make slash after slash. She attacked his right and left calf simultaneously, making him kneel to the ground. He tried turning around to at least hack at her with the ax on his mouth, but every time he attempted to do so, Okita would move to his blind spot and keep making wounds.

His mount had tried to help him numerous times, but as she was close to Darius, it couldn't make any decisive attack. To make matters worse, when it picked him up, the pink-haired woman had also made a clean cut on its trunk, causing it to drop its owner on the ground.

Helplessly, it watched as Saber pierced the downed Darius' neck with that stoic face of hers. The Berserker Servant couldn't even produce a sound as he started fading away, together with his mount and the soldiers that had betrayed him.

Okita released a sigh before her Ascension came undone and reverted to the usual pink kimono attire. She coughed a few times as exhaustion caught up with her.

Turning her head to the side, she observed the conclusion of Nobunaga's battle. Both of them had finished their fight in an inhuman way, but it was not like they had morals about that considering they were Servants, which were basically tools for combat.

She then started to witness the carnage on the other side. Black and red lightning fell one after the other with intense rage upon the Nobu army. Wind and fire tornados ravaged the land, decimating the little resistance they tried to make. As for the man itself, he was blurring across the battlefield, piercing and mutilating whoever stood in his way.

'A natural killer... huh... I hope he is ready for what will surely come next.' Keeping those thoughts to herself, Okita stayed resting for a bit to recover a bit of stamina from the previous effort. Her sword never left her hand, though.

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"This should be the place. I am sensing some Servant signatures from here, so there is no doubt we will have to do whatever we have been doing until now." Seth informed the duo while standing before some fortified city a couple of kilometers away from where they last fought.

It had taken a bit of convincing to let him lead the way, particularly to Nobunaga. He had the inkling that she wasn't as clueless as she seemed to be, and that she knew where the others were, but that didn't matter much for now.

"Then let's go!" Cheerfully saying so, Nobunaga rushed past the gates and entered the city. Okita shook her head and followed her, albeit at a slower pace.

The Egyptian God stood there for some seconds. He observed his hands, finding them red with the blood of the Gods, although that proved to be merely a trick of his imagination because when he blinked, they were clean.

'Good for you, Osiris. From today onwards, you will not be the only king that I have usurped.' A sneer covered his face for a moment, only to be replaced by his default 'let's get this nonsense over' look immediately after.

"Are you coming?" Okita's question brought him out of his thoughts. The swordswoman was standing before the gates, looking at him with a quizzical look.

"Yes. Just thinking about some things." Shaking his head, he started his walk ahead with Saber in tow.

The Shinsengumi's Captain focused her gaze on the city ahead of them. "It's going to get cramped, isn't it?"

"Probably. Though, considering what we are going to face, I wouldn't be surprised if this city ended up being leveled to the ground." She didn't comment about that, but internally, she was agreeing with him.

"Fuhahaha! I see that you have come, mongrels!" A loud and arrogant laugh was the first thing that greeted the two when they went past the gates. Seth couldn't help but pinch the bridge of his nose. 'Of course she—he would have that attitude even when that weird mix happened.'

The Kingslayer felt like ignoring every following word that came from his mouth, something he actually did. He was sure that a few insults were thrown his way, but as a good samaritan, he ignored all of them.

When he looked around to pass the time while Gilgamesh and Nobunaga were talking, he was able to see the other two Servants accompanying the King. One was a weird clown with a weird suit and an equally weird hat. As for the other, he was a blue-haired kid with a floating book in front of him. The amusing thing was that he didn't felt the same distortion the others had coming from him. It was possible that he was the only normal Servant here.

The moment the two made eye contact, a strange vision flashed through his mind. In it, his body was lying on the ground with a gaping hole in his chest, while the blue-haired Servant was kneeling beside him with blood covering him from head to toe. The kid muttered something with reluctance before all faded to black.

Going by the widening eyes of the person he assumed to be a writer, he shared the same vision as him. 'Maybe that is my fate in the next Singularity. Good grief, what do I end up facing? Another Beast?'

Despite having witnessed what looked like his impending death, his thoughts were light-hearted. If he counted the times where he had ended in a similar state then the fingers of both his hands wouldn't be enough, and he had only died once before.

As he was pondering about such trivialities, a sword came flying down at his head with great speeds; something he simply dodged by tilting his head.

It seemed the fight had already begun.