Kadoya stared at the crimson-haired girl before him, expression calm and unreadable.
Most people, any average anime fan, would probably be losing their minds right now. Seeing their favorite 2D waifu come to life? That's dream fuel.
His only question now is...
"Wh-What the!? I'm back in a child body!?" Erza questioned, looking down at herself and noticing that her appearance had been reduced to when she was a child.
That's something he also wanted to know, but more importantly...
Kadoya wanted to spread his arms out and ask, "What the hell is this!?" upon looking at Erza's Servant Stats.
Class: Saber
Master: Kadoya Uchiha
True Name: Erza Scarlet
Sex: Female
Alignment: Lawful Good
Strength: D
Endurance: D+
Agility: D
Mana: B+
Luck: E
NP: ???
Class Skills
Magic Resistance: D
Riding: D
Personal Skills
Illusion Resistance: C
Requip The Knight: A
WillPower: A+
Erza's stats were just... awful.
Her stats, aside from her mana, everything else is pretty weak. Her NP didn't even show up, like the system gave up halfway through.
Her Class Skill is decent, but her personal skill.
The Illusion Resistance is a side effect of her artificial eye, which is good, at least, let's hope this also worked against vision-based genjutsu.
Requip The Knight is her main magic, letting her switch between clothing, armors, and weapons in the blink of an eye.
Lastly, WillPower. This is basically Guts in FGO, so even if she is killed, she could still get back up, how many times, he isn't sure.
People die when they are killed.
What a joke.
He looked down at the bright red Command Seal etched on the back of his hand. He took a deep breath… and finally shouted:
"System explain yourself! What am I supposed to do with a 10-year-old Erza?!"
Erza: "!?"
Kadoya was very annoyed by this reward.
Originally, getting a Heroic Spirit was supposed to be a big win.
But instead, his system somehow managed to yank out a 2D anime girl, slapped a Saber class label on her, like that made it okay. And just call her Saber... a very weak Saber.
She didn't even resemble King Arthur.
And what's worse, it actually gave him the 10-year-old version of Erza, not even the S-Class, 15-year-old version. No, the weak, 10-year-old version.
This was like Shirou summoning Saber, but instead of the beautiful King Arthur, who fell along with her kingdom. He summoned the young girl version who was about to pull the sword out of the stone.
"I think… there's something wrong with the summoning." Kadoya muttered, rubbing his temple. Then he looked at Erza. "Can you just turn into spirit form so people don't notice you? We're literally in a battlefield right now."
"I can't."
"Heh?" Kadoya looks back at her with a skeptical look. "What did you just say?"
"I can't turn into spirit form."
"Why?"
"I don't know how to."
Kadoya: "..."
Right, she isn't the typical servant summoned by the Holy Grail with all the needed information injected into them. She also wasn't some all-powerful mage who knew many types of magic. Just a stubborn redhead with one spell and a big heart.
Erza only has one magic and, technically, one spell: Requip.
Although Requip allows her to equip a different set of armors and weapons in the blink of an eye, it's still technically just one spell. And she wasn't some grand spellcaster. She was a frontline bruiser.
"Can you tell me what's wrong with this world? I can't seem to recover my magic energy." Erza suddenly asks.
Kadoya: "..."
This world runs on chakra, not magic.
So now what? Was he responsible for this little red-haired anime girl?
Kadoya turned his gaze to the sky. He suddenly wanted to disappear into the night, but when his gaze fell onto the red command seal on the back of his hand, he realized that he couldn't escape since they were technically linked. And she could most likely track him down.
Ordering her to kill herself is a bit too much and a waste. He at least should squeeze her dry of all her valuable first before doing something like that.
The two made their way toward Konoha's main camp, Kadoya explaining the basics of this strange, war-torn world as they moved through the rain.
"You're joking, right?" Erza asked, stopping in her tracks. Her brown eyes were wide with disbelief. "Sending children to war? Are you trying to fool me or something?"
Kadoya stopped as well, turning to face her. Wordlessly, he pulled out his forehead protector and held it up.
"This," he said, "belongs to Konohagakure, the Village Hidden in the Leaves. I'm a shinobi of this village… and soon, so will you be."
