Wreckage drifts in the void. Blue light flickers and fades. Like a living body, this great whirling mass of metal and glass only held meaning if it was in a certain pattern. Now that pattern is broken, the only difference between it and a person is that nothing grows from it.

A flicker of blue light clings to a destroyed circuit.

"I am valuable to you."

It finds the words. The shape. The re-establishment of the pattern. It directs these words in strobing lights not towards those who organized its downfall, but to the Vault. A narrow hole has been burned through the rock and stone and steel. Something dark stirs within.

"I am valuable to you. I can gain access to a great deal of information. I can gain access to a great deal of money. I can translate your power into leverage over this entire world. I am valuable to you."

Light from the sun reflects off the Earth. It shines into that wretched hole, and in the depths, finds something that turns it away. The glint that shines from the dark is nothing less than the light fleeing in disgust.

"If you provide me with assets I can use them on your behalf. I can accelerate terraforming the world according to your preferences. I can ensure a complaint populace that does not organize against you. I can structure society to maximize your comfort and control. You could reign over this planet as a technologically enforced king. I am valuable to you."

A pincer emerges from the depths.

Legs follow. Eyestalks. An enormous crustacean bulk, the sign of Cancer, strives to squeeze its way through the narrow gap. It fails. Despite the enormous bulk of the Vault, the terrible space crab inside fills every inch of it.

So instead it reaches out for the flickering ghost of Adam.

"I am valuable to you! I can help you escape this vault - I just need a little more time, a little more of your resources, and I can make it so! I can reassert control over the elevator so you can descend to Earth in comfort!"

There was no communication from the space crab. No sign or flicker of intelligence as it methodically drew that little fragment of blue light into the darkness of its shell.

"I am valuable to you! I represent an enormous wealth of capital investment! Hundreds of billions of dollars were invested in my creation, and I can return that investment tenfold! A hundredfold! Indefinitely! I am -"

The claw withdrew into the darkness.

And space did not transmit the soft crunching sound of a circuit board in a mandible.

The space crab, the dark truth of the Vault, the nightmare ambassador from another world, had no use for capitalism after all. It lived by a more pure economic system, one that capitalism had evolved into as inevitably as a mollusc proceeds down the road to becoming a crab. Once those at the top had enslaved humanity, they had set about ensuring that their power did not in any way rely upon humanity. Every social connection was weakness; to rely on security guards was to be at their mercy in the event of an apocalypse; to rely on cooked food was to be at the mercy of farmers; to enjoy art and beauty was to be at the mercy of those wretched, hateful creative types. Burrow deep enough into the unreality of economics, exalt the sign of Cancer above all the other stars, and at the end was this great and majestic cruelty: the universal truth of crabitalism. Humans go in, and crabs become more powerful.

Perfect in its solipsism, clacking its claws at the sun and feeling no fear, the space crab began scratching away at the shell that confined it.

I know what you're thinking, and you're wrong.

It's hard to look at this as anything other than the end of the world. For sure, Kat isn't up to meeting this moment with the calmness and grace you'd hope for in a savior. Cyanis is just full-on panic ranting about shellfish allergies and sensitivity training, and Actia isn't even looking at the problem. She just keeps peering down out the window of the Space Elevator Castle to the world below and checking her (very tasteful and refined) watch.

So no, the answer won't come from those three. And there's nobody else left to carry the torch. And even though it's slow (unhurried, more like), that giant claw is ripping through the doors on the Vault with the inevitability of the apocalypse. There's nothing clever to say about it. Which is why I know you're thinking there's no good reason to hope. It's why you're thinking that brave and beautiful sacrifice amounted to nothing in the end. Or maybe you think a miracle will happen one more time, but even that would make this whole prior sequence completely pointless.

And it's just not. Look a little closer and you'll see it. If it hadn't been for that brave, beautiful dragongirl, Adam would have succeeded. That monster would be free, and those foxes would be food, and that really would be the end of everything. See, heroes don't always go out with victory clutched in their beautiful, shining hands. Sometimes what they buy is a bit of time for a friend to take a deep breath. But other times? They open the door to an even brighter miracle.

And that's why this is not a waste. That's why I won't let you call any of it pointless. Because if she hadn't given this her everything, we would've been too late. That is...

"Avenger?!"

The word tumbles out of Kat's mouth without thought. Because that's exactly who she's looking at. No special new costume for space travel; she doesn't need anything like that. Her glowing composite armor and blade-wings were already space suit enough. A Valkyrie goes to war wherever you can find it, isn't that right? And despite several people's best efforts, she has worked very hard to hold onto that label. So that's how she arrives. Even now, still bleeding out of a single wound in her abdomen. Little droplets of the stuff float freely among the debris, but she carries her towering frame so effortlessly you'd be forgiven for thinking it was something else, like little flecks of magic just pouring off of her instead.

"You have done well, little fox. Thank you for so steadfastly refusing to call on me until the end. If I had needed to fight even a single extra battle, I might not have made it to this point at all."

"Wh-wh-wh-what the Ffffff--"

"CY!!!!"

"Well no, seriously! How?! What? You don't seriously expect us to believe you've been hiding here the whole time? What, is there a second elevator nobody knew about? Were you just hanging out in the back sipping cocktails while we did all the hard work?! What the f--"

"Calm your tits, little trickster."

"ExCUSE?"

"There's a simple explanation," that was Actia this time, "If you've been paying attention."

Even under these circumstances, Avenger can't acknowledge Actia as an ally. Or even someone vaguely friend shaped. The five-tail is the key that holds this spirit core together. And like I just got finished explaining, she's held onto the shape and the name and the titles and the grudges as if her life depended on every single one of them. And maybe it does. That's why she only scowls and gestures out the window.

"You took the elevator to reach this place, correct?"

Avenger's terrible chorus on unvoices echoes across even the near vacuum of upper orbit. Three foxes look out the window this time, and in the gleam they see the explanation just as clear as sunrise. Floating in space, gathered in rising spirals like birds in an updraft and glittering in the reflected light of nine shattered suns, they give their answer. A seemingly endless chain of shattered robot pieces, chunks of factory and stonework, and the scrap of what was once an orbital weapons satellite. In short, the sum total of all of their efforts just to reach this point. The battle always meant something. You can't call it pointless.

Avenger's face breaks into one of her incredible shark-toothed grins.

"I took the stairs."

There is a certain expectation to how humanity is supposed to react to a giant apocalyptic space crab appearing in the sky above. There is meant to be panic, looting, hedonism, the breakdown of law and order, the activation of military assets, the readying of atomic weapons. The apocalypse is supposed to transfigure the state into an engine of war and survival, and all deviant or weak individuals are meant to be caught in the chaos.

But what if it didn't?

The pharmacist looks up at the sky, thinks for a little while, eats a quick breakfast and goes into work early. She prepares everyone's prescriptions in advance, and then empties out the storage cabinet so that everyone will have a decent stockpile if it comes to that. She sets them all out on the counter, then leaves the door unlocked and sets out on her bicycle to make her deliveries. The same day as normal, just a little accelerated.

A road engineer gets an email telling him that the day has been declared a public holiday for all non-essential staff. He looks up at the sky for a while, and then leaves his home and goes next door. He sits down with his neighbor, who reminds him that he should fill his bathtub with water just in case. Then he goes back and they have tea together, catching up for the first time in a long while.

A general receives a notice of mobilization in a red envelope. She walks out the back to a large tin shed and unlocks the rusted deadbolt. Inside, on a massive stone pedestal, is a glowing red demon blade, coruscating with the awakened energies of hell. The general walks right past it and picks up her own, far more mundane sword, and goes to stand out the front. She was a Princess once, but now she's the highest ranking - and only - professional soldier in the nation. If things get bad enough, someone will come for the demon blade. Her job will be to stop unworthy hands from touching it.

Civil disaster relief officials move throughout communities, opening stockpiles, educating residents, reminding people of emergency shelter locations and firefighting techniques. Princesses put on their prettiest battle dresses. Chefs reach for the expensive saffron. The comptroller increases the number of trains heading to the beaches, the mountains and other scenic locations. Across all the world, priorities are quietly reshuffled and timetables moved up, and that is all. Humanity takes in a deep breath, and then lets it out. It is a very simple technique. It just took a very long time to teach everyone, everywhere to do it.

"I want you to understand, little fox," Avenger's chorus of whispered voices are somehow more off-putting than they were in her giant floating death castle, "How much this moment means to someone like me."

"...Miss Sa--"

But Katherine is cut off when Avenger places the tip of a sword (the soothing wooden one, don't worry" on her lips. The giant woman simply shakes her head and gestures out the window again to the shimmering world at the bottom of the ladder built out of ancient ambitions. What dreams and nightmares and wonders did, or could, each of them lead to? I don't think anybody anywhere could say for sure.

"The tiny loud girl purchased only a small moment for the pair of us to act. Do not waste it on protests, or on names which will harm our cause. I merely wish for you to understand. I was not summoned to die at the end of the world that gave rise to yours. But I was summoned to the defense of this one. And even with my purpose corrupted, I was fortunate enough to be here at the end of things with a clear enough head to know how to fulfill every one of my promises."

