FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 64: Blind Leading the Blind

Earlier...

The rake shot tight and catapulted Pigsy into the darkness, sending him flying across the cityscape with a fading, echoing "Reheeehee!" announcing his farewell. A farewell that his Master worried could be final.

-And she watched him go until his small form disappeared into the obscure darkness of the foggy night. It occurred to her then, and only then, that this was the first time since he'd been summoned that she, Heping, and her Servant, Pigsy, had been separated. At the same time, it became equally obvious that this was what caused the turn in her stomach: the bricks in her gullet tumbling in on themselves to become nausea.

There was no need to worry, of course. Her fears were so girlish that she pitied herself for being caught off guard by such child-like sentimentality. There was no place in the woman she was raised to be for that sort of infantilism, nor in the woman that she wanted to become. And so it was that, with great pain and effort, she tore herself away from the balcony and returned inside, squealing the door shut behind her.

...

Heping stood there, doing nothing, saying nothing for a long while, long enough that anyone, including herself, would've questioned her sanity. Tripping over her own stagnancy, she forced herself to think up ways to pass the time-

"Oh. I forgot," She thought out loud, "I was going to take a shower."

She walked across the small suite to the bathroom, pretending to have purpose, opened the door, stared at the empty shower, and then closed the door again, walking back to the living area, and, not stopping, continued to pace around the coffee table in the center of the space, separating the couch from the television, repeating her laps so quickly that she became dizzy, and all-but collapsed onto the couch.

It was impossible. No matter how hard she tried, any way she pretended to not be worried, to not feel what she felt, was revealed to be exactly that: an act, a façade, not even believable enough to be called a lie.

'Well,' She reasoned, 'It has been some time now. I should probably check up on him anyway.'

Heping reached out to her Servant telepathically, 'Pigsy? Can you hear me?'

No response.

'Pigsy? Hello?'

She stood up, as if it would earn her better reception, and spoke out loud, "Pigsy? Is this a joke? Hello?"

Instinctively, out of fear and worry, she turned her eyes to the balcony-

And was met instantly by a wall of darkness- pouncing at her like a predator, and rushing over her like nothing before. In less than a moment the room was reduced to nothing but blackness: so empty of light that she couldn't even see her hand in front of her face, and so empty of warmth that it sent a chill down her spine.

She didn't have the slightest idea what was happening, except for one single fact: she was under attack.

All her anxiety, all parts of her that were human, were sent to join the bricks in the pit of her stomach, and she readied herself for combat, sending blue mana- the first layer of Hardening- across her body and entering a defensive stance- and sent her ankle into the foot of the coffee table.

It was then that the danger of blindness truly set in: it was one thing not to know where your opponent was, but it was far worse not to know where you were in the first place.

As if sensing her weakness, something hard was sent into the side of her skull- something cylindrical, phallic even, like a blunted spear. The strike was strong and true, more than enough to knock-out or even kill any other girl her age, and it sent her stumbling to the floor in a daze, falling onto the couch next to her.