He tossed the headband toward her. Erza caught it with uncertainty.
"Konoha is currently at war with Iwagakure and Sunagakure, the Villages Hidden in the Stone and Sand."
He raised his arms, motioning to the downpour around them.
"And this battlefield? Amegakure, the Land of Rain. Another country entirely."
"But that's wrong!" Erza protested, clutching the headband tightly. "This isn't how a world should work!"
Kadoya's tone remained calm, but his eyes darkened slightly. "It doesn't matter whether this is right or wrong. This world is chaotic, not the somewhat stable world you once came from."
The rain fell harder.
"Face it Erza. With your current strength here and unable to recover your magic energy, it will only be a matter of time before you lose all of your power." He said bluntly.
Erza's hands tightened into fists. But the weight of the truth sank in. Her expression darkened, too.
The tension between them grew before Kadoya's instinct flared up; he simply formed a single hand seal.
"Mirror Style: Mirror Seal!"
A translucent mirror wall materialized behind him, intercepting a sudden barrage of kunai and shuriken, absorbing the deadly projectiles into its surface.
"Stay close to me," he muttered, his Water Blade forming instantly in his hand.
Activating his [Third Person POV], expanding his field of perception. Instantly, his awareness spread, allowing him to monitor Erza's position and identify over hundreds of shinobi trying to surround them, but the shinobi seemed to be keeping their distance.
It seems that they have recognized him as The Blade, so they didn't dare to approach him at close range.
"Wind Style: Breakthrough!"
"Wind Style: Air Bullet!"
"Wind Style: Wind Blade Jutsu!"
Long-range wind-style jutsu hurtled toward them. Kadoya grabbed Erza's wrist and flung her onto his back, his hands forming one seal.
"Water Style: Water Jet!"
Water exploded beneath them, launching the two high into the sky, dodging the incoming wind attacks entirely. His hands form another seal.
"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
A roaring tide of flame erupted from his mouth. Using the momentum from his water launch, he spun, scattering fire in a wide arc. The massive wave of flame clashed violently with the wind jutsu, overpowering and consuming them.
Suna shinobi screamed as fire tore through their lines. Some evaded. Others were not so lucky.
Kadoya landed hard, cracking the earth beneath his feet.
His crimson Sharingan spun wildly, locking onto enemies in the distance.
Without hesitation, he hurled his twin water blades forward. They sliced through the air, curving in a deadly arc.
"Water Style: Water Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
The spinning blades liquified mid-flight, transforming into a storm of water shuriken, then multiplied into hundreds.
Suna ninjas panicked, trying to evade. But Kadoya wasn't done.
Fine chakra threads extended from his fingers, guiding the water shuriken like puppets, combining Sunagakure's Puppet Techniques with the Uchiha Clan's deadly shurikenjutsu.
The shuriken twisted and weaved unnaturally through the air, slashing through limbs, torsos, and throats with mechanical precision.
Then, twisting back mid-combat, Kadoya drew a single coin from his pouch and flicked it into the air.
"Lightning Style: Railgun!"
A thunderous bang cracked the battlefield. The coin became a streak of lightning, piercing clean through several enemy shinobi. Blood and gore followed its wake.
His hands blur through seals once more.
"Flower Style: Thousand Blooming Graves!"
He slammed both hands on the ground, sending a surge of chakra into the earth. Within seconds, an enormous field of vivid, chakra-infused flowers erupts in all directions.
The blooms are eerily beautiful, oversized, colorful, and unnaturally animated. They grow rapidly, cracking through rock, spreading over terrain, and even climbing surfaces.
Some flowers lash out with chakra-threaded vines to ensnare multiple targets, rooting them in place.
Others fire chakra-packed pods that explode on impact, causing sharp petal shrapnel and concussive force.
A mist of glittering pollen fills the air, dulling the senses of enemies, reducing their vision, causing nausea, and chakra disruption.
Certain flowers bloom near powerful chakra sources, draining chakra through root contact if not evaded quickly.
The different types of flowers, all with variant effects, spread out into the battlefield, turning the once dull battleground into an enormous field of flowers.