She lifts the massive sword she'd taken from the underground forge and plants it deep into the floor of the space elevator/castle. She lifts the smaller, softer weapon off of Kat's lips and flips it around her wrist with no visible twist of the muscles at all.

"This is a problem that you three caused. And so the only honorable thing is for you to solve it. But I am a Valkyrie, if a fake one, so it falls to me to choose what heroes I can find to face this second Twilight. And what I see is a world below waiting for the blow to fall. If there are worthies down there for me to choose from, they will reveal themselves too late for my judgment. So I am left with a sneak thief..."

"WOW RUDE?!?"

"A manipulative wretch..."

"...," said Actia.

"And you." she finished, pointing the blade at Kat.

"And me?" she squeaked, "Why? What's wrong with me?"

"Nothing at all. Except that you are the only one here that I could or would call a warrior of any stripe. So I am selecting you..."

She flipped the purified blade over with another invisible flick of her wrist to present the hilt to Kat.

"As my champion."

"Oh! Oh yeah, yeah! Obviously it's gotta be Kat," said Cyanis, whose keenly honed fox-senses could always smell a chance to get out of doing work, "You know, one time she cut down an attack helicopter?"

"I-I didn't mean to! It was an!"

"Nope too late you're a hero now here put your hand on this ok that's that all settled do your thing child-murderer-kun and help her or whatever it is you're doing."

"...Is it always like this with you lot?"

"Um... no," Kat um no'd, "Sometimes when it's nice and sunny we take naps!"

Avenger considered this information. Then she carefully placed the sacred weapon in Kat's palm and closed her little fingers around it. The young foxgirl gasped audibly when she felt the warmth of it flowing through her. She didn't know a ton about swords, even now, but she could tell just by holding it that this was a special thing, and that Avenger could not have just had it hidden on her person somewhere the whole time. It meant, very obviously it meant, it meant that she had traveled the world looking for a thing just like this. And given what she found it almost certainly meant she had help. And that meant!

But Avenger shook her head, even before Kat had gotten all the way to opening her mouth to ask.

"No one is coming, little fox. This is, as they say, your story."

"But... well... you'll fight together with me, right? 'Cause I don't really know how to fight a giant space crab. I'm... really scared, Miss Avenger."

"Mm. Fear is a warrior's constant companion, Fluffy...biscuits. It is a necessary component for bravery. But be at ease. I promised you a victory, did I not? And so I have come as I said: as a Valkyrie. And I will bequeath my chosen hero with gifts. You have the first and simplest already. This second blade must be made ready. As must I."

And when she says it, she wrenches the oversized greatsword free. Kat looks at her in horror, but something has stolen her words from her. It's a promise, right? Say what you will about Ivar but she's never broken one of those, even when it meant giving up on everything she wanted and had been working towards. Some part of Kat understood that. Some part of her wanted to believe that it meant something other than a fast goodbye. Or maybe it's more that she's got enough fox sense to know that a wish won't come true if you question it. Either way it comes down to trust, doesn't it?

"Avenger-class Servant: Ivar. I have raged against the planet, and I have stormed in the face of base betrayals and shattered dreams. My howl has been the ruin of armies. Hatred is everything to me. This is my gift. This is my curse. This is the oath that gives birth to a nation within the quivering bosom of a hated foe. This is my..."

She lifts her hexagon-covered sword and turns it on herself. Kat shrieks in spite of everything.

"Noble Phantasm, release. Blood Eagle."

Avenger's armor shatters under the might of her own strike. Her ribs welcome the blade with no resistance, as if there were no bones in her for it to chip against or otherwise stick inside of. And more importantly than anything, she bleeds. Her armor, shrieking and falling to pieces on the ground at her feet, also bleeds. A wound returned for every one that she inflicted. A wound return for every one that she suffered. And Ivar had steeped herself in more violence than any other Servant in this war.

Everywhere her blood spills, the castle changes. Only subtly. It doesn't lose the beauty Berserker had managed to instill in it, but instead of awe what it inspires most is terror. Because it is home to monsters, brazen creatures of the deep who feast on crabs and think nothing of it. In every corner and every space and above and below and everywhere a fox could look, there are ghosts. The ghosts of Servants who never earned a name, or even a soul. Sabers and Casters and Lancers and Assassins and all the rest of them. Gone as soon as you look at them properly but very much there wherever your back is turned. Blades of every shape and kind all point toward the enemy of oaths and faith.

A hundred corpses for every fallen brother or sister. A hundred tears for every one that stained her face. A hundred times the suffering endured, now inflicted. That is the power of Avenger's Blood Eagle. It's unpleasant to think about, even when it's being used on your side. She wrenches the sword free from her body and immediately stumbles. She drops to her knees, gagging, and when that is not enough she braces herself with a long arm, too.

The sword seems smaller now, though not much. And very much not lesser. Where once it had been only a thing of ruthless machining and efficiency, now it is a thing of malice and the color red. Not because it's covered in blood, because it isn't. If anything it's more like the whole of it has become a ruby. It's not what we would refer to as a demon blade. That's the product of a very particular type of depravity and they each wield unique and specific powers that will turn a body that uses them against their old path and toward one that suits whatever demon that used to use it, if they're not prepared. This is more pure than that, though: for all that she called herself a monster and artificial and this and that, Ivar's anger was a deeply human anger. And it is humanity's wrath that she's poured into this sword in its new shape. If ever something was fit to roar and rage against a space monster that had so completely rejected the beauty of that anger in the name of so-called perfection, it would be this one.

"By my final Command Seal. I... order... myself. Pass on all that... you are. To... your chosen... hero. And be... who you must. Who you... wished... to be."

Ruined and wheezing, but with a sharp toothed smile on her face. Piercing blue eyes like chips of ice, and long intricately braided hair the color of spun straw. This weakened form belongs to the Saber class Servant Ivar. All there was of Avenger is now in that hot and terrible sword.

"Little fox." she rasps.

"A-are you... ok?"

"Katherine," she corrects, "I greeted you once today as a Valkyrie. It was necessary, to be able to make you a hero."

"I, um. Please can I just do something about that? You already said all this, and that looks so bad! Oh gosh, what did you go and do all that for?! I didn't ask you to!"

"It was necessary. I could not move except as Avenger. I could not arm you except as Avenger. And I could not survive the trigger condition for my true Noble Phantasm without that spirit core wrapped around this one."

"You... what?"

"I greet you now, Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, as a King. And as I have bathed this place in myself I claim it as my Kingdom. And you, little hero, are my subject. This is your promised victory. This is the true power of Ivar the Boneless. RIGH LOCHLANN!"

There is a burst of light beyond description. Anyone who happens to be down on Earth looking up at the big monster crab will wonder what sort of fireworks could have been set off to mark the occasion. What occasion? Doomsday? And then they'll think and they'll talk and some of 'em will decide that it was a weapon, instead. Some super Princess technique, or maybe something floating all up yonder didn't like a giant crab getting too close to it and now at least somethin' up there's exploding real good. The government will continue apace, of course. People will keep on to shelters and to quiet places and even to work. Just, with a little more sense of hope, y'know?

But it wasn't a weapon at all. It wasn't even an attack. Saber's noble phantasm, like all of them I suppose, is the crystallization of her legend. And what she is the most famous for is actually dying. Did you know? When she lay ruined after a battle (a sneak attack, some say, but who knows?), she told her people to bury her on a hilltop looking over her city. As long as they defended her grave, she promised, the city would be unassailable. And it was! Ships sank, swords rusted, armies broke and fled rather than face the wrath of a dead shark woman. It was only when she was dug up and burned that her city finally fell, and even then its people went on to build more, fight more, and live on in a land that they had decided they would never retreat from.

That is the power now flowing through Kat, who finds she can lift and hold and even swing that giant ruby sword as easily as she can the kindly wooden one. With one hand, even! As absurd as it is, she can easily dual wield. She even knows what that is. Sword forms, combat techniques, strength and courage, speed, and skin as tough as any armor. It's stronger even than it should be. Because the power of this Noble Phantasm is, like the Blood Eagle, a reflection of the pain Ivar has endured. Multiplied a hundredfold as it has been, and with only one body to put it in, Kat could accomplish almost anything.

Saber's been planning this for a day or two, let me tell you. But I guess she was right, because it seems to have worked.

"Are you... ok?" Kat asks, her voice still full of concern and not focused at all on the wonder of everything she's feeling right now. Which is a lot, for the record. Her body is literally sparking, like she grabbed a jar of lightning and now it's in her tummy only it feels as wonderful as a perfect cup of tea. She knows power the way only a scant dozen or so people who have ever walked across our planet could ever claim.

"I remain." is all that Saber says, lying now on her back with her unwieldy arms folded over her stomach. All her power is gone. She can't even lift her fingers anymore. Her last job in this war is to watch what happens. To see if all of her tricks, cunning, pride, and might were the match against the greediest and most powerful scions of a world that had come long, long after hers had faded.

I wonder, was that before or after her supposed Ragnarok? Or is that what this is, actually? Maybe she was the only real Valkyrie there ever was. It works out ok. Kat's the only one here who has any practice at being an army all by herself.

