Chapter 3: Abyss
The air in Ryudo Temple was cold and thick with the smell of old incense. It clung to Saber’s skin as she knelt on the polished wooden floor, her arms bound behind her back with silken cords that hummed with restrained magic. Caster stood before a large, circular table filled with a shifting, silver mist. “A change of scenery,” she said, her voice echoing softly in the cavernous hall. “And a lesson.”
She passed a hand over the table, and the mist coalesced into a clear image: Rin Tohsaka’s room. Shirou was there, sitting on the edge of the bed, a look of earnest concern on his face. Rin was speaking, her arms crossed, a faint blush on her cheeks. It was a private, tender moment, a world away from the temple’s oppressive silence.
Saber’s breath caught. “Stop this.”
“Why?” Caster asked, not looking away from the scene. “They’re not looking for you, Artoria. They’re living.” On the table, Rin leaned forward, her lips meeting Shirou’s in a hesitant, gentle kiss.
A hard, hot pressure pressed against Saber from behind. Caster’s hands gripped her hips. “Watch,” she commanded, her voice low in Saber’s ear as she pushed inward without preamble. Saber’s body, still sore from the dungeon, accepted the violation with a familiar, shameful ease. A choked sound escaped her as she was forced to watch Shirou’s hands come up to cradle Rin’s face.
“See how simple it is?” Caster murmured, beginning a slow, deep rhythm. “No duty. No chains. Just want.” Each thrust pushed Saber’s focus back to the scrying table, to the gentle exploration she was powerless to stop. A part of her, small and breaking, envied their ignorance. Caster’s pace quickened, a harsh counterpoint to the soft scene unfolding in the mist. Saber squeezed her eyes shut. A hand tangled in her hair, yanking her head back. “Open them,” Caster hissed, her breath hot. “Or I’ll make you scream until they hear you in that room.” Saber’s eyes flew open, tears blurring the image of her master kissing another. Her body betrayed her, warming, tightening around the relentless intrusion as she watched her last tether to loyalty fray. Caster’s laugh was a soft vibration against her back. “There. Now you understand.”
Now you understand.”
On the table’s surface, the scene shifted. Rin’s fingers, trembling slightly, worked at the button of Shirou’s pants. His own hands hovered, unsure, before settling on her shoulders. The fabric slid down, and Shirou’s modesty was laid bare before the two watching Servants.
A sharp, braying cackle tore from Caster’s throat. “Oh, look at that!” she crowed, her thrusts never ceasing. “The would-be hero. Is that all?” She leaned over Saber’s shoulder, her voice a corrosive whisper directly into her ear. “Your precious master is as meager as his ideals. Nothing of consequence.”
Saber wanted to spit a denial, to defend him, but the words died as Caster’s angle changed. A blunt, perfect pressure found a spot inside her that scattered all coherent thought. Caster saw her shudder, felt the involuntary clench. “Wait,” Saber gasped, a plea and a warning mixed into one strained syllable.
It was too late. The degradation, the shameful comparison, the relentless physical friction—it all crested at once. A broken sound escaped her as the orgasm ripped through her, violent and unforgiving, buckling her restrained arms against the silken cords. Her vision whited out, the image of Shirou blurring into meaningless light.
Caster stilled, a genuine surprise flickering across her face. Then a slow, wicked smile spread her lips. “Oh?” she purred, resuming her movement with a deliberate, exploratory slowness that made Saber jolt with oversensitivity. “That did it? Hearing him belittled?” She chuckled, low and knowing. “You came for that?”
Saber could only pant, trembling in the aftershocks, utterly exposed. The truth of it was a poison in her veins. Caster leaned close again, her next words dripping with feigned sympathy. “Poor King of Knights. Maybe you needed to see a real man shamed.” She thrust deep, emphasizing her own considerable size. “Because what you just felt… that was relief.”
She began to move again, a new cruelty in her rhythm. “Every insult to him,” Caster whispered, each word punctuated by a slow, grinding roll of her hips, “is a gift to you. It cuts your chains. It makes this,” she slammed home, “feel more honest than your pathetic loyalty ever could.”
Saber whimpered, a fresh, unwanted heat already coiling again in her gut, amplified by the filthy, undeniable truth taking root in her mind.
The scrying pool’s glow painted Caster’s smirk in molten silver. “You’re trembling,” she observed, her voice all false concern. She didn’t pull out, remaining a deep, inescapable presence inside the Saber as the image of Shirou and Rin finally faded into a swirl of mist. “Not from the cold, I think.”
