1,691146: Beryl Gut does not want to back down.
"-To my side, Foreigner," I say, command spell glowing, as I tear my pendant off and cast it to the side. In the same moment, Hercules moves. Three stones leave his hand, cracking through the air like bullets. One aimed at me, one at Foreigner, and one at the pendant I just cast aside.
Chilling mistral rushes through the cave, knocking the shots astray - but a telltale crash of tearing metal and a splattering noise tells me that my pendant, the container for my [Ploy, has been destroyed.
"...I hate guys with good instincts like you," I mutter.
The wind intensifies, frosting my hair, as my Servant completes her arrival. "[Hete Gele Huis]."
It's a bit sudden, but let's talk about one of my hobbies.
See, I travel all over the world - that's not the hobby, that's for work. And to avoid the consequences of another hobby, but that's really beside the point.
But anyway, I travel all around the world - so when I jump from city to city, I make a habit of stopping by the art museums to look at paintings.
Of course, I don't understand them. I only really comprehend the beauty or love of a thing after it's destroyed, or maybe in the very act of destroying it. I guess I was born wrong, or something.
…Born perfectly right for my mother's purposes. I hear the Meinster witches can only be killed by an act of love, after all. But enough about Miss Alice, where was I?
…Right, my hobby.
I visit the museums anyway. Staring at the paintings, trying to make myself feel something. It never really worked, but-
There was one time I got a little close.
"The Painter on the Road to Tarascon?" The museum guide asked. She was beautiful, more than any of the paintings in that museum - but I'm getting distracted again.
"Yeah. See, I saw a few pieces based on it in another museum, and I had to come check out the original," I answered with an easygoing smile. "I flew straight here from London to see it."
She looked at me like I was a little crazy. Which, of course, I was. "But… it's a replica."
"Yeah, I know," I replied. The original had been destroyed in the Second World War, after all. "But I really need to see it, in a museum, like this."
…It's a bit embarrassing, but I was going through a bit of a phase at the time. There was a painter, one Francis Bacon, who had me all worked up into a frenzy because I had the feeling he was like me. He made these freaking nasty pieces, paintings of nightmares, a sort of hideous deconstruction of other works. Most of them were based on photos, but a few were famous paintings - and that was what brought me here.
I had my pick, of course. I could have gone after that painting of a pope that he had turned into a melting ghoul, or tried to find what Christian triptych he had based those "crucifixion studies" on. But, in the end, it had to be Van Gogh.
Van Gogh had been one of my first 'phases' in painting appreciation. Something in the way his lines smeared, as if through tear-stained eyes. Something in the shakiness, the fragility of it, as if it might collapse and melt away at any instant. And, of course, the story of the man himself - that whole 'mailing the girl he loved his own ear' thing, the self destruction of the man, had me thinking - maybe this guy saw the world the way I do. But, in the end, none of the paintings I saw from him did it for me, and I gave up.
But, this was one I hadn't actually seen. And, with the destruction of Bacon's work juxtaposed, with me half dead from tiredness, a good three broken ribs from my last job still paining me, looking at a self portrait of this person who I thought just might be a kindred spirit, I thought I might be able to finally understand the beauty of a painting.
And so I stared at it. And stared a little more. I thought about Francis Bacon's four paintings based upon it, of the body melting into blood and darkness. I thought about the real painting, burning to ashes in a salt mine. I thought about Van Gogh, blasting his chest open with a revolver.
And for just a moment, I thought-
But, that dull ache in my chest was just my own broken ribs.
I opened my eyes as footsteps approached.
"...Sir, the museum is closing," The beautiful tour guide had returned.
"The sadness will last forever," I quoted, chuckling to myself.
And so, after indulging again in my other hobby, I left the museum and that city.
I never paid particular attention to the works of Van Gogh and Bacon, past that point.
"-Come forth from the ring of restraint, protector of the holy balance!"
My summoning circle flares to life, and I grin uneasily. So the flower petal from that suspicious sunflower worked as a catalyst after all. Ain't that concerning?