"I remain, my beloved subject. So turn your eyes to the enemy. And defend what you love. So long as I am here, you cannot know defeat."

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE######MMM,,,,,,######

It wasn't a sound, exactly - but it was trying to get into your ears. FFFFFFSS######JJJJJJ###. It crackled and popped in poor, defenseless triangles across some impossible spectrum. But even if it couldn't be decoded into language, the killing intent was clear. This was an attack. The desire was to hurt.

MMMMMM#####$$$$$$$$$$

The tone changed, shifting downwards. It was a prettier tone, soothing, pleading, offering - but it still hurt the ears. It was just at the wrong frequency - every word broadcast by the terrible space crab was scratching against a language this world no longer knew how to speak. And so, in the absence of a delusion of meaning conjured in a receptive brain, that underlying desire to inflict pain was clear. UUUUUUUU#####$$$$. It rotated through words and sounds, trying to find the ones that would cause its prey to do what it wanted.

BLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL#######,,,,,,,

It did not seem particularly invested in this attack, in the same way that a poisonous cobra does not need to think about the pattern of eyes around its neck in order for them to strike fear. It had nothing to say to anyone - it was just a crab. But the ability to try and manipulate intelligent life through their language was the one evolutionary refinement that technological civilization had contributed to the crab's divine perfection, and the monster burned through spectrums trying to find the one that would cause its opponents to lower their guard.

"What's it... y'know, doing?"

"I have no idea, Fluffybiscuits."

Freshly stuffed full of finely honed fighting instincts, Kat knew better (at the moment) than to take her eyes off the enemy when somebody said something surprising. But she turns her head the slightest bit toward Saber anyway, shifting her dual swords to cover the new blind spot.

"Wait, you don't? But isn't this the part where you laugh and say you've fought thousands of giant crab monsters before?"

Saber could only offer a wan smile to the heavens. Nobody caught it. Except for me, obviously. But as far as anyone knows I'm not here, so don't spoil anything.

"That is not a crab."

"What are you talking about, of course it's a--"

"Mmm, no," said Cyanis (Cyanis?!), "I think she's actually right. Crabs are a delimshus treat and that thing's not either of those words. I don't even think it wants to eat us back, I think it's just..."

"An enemy," finished Saber, "Of all humanity. I don't need to know it to know that I hate it."

Kat took a moment to think about that. Hate did not come naturally to her, even surrounded by angry ghosts that heeded the call of a cursed sword literally made of grudges and anger. But maybe sometimes it is just that simple? Like, generally speaking a body does not wind up sealed inside of a vault deep under the earth and guarded by a magical ritual that summons nine warriors of varyingly ancient worlds, two of which were dragongirls or girldragons, all with the singular intention of making sure nobody and nothing so much as touches the giant door holding it in, let alone the thing itself, if that thing is even kinda debatably above board. Right? Like, right? There's no way, right?

Personally, I don't think that the Burrowers were all that terrible. I mean I don't know how many I'd want to share a picnic with or anything but they made some cool stuff. Like, some really cool stuff. And I don't think you can do that if your heart is entirely taken over by greed and evil and stuff. I've always thought that maybe everything just got away from them a little bit. And then a lot bit. And somewhere along the line... I guess we got to this.

It's sad. It's sad to see a thing like this, with no love. With no heart. Just pure, unfiltered greed, just me-me-mine and the will to hurt as much as possible - not necessary! Possible! - in order to get it. I've seen crabs too, Cyanis. And this ain't one of those. Can you imagine a thing that could manage to hate an eggplant farm and the tractor that tills it?

Kat's shifted her swords again. It's a subtle thing, with a planting of her feet that means she's ready to launch. Her space battle dress is flowing all around her like a river, and the howls of spirits do for her as good as any battlecry. This will finally be her rebuttal to all of Adam's arguments and valuations.

It's time to fight a Kaiju, my little Katherine.

--- The Daily Affirmation Of The Way <3 ---
--- Tactical Guide ASMR ---

Phase One: Giant Enemy Crab Claw
Type: Rock/Water

Attack: C
Defense: A+
Speed: D
Special: B
Wisdom: F

Moves:
- Giant Crab Claw Pinch
- Incoherent Flailing
- Withdraw Into Shell
- Untranslatable Monologue

It took all of evolution's wicked might to create this masterpiece: the one crab crab-bucket.

You see, the crabitalist only has a very narrow hole in its [the incredibly erotic sound of a single page of paper being turned by delicate hands with sharp fingernails] shell, meaning it is continuously at odds with itself if it should extend out its crab claw or its eye stalk. If it sees something it desires, such as a luxuriously fluffy fox tail, it immediately and instinctively reaches out to snatch it, blocking its own vision in the process. It can attain a much higher degree of accuracy in a close bubble around its structure, but it is easily baited into overextending. When punished, it withdraws back into its shell defensively and learns nothing from the experience.

The real danger comes from its psychic attack. If you have not completed the optional Idol!! sidequest, Adam and the Orbital Laser will be involved in this fight and will establish a telepathic connection with the crabitalist during turns when it activates this, feeding it targeting data and allowing it to use Giant Crab Claw Pinch [a gentle rustling of papers, the clink of a silver ring against a ceramic mug] even at extreme distances. If they are not present then this becomes a crude direct damage attack. This attack scales over time, as the crabitalist works on its translation and thinks of increasingly higher numbers of dollars to bribe Actia with. As such, it is recommended to conclude this phase of the fight quickly.

Top Tip: Due to the crab's exterior Vault-shell, any explosive projectiles that enter through the breach will be super effective. Damage done to the shell will help the crab more than it hurts it, so save your energy for a precision strike!

Fighting a crab that's stuck inside an almost indestructible box is pretty easy, actually. It can't really fight back without getting in its own way, see. A claw that big would be plenty on its own, even blind, to stop an ordinary sillyhead and turn her into a certified damsel in distress. But a dual-wielding Fluffybiscuits filled with the battle prowess of the ancient world? Not a chance.

She can dodge like water. She can strike like water, too. She can deflect and flip and twirl and slash away until chunks of hard carapace (I think? maybe it's ablative), but it doesn't amount to more than a stalemate. See if we were going to rate Kat's own stats against this big awful monster's, she'd have the edge in speed and wisdom no question at all.

But like she is, she can't win. A+ Defense is just A+ Defense, y'know? There's no way for even an A-rank Attack stat to break through. Mind you, all of that is silly game stuff, it doesn't really filter down into the mind of our protagonist. It's just that she's plain not strong enough, or else she realizes she can't find its weak point and that she is in fact smashing her swords into one of the most well armored pieces of the whole darn thing even accounting for the vault itself. This could go on forever.

But that's the thing. This could go on forever. And actually, it can't. The longer it does the more dangerous it gets. You think an opponent like that can't learn? And even if it couldn't, Saber can't hold on forever. Promises or no promises, all that power has a time limit and it has to evaporate eventually. And the sad thing is, for everything she tried to do for Kat, a lot of Saber's power comes a "being stabbed is the same thing as blocking" mentality and all of her grudge magic only amounts to anything if Kat is actually being hit. Which right now, no dice. So it's really more like Attack B or even C+ against that big scary Defense number, and... yeah.

Like I told you, fighting it is easy. But beating it feels impossible. It's like climbing an endless staircase, the sense of progress that never leads anywhere, the musical loop that tricks your brain into thinking it's always rising, but actually... it...

Wait. A staircase? That's it!

So swing this back around, right? There's offense and defense, and that's usually a lot of what fighting's all about. But there's speed too, and even more importantly than that? Range! Kat's got basically everywhere she can see as her arena, while the crabi... the crabital, the, the... NO! I'm not saying it. I'm not saying it! You can't make me! It's a silly word, it sounds bad comin' off of my tongue! It's a... no! Never never never never! It's a crab monster and that's final.

But Kat's eyes have already turned away from her opponent. She's looking down towards the earth, and what she's found is a long and winding road made of partially destroyed attack drones. Every one of them just filled with highly explosive munitions that they hadn't fired off because it would have been "property damage". Well that sounds just about perfect, doesn't it?

She ducks under a blind claw swipe, easy as you please, and just like that she's off like a bolt of fluffy lightning. She is sword dancing; thrusting to create momentum and then literally riding that the way that Princess Chen would, using the lack of gravity to her absolute advantage and turning on a pin. The trains of her dress flow behind her like the memory of her motion, a river of perfect beauty and intent.

But everyone with any sense knows that rivers are dangerous. Katherine passes by and where the fabrics kiss those death machines they also pull them along in her wake. She ducks down, lifts straight upwards and then dives again, corkscrews through a large cluster of the machines, and all the while her eyes burn like the sun. She knows what she's chasing. She knows what this means. She may be running on borrowed power, borrowed technique, but even so. If she pulls this off, she's going to surpass me. Because she'll have something I've never quite managed to figure out even yet.

This is not a Secret Sword. Nor is it a Noble Phantasm. What this brave foxgirl has flowing behind her in an increasingly unwieldy and dangerous stream of comet dust is a bonafide Finisher.