She finally withdrew, the sudden emptiness feeling more like a loss than a relief. Saber sagged forward, her forehead nearly touching the cool wood of the table’s edge. Her body was a traitor, still throbbing with the aftershocks of a climax born from humiliation. Caster’s fingers, surprisingly gentle, traced the line of Saber’s spine. “Your loyalty is a poorly tailored suit, Artoria. It doesn’t fit who you are underneath. It just itches.”
“Be silent.” Saber’s voice was raw, the command hollow.
Caster laughed, a light, musical sound that belonged in a garden, not this desecrated temple. “Make me.” She stepped around, her form blocking the dim light from the paper lanterns. She was still hard, glistening with Saber’s own proof of submission. “You can’t. Not with magic. Not with strength.” She leaned down, her lavender hair a curtain that brushed Saber’s cheek. “The only power you have left here is the power to choose how you break.”
She straightened, snapping her fingers. The silken cords around Saber’s wrists unraveled and fell away. The sudden freedom was a trick. Saber pushed herself up, arms aching, but made no move to stand. The floor felt like the only solid thing left in the world.
“Get up,” Caster said, turning her back and walking toward a low bathing area screened by a faded partition. Steam rose from a sunken stone tub. “You reek of despair and sweat. It’s undignified.”
Saber watched her go, the defiant set of Caster’s shoulders an invitation to attack. It was a test. A part of her screamed to try, to summon every ounce of Knightly training. But her limbs were heavy, weighed down by a new and terrible understanding. The violation in the dungeon had been an assault. What just happened at the scrying pool felt like a surgery. Caster had cut something out of her and left something rotten in its place.
She stood, her legs unsteady. The fog outside the temple windows swirled, opaque and endless. She walked to the bathing area, each step an effort. Caster was already in the water, submerged to her chest, eyes closed. She looked peaceful.
“The water’s clean. Get in.” She didn’t open her eyes.
Saber stood at the edge, looking down. The steam warmed her knees. Her body was a map of bruises and dried evidence. Submerging felt like admitting defeat. Staying filthy felt like surrender to madness. She stepped in, the hot water a shocking, almost painful embrace. She sank down opposite Caster, putting as much stone between them as the small tub allowed.
For a long minute, there was only the sound of water lapping. The heat began to seep into Saber’s muscles, unlocking a tension she’d carried since the dungeon.
“He’s forgetting you,” Caster said quietly, her eyes still shut. “Not on purpose. He’s just… moving on. Humans do. They have to. You’re a ghost in his life now, Artoria. A regret that will fade.”
“You know nothing of his heart.”
“I know he kissed Tohsaka while you were in my chains.” Caster opened one eye, a sliver of violet gleaming. “His heart is practical. It mends. Yours…” She finally looked fully at Saber, her gaze uncomfortably direct. “Yours is a fossil. Beautiful, heavy, and completely useless.”
Saber looked away, at the steam curling over the water’s surface. “What is your purpose? To talk me to death?”
“My purpose is to make you useful.” Caster shifted, water sloshing. "To make you mine."
Caster’s hand slipped beneath the water’s opaque surface. “Useful tools require proper maintenance,” she said, her fingers finding Saber’s inner thigh. The touch was clinical, almost bored. Saber stiffened, the heat of the water suddenly claustrophobic. She stared straight ahead at the stone wall, trying to disconnect from the sensation, from the body that kept betraying her.
It was no use. Caster’s other hand pressed between Saber’s shoulder blades, guiding her to lean forward over the rough-hewn edge of the bath. The stone was warm and damp against her cheek. “Just relax,” Caster murmured, her voice devoid of its usual theatrical malice. It was worse, this casual presumption. Water sloshed as Caster moved closer, her body a line of heat against Saber’s back. There was no resistance, no dramatic struggle; Saber’s submission was a quiet, awful thing, written in the slackness of her muscles and the slow exhalation of breath from her lungs.
The intrusion was smoother here, aided by the water and the lingering traces of their previous encounter. Saber bit down on a gasp, her nails scraping against mossy stone. Caster moved with a lazy, rocking rhythm, one arm hooked around Saber’s waist to hold her close. It felt less like a violation and more like a possession, a definitive claiming in the steamy, quiet dark. “See?” Caster whispered into her ear. “No chains. Just acceptance. It’s simpler.”
