flightworks | [Fate/ninth heaven] Vagrant Grail Cadenza; PENALTY at five

Masterlist and readme are here.

(part one)

After that.
Roswell announces that he and the princess will be leaving for a shopping trip.

“—I’ll give you a list of things to go buy since it’s my turn to cook again later, but I’m going to stay here—”

Gulcasa said that to them.
…And he did write up a list and make sure that Roswell had it and knew where to buy everything.
But immediately afterward, he returned to my side.

“—”
“—”
The silence is quite pleasant.
There’s no one in the house but us, so we sit on the sofa without bothering to restrain ourselves from holding each other.
I position myself lightly on Gulcasa’s lap, sitting sideways so that I can hold him with both arms.
The sweet scent of woodsmoke that hangs about his hair is heavy and alluring.
His arms that support me lightly are intensely warm, and his body that’s pressed up against mine is hotter than usual.
It’s not that he’s aroused, at least not yet; I would be able to tell that given where I’m sitting, after all. It’s more that there’s just a receptive atmosphere in the house that’s as good as ours for this afternoon.

Gulcasa closes his eyes and breathes out, holding me with a tranquil expression.
…Even though there have been a number of relaxed moments between us since his summoning, it always feels as though we have to steal them, or that there’s a time limit on what we are able to have for ourselves.
Right now, Gulcasa seems more relaxed than usual.
…Roswell seems under the impression that the two of us can just be sheltered here without any further interaction with the war, and perhaps that impression is catching from what I can glean in my Servant’s countenance.
But I know better.
We can take a few days to rest, but we’ll need to be active again soon.
Just holding on until the war ends by itself isn’t an option for me.
That’s not just my pride saying so, as sooner or later the strongest enemy will bring the fight to us—probably last, given that man’s hubris.
Thinking about it makes my body want to tremble with hatred and fear, but because Gulcasa is holding me I suppress it.
His warmth is a comfort, but I also don’t want to worry him with such things at a time like this when all there is to the world is the two of us.

“—”
I lean up and place a hand to his cheek.
I draw his face down toward me and kiss him.

“—Mm.”
Gulcasa tastes me thoroughly and without restraint.
I can feel my consciousness getting a bit hazy at the sensation.
My muscles loosen, and my body relaxes.
…I can feel my temperature rising slowly.
Perhaps I’m getting re-accustomed to being touched and held tenderly, but I feel neither embarrassment nor any desire to stifle the quiet sounds and moans that rise up out of my throat at the pleasant sensation of the kiss.
Due to our closeness, I can sense Gulcasa’s muscles vibrating slightly.
…He’s probably on the verge of getting excited and trying to tone his own reactions down.

When he pulls away, his eyes are unfocused.
…His lips are flushed slightly from the long kiss, and his breathing is disordered.
I can tell that I’m breathing a bit more deeply than usual, and my own lips are pounding with blood and even feel slightly swollen.
I want to pull him right back down again.
It feels pleasant, and beyond that the closer together we are, the safer I feel.
There’s a craving inside me for that kind of feeling, a sensation I haven’t experienced for hundreds of years.

“—Nessiah.”
Gulcasa says my name in a dazed-sounding tone.
I lift my hands up and stroke my fingertips over the contours of his face.
…Everything about his countenance is very dear to me.
The hard lines of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose, the skin of his cheeks that turns red under my touch, the swept-back points to his ears that are sensitive enough to make him tremble weakly when I brush against them teasingly.
His lips are soft.
I hook the fingers of my right hand behind the nape of his neck and pull him back down, confirming it against my own.
They’re soft.
Gulcasa shudders and makes something like a pitched whine against my mouth.
…His body is hot and smells of fire.
His chest rises and falls like a bellows, and he has all the heat of a forge, of a great conflagration.
He fidgets underneath me, but that’s not enough to hide the aroused state he’s in.