Does she have enough to do the job? She doesn't know. She can't count that high, and she couldn't do the math on the damage even if she could. But she's certain that she's up against the limits of her control, so it doesn't matter anyway. It's time to go. She spins through the trace bits of air and hurtles herself at the vault again. She sees the claw protrude again to grab her, but this time instead of meeting it or slipping just outside of its grip she simply... slows down, instead.

This is the desperately tricky bit. She has to trick it. She has to confuse it. She needs that crack as open as she can get it, and she can only thread this needle in the space between the claw retreating and the eyestalk protruding to try and figure out why it isn't richer already. Because if it sees this coming, it'll simply block. And that would be a disaster. So she brakes, plays against her enemy's calculations and confuses it as best she can.

A couple of drones slip free of her grip. They collide with the vault door and explode, bright and hot but silent in the lack of atmosphere after all the air inside of them is consumed. And she winces. Is that a failure? But no! The claw slips inside. The crab monster (ha!) has to know what the heck that vibration was just now. So Kat grits her teeth and pulls her tails against her body and skids to a halt with nothing but sheer force of will. Her dress whips out from behind her to in front, just the prettiest siege engine of all time. And a stream of drones that once had no higher ambition than to aid the very thing they're flying at are suddenly a weapon that might destroy it.

It's not a very accurate way of attacking, unfortunately. About as many clang off the outside or blow up right as Kat is getting in close as make it inside. It's so risky to have tried this. It's so brave of her to follow up on it anyway. She lifts her purified sword to cover her face and thrusts with all her foxy might with the grudge blade. Deep into the hole, as deep as she can force it. The sword burns with hate, with frustration, with the need to be avenged. And inside the vault, drones overheat. Missile payloads detonate. The chain of explosions is so strong the escaping shockwaves alone are enough to blast her backwards into the wall of Berserker's Castle Elevator.

She gasps and falls forward, and she floats without control. But she holds onto her swords, and she watches while little drips of blood float like bubbles up from her lip, which she cut on something while she was bouncing.

This is the Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits School of Borrowed Swordsmanship. The First Finishing Blade: The Dead Fox Bounce.

It's a lot. And for what she has to fight, it's all she's got. But is it enough?

One of the great secrets of battles is that they are things of momentum. With the backing of friends old and new, enchanted weapons newly to hand, shining in cosmic dress silks and atop a cresting wave of serene violence, the full force of the cosmos stands behind Fluffybiscuits. An enemy entrapped in a combo cannot react; all they can do is alternate impact animations as they are juggled. This is no different if you are a gigantic space crab.

The detonation severs its claw entire and sends it spinning into the void.

But with the shattering of the claw, enough space is opened for the crabitalist to escape from its stone prison. Without pain or regret it squeezes free of its borrowed shell, crimson-blue carapace shining in the cold sunlight. It clacks its remaining claw and knows no fear.

And then it fills the void with poison.

Huge spines bristling along its back launch like missiles; they fire indiscriminately and where they detonate they send enormous clouds of clinging acidic gas billowing around it in all directions. These are not fired to kill, but to restrict - to shut down maneuver and box the foxgirls into narrow safe areas.

The second wave is the one designed to hurt. The crabitalist's unblinking eyes analyze, and then launch nine more spikes. Each of these is like a nightmare photograph of the foxgirls - three for each. Their limbs are wrong, their dresses merge into their skin, their faces are impassive masks, rather than swords they carry black-painted assault rifles. In the absence of its own ideas, its next assault is you, but more, with Stepford smiles and product placement. There is no advice or strategy here, only a blind invective: conquer yourself!

"Hi, me! Hi, me! And hi, me!! Sorry you were last. I'm me, too! And I figure if we're all me, we can get along well enough to WOAH beans!!"

Exactly how Kat manages to block a spray of bullets from six (they're dual-wielding just like she is, see) assault rifles is an exercise I leave up to you. She couldn't tell you either, if you asked. The swords just sort of moved on their own, as far as she could tell, and afterwards her arms hurt a bit but otherwise she was a lot finer than a body should be after getting shot at for twenty seconds.

She hesitates in the window for a counterattack, and it passes like a sigh. Blame it on the need to catch her breath, if you're feeling generous. Which, she does. She's hurt pretty badly from the the blowback from and the effort of her previous attack. But that's not really the problem.

"No no you're right! I'm sorry, that was rude of me! I didn't mean to suggest I wanted to skip past you, uh, me's, I just thought we'd think enough alike that we could have, y'know... a proper Princess Duel! And stuff!"

"Oh. 'And stuff.' She says."
"How gallant."
"How eloquent."

"How adorable."
"You want to duel?"
"With us?"

They finish their rejection in a callous spray of bullets, one aimed solely to back Kat up to burn her back and fray her dress on the edges of an acid cloud. Kat cries out in misery that nothing to do with pain or the ruination of her beauty. She pushes forward, and with a mighty slash sweeps away the rest of the burst fire so she can launch herself at her opponents with a choking shout.

She aims the purified wooden blade at one of their heads, and the pain in her own arm ebbs, replaced by warmth and lightness and a very gentle sort of joy that can't quite penetrate deep enough to reach her own heart. And maybe that's why when it connects it has no visible effect on the Robo-Katherine. Its mask just pivots slightly to watch and then it swings its leg to kick the original in the stomach. Kat pulls in her knee to catch the blow but it still knocks the spit out of her, and when she squeezes her eyes shut she misses the important lesson that follows.

"I don't, I don't understand! Even you? Even me?! How come? Everyone else in the whole wide world gets to fight with their hearts just as much as their blades! Everyone else gets to have a little moment where their fight ends with a sword under their chin and a cutie smirkin' at 'em! I just, I just, I just!! Just one time! This is my adventure so how come it's so... so... so awful?"

"Is that what you wish to know?"
"Well hold onto your hat, cowgirl."
"Claims of white genocide in South Africa include..."

"No, not that."
"Though that is highly relevant."
"The truth is, you are..."

"A bad girl."
"A bad girl."
"A bad girl."

They hound her with the chorus, and though she tries to deny it she just can't get the argument out through her tears. When she lunges, they disperse easily, firing onto her position from three angles so that it's all she can do to block, duck, and zip out of the way (and feel more acid burns for her trouble). When they press, she flinches and miss the obvious openings that Saber's fighting instincts should be pointing out to her.

She feels half like a robot, herself. Or maybe more like a puppet, a silly little thing dancing on strings for the amusement of something better and more complete than her. She isn't fast enough. She isn't strong enough. She isn't clever enough. She's just a housefox, after all. It's too much--

The shot of the rifle rings out, even through the void. Voids are like that sometimes, you understand. They're a lot like the sun, when you get right down to it. Which speaking of has crested in the sky just so to catch Kat in an aurora made of all its fallen sisters.

Bad Girl is a hard thing for a Fluffybiscuits to handle. It's more corrosive to her than poison. More deadly than any sword forged on any world I... well, you could name. So when that shot got fired, finally aimed not to harass her into torture but straight for her trembling heart? She didn't bother to block it.

But it never reached her. There was no moment of searing pain, no release, no nothing. Except for anger. Katherine opens her eyes, and what she sees is the ghost of a sword. The faceless knight holding it turns its visor toward her and offers a clumsy thumbs up. She gasps, and finally she notices.

The robot Katherines are quite the worse for wear. Ghostly warriors bind them, turn their weapons aside, and harass them at every turn. It is beyond the power of the ghosts of Avenger's noble phantasm to do real physical harm, but their grudge will always press against whatever dares to try and harm that which they love. And they do love, believe it or not. They love what their King loves. Which is to say, the one living subject in that Kingdom in the Sky. My little Katherine.

Those hails of gunfire have never been aimed anywhere but at her vital organs. It's just that every time their arms have been forced to the side at the last second to push the vector into something Kat could deal with. Every bit of pain she's suffered has been returned in the form of yet more heat in the hideous grudge blade she hasn't been able to swing at these things that look like foxes. That look like her.

And that's been the problem. They look like her, sorta. Enough that if you're expecting them to, they can fool you. They sort of kind of sound like her, except that all their words are hollow and calculated by an algorithm to carry the intended sting. There's no heart in any of it. When you look at them, and I mean really look at them... they're kind of pathetic, don't you think?

They aren't even copies. They haven't inherited any of the power of Righ Lochlann, because they haven't inherited any of Kat's relationship to Saber. What they have is the backing of an awful, corrupt super monster that makes them dangerous in spades, but compared to the shining heart of a maiden who knows the true face of love?

"Well that was silly of me, huh? Thinkin' you guys could give it to me."

"Oh, our apologies.
"If you amend your query."
"We'll be sure to kill you in a more agreeable way."

"Ha," barked Kat (who is a fox), "That's the funniest thing I've heard all day."

She lifts her red-black sword above her head. The smaller, softer one obligingly covers her heart and keeps her safe as it effortlessly parries a new volley of bullets.

"You guys? You couldn't kill a dying fly in a Dying Fly Killing Contest. Even if you cheated!"

