FATE\Deus Decipit

Chapter 84: In the Chapel in the Moonlight

...

A torrent of white light emerged from behind Heping.

It was like a shimmering cloud, bubbling, surging, growing and churning with a quality that could never be understood. It was beautiful, but also fearsome, and in this contradiction there was no peace to be found-

Because it was coming for him.

Shenghuo turned to ready himself- but couldn't. His sword was trapped by the clinging black light in his sister's chest.

"Damn you! Let go!"

She kept smiling through the veil of her own blood. Just as she clung to the sword in her chest, so too did she hold fast to every glimmer of justice and satisfaction she could before her life came to its close.

-The energy built across the room, sharpening itself, its hostility growing in its intensity and pointedness.

Finally, with nothing else to do, he deactivated the flame constructs emerging from his armor, releasing himself from his sister's trap, and turned to meet his attacker. But, without even enough time to reactivate his blades, four flashes of gold and silver shot out from the cloud like arrows, catching him by the shoulders and hips, piercing both his armor and his flesh within.

He couldn't even scream. His body wouldn't move, and not even his vocal cords were free.

Only his eyes could still move. With these eyes he saw each pointed tip connected to something within that light by a long golden chain, and watched as these chains drew taught. The cloud of silver light rushed forward as if disguising a stampede, and a golden shine arced towards his still chest...

....

"...Yeah?" Pigsy found his breath, "If I'm such an animal, then what does that make you, eh?"

"A Hunter."

"Hehe... hahaha!"

His snout turned up towards the sky, as if his laugh could call the stars.

"You really do enjoy the idea of death, don't you, pig?"

"Yer a real bastard, ya know that?" He faced his opponent with a wild grin, his canines beaming through, "Fine -oink-. Ya think yer hot shit? Let me show you what a real animal looks like."

He slapped his belly with the sound of a banging drum. The sigil there began to glow with a reddish light.

"As if I'd let you."

Archer manifested three more arrows around him, preparing to let them fire; eviscerating his prey before whatever ace could emerge from his wounded, bloodied sleeve. He would've too, without issue, except a flash in his Mind's Eye told him that whatever Lancer was trying wouldn't manifest. And yet, he couldn't make sense of what he saw, and so he turned his eyes toward where he knew it would come.

He felt it before he saw it.

A typhoon of white light burst out of the chapel roof, emerging from the steeple and exposing everything inside to the starlight above. As the swirling light cleared, two shapes remained in the sky. The commotion broke Lancer's spell, and he, too, turned to see what had happened.

The first figure could only be described as angelic. Two golden wings floated detached from his back, each feather like a knife bladed with platinum. His hair was white like silver, and flowed long and straight like a waterfall from his head even past his ankles. Within this silver veil was a golden armor lined with the same platinum as his wings, but what truly drew the eye were his pauldrons. Each one was an ivory face, beautiful, graceful, and strong. A similar mask was over his face, but the eyes were covered by a blindfold of his own hair. In his hands was a golden longsword, but you could see only the tip. The rest was buried in the chest of Shenghuo, bent over the blade and grasping uselessly at the figure stabbing him through the chest, his burnt and disfigured face perfectly displaying his pain and shock.