The Thirsty Girl's Guide To Summoning (Fate/Isekai)

Chapter 53: Babes in the Woods

Torches both mystical and mundane blazed through the Summoner's Castle, brightening every shadow. Despite this, Jekyll drifted through the compound unnoticed, shielded by the Presence Concealment that was Jekyll's one strength as a Heroic Spirit.

He was on edge, as he'd been on edge since Serendipity vanished: not the on edge of our fortress has been stolen from us, but the on edge of I, I, we could just kill everything... He was Jekyll, but he was also Hyde, and more of Hyde than he wanted to be, even now. Hyde would start cutting his way through the problems. But there were two Demi-Servants around, along with the power that had allowed the invasion to slip around their senses. Releasing Hyde would produce a lot of gore but very few answers, and if the Castle were to be retaken, answers were needed.

Come on. We can pull answers out of their gut. It'll be fun.

Jekyll slipped into the main keep behind one of the common soldiers, trying not to listen as Hyde explained exactly where to stab the man so that he'd stay alive but immobilized for hours. Carefully he made his way down to the basement. Two more soldiers were in front of the door that the villagers had barricaded themselves behind, while voices came from the portal chamber.

While keeping an eye on the soldiers at the kitchen door, he eased down the hall to eavesdrop on the portal conversation.

"—done something. But it saves us some trouble if we're not going to be capping it right away."

A soldier moved past Jekyll and into the portal room to report on the courtyard situation to a Lord Snow, a new voice, as cool and distant as his name. After Snow dismissed the soldier, he spoke to the original voice, Kokine, as an equal. "I need to talk to Beowulf and Yan Qing. We'll bring her in once we've accounted for all of her old familiars."

Ah, thought Jekyll, and ah thought Hyde, and the thoughts of the two merged together into one.

Torches moved through the dark forest beyond the castle walls, slowly coming toward where Jack huddled with Ritsu and the three children in the bushes they'd landed in. She didn't know what to do. Gil hadn't come along, and Ritsu kept falling asleep, and Mommy was gone, no matter how Jack tried to call her.

Those torches weren't a problem. If they got too close, she'd put them out. But there was a lot more than torches moving around the forest. Torches hadn't been what crept through the courtyard, blinking and fizzing like soap bubbles to Jack's perceptions. She already knew nobody else could see them quite the way she did, and if she left the babies to go put out some torches, what would happen? Would she come back and more than Ritsu would be hurt? More than Mommy would be gone? She didn't know. It frightened her and made her head hurt.

"Wake up, Ritsu!" hissed Ichigo, and Ritsu stirred from where she'd been staring at her injured familiar. Jack looked at her hopefully, in case she had some instructions. But the bigger girl just shook her head and then winced, her eyes dull and distant.

Ichigo looked at Jack instead. He was the biggest of Ritsu's little orphans. He and Kay were too big to be Jack's baby dolls, but they were fun to play games with. They knew lots: all the rules and all the tricks. But Ichigo didn't know what to do here. He kept looking at Jack like Jack was Ritsu or Mommy. That scared her too. Her experience at taking care of anybody started and stopped at helping baby Lulu put on a new smock and tying ribbons in her hair.

"Where are we going to sleep, Jack?" whispered Ichigo, patting Lulu's head as she dozed on his lap. "Pan's getting tired, too. Are those men with the torches going to find us?"

"No!" said Jack, and stood up, staring hard at the bobbing lights. She couldn't use her mist because Mommy was gone and those hearts really hadn't been any better than Merlin had said, way back on her first day. But she could move really fast, and when she used one of her special powers, she was as invisible as the castle's attackers had been.