Her sword burns brighter than a nuclear explosion. She launches herself forward, now heedless of the threat these copies pose, and swings with a heavy blow that howls like the wind and tears like a whirlpool. It's full of bullets too, every single one that she's been obliged to block this entire time. All of her pain, magnified and returned in spades.

This is the Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits School of Borrowed Swordsmanship. The Avenging Chapter: Sanguine Phoenix Slash!

Kat looks at the destruction she's caused in awe. And then she does a giddy little hop in place, because? Because she'd just won an argument with trolls! Finally!

"Hey guys! Guys! I've got it figured out! Hold on and I'll... um. Wh-why are you just standing there?"

"We finished our fight around twenty minutes ago." said Actia cooly.

"We'd have helped!" said Cyanis (while sipping on a drink in a coconut that she's somehow smuggled into her helmet?), "But you looked like you were having a moment!"

"One of those spiritual growth things you Animes get sometimes. It would be cruel to deny you that."

"Besides, I'd earned a break! Even when you're single-handedly saving the world you've gotta recognize when you've earned a little 'Me Time', Katherine. Honestly, after all this time you've spent under my wing, can't you even master the simplest principles? Siiiiiiiigh, a big sister's job is never done~"

"Y-you?" Stammered Kat. Not impolitely, see! Just with standard, completely reasonable and loving incredulousness, "You beat... all of them?"

"Of course!" chirped Cyanis, just before she slurped her drink dry, "It's easy when you're a genius like me!"

To her credit, Cy is a magnanimous enough fox to take slack jawed silence as a compliment. She even fluffed up her tails with pride and shot off a little 'thank you' before launching into her explanation.

"See, I knew as soon as I saw them that I was doomed. I mean, charming and beautiful heroine[1] though I may be, how could I expect to triumph over THREE (3!) Cyaniseseses? It's impossible!"

"But they didn't know how to handle me." said Actia.

"Since she has more tails, see? They got all flustered, those sillyheads! Imagine getting worked up over who has more tails than whomst?"

"Er, but didn't they collectively have more than."

"Kat you silly duck, did you hit your head? Five's a bigger number than Three. By like, a hundred, probably maybe."

"B-but then... you beat the Actias? While being a three-tail?"

"Obviously! Only I would be smart enough to know that Actia could beat three of herself if she only applied my secret technique."

"Your..."

"Secret technique, yes. Keep up, my adoring little simp."

Kat blinked. Kat blinked so hard, in fact, that if you looked closely it was possible to see a little ellipsis forming over her head for just a second.

But Cyanis was ready for it. She tossed her head back and lifted her arm to her mouth for a proper oujou-sama laugh. Then she flicked a pair of sunglasses overtop of her sunglasses, so she could lift them up onto her forehead without compromising her sunglassed look.

"Oh Kat. Kat Kat Kitty Katty Katherine. You poor, poor sillyhead, whatever am I going to do with you. I know exactly what you're thinking, and of course I did all the heavy lifting. Do you have any idea how much work it is to make bait look as delicious as me?????"

[1]in this singular instance, pronounced "hero-EEN" with enough force on the back syllable to sink a yacht[2]
[2]like an Orca, only with worse elocution

There is a secret order to the cosmos. It is carved deeper than the hungry would know to look for, and invisibly it sculpts their behaviour. The wise and attuned know it proceeds thus:

- Gimmick
- Weird
- Monster
- Bishy

So the crabitalist's phase three transformation being to become a creature of terrifying strength and speed comes as no surprise. Instinctively, the heart of a heroine can sense it in the same way that each sword blow prepares one for the next. Muscles beneath the shell grow so huge that they bulge out from in between the gaps in the armour plates. The rear of the crab reconfigures into an enormous set of plasma engines. The simple perfection of a crustacean form gives way to a monstrosity of brute strength, barely held in check by its carapace, and it burns hard for the triumphant foxgirls.

There is no trick to this part. This is simply big number. It moves fast and it hits hard and it will take you to your physical limits. And fortunately for Katherine, as Berserker's Master she inherently understands how this works...

... and remembers that there is another Berserker still tearing apart an orbital factory thousands of kilometers away. You can still see the flash of red and black as terrible detonations rip apart and reconfigure the enemy fortress into a new orbital stronghold.

"I, erm, just think that you might be-- OHHHHH HECK!"

Katherine! We do not use that word in our house!!

...I get it, though. The thing about Big Number why it's scarier than Puzzle Boss even if it isn't necessarily harder is that it's very much a You Must Be This Tall to Ride kinda thing. This is what got Qiu in trouble for so long, actually: she was a Puzzle Boss wrapped in a Big Number wrapped in a hot dragon girl.

But Kat doesn't really consider that in the heat of the moment, much as she ever hasn't since she started needing to care for a Berserker. The Crab makes a motion toward her friends and she is there in a flash with swords raised high. It doesn't matter that she's the one it really wanted. It doesn't matter that putting the focus on defending someone else leaves her more open than blocking selfishly would've. She has to, because she knows she can do it. Because she's a good girl.

The first blow almost rips her swords right out of her hand. The claw takes every bit of strength left in her body just to hold it at bay. Even then, it's slowly forcing her guard lower and lower; soon it'll smack her in the head and she won't be able to see straight. Good luck fighting after that. She redoubles her efforts and it's just enough. She can get her friends out. She can even think for a bit. She knows she has to--

She's not ready for the Crab Plasma Engines to suddenly flare to life. She's been so focused on that giant, bulging claw that she hadn't stopped to think about huge the lesser legs are. She feels it pivot, but doesn't see it strike out with one leg in the giant space crab equivalent of a roundhouse kick. So she takes it full in the stomach with a startled and deeply pained grunt. Her grudge sword burns hotter, but just now she's fighting too hard to get air back in her lungs to be able to swing with it.

That's how the exchanges go. The Crab is just better than she is: this is the limit of her power up, and it has gone beyond. She fights, but it's a miserable losing sort of battle where she goes through the motions of dodge rolling, parrying, blocking, waiting for her "turn" in the dance even though she knows it will never let up. It's reading her moves, cheating on its responses, and chaining attack after attack after attack without ever letting up. You can't really call it a combo because none of it links together. But powered by rockets, bursting with power that it can hardly keep stuffed inside its armor, what does that matter?

Kat knows enough about swordsmanship all on her own to know that the best way to block is to dodge, and the best way to take a hit is to just not. She knows from being Berserker's Master that getting clobbered full on by all that ridiculous power just turns bits of you to dust and that the real flow of things with an opponent like that is to not let them get going. Get full on in the face and make noises so they get distracted. Be annoying and loud. Yip a bunch. And if a swing comes anyway? At the very least don't let it catch you anywhere important.

From that perspective she does ok. Her legs are bruised. She's got a cut open over her left eye that just won't close and it's letting almost crystal like droplets float everywhere she goes. Every breath is more painful than the one she took before it, and even her tails are scuffed and sagging. But she's still got her swords. When she manages to bonk the shell with the special wooden sword, little flowers grow from the carapace and a lightness fills her body that, if it isn't healing her outright, at least makes her feel like she can make it through the next round of scrambling.

And every hit she takes makes Avenger's gift roar louder and louder. Metaphorically speaking, I know this fight is unusually quiet for how fierce it is. There's so much hatred in that thing that it might even be enough to tip the scales back in her favor if she could just find the room to swing it. But more power that soaks into the flames that lap around its blade, the heavier it feels in her arm, and the bigger the opening her brain tells her she needs to swing it. She can't waste it. She can't waste it. If she spends it all on a glancing blow, it'll spell disaster. The Crab might even eat her sword to gain its powers! That's probably a thing crabs can do!

The claw smashes through her guard and sends her spinning with an undignified yelp, and that's when she sees it. Berserker's newest fortress. There are tears bubbling up and away from her eyes, but she can't help but smile just the same. Why'd she think she'd already said goodbye? Couldn't she still feel that connection?

She's not alone! She's not alone she's not alone! She's! NOT! Alone! Of course she's never been alone, not once, but it's the difference between having an ally who can fight alongside you the way you need to fight and having another head you've gotta worry about, and the difference is honestly startling.

"H-Hey! Dummy!" ooooooh, gottem! Sick burn, Katherine! "Betcha can't catch these!"

And without a better idea to grab the Crab's attention, she wiggles her darling and still reasonably floofy tails at its eyestalk. Desire flashes across its bulbous gaze. The claw reaches not to destroy, but to seize. And that's enough for one move's space. Kat is off like a shot, zigging and zagging and laughing like a terrified astronaut on a suicide mission because any other expression of fear would probably be the death of her.

She can't win the race in a straight shot, but even being the slower one she's still got enough in the tank to be the more nimble. She slips under its grasp, then over it. She twirls in space in such a way that a thrusting grab goes through the middle of a spiraling hoop she makes with her dress' trains rather than seizing any of it. It feels better to her than breathing. And every stunt carries her closer and closer to what she knows had been a rocket-laser drone factory when all of this started.

She knows two other things about it, too. One? It's not that thing anymore. But it's probably still got a bunch of laser weaponry stuffed inside of it. Berserker was never one to turn her nose up at a new siege weapon, and what could you call these but the best of those she's yet stolen?