As far as the flower language of Sunflowers goes, it's all pretty ideal for a Servant, compared to the type of thing I'd get from a compatibility summon, but I didn't recognize the species. If there's something suspicious mixed in-
"Servant, Foreigner," She says slowly, her voice shaky. As the light dies down, I take in the sight of a brown-haired girl in a straw hat, with baggy pants that come up to her armpits, standing on strange sunflower themed stilts and gripping a massive paintbrush shaped like a sunflower. "As you can see, I'm Van Gogh…"
"Seriously!?" I just about fall over. I've seen that guy's self-portraits, and they don't look like this!
"S-sorry! I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She says, seeming to curl in on herself. "Pretending it's obvious doesn't work at all… I should just die!" The sunflower's head starts to whirl like a buzz saw as she brings it towards her head.
"Woah, woah! Take it easy there!" I stop her before she can do anything drastic. Alright, a nice sounding lie it is. "I was just surprised because I'm a bit of a fan of yours!"
"Ah… eh… ehehe… is that so?" Her laugh is nervous, her face filled with a different kind of distress, but still clearly inches from a breakdown.
This promises to be fun.
"Yup. I'm expecting pretty big things of you, so how about you tell me what kind of abilities you have?"
Gogh arrives to the call of my command spell. That's one of my resources down, so let's consider my cards in hand.
I'm already beginning my transformation into Dagon as Hercules dashes towards us, Thanatos still tucked under his left arm - I don't know how much power this form will lose from proximity to him. By the time I ate his remains he couldn't really be called a Divine Spirit anymore, but it remains to be seen how much of this Demonic Beast's power will be canceled by Nega-Divinity.
I don't have an impossible task ahead of me. The only requirement for victory is to make him let go of Thanatos - anything else is an extra. As long as I can do that, and preserve a command spell for the end, I should be able to escape this alive. The problem is that she's totally useless in direct combat as anything other than a meat shield. The only option for her is to play a support role.
"Master-sama… as planned, I'll back you up," Gogh mutters, and I nod. That's the plan, basically. I need to take the front line, or we'll lose. I grin as paint from her brush swirls around, layering onto my body as extra armor. I lunge to meet Hercules's blow.
…It goes without saying, if he hits me, I won't come away unscathed, and I've got no illusions about my ability to match him in martial arts. There's no choice but to go all out from the start.
My second command spell burns bright, mana coursing through me as I use amateurish witchcraft to bypass a chant that would take too long otherwise. "[Bizarre Reality Marble: Red Hood]."
The world dissolves in a swirl of leaves.
Even among the forest of exceptions that is the world of magecraft, a Reality Marble is a rare thing. I've heard that Chaldea's been running into them left and right now - hell, even Van Gogh has one - but that's more due to the strange circumstances of Servants. They're exceptional people, so it's not strange for a few to be exceptional in the same way. Marisbury had said something similar when he recruited me.
But among living mages, you'd have to be very unlucky to encounter even a single person with a functional one. Unlucky, of course, because no mage worth their salt will let you walk away with the knowledge that they have one.
Reality Marbles are a taboo, after all. Any mage that forms one will almost definitely receive a Sealing Designation, an order for permanent imprisonment at the Clock Tower and likely human experimentation.
I don't really know enough about the history of the Association to say why that's the case, of course. Mother said it was simple jealousy, combined with the fact that the methods of passing down a Reality Marble to one's descendants leaned too far towards the practices of China's Spiral Manor. But she was crazy, so maybe she just made that up.
All that said, I've got one of my own. [Bizarre Reality Marble: Red Hood]. It's a bit different from the average one, or so Mother said. An exception among exceptions. A world with two layers, suitable for the child of a witch. The first one's pretty obvious. A dark forest, where I hunt my prey. My target is trapped within, playing the part of Little Red Riding Hood, while I, the Big Bad Wolf, hunt them. I control the paths through the forest - relocation, of any kind I please. Escapes made impossible.