This time when I release him, he’s breathing shallowly.
Gulcasa’s body shudders and protests our separation.
His pupils are wide and his eyes are only about half-open.
“…Nessiah.”
He leans down to kiss the base of my throat.
He lingers there, lightly moving the tip of his tongue against my skin and nipping very softly.
“Nn—ah.”
How should I put this—he’s troublingly skilled at judging my physical sensitivity.
Like now, embracing me tightly or roughly and actually kissing my skin actively or biting it would be a bit painful because I’m not aroused enough for that to feel good yet.
There’s a certain point past which anything Gulcasa might do to me would feel good enough to white out my mind, but it would take quite a bit more involved attention for me to reach it. Generally we would already need to be in the midst of making love for me to feel that way, and if he were to be just a bit too rough now it wouldn’t just hurt—it would be frightening, and most likely my instincts would take over and I’d push him away automatically.
That in turn would ruin the mood so completely that we wouldn’t be able to continue, and likely the whole rest of the day would be awkward.
In the worst case scenario, it would be as bad as if I were to carelessly pull Gulcasa’s hair, and I might panic.

My body’s natural sensitivity—my senses that are much finer than a normal human’s work against me here, and with the things that I’ve been unfortunate enough to experience in my life, it makes intimacy a bit of a touch-and-go situation.
…At least, that’s how it would ordinarily be.
But for whatever reason, it’s different with Gulcasa.
…It seems he’s always been able to tell by instinct that he and I are similar in that respect, and so he has always been very tender in moments like this.
I can’t imagine the kind of fine control over his considerable strength it must take, but despite his own arousal he’s never misjudged himself, so it may even be instinctive by now.

Gulcasa kisses along the line of my throat all the way up to the base of my jaw, applying his teeth just lightly enough to leave marks.
My breathing is ragged, and I hold on to him tightly.
…If this is a game between us, then he’s more that matched me for provoking him before.
The sensation of my blood thumping throughout my body irritates my own arousal, and there’s a desire for release building up within me, if faintly.

“—There’s oil in the kitchen, Nessiah—”
And that’s close, so there isn’t even any need to really wait and ruin the moment, seems to be what Gulcasa is suggesting with that heated murmur.
But he’s going to have to try much harder than that.

“We’ll make a mess of the nice furniture.
“—I think you can be patient enough for tonight, when there’ll be no need to change locations awkwardly, don’t you?”

Even so, I put my hands on Gulcasa’s shoulders and shift my body.
Rather than sitting sideways on his lap with my feet off to one side, I lift my body up and swing one leg over so that I am straddling his waist.
Our bodies press together intensely.
…He’s hot against me, and I can feel Gulcasa’s breath and his heartbeat quicken as he realizes my own aroused state.
I put strength into my hips and thighs to keep my body from rocking against his, and lean in to kiss him again.

We exchange numerous heated kisses and embraces here.
His temperature and my own have soared, and surely the room itself is far warmer than it was before.
…I can be honest with myself.
I want to take him right here, in this moment.
But it’s also true that it would be impractical and messy, causing cleanup to be even more of a hassle than it normally would be.
…And besides.
Playing around like this is in itself not a bad thing to do.

We continue to hold each other, draw out our intimacy so that the mild arousal we experience isn’t pushed over into the realm of urgency, and stop to simply breathe whenever it feels like things might go too far.
The promise of tonight is enough to keep our teasing each other from evolving into anything else.
When it finally gets to be too much, I simply remove myself from Gulcasa’s lap to give us both the chance to get up, stretch out, and cool off.
I wander around to take the chance to relieve my body of its tension without losing face, during which time Gulcasa probably does much the same.
…And, when I return to the living room, he’s coming down the stairs and nods to me that he’s already commandeered supplies for later.

Our allies still aren’t back yet, so we relocate to the kitchen in order to make tea.
We orbit each other, keep in contact, and cuddle with each other without either shame or restraint.
The sun passes through the afternoon sky, slow and gentle, a quiet moment returned to us out of a distant past.

“—They certainly are late.”
Gulcasa sighs.
“If they stay out for much longer, the sun will set.”
…I certainly think so as well.
It’s nearly six o’clock, and if the sun had already set I would expect that Roswell had been attacked.
…I would know if they or if any other Servant had been defeated, of course, but I can’t sense an intense magical battle from this far away.

Gulcasa and I sit at the table.
It should still be calm, but there’s a rising uneasiness in the air.
“—”

And.
There’s a creeping discomfort in my shoulder along the Command Spell.

“—”
I look at Gulcasa.
He’s gazing towards the door with a kind of wariness.
…I can’t tell whether or not this is Roswell coming back.
Ally or enemy, the reaction of the Command Spell should be the same.
And Servants are unfortunately all just lumps of prana to me, and I cannot tell the difference between their presence very well at a distance.
Out of all of them, only Gulcasa is special.