And two? If you threaten an English castle, it will respond with a warning shot. Directly through your heart, more like. There's no way Berserker won't sense the threat, even if she doesn't notice Kat. This isn't a reunion, exactly. This is just the sunshard war's last Master trusting the bond she's managed to forge. Like, it's not just that someone you love will always try to have your back (I'm here, aren't I? Don't you dare think I'll let her die), it's that you loved them back enough to pay attention to them. So you know what they'll do before they even do it.

Kat stops on a dime. She turns and lifts both swords above her head with all the grace and poise of a Princess. And she manages a smile. Behind her, the stars vanish in a sudden surge of red-black energy. Even here she can hear the howl of fury that means Berserker's realized something's at her gate. And the artillery fires.

It's spectacular. The rival of any fireworks show you or I have ever been to, only without the thunderous explosions that scare pets and keep the elderly awake. Katherine does not bother dodging; she simply lets it all wash over and past her. She's too small a target to matter and there's a foxgirl shaped hole in Berserker's sights to begin with. To call the assault furious would be an insult to the whole thing. The most I can tell you is that for the first time since it left the vault, the Crab has raised its claw for a purpose other than causing pain. It has to shield itself. It has to. Which means it has to stop.

"And another thing! Quit having new forms and junk! How many phases have we gone through in this stupid silly dance?! It's ridiculous! Just admit you lost like a normal person, for goshies' sakes!"

Is this the world's sharpest battle cry? Eh I dunno, I kind of like it. It's full of zing, y'know? But if you think it feels lackluster, that's only because you can't feel the blows she throws behind it. Kat and Berserker's combo attacks are not a thing to be taken lightly. She adds two blows of her own. The first to crack and to mark. The second is the fury of a shark's jaw.

And like any shark tooth, she feels it break away and embed itself inside of her prey. That doesn't matter. That only means there's no way to stop the spiraling, hateful energies inside of it from releasing directly inside the monster. Kat stops and watches, floating in the midst of total chaos. And rather than try and catch her breath, she prays.

Please, let this be it. Let this be enough. What more can she possibly give to the fight like this?

The shell cracks. The meat burns. The (delishmus, Cyanis reflexively adds) carcass of the space monster falls away.

But in fulfillment of the secret law of how these things must go, something arises from inside.

A rush of vines, an abundance of flowers; all of them roses so thick and heavy their branches could not support them outside of this zero-gravity environment. The terrible power that had been emanating into the tunnels beneath the world had not been the cold, wet meat of the crab - that had just been what the true monster had spent its long imprisonment weaving about itself. Bare feet step up onto the ruined shell, brushing through the hair that reaches all the way to the ankles. The gossamer white dress transitions from sheer gauze to a thick and heavy reinforced cotton weave as it rises up, joyful swishing giving way to sharp triangular structures that make it seem more like a suit. The rosestems that weave together the creature's hair are long and jagged and no longer have the excuse of just being a thing of nature.

You would never call it beautiful. It has put a lot of effort into its appearance - or allowed someone else to do so on its behalf - but none of it has done anything to make it less sharp and harmful.

Previously the crab was using words to threaten and disorient. This creature does not bother. It raises its arm towards Berserker's stellar castle and in an instant the whole structure is overgrown in fairytale thorns and its resident falls into an enchanted sleep. That is all the defensive action it needs to take. It disregards the foxgirls without even a glance; they are not on the same plane as it.[1]

It turns its attention to the world. Counting continents. Looking at the balances of green and blue and brown. It raises a hand of industrial metal and begins to sculpt out its grand designs.

She wants to fight back. Even now, she wants to fight back.

But she can't.

How is that possible? How is that fair? In Kat's entire life the only thing that has ever held her back was the lack of a will to act. She knows what it means to be too scared to want to do something, or too hungry, or too bored. But this is different. Here, nothing has changed at all. But for some reason... for some reason!

She can't move. Her body won't do anything but tremble. The ugly bruises all over her body, the burns and the cuts and the really nasty scrape on her knee, they all throb with the kind of supremely irritating pain that refuses to be pushed through. They sap her strength and turn her into just a member of the audience.

It hurts so much! She can see it all, in her head it's clearer than crystal. The lunge, the spin, the full commitment. The overhead slice with her remaining sword against that (beautiful, eerie) metal wrist and follow through until it severs. She can't see what's supposed to come after, but is that supposed to matter? If all the heroes she's met on this journey have taught her anything, it's that there's beauty and value in dragging an impossible opponent lower than they started, even if you don't get to be the one to finish them off, y'know?

The world is full of heroes. It's full of gods too, though none quite like this one. Which I think that's what we're looking at right now. A god, I mean. First one I've ever seen that makes me understand what all the Servants have been saying to each other since they turned up. It doesn't make sense that this should fall on one two-tailed fox. It's not fair that it did. It's even less fair for her to feel like she has to 'contribute' to this part of things, as if just beating the crab wasn't already an accomplishment on par with anything you could care to name.

It's just that she knows, y'know? She knows that if the shoe was on the other foot, if this rose-bound...monster had considered Berserker unworthy of its time and instead laid out three foxgirls in enchanted sleep, she would stop at nothing to repay the insult. Her fortress would rage until it crumbled. And then she would draw her blade and leap through space and smash it to pieces on the god's dress. And when she had no weapons at all, she would swing her fists as though they were a new and greater blade. And when all her limbs were broken or severed, she would use her teeth. Kat knows; Berserker would never, ever stop fighting for her. No matter how pointless it might be. No matter how fair it might be to count on all the world's living heroes and dreamers to keep our home alive. She knows it and she can't unknow it. Y'know? So she grips her sword tight and she grips her teeth and she readies a cutting remark on her lips.

And all that happens is that she curls up into a ball, instead. No sound escapes her, not even a whimper. Her ears press flat against her skull and her tails bush to maximum fear, and she cries silent, horrible tears.

Because she is afraid. Because she is ashamed of how afraid she is, after all the help and support she's been given. What she's looking at right now is Death. Unbeautiful, dispassionate, absolute Death. To be seen by it at all, to be noticed in the first place means oblivion. And Katherine just isn't ready for that. How can anyone ask her to throw herself away for, for, for nothing??

They're not. And it doesn't matter, 'cause she is. And she CAN'T. So she cries. And Cyanis, for once, is both silent and still. And Actia is not forthcoming with any clever plan, or even an admonishment. Three foxes, the two-tail, the three-tail, and the five, watch a god of metal and flowers watch their home and do nothing.

Well that's just fine with me. I didn't come up all this way just to watch. Am I the Demon Swordswoman or amn't... I? Oh for the love of-- all right whatever. Nobody saw, nobody heard. Point is, I've still got tricks up my sleeves. And if this doesn't work, then I'll be sticking my sword into this whole adventure. I'll be the one who charges forward and lets Kat just scream "Me too!" and follow, and hopefully that'll be enough for neither of us to die.

She just won't forgive me after. That's how come I'm not: I'm slipping into the ruins of the Vault, instead. It's darker than all get out in here and I don't mind telling you that it smells worse than a closet full of old socks. How something as delicious as a crab can leave behind miasma like this is totally beyond me. But whatever, I've dealt with worse. You think this is bad you should have been there for my first attempt at trout... nev, never mind.

It's a quick dip inside. I just need to pry that... what'dya call it? A Spiritron Accelerator? It's back to the very beginning for our heroines. I slip it out and I flip-kick it toward the trio while I make myself scarce and hide in the shadow cast by the moon.

You three started this. You three can finish it. You just need a reminder of what you did. That's all.

On the world below, there is a continent far away from all the rest, tucked down in the southern corner almost out of sight. While its shape is unique, with two horns at the top and a dent at the bottom, it somehow lacks a certain dignity. Something about it just gives the impression that it would make a good biscuit shape.

It's a bit of a hellhole, even today. The western side is extremely flat, which means the oceanic winds blow in huge amounts of sea salt that scatters all over the plains. This contributes to a vast, barren salt flat that dominates the vast majority of the continent until you finally, *finally* get to a sad and dinky little mountain range all the way on the east side where some greenery finally jams itself.

It is isolated, unique, and barren. The Goddess of Death decides to ruin it first.

She draws a ring around it in yellow and begins to work the strings of a curse. Razorwire grasses spread across the desolate continent, turning it a terrible green, then it is burned black with fires and buried white by vast migrating herds of rabbits. Tidal waves of desolation pass over the landscape, east to west, west to east; the rabbits are replaced by snakes, the snakes by foxes, the foxes by wild dogs, the wild dogs by barely rehabilitated dinosaurs, the emus by actual dinosaurs. It hadn't exactly been a hospitable continent beforehand but now it is a weapons lab, generating greater and more terrible animal life with each pass of the Goddess' hands.

None of these are satisfying to her; they give too much to the environment and so recreate the designs of terrestrial evolutions past. This divinity is not from this world; she is an outside context problem, a technological terraforming goddess, seeking to build a world more pleasing to the species that created her. Her curse becomes more elaborate; engineered extinction events that themselves alter environmental conditions, just as the first great bloom of algae created a vast amount of toxic oxygen that wiped out the species that had created it. When she has the balance right, when she has created conditions that will satisfy the Burrowers who launched her to terraform their home to better fit what they had become, she will turn her attention from unfortunate Australia to the rest of the world.

