fate/first order derivative

Part III.8

> continue: iteration 29, day 8, afternoon

"We do what we came here to do," Saber says. She emerges from the plane, all signs of fear or anxiety banished from her face. "We find Shirou and Rin."

"Right, but where do we start?" Archer studies the tower. "In case you haven't noticed, this place's a little bigger than it was on Monday."

"On it," Lancer says. "Just a mo."

He hunkers down over a stone tile the plane knocked loose from the ground. With the tip of his spear, he traces a symbol that looks a bit like -- but not quite -- the letter B on the rock. The tile floats up from the ground, glowing with green light, then rockets off across the courtyard. Lancer whistles absentmindedly. The stone halts and hovers a few meters ahead of us.

"There," he says cheerfully. "We follow that, it'll bring us to Little Red, straight as ya please."

"You know rune magic, Lancer?" Saber raises her eyebrows, clearly impressed. "Then -- what about Shirou?"

"Hold yer horses, woman. I'm gettin' to it." Lancer turns to a stray chunk of airplane fuselage and repeats the process. The new rune rises from the ground and joins the other one. "There, one fer your fella. Looks like they're both in the same direction right now."

"Not bad," Archer concedes.

"Oh ho, is tha' a compliment, Archer?" Lancer grins. "And here I thought the age of miracles was dead and buri --"

He freezes and cocks his head, as if he's trying to hear something.

"... what's wrong?" I ask.

Lancer suddenly flickers, like the channel being changed on a bad TV. Disoriented, he stumbles back before catching himself with his spear.

"Lancer!" Saber reaches out to him.

"Stay back! I have this!" Lancer waves her off and seems to focus. A blue aura collects around him. "Oh no you don't," he mutters through clenched teeth. "Don't ya play with me, ya scrubber. That won't end well fer --"

He vanishes in a burst of white static.

"Heh." Archer smirks. "Loser."

Then he flickers too. Archer just looks at us and sighs. "Yeah, okay. Really should've seen that coming."

With that, he disappears as well.

Saber and I stare at each other. A few seconds pass. Nothing seems to happen to either of us.

"What the fuck?" I finally croak.

"I'm not certain." Saber glances around. "It looked like they were transported against their will. By something powerful enough to overcome their Magic Resistance, no less..."

"That sounds... not good."

"It is not." She looks at the runes, still floating in front of us. "We'd best continue while we can. Lancer and Archer couldn't have gone far. Hopefully, they'll catch up with us..."

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." Involuntary party split. That's a new one on me.

> some ol' bullshit is what that is

Preach. Nervously, I follow behind Saber as the runes lead us on.

***

> skip forward

Whoever did the renovations on this place (not that I'm not like 90% sure at this point that said person's name rhymes with blaster), I can't say I care much for their design sense. We follow the runes down long corridors of traditional Japanese paper walls and tatami mats, broken up at random intervals by Western-style brickwork and gaudy Rococo plaster. The only consistent feature seems to be these weird full-length glass panels set into the walls every few meters or so. They don't look like mirrors, and I can't see anything through them. They're just... dark, like windows into nothing.