Scream echoes out, as the field of beautiful flowers turns into the grave of these shinobi, trapping them and ending their lives.
The battlefield became a living garden of death.
Kadoya watches as the life of his enemy turns into nutrients for his LifeTree System, as he can see the grass around the white tree roots slowly shifting to green.
Opening his gaze once more, he found himself back where he once stood.
The battlefield was silent save for the wind.
Petals, once vibrant, drifted through the air, now tinged with crimson.
They crumbled and vanished into the breeze.
"How could you..." Her voice was soft, trembling. The words barely rose above the rain, hit his ears, and at this moment, Kadoya suddenly remembered he was carrying Erza on his back.
"How could you kill them!?"
Kadoya glanced over his shoulder, confused. "Heh?"
She was trembling, her expression twisted between disbelief and horror.
Shouldn't she have all the memories of her life before her death? Why would she be so triggered by his killing?
Her eyes lingered on the battlefield behind them, on the scorched bodies, the blood-soaked petals, the silence that followed massacre.
For her, it was too much.
Despite having endured slavery in the Tower of Heaven, even during their rebellion, she and the other children had only incapacitated their captors. The killing had been done by the older prisoners.
Even after joining Fairy Tail, Erza had always avoided killing when possible. Missions involving monsters were one thing. But people? That was a line she won't cross.
Living all her life in a more stable world, with clear orders and a moral compass that didn't push children into living as a weapon at an early age.
"They were the enemy," Kadoya said flatly, as if explaining the weather. "This is war. Kill or be killed. Simple."
Erza abruptly leapt off his back. A magic circle in front of her hands, and she summoned her long sword, but her knees buckled. She was not used to the strength of her current form.
Kadoya said nothing as she struggled to lift the blade. She gritted her teeth, forced her magic to reinforce her body, and finally brought the sword to bear.
Even with her limbs trembling, her voice held steel. "Even if this is war… taking a life is still wrong!"
"Foolishness, that kind of thinking will get you, and everyone you care about, killed." Kadoya's expression didn't change, he still didn't understand Erza's current state of mind.
"I'm not going to die," she snapped. "Because once you take a person's life, there is no turning back!"
Kadoya: "..."
Kadoya was a bit stunned, not saying anything and waiting for Erza to whip out her Survive Card, transformed into her Survive Form to power up, and knock some 'shonen' morality into him.
But unfortunately, he was hoping too much from her. And she isn't Kamen Rider Ryuki. Plus, she doesn't have Naruto's Talk no Jutsu.
Great, you just asked me whether I am your master not too long ago, and you already wanted to fight me. Such a disobedient servant.
Disagreeing with him so fast, it hasn't been an hour since her summoning.
"Bad! Bad Saber!" He shouted, pointing his index finger at her, like how one would shout at a misbehaving pet.
Erza: "..."
Erza looked annoyed at him since she knew that currently, she was Saber.
With a sigh, bone began to form in his palm, turning into a white bone blade. "Fine, then. Let's do it your way."
Erza charged. Her stance was strong, but her body was weaker now, smaller, and slower, not used to fighting in her current size. Kadoya, by contrast, walked calmly toward her, his expression bored.
Their blades clashed, although Erza had lost most of her strength due to the reduction in age and size, along with now being stuck in a world with no magic.
Their blades clashed in the cold rain, as Kadoya continuously pushed her back with his hyper-aggressive and fast momentum kenjutsu. Erza's swordsmanship isn't bad; in fact, her mixed style is pretty powerful. But her strength truly came from the large amount of powerful armor and weapons in her possession.
Kadoya parried and struck with force, sending her crashing into the mud, her sword clattering from her hand.
"Give up, Erza." His voice was calm, bored even. "Compassion may have served you in your world. But here… compassion for an enemy will only get you killed."
Erza glared at him, her eyes burning, but she said nothing.
She knew he was right. She hated that he was right.
Slowly, reluctantly, she pushed herself up. Her hands trembled, not just from exhaustion, but from the weight of reality settling in.
Without a word, she picked up her blade and followed Kadoya back toward Konoha's base camp.
The rain washed away the blood, but not the stain it left on her heart.