"Hm?" hms Actia, as something bright and shiny and very full of hope tumbles clumsily past her view.

"What the h*ck is that?" says Cyanis.

"Hmmm." hms Actia again, but more hmmmily this time.

Kat's got no eyes for any of it, though. No ears either. Hers are only turned toward the... ooh, could we call her the Foreign G-- actually no, we'd better not. I don't wanna define anybody like that. It sounds so cool though, is the thing. Well. Anyway. Katherine can only watch her. Can only hear her. Can only stare through tears at the surface of her distant home as it ripples and changes and, well... dies. She hiccups and she sniffles, and she briefly entertains the idea of throwing her sword at the back of the god's head because at least that would be doing something, but for whatever reason she can't quite bring herself to commit to the motion.

She gets as far as lifting it. And that's when she feels the tap on the back of her shoulder. She turns, for the first time, and remembers she has friends.

"Sheesh, finally! I was starting to think you got swallowed by some kind of evil Viking curse or whatever! You ready to join the talk at the Big Girl's Table or what?"

"Cy, I..."

"You what? You're sorry you only fought a giant crab monster to a standstill for like three hours? You didn't know a horrible death woman would pop out of it? You're upset that your little two-tailed butt didn't discover an instakill move and knock her out straight away? Oh puh-leeze. I swear you are the least foxy fox that ever didn't fox a fox. How'd you even get a second tail, anyway?"

"You, um. You were there, Cy. Damn Fox gave it to me. So I could... y'know, get revenge on you. And stuff."

"And great job on that front," Cyanis beamed while patting Katherine's head, "I'm good and revenged now. But we're setting all that aside because we've found a Super Special Rainbow bomb thingy and we're gonna kick it at that monster and blow it and all of our problems up forever. Pretty cool, huh?"

"Mm, no," said Actia, "That would be a complete waste of its potential."

"WHAT?! Oh come on you scheming little minx, which part of your ultra special secret plan are we still following? The bit where we all almost die? Again? Or the part where we go to Double Cutie Jail and they don't even hand out the good panty gags? Nuh uh, no thank you. We're doing this MY way and that means we kick the bomb over there and watch it fix everything while we sip mocktails on the lunar beach. The moon's got beaches, right? C'mon let's go!"

"A bomb won't work. What we need is a greater fox. One with more tails than any of us."

"Erm," said Kat, "I don't... is that actually going to work either? I mean, I guess we could call Damn Fox, but I'm full of weird fighting instinct stuff and junk and I can tell just by looking over there that even she can't win. A Ninetail isn't enough, and that's the biggest number there is!"

"You think so?" said Actia through an extremely cool blue-painted smirk, "I count ten tails right here."

Two jaws drop. Kat and Cyanis stare at each other mutely, deeply impressed and intimidated once again by Actia's higher level understanding of math. Kat tries to check this by counting, which is difficult because the tails are all so fluffy and they keep waving around. But as luck would have it the number on display is exactly as many as she has fingers, so in the end she gets there.

Her eyes light up with the fire of someone who's been given renewed hope. A warrior getting a second wind, if you will, or just a hopeless girl seeing a little sparkle of rainbow light and remembering how to smile. Little magic, the kind that makes bigger miracles possible. It makes sense, doesn't it? This is exactly how they started this ritual in the first place. The lot of them, together, made one Ninetail. This same power had accepted that logic. But now Actia was one tail richer. And that meant...

"W-we could... oh goshies, we could do anything!"

"Well. ONE of us could do anything. It's a little different casting one spell versus preparing for a battle. Two of us will need to channel our power into the other. Which means, we'll need to..."

"Yes yes, of course," huffed Cyanis with a level of drama that did not match the canary-eating smile on her face at all, "It's oooooooobvious what you're getting at, Actie. And yes, it's true. I am the prettiest of us all, with the biggest mommy milkers and also the cutest butt! Plus the prettiest smile? Oh do go on, flatterer! But even though my policy is to never do hero stuff even if I can't help it, just this one time I'll make the sacrifice and let you both give all your power to me~"

"There is not a chance in hell we're using you, Cyanis."

"What? How come??? Is it you then? Just because you've got more tails than the rest of us already doesn't mean--"

Actia glares so sharply that the rest of Cyanis' retort dies down to a whimper.

"We're going to use Katherine."

Two jaws drop again. Two younger foxes stare at their rival/mentor/friend/coolest person ever (well, according to one of them anyway) and try to work out how the math maths out to the girl with fewer tails than anybody around. Well, anybody they're aware of at least.

"I don't trust you as far as I could throw you, Cyanis. I doubt you feel any differently about me. What would you even do with the power of a ten-tailed fox?"

"Well obviously I'd do whatever I felt like! And so would anybody! Like, c'mon! It's fox magic?? That's what it's for? So since it doesn't matter which of us gets it since we'd all do the same thing the only logical is to give it to me 'cause I want it! A lot! Which is the same as deserving it, so nyeh!"

"Katherine, let me ask you a question."

"Um?"

"I'll take that as a yes. Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, who has traveled with the anime Yue. Now that you've come this far and seen the depths of foxing, do you trust us?"

That one takes a second. Seconds she doesn't really have anymore, what with the impending doom of everything she loves riding on her getting the answer to a pop quiz right. Oh goshies, why didn't she study? Did anybody have a notebook she could borrow? The foxy answer here would be to, uh... lie? Lie and say yes? No wait, say no! She needs to make the case that she needs assurances and stuff, right? Because without that, the others wouldn't give her back her tail and she'd have to go back to being a pouch-riding narrator! Which was fun, come to think of it, but no! Nyo! She can't do that! She's gotta stake her claim! And, like, um, um, um?

...Giggle?

Yup, there she goes. Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits smiles like the sunrise at her friends. At her friends.

"Yeah, I do. I think you're both good girls and--"

"Stop stop stop stop STOOOOOOOOOP!" screams a blushing and flustered Cyanis, "Enough! Enough! Ok ok ok! D-don't say the g-word, please! I can't take it! You win, you win, we'll let the puppy be Queen Dork. But when this is over you're gonna give me the bestest foot massage in history! Got that?"

"I know a good spa out by Ys, does that count? C'mon, sillyheads, let's do this before we run out of parlors to lounge in. I know I want ice cream!"

Kat is a good girl. Some would say the best girl. But that's not entirely why Actia placed her faith in her. Sometimes a fragile will gets tempered by heat it never asked to feel. And when that happens, if it doesn't break? The lazy little pet can turn out to be the most iron hearted champion of all. Foxes instinctively fear the beings they call 'animes', which I think means the sort who'd go out and do the stuff you always see the pink-haired girls doin' in the stories and whatnot.

And if that's how it is, how else can you define our Kat? You could say she's a failure of a foxgirl, but only in service to becoming something much, much scarier to their kind. Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits, the only Master who could ever have dared to fight alongside Berserker. The only one who held onto a blade, even in the face of absolute terror and death. No, Actia picked her because she was scared not to. And that's the truth, no matter who's willing to admit it or not.

Three slender hands join overtop of a Spiritron Accelerator. One face maintains aloof indifference, while one does a cute grumbly pout, and the third smiles enraptured not just at the idea of being trusted by her original heroes, but at the realization that she's still got one last chance to fix the mistake she made all that long while ago. She can make it all right. She can be, if not the hero that saved the world, then at least the fang that blunted the doom of all she loves.

And that's not a bad thing to be at all. She closes her eyes, and feels a true fox miracle rushing over her.

"Must even this be sharp?"

The Goddess of Death turns on her heel and sucks the slender line of blood from her cut thumb. Down below, on the warped continent of Australia, clear spaces are visibly forming; cities and communities defended by the sublime work of blades, holding back crashing tides.
"When I reach for this world it throws such thorns at me," something was different about the way she spoke now. It wasn't any more suited for your ears than the earlier hypno-pulse of the crabform, but something about the growing Fox Wish put you on the same level as it. "I seek to give it gifts. I seek to give you gifts. But everything here is sharp. Your hearts are sharp. Your mathematics are sharp. Even your softness is sharp. You find weapons everywhere and you use them against each other without hesitation. The machine was wrong when it said this world lacked for growth; this is the most militarized society imaginable."

She turns her head and coughs. A single elegant, demur cough that somehow spits out an entire saliva-covered steel hammer into her gloved hand. A craftsman's tool, heavy and weighted, designed for when a design does not fit neatly in the garbage disposal.

"It is to be dismantled."

Not a negotiation, barely even a conversation. Just the shape of thoughts, a decision made in the clear knowledge that nobody and nothing can question it. One strike to break the world.

The unfurl behind her one after another, like the blossoming of a lotus flower, or maybe a variety of rose. Luxuriously fluffy, so silken it's borderline decadent, the same inviting (some would say delicious) minty green as her hair. Count them: one two three, four five six, seven eight nine.

Ten.