“—Nessiah.
“What are we going to do?”
“—”
If it’s Roswell, he’ll come in without any assistance.
If it’s an enemy, they will either leave or break the boundary field of the mansion in order to enter, and this is no place to fight.

“…We should go out to meet them.
“Gulcasa, go ahead.
“—I’ll stay behind you. This is far enough away from other houses and shielded, so if there’s a battle it should happen in the yard rather than in closed quarters like this.”

He nods once.
And we both stand up, tense.

…With Gulcasa as wary as I am, I can’t imagine that this is anything but an uninvited guest.
So, he heads to the front door and I shadow his movements.
“—”
Of course, Gulcasa reaches the window before me.
He glares from outside the visible range of someone outside looking in, and then turns to me and shakes his head.

“—I don’t see anyone.
“It’s probably the enemy.”
…Well, if someone has come here looking for a battle with Roswell, we can certainly give them a surprise.
“The Master is with them, so it’s probably not Caster there.”
And so, by process of elimination, that leaves either Lancer or Avenger as the opponent before us.
…I’d expect Lancer to be the bigger threat here, with the pair of magi supporting him and his power level.
Avenger is not a weak Servant by any means, but her Master will hold her back.
Therefore, we should prepare for this to be an assault from Lancer and if it’s Avenger instead we’ve gotten lucky.
…Of course it’s not going to be pleasant to face down a Servant we can empathize with, but we promised her a fair battle.

Still.
“—Damn, we should have thought ahead for some method to contact Roswell in case something like this happened.”
I complain quietly at my own lack of foresight.

“It can’t be helped.
“If we’d had more time to talk about strategy I’m sure it would have come up, but with the condition you’ve been in it’s not like we could have held strategy meetings and such every day to get everyone in sync.
“—Besides, the plan had been for us to stay here in hiding for as long as we could, so I doubt that anyone was really counting the two of us as members of the fighting force.”

I breathe out.
Everything always goes to pieces in the end if I’m not directing the chessboard by myself.
I know this all too well, so I should have made more of a conscious effort to keep control of things.
But now is not the time for regrets.
“…Even in the worst case scenario, Roswell should be coming back soon.
“And in that case, we can just team up and expel the intruders together.
“Until then, though, don’t worry about holding back as I have more than enough prana to spare for anything you might use up. The only thing I’d ask you to keep in reserve is that Noble Phantasm, since it would leave you defenseless if there were to be another battle.”

Gulcasa nods.
“—I can finish this with Prominence.
“Now then, we’ll have to go.”

And.
The door opens in the next moment, and Gulcasa explodes out into the front yard like a flame shot from the mouth of a cannon.

There.
Within the barrier that closes this space off from the eyes of civilians, a knight in black catches the blow on her sword like a dance.
Sparks scatter throughout the air like leaves in autumn as the scythe and the sword dance in a waltz, and Gulcasa in his armor twists and fights in order to keep the enemy from coming any further.
Avenger’s expression is blank and focused.
Showing none of the excitement or the viciousness of our previous battle, she attacks Gulcasa in quick slashes without wasted movement as if not having any fun at all.
“—”
I can hear Gulcasa exhale as he drags his blade through the air towards her body.

Is it because we’ve gotten to know each other better, or is there some other reason?
…With Avenger’s personality, I can’t simply mark down her change in demeanor to reluctance to do battle, as it was in combat that she seemed the most lively before.
“—”
But more importantly.
It may be all right to put her on the back burners and leave her to Gulcasa if I can deal with her Master.

The witch stands at the gates.
She does not spare a glance for the battle of our Servants and looks straight at me.
Something about her stare—makes me feel uneasy.

But.
As Gulcasa continues to strike for Avenger, driving her back bit by bit, I descend the front steps to the house with purpose.

Slowly.
I raise my hand and prepare my own body to cast lightning.
…Try not to run, huh.
Unfortunately, it appears that you’ll have to be looking after me again tonight, Roswell—

At the moment that I spring off the bottom step.
Three things happen in such rapid succession that I cannot react in time.

First.
Call it karma for disobeying my doctor’s orders, but at the second step where my injured foot should be striking against the ground to propel me forward—
My weak ankle wobbles and bends, and I almost fall.
My voice escapes, and the rings of power that had been fastened about the joints of each of my fingers come unwoven, causing the bolts of energy prepared in my hand to go wild and destroy the fence.

