[memory: dear my hero 4-2C]

[beginningofwisdom]

"How pitiful, Lancer. You're causing your own collapse."

The ground below you is a sea of raging flames, all centered on the armored woman in the plaza below. Trees and grass have already vanished, burned to ash in an instant; the glass in the windows around the square runs like water. Sustained by her Prana Burst skill, the flames don't seem to touch her.

This unseemly display won't do at all. You murmurs a word under your breath and your spell descends, smothering the flames in an instant. Lancer is left standing alone, the ground around her ice-cold and scorched black.

"Let's see...."

Lancer's head turns at an unnatural angle, twisting until she can see you -- or at least, the image of you and Assassin you've left for her to see. You're not fool enough to give an enemy Servant a clear shot at you, but in her current state, it seems Lancer isn't alert to your deception.

"....hah, I found you, I found you. I see -- you can fly in the sky, can you?" Her head tilts again; a mortal might be at risk of breaking their neck. "I must kill Saber now; don't stand in my way."

"I see." Your image nods.

"I take it that you understand?"

"Yes, I do." You have a sliver of hope that she can still be reasoned with, if you can just find the words that will reach through the encroaching tide of her madness. "But you're being too hasty if you want to win your way through the Holy Grail War. Shouldn't you wield your Noble Phantasm against the last remaining Servant more efficiently?"

"Ahh...."

A mad grin splits her face like a wound, and you know that reason has failed an instant before she moves.

"I can fly in the sky too!"

The ground shatters under her feet as she leaps. In an instant, she's behind your image, striking five times in an instant with her Noble Phantasm, a spear that grows heavier the more she loves its target. Lancer, the daughter of Odin and chief of the Valkyries, loves all of mankind, and so her spear weighs no less than 2400 kilograms as it blurs at supersonic speed, shattering your images instantly. But behind them lies the Sunshine 60 building, with hundreds of civilians still inside.

"O Heavenly Stars: Macro Cosmos."

Your incantation is barely fast enough, and your strongest ward snaps into place. The lance strikes impact it as one, like the claw of a great beast, but your magecraft is more than equal to the task, shedding the force with a ripple of multicolored light to leave the building unscathed.

"Good grief," you murmur reprovingly. "Even if everything in this world belongs to Lady Manaka, it's poor form to smash things on a whim, Lancer."

(The thought crosses your mind that you would have had a different reason, not long ago, but it fades as soon as it arises.)

Below you, Lancer is laughing.

"So you were further above me!"

She kicks off the air itself, launching herself towards you spear-first, leaving a trail of flames as her Prana Burst reignites. Before you can prepare a counter, Assassin leaves your side, diving towards her. "I won't let you!" she cries, drawing a dagger.

You would have stopped her if you hadn't been focused on your own defense; you know how this will end. Lancer draws a short blade with her free hand and the two exchange a flurry of blows too quickly for mortal eyes to follow as they pass each other, but Assassin's skill lies in infiltration and poisons, not in battle. She falls one way and her severed arm falls another in a mist of dark blood that burns away in the flames of Lancer's Prana Burst. A shame; every part of Assassin is imbued with such deadly toxins that even Servants must take care.

Still, she's bought you a few precious seconds.

Lancer's grin widens inhumanly as she corrects course. "You're next," she laughs.

You respond with a single word: "Aqua."

Your Undine takes shape, gathering water from the atmosphere, diving straight down at Lancer as it strikes with a profusion of limbs. She parries them all with ease, but she can't parry the Elemental's main body as it envelops her. Servants may not strictly need to breathe, but being deprived of oxygen will interrupt their prana cycle, and she's already spending recklessly. She'll be forced to stop or cannibalize her own spirit core.

Instead, she slips out of the Undine's body with a pop, spraying water over the ground below, laughing. "Ah, it feels so refreshing!"

How had she done it? She shouldn't have been able to force her way through the Elemental's outer shell, or withstand the lack of oxygen to use brute force; she's not known for her endurance the way some Servants are. Unless...yes, she'd traced something in the air just before. Some shapes...

"Are those runes?" Your question is mild, neutral, in stark contrast to her wildly laughing response.

"I wonder...!"

She swings her lance upward, but your command to Undine is faster. The Elemental surges, doubling in size to envelop her again, this time bending all its power to still her movements. Every cell in a living creature would have been stilled by its power, even molecular movement suppressed, but Lancer shouts a word you can't hear over the sudden roar of flames.

The fires of Ragnarok erupts below you, vaporizing your Undine in an instant, core crystal and all. When they fade, a single rune burns in the air -- one that you recognize with a chill of unease. Divine magecraft from the Age of the Gods, beyond the grasp of modern magi.

"The Rune of Origin..."

Lancer laughs in maddened delight at your reaction. "Yes, that's right! This is the skill passed down to me from Odin!"

If she's going to wield magecraft of that caliber, then you won't have a choice but to use the trump card you've been saving. You'd hoped not to, but only your Noble Phantasm can let you regain the advantage against a caster wielding an Origin Rune. You focus, beginning to call the blade into existence...

"Brynhildr. You're so strong, aren't you?"

It's not Assassin's voice, or yours. It's a young girl's voice, clear and pure and innocent, coming from the roof of the Sunshine 60 building. As always, you fight the urge to bow your head.

Your Master has revealed herself.

Lancer's eyes open wide, and her head turns to lock onto the new voice. "Ein Drachen," she murmurs, her voice low and cold.

Faster than you can react, she kicks the air again, abandoning her attack on you to hurtle towards your Master instead. The weight of her lance increases even further, tearing through the diamond-hard ward raised by the Gnome you sent with your Master for protection. Before you can speak another incantation, her lance strikes home....and stops.

That young girl, the center of your world, has stopped it with the tip of a single finger.

"Too bad," Manaka murmurs. "It looks like it's a little too light."

She cocks her head. "Is it possible...that you don't like me?"

She smiles, as bright and innocent as a child could be.

"You love heroes. You love the earth and water, and Tokyo too. But you don't like me. If that's the case, then it's no use. I can't even feel the weight of your Noble Phantasm."

Brynhildr, daughter of Odin, can do nothing more than gape in shock before her, as it should be.

"But you're amazing," your Master continues. "You feel so much for him. If that's so....then I'll let you love him for just a little longer."

Meeting the gaze of a madwoman, reflected in the silver metal of her spear, Manaka smiles.