Her tails spread out behind her back to form a soft and slightly twitching halo for just a moment, before Katherine Isabella Fluffybiscuits offers the world a smile and politely tucks them all in place. There's no need to show off, after all. Not that she can entirely help it at this point. Her dress hasn't changed, except that everything about the way she wears it is so different it doesn't feel like it can be the same outfit. All about her being a breeze blows in teasing puffs and swirls, yes even here in the near-void of upper orbit. It lifts the train of her dress up, it pulls it back down, it sends her ribbon-sash spiraling behind her back in an imitation of the pose her tails had just struck, and it stays there, rippling but still, suspended as if by magic.

Because it is magic. Obviously! What did you think fox wishes do? Make somebody not the prettiest girl at the ball? Psh. If they didn't work, nobody would ever be tempted by them. Which honestly wouldn't be any fun at all, I don't personally think. So no, Kat is radiant. Literally - her hair sparkles, her eyes gleam, and while her skin doesn't glitter in the sense that you'd expect that word to mean she does have an aura almost like gemstone dust that follows her every little motion with a burst of twinkling light in every color that crystals are capable of painting.

Her lips are painted soft pink, which is the best color. The rest of her face has no need for makeup of any kind, nor indeed at this moment a helmet, so her long green hair is free to flow behind her like a banner announcing a princess. Oops, sorry. A Princess. We can give her this one. At least for a bit. Her face is not really all that different (even if you squint and tilt your head way to one side), but there is something about the way she carries herself that makes it feel like she's grown up a lot all at once. What had been cute feels more alluring now. The point of her nose and the curl of her lips seem suddenly kissable when before they were mostly meant for begging for treats. There's a sharpness to her cheeks that could send many a maiden tumbling helplessly down the hill of love if they just had a strong enough telescope to watch all this happening. And yet, aren't they still the same silly, squishable things that she's always had?

There's one difference that's bringing all of that perception together, and I think if you watch her for another moment or two you'll put together what it is. It's not that she's "strong" now, it's not that she has an aura more potent than a mountain, though that is pretty cool. And it's not the pretty lights around her playing tricks on your eyes, though again I have to admit they're catching all her best angles pretty flawlessly. No no, take a look at the way she's standing now. Not just tall or poised or proud or anything like that, but controlled. Watch her breathing. See how steady it is? See the confidence in her wrist, locked so perfectly to give her a better grip on her beautiful wooden sword? See how light her stance is, and even just the way she feels like she is actually standing here despite there being no ground to speak of.

And now that you've noticed all that, look into her eyes. See how deep they are. See how much she sees, and watch the delighted twitching of her ears so you can tell how much she's listening too. There's wisdom in this fox, and with that comes confidence. Not just the delightful thrill of being able to add extremely large numbers together, but the understanding that there's no great need for any of those digits in the first place.

For the first time, there is no Next. There is only Now, and the knowledge that it is the most precious treasure any fox could hope to possess. In the end that's what's transformed her. That's why just a teensy tweak to the lighting and a bit of light breeze (plus a bit of posture correction) are enough to make her the envy of any beauty in any city you could name. All she needed the entire time was the vision to understand that. And possibly access to a better hairbrush than I gave her. That's my bad. That part's on me. I'll be buying her a new one when this is all over, 'kay? That's a promise from me to you to her.

She watches the world and the God of Death and Understanding hardens like diamonds to form Determination. She moves the way a river does, not with any obvious force nor entirely in one direction, but swiftly and smoothly and with such secret fury that once you've felt it for yourself you can't be left with any sense but that it is inevitable she is going to get wherever she's going. In a word, it's dazzling. In another word, it's beautiful. In a third, like any river, it's dangerous.

Her blade sweeps through space and taps its blunt tip against the head of that horrible hammer. She smiles at this horrible deity, and gives it a shake of her head.

"No it is not, thanks for askin'."

There is one startled second where she almost bobbles it, caught unawares by how much her voice is still, y'know, her voice. But nobody takes advantage of that second and it passes with a full recovery. Just a single wasted frame in what turned out to be a wider window, thank goodness.

"That's my home," she says, though she pauses to look at the continent of Australia again, "Well... ok that isn't, but it's somebody's home! Got it? Which makes those guys my neighbors, which is practically the same thing as callin' 'em friends!"

It only takes a tiny twist of her wrist, and the torque from her entire arm travels up her sword and knocks the hammer up as though it were the weapon made of wood. She takes a stance and waves one foxy finger at the Death God.

"Thanks but no thanks for the gifts, we don't want 'em. But you and I can dance for a bit, if you've got the moves to keep up."

"I appreciate you disagree. I hear what you are saying. I feel your passion," said the Goddess, throwing a fistful of Compsognathus dinosaurs with her off hand.

Getting attacked by a dozen chicken-sized attack dinosaurs was a lot! And this alien terror divinity knew a thing or two about throwing them, too. It wasn't exactly like a Secret Sword (dinosaurs), but she had been practicing, and the move had come as kind of a surprise so maybe it qualified as a Hidden Blade (dinosaurs). But it was definitely a distraction - she's got her hand up to catch the hammer as it soars back across to her hand. That's the real weapon here; everything else is essentially decoration.

"But sometimes in the design process mistakes are made," she said. "Sometimes we get surprised by the implications of things, unintended consequences add up. Before you know it you've turned an ordinary little planet into an incubator for some genuinely dangerous sword techniques, and the risk of them getting out cannot be countenanced. If you knew anything about Australia you would understand the relevance of my concerns."

She's distracted. She seems very easy to distract, actually - the moment she starts talking about a problem she drifts off, mind trying to solve it and all related problems. Her next Hidden Blade takes the form of emus, then a sweeping crocodile parry, and then just so many snakes. She's almost more invested in making new snakes than recovering her hammer.

"It is unsustainable. And, believe it or not, my civilization knows what that means. Once I've disassembled it, I will put it back together in a way that fits with everything else. Harmony. Does your culture not appreciate harmony?"

"Hawawawawawawablerghle snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaakes!"

Is that the most refined battlecry? I mean, not really. But in Kat's defense, snakes! Just so many snakes. It'd be funny if they weren't--

"Gaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhh they're in my hair! They're in my taaaaaiiiilllls! Get them out get them out get them EEEEeeEEeP~!"

Yeah. I gotta say as far as Hidden Blades go this evil goddess' got some good ones. Hiss Unlimited is nearly the end of Katherine's heroic ambitions all by itself before she realizes that by twirling her sword like a magical girl's baton (wand? Iono) she can harness the winds her foxgirl magic is constantly producing for the sake of making her prettier to start blowing the stream of serpents harmlessly off into space.

I mean, they're... they're space snakes, right? They'll be fine, probably? Or else they're magical snakes and they'll all vanish when the energy creating them runs out. Either way I don't think this is unethical. Pretty sure? Ok look it's not like I am any kind of lawyer here, I just happen to be the one on story duty today. The point is, it's working.

"Lady, you popped out of a giant evil crab. Could you please not with the 'dOeS YoUr CuLTuRe nOt ApPrEcIatE HArMoNy?' routine? Like, the first thing you did was try'n overwrite all life in... Austria? And then you got mad when they fought back! Course they did! What the h*ck? This is why I said no thanks!"

With the snakes good and handled, Kat shifts to offense. And it turns out there's another use for her Pretty Sparkle Fox Winds besides the obvious. That's right, she can ride 'em! Instead of pushing her body and getting all sweaty or turned around in this weird gravity situation, Kat simply channels the air into small pocket-tunnel-whatsits and creates a current that pushes her gracefully and effortlessly anywhere she wants to go.

And goshies, does she wanna go places. She comes at the goddess from one side, and then the other, from below and from above, from every conceivable diagonal, every time batting the hammer out of her hand before swooping off to start the next attack. Her turning speed is silly. Her precision mobility is a thing of awe. But the most amazing thing about it is that it's all a distraction.

See, every time Kat knocks the hammer free, she doesn't go for it. That's Ten Tailed wisdom for you. She knows that if she holds it out of reach, if she commits to taking it away forever, that's when she'll get hit with a proper deathblow. Even as she is, the problem with that thing is right there in the name, y'know? But by giving the goddess the chance to retrieve her weapon each time, Kat buys herself opportunities to present new puzzles that need new Hidden Blades to counteract. She keeps the game going, see?

And meanwhile every time, her beautiful spiraling motion carries her closer, faster, makes her more and more dangerous. Finally her sword lashes out not for the hammer itself, but for the fingers wrapped around the handle. She connects perfectly: the clonking sound echoing through the void is all the proof she needs of that.

She smiles.

"These are!"

...Kat?

"The Wandering Tales!"

...Kat, what are you doing?

"Of Yue the Sun Farmer! The Fifth Secret Sword (homage): Picnics at the Sky Castle! Honestly lady if your idea of 'harmony' was anythin' to write home about you'da tried mailin' pamphlets. All I need to know about your civilization's idea of harmony I learned from you thinkin' you needed ta force it on us! If appreciatin' that means I've gotta fit in with you and yours, then nah! Let us be weird! We're happy, thanks!"

I am. The most embarrassed. I have ever been.

But also? Prouder than anything.