Second.
In the exact same moment, Gulcasa senses danger to me and falters slightly—in conjunction with Avenger lunging forward to attack.
“Kh—!”
The ground tears under Gulcasa’s armored feet, and he makes furrows in the grass as Avenger’s blow drives him back past me to crash into the wall.
Even though he pulls his body back upright in the next moment and runs forward again, Avenger has run forward to close the gap.
This means that when the two of them clash like cogs getting caught backwards, the great sound of metal from between them comes from significantly behind me.

…And third.
…Yellma, Avenger’s Master, runs lightly into the yard—two strong paces, long enough to close the distance between us.

Before I can maintain my balance.
Hands like spiders seize my wrists, and my body is wrenched around so that my back is pressed against the woman’s chest.
“—Kh—a, u—”

My ankle buckles underneath me, the strained tendon protesting.
My entire leg is shaking and cannot bear my weight.
…She shifts my wrists into the grip of the same hand, and before I can drop all of my weight and fall to the earth to make my body harder for her to manipulate, her hand winds around my throat.
Her fingers strangle me like spiders, and my vision warps.
…Her long nails appear to have been reinforced with metal, and nick tenderly into the skin of my neck like razors.

“—”
All I can do is gasp for air, but my throat is pricked numerous times.
I can’t help my body’s instinctive reaction to the pain I’m already in and my ankle’s demand for oxygen so that it might repair itself, and my panting like a seizure increases.
…The adrenaline that’s dulling out the pain of my unresponsive ankle does nothing to help the sharp cuts along my throat, and they sting mindlessly.

“Nessiah—”
…Distantly.
I can hear Gulcasa’s scream like the roar of a beast.

“—Careful, now.”
Avenger’s Master laughs.
“If you get too excited, you’ll be forfeiting your Master’s life, you know—?
“Even if it’s just a corpse, I can still make do quite easily.”

I feel cold.
—I feel cold at the implication of her words.

This was a deliberate attack not to separate me from Gulcasa so that we would be easy to kill, but to get us apart so that she could capture me.
…I’m an enemy Master.
If that is the only thing that is known about my role in this war, then such actions as these are absurd.
…Which means.
The only logical explanation is that she knows the truth, and is not interested in “me”, but the “contents” of my body.

“Of course, neither of us wants that.
“—Certainly you’ll vanish from the world if you don’t have a Master, and I’d rather keep the vessel alive than worry about making emergency transplants.”
She speaks merrily while strangling me.
…It hurts, and I need air, or else the pain will get even worse.

“Avenger, we’re leaving since we have what we need.
“—If he comes after us like a fool, then kill him.”

Obeying the orders of her Master, Avenger backs away from Gulcasa.
My vision is fading.
…But I can still tell from her hazy silhouette that she is postured to attack at any time.

“—Nessiah—”
But Gulcasa is heedless of such things.
His eyes are a beacon fastened directly onto me, and I am sure that he can see nothing else.
Oblivious to the danger that he’s in, he bends as if preparing to lunge at me.
…I know.
I don’t even need to be a true prophet to know, I can see the certain future burned into my eyelids even if I close them.
He will run forward and the arc of Avenger’s sword will cut into his neck.

“—No!!
“—Don’t come—stay where you are!”

I put all my remaining breath into the scream.

…Oh.
My shoulder—the marks of absolute obedience burn, as though the brand of our contract is being seared into my flesh anew.
A sharp crack rings through the air, assaulting my ears.
“—”
I hear Gulcasa choke, and the protests of his armor as he is held in place by the Command Spell.

There is no answering song of a sword’s edge slicing the air.
…So even if I can’t see it, I know that Avenger will not attack as long as Gulcasa doesn’t rush at her.

…But that’s it.
My vision’s already gone.
The strength in my limbs is following it rapidly, and I don’t have the breath to speak.
…The problem about my power is that without my voice or at least a hand free, it’s useless.
My consciousness is growing faint.
But—she won’t kill me.
Even if she kills me, that’s not so bad.

Gulcasa—
As long as he’s alive, I still—

My breath cuts out and I fall.

(interlude 10-2)

“Damn it—”

There’s a great crack of wood.

It’s Roswell Branthèse’s instinct to flinch, but he summons up all the fortitude he has and remains still.