Even throwing someone out of the Reality Marble is pretty simple - it goes without saying, I do that for Van Gogh immediately. Her Imaginary Number Arts and [Hete Gele Huis] are already applied to me; the only thing she'll accomplish by sticking around is dying and ending the effect early.
And of course, there's another important step for the fight.
Thanatos, the god of death, restrained under one of Hercules's arms - is simply transported out of his grip by a leaf-laden gust of wind. In the first instant of our clash - victory is achieved.
The next instant, Hercules's fist slips past my guard and tears through my chest. I die instantly.
-However.
The second, outer layer of my Reality Marble is by far the more important one here.
I am the big, bad wolf, who hunts you down and swallows you whole, no matter where it is you may run.
Simply put, the outer layer of [Bizarre Reality Marble: Red Hood] is my stomach.
For purposes of my signature magecraft, I have now consumed Hercules. The nameless magecraft of consumption, the most primal miracle of all. I am what I eat.
Technique cannot be recreated. Memories are lost. But the physical form, that which is engraved upon the body, is mine to do with as I please.
[God Hand] activates as Hercules pulls his arm from my chest, and I let out a grunt as I stagger back to stand upright again. A layer of paint rushes in to fill my chest wound, melding with and becoming my skin, even as flesh fills in under it.
"...I see, so the paint is to interfere with me simply skinning you," the Beast mutters.
"That's right," I rumble with the voice of a fallen god. "You've got no option but to plow through all eleven lives to bring me down. Well, it also makes the combination of multiple forms like this less taxing."
Aside from Hercules's skin, Dagon's form is more advantageous. In terms of abilities, most of my enemy's powers are techniques that I don't have the skill to mimic - Dagon, on the other hand, is crammed full of innate powers. Putting aside his nullified authorities…
No, to start with, his power as a [Monster] completely eclipses his might as a divine spirit.
"Musashibou Benkei said you can't make additional weapons with the Noble PHantasm you stole. That he usually has to split them among his clones, and in the best case even [God Hand] will have had its lives split." I grin. "And considering you only seem to have made one clone… that's the case here, isn't it? It costs you a life to produce a copy. For once, an interaction between your abilities that's gone in our favor."
"And so? My one life to your eleven… do you think that this will even the odds?" He asks, scowling.
To be honest, this whole part of my plan was supposed to be a failsafe. If my Reality Marble couldn't simply relocate Thanatos out of his grip, I'd grind him down over the course of twelve increasingly immune lives. But if I could do that, the plan was simply to use my last command spell to have Van Gogh perform a suicide attack with her second Noble Phantasm and retreat under the cover of that.
But, hey. My job for this singularity is already done. I might as well indulge in my hobbies for a bit!
"Man, who knows?" I laugh. "I just really, really like killing guys like you! [Rage-Filled Current]!"
An ocean of reeking, clinging grime floods the dark forest, swallowing us both. He tumbles this way and that, unable to find footing, completely vulnerable. I, meanwhile, jet smoothly through the gyre, jaws open, claws jabbing for his throat-
"Beryl Gut. Do you think humans are inherently good, or evil?"
It was a non-sequitur. A question from a man I had never met before, who had no business knowing who I was. The only other customer in a near-deserted airport bar - a slightly short, understated man with white hair.
I knew that this was basically certain to end with me killing him, but that had never stopped me from chatting with people before. "They're evil, obviously. Not that I really care about stuff like that. Philosophy always gets wrapped up in talk about utopias, and before I know it I've gutted the guy talking about it."
"That's correct, in your case. Without a doubt, you are inherently evil, Beryl Gut," He turned towards me, a mysterious smile on his face. "You are Hobbes's Savage, unconstrained. Homo sacer; a werewolf, not in species but in soul."
He stood, pulling a clearly magical staff from somewhere as clouds shifted, allowing the starlight to slice through the skylight far above.
I responded in kind, stretching as I pulled my pendant from my neck. "So, we're doing this then?"