It’s been about half an hour since the time that he and his Servant returned home from shopping to find the yard in disarray, Nessiah gone, and Berserker screaming until he vomited blood with the effort to break free of the Command Spell that kept him there.
…The boundary field has been replaced and strengthened, and Roswell took the time to heal all of Berserker’s self-inflicted wounds.
Compared to the time that that Servant was attacking himself mindlessly from rage and self-blame, the way he is raging about the house attacking the walls and the furniture makes him seem calm.

It’s not as though he can’t understand.
…The thing that Berserker was determined to protect above all else was taken away from him, and Nessiah forced him to stay here rather than allowing him to attempt a rescue.
Of course, he understands those feelings even though he fully acknowledges that Nessiah’s actions were probably correct.

Berserker punches the walls so hard that the plaster cracks.
His knuckles are in pieces, his hands ruined with bruises and blood.
It will take a great deal of energy to take care of.
…But because it is preferable to the way that that Servant had thrown himself into the walls, run his head and shoulders into them as if trying to kill himself—
Because his eyes are no longer empty, and the air around his body no longer sizzles as though the world is going to erupt into a great conflagration—
Roswell can remain calm watching the display that Berserker is making, and not panic over the mess.

“Damn it, damn it—”

Berserker does not stop.
He is a Servant, and so even though an ordinary person would no longer be able to continue their rampage after a short while, he has been raging for half an hour.
His body has lost a great amount of energy, and his punches towards the walls are weak, signaling that he will simply collapse in exhaustion soon.
…It’s not that he’s in danger of running out of prana, but that his body is after all still bound by some of the restraints a human’s is.
The nerves and flesh and bones that make up Berserker’s body can only sustain so much uncontrolled wrath without the reinforcement of his Master.

Nessiah isn’t here.
Berserker’s body isn’t warped into invincibility by Mad Enhancement.
Right now—

…Right now he’s physically and emotionally at his limit.

Even so, there’s nothing that Roswell can do.
…He is only human, and a human cannot stop a rampaging Servant, so he must wait for Berserker to calm down before doing anything.

“Damn it—”

Finally.
Berserker’s body starts to sag, swaying drunkenly as he collapses.
He breathes heavily.
His eyes are wild and see nothing but his own failures.
…And, at that moment—

“—”
Yggdra crouches down beside the kneeling form of her sworn enemy,
and she firmly wraps her arms around his body.

She doesn’t say anything.
She closes her eyes with an intense and inscrutable expression.
…All that Roswell knows is that the emotion she’s feeling now is neither pity nor sadness.
She holds fast to Berserker’s still-straining body, and closes her eyes.

…Berserker screams.
Roswell would never be able to make a sound like that.
He’s been raised to be proper for too many years, and has been brought up to restrain his emotions and maintain his dignity.
…Berserker doesn’t care about anything like that, and roars.
Like a dragon with its heart pierced, he bares his fangs and screams so loudly that even if Roswell clapped both hands fast to his ears he wouldn’t be able to escape the noise.
The Servant’s handsome face is a mess of blood and tears.
Strings of saliva and bile from the number of times he vomited still defile his crushed armor.
His talons bite into Yggdra’s back.
He’s clinging to her mindlessly.

His crying voice is a scream.
Even once his voice dies because his vocal cords are too worn to produce sound and he collapses to breathe raggedly, the noise echoes on and on.

At last.
With Berserker sagged and simply staring blankly into the floor, supported only by Yggdra holding him up, Roswell kneels down in the dust and casts a healing on Berserker’s torn and broken hands.

“—I’m going to clean up.”
He announces so quietly.
It would be unholy to dispel the traces of that proud voice by speaking over them.

“Yggdra.
“…Help him.”
“Of course.”
She just nods, and doesn’t release her grip.

“—Gulcasa.”
Berserker’s gaze is dim.
It’s probably this man’s way to simply give in to such emotions rather than bottle them up, as he appears to have worn himself out quite thoroughly by now.
But.
“…I’m going to clean things up a bit, and then—
“I don’t have the same level of skill, but we’re going to make a plan.
“We’re going to get Nessiah back, without fail.”

Berserker looks up.
His eyes are like coals in his ravaged face.
—But still, he responds to Roswell’s words readily.

Maybe it’s because his voice is already broken.
But all he does is nod.
With grim and deadened eyes, covered in blood and tears, disheveled from rampaging around in frenzied desperation—
The crimson demon nods royally, with all the weight and gravity befitting of an emperor.

(10-2 interlude out.)

[Fate/ninth heaven] Vagrant Grail Cadenza; PENALTY at five - part 2 [route III, day 10]