"There is no place for you among the modern world. There is no place for you among mages. Wolves are no good to anyone," He said, as though he were talking about the weather. "For that reason - become my dog, Beryl Gut, and I will give you what you seek."
Ridiculous. There was nothing left to say at this point. "[Bizarre Reality Marble: Red Hood]."
"[Grand Order: Anima Animusphere]."
As the world dissolved into leaves, the skylight shattered, and-
My consciousness returns to the feeling of cool air rushing against my face. My eyes snap open, and my limbs shoot into motion to block the hammer blow of Hercules's fist. We rapidly exchange blows, my lightning-coated fists finding no purchase-
What the hell is going on? I can see the sludge-flooded forest far below, how did I-
An unforeseen blow. I dodge a high kick, and then his heel snaps down on my head, smashing me back to the ground, where-
My eyes snap open, and I surge out of the muck, face to face with an oncoming rush of green-
My broken neck regenerates as the thrown tree splatters down behind me, and once again he's here-
How many times did he just- no! Calm down! Use everything!
"▂▂▃▃▄▄▅▅-!" I roar.
I twist his path, turning him around to expose his back-
His sword - a hastily-formed piece of wood - ripples strangely. My Reality Marble tears, and he slices cleanly through me-
The tear is enormous. Even through the pulsing flesh of my 'stomach' outside, as acid flows into the forest and mixes with the grime, I can see the rocky environs of the Caves of Hercules. Ordinarily, this would be the end. A punctured Reality Marble has no chance of fighting off the planet's effort to reassert reality.
Yeah, that would be the case if I wasn't cheating.
My [Ploy]. The magecraft created by my Mother using the corpse of what was once a Meinster Witch's tool. [Slack Snark] is doubtless far weaker than whatever its predecessor could do, but it's just perfect for me. Simply put, it slacken's Gaia's influence. In addition to nullifying the upkeep cost for any magecraft performed in its range, it also prevents their automatic breakdown from any kind of damage.
Ah, by the way, the reason [Slack Snark] wasn't destroyed when my pendant was broken earlier isn't anything complicated. I had just already released it before announcing my presence, obviously.
I revive again, catching his second strike in my teeth and shattering the wooden blade as lighting explodes from my hands. He lunges through it, unharmed - flashy though it may be, this lightning is a divine authority - and catches me by the neck, expertly deflecting my flailing blows as he chokes the life out of me.
"[Hete Gele Huis]!" Van Gogh screams above the blood pounding in my ears, and cold wind nips at Hercules's fingers, graying them with frostbite-
Hercules dashes for her, dragging me at lightning speed through the fish-corpse-laden sludge as he uproots another tree to hurl. I die of asphyxiation.
I twist distance again. The whirling petals of a sunflower meet fully blackened fingers and I snap free of his grip just in time to catch his swing towards my Servant.
This isn't working. He's so far beyond me it's not even funny. Even with our physical abilities equalized, the gulf in our skill is so total that he can simply do whatever he wants with me. Sure, he might run out of ways to kill me at some point, but I can't bet on that, and besides, there's no chance of me killing him like this!
"Gogh, by my Command Spell! Your second Noble Phantasm, now!"
"Eh… Ehehe, Master-sama, that's no good! I told you-!"
"I'll just kill you if it gets out of control! Now do it!"
"Ah! Yes, Master-sama!" Why does she seem happy about that? "From eternity, through the whirlpool of stars…"
Pulling six arrows from his belt, Hercules hurls them like darts, but I intercept them, dying again in the process-
"With a handshake to you. [De Sterrennacht]!"
Another Reality Marble ripples into existence. Terror seizes what remains of my humanity, but the monster chases it away. This is it. This is what this form was craving - the true power of distortion, which Dagon had rejected due to his pride. But now, I can complete his transformation into an abomination.
Strength and speed, beyond even what I had before. A mind-bending shape, impossible for Hercules to grasp. A will and power to drown this world in foetid slime. Beneath a starry sky smeared by the viewer's tears, I lunge-
I crashed onto my back, pained breaths barely leaving my wracked body.
"This is the limit of what a lone wolf can do, Beryl Gut," The white-haired man said, placid smile still fixed upon his face. "This is the end of what you can do, choosing for yourself. You are inherently evil, to yourself and others. A mere animal, unsuited to free will. So, wear my collar. I will choose everything for you."
"..." I couldn't speak. Most of my ribs were already broken. I think I was within inches of death.
"I will take that as a yes." He said as though he were ordering a coffee, and then tapped his staff against my limp hand. "You have successfully received the Sirius Light - congratulations, Beryl Gut. Welcome to Chaldea. And remember - make no decisions without my input. Your own judgment will only doom you."
-Suddenly, it runs dry. I crumble to the ground, vomiting blood as our layered Reality Marbles collapse.
"What… my mana…" I rasp. Already, this form is beginning to fail. "[Slack Snark]-!"
-I feel it return. My transformation stops crumbling, but I can feel that [God Hand] has been lost.
I understand. I already know what happened - the fear effect from Gogh's Noble Phantasm scared the little shit off, and thus for just an instant we went outside its range. The upkeep cost hit all at once, and thus-
"This is the end," Hercules says simply. "Attempt to flee if you wish."
That's already impossible. I blew any chance of getting away when I burned my last command spell. All that's left now is…
The Sirius Light prickles gently on my hand.
…!
I laugh.
I can't help it.
I guess I didn't mention it before now, so I'll make it clear - if Slack Snark was already deployed, what got splattered when he broke my pendant at the start of this fight?
"A rock wasn't enough," I say with a grin as I dive towards him with all of my might. And, at the same time, the small quantity of venom from that otherworldly Black Serpent strikes at his ankle.
His counterattack breaks both of my arms. but that's fine. The poison, embodying 'all existing poisons' finds its mark.
Hercules screams, hand shooting for his foot - and I don't waste my chance. My foot connects with his face- and as he reels back, my jaws close around his head.
"So? How are you settling in?" Marisbury asked.
"Pretty great, to be honest!" I admitted with a laugh. "Your recruiting method was pretty nasty, but really I can just do whatever I want here, and I don't have to worry about Enforcers coming after me… it's a win-win!"
"You're not permitted to kill," He reminded me gently.
"Yeah, yeah… In the first place, there's not really anyone here that really makes me want to, so it's fine," I shrugged.
"I was never able to figure out the pattern there," He says. "What is it that a serial killer like you looks for in his victims, Beryl Gut?"
"Well, I guess it's cliche, but I'm looking for love!" I laugh. "...Well, it's not that I'm looking for a victim per say. I'm just bad at feeling beauty, so when I see something that I realize is theoretically beautiful… I've just gotta break it. To make sure that it really is beautiful - and if I regret it, that's the proof."
"...So it's a kind of masturbation?" Marisbury's face remained placid despite the outlandish accusation.
"It isn't. In the first place, I've never felt any sort of eros in my life," I somehow managed to keep my face straight. "This is pure, high-minded romance."
He sighed. "Well, I suppose if we're summoning the most outlandish figures of humanity… it's not totally impossible you'll be able to find someone on the same wavelength as you."
As Hercules's now headless clone disappears in a slow melting of shadows, I chuckle to myself. "Great taste, less filling."
I collapse the next moment. Geez, that's a lot of blood. Am I gonna survive this…?
"Master-sama!" Van Gogh is by my side the next moment. "Y…you've lost a lot of blood!" Don't look so happy about that. "So… to replenish your iron, um…"
The next moment just about stops my heart. In a single moment, without hesitation, she saws her own hand off with her sunflower brush, and presents it to me.
"Please, eat up!"
There's a good dozen objections to be made to this. That hand is made of spiritrons, it's just going to disappear. Eating meat really won't replenish lost blood that quickly. And then there's just who totally, completely screwed up this response is. You'd have to be absolutely, completely, batshit crazy to suggest something like this, let alone with such a manic grin on your face.
"...How beautiful," I mutter, as darkness claims me.