Saber shut her eyes, focusing on the sound of water lapping, the distant drip of condensation. She could pretend, for a fractured second, that it was just sensation, divorced from meaning. Caster’s breathing hitched, a soft, telling sound. Her hips stuttered, and she buried herself deep, a low groan vibrating against Saber’s spine. The heat that flooded Saber’s core was just biology, a mechanical response. She repeated that to herself as Caster slowly, reluctantly, pulled away.
Caster stepped out of the bath, water sheeting down her pale skin. She didn’t look back, grabbing a thin robe and shrugging it on as she walked, dripping, back to the scrying table. “Come here,” she called, not a command but a summons one answers out of sheer inertia.
Saber pulled herself from the water, her body feeling both heavy and hollow. She took the proffered towel mechanically, drying herself as she walked to the table. The mist was already swirling again.
“Let’s check on the happy couple,” Caster said, her tone bright with false cheer. She waved a hand.
The image solidified. It was later in the same night. Rin’s room was dark, lit only by moonlight. They were in bed, the sheets tangled. Shirou was atop her, his movement earnest, his face buried in her neck. Rin’s eyes were open. She stared at the ceiling, one hand absently patting his shoulder. Her expression was one of distant, polite tolerance.
Caster burst out laughing. It was a genuine, hearty sound that bounced off the temple walls. “Oh, no. Look at her face!”
Saber watched, a cold knot tightening in her stomach. Shirou murmured something, and Rin’s gaze drifted down to the top of his head. She offered a faint, unconvincing smile.
“He’s pouring his heart out,” Caster wheezed, wiping a mock tear from her eye. “Giving it everything he’s got. And she’s… she’s planning the week’s grocery list!” She leaned on the table, shoulders shaking. “It’s tragic. It’s hilarious. His legendary performance, and his audience is bored.”
“Stop it,” Saber said, but the words lacked force. She was fixated on Rin’s eyes, the utter lack of connection in them. It mirrored something she felt echoing inside her own chest.
“Why? This is the loyalty you’re pining for? This is the bond you think supersedes ours?” Caster gestured at the image. “He is literally inside her, and she is miles away. You think he doesn’t sense that? That his heroic spirit can’t feel the utter apathy from the woman beneath him?” She turned to Saber, her laughter gone, replaced by a piercing scrutiny. “You felt more for me, in your hatred and your shame, ten minutes ago in that bath, than she feels for him right now. That’s the truth you can’t face.”
On the table, Shirou shuddered and went still. Rin held him, her patting becoming a few soothing strokes. She said something quiet. Her eyes found the ceiling again, her mind clearly elsewhere, already moving on.
The mist swallowed the image.
The silence in the temple was absolute. Saber stood, dripping onto the ancient floorboards, the towel hanging forgotten from her hand. The vision of Rin’s dispassionate face wouldn’t leave her. It painted everything in a new, horrible light. Caster’s manipulations, the physical breaking, even her own climax at the table—it all burned with a terrifying, vibrant intensity. It was engagement. It was feeling.
Compared to the blank disconnect on Rin’s face, Saber’s corruption felt alive.
Caster watched the understanding dawn in Saber’s eyes. She didn’t smile. She didn’t gloat. She simply reached out and took the towel from Saber’s limp grip. “You see it now,” she said softly, almost kindly. “His world is small. It’s settling. Yours doesn’t have to be.” She began to dry Saber’s hair with a surprising, gentle thoroughness. “You can stay here, in the vivid world. Where things matter. Where every sensation is a poem, even the ugly ones.”
Saber didn’t pull away. She stood, paralyzed not by magic, but by a revelation that was unraveling her from the inside out. The fight hadn’t just left her; it had been rendered obsolete. Caster’s fingers worked through her golden hair, methodical and possessive.
“Mine,” Caster whispered again, her voice the only sound in the vast, fog-choked temple.
“Mine,” Caster whispered again, her voice the only sound in the vast, fog-choked temple.
The word hung between them, settling into Saber’s bones like a final verdict. Caster finished drying her hair, the rough cotton towel catching on strands of gold. She tossed it aside, a wet heap on the floorboards. The gentle caretaker was gone, vanished as if she’d never been. What remained was the mage, her light purple hair damp and dark, her gaze sharp enough to flay.
“Knees,” Caster said. It wasn’t a suggestion or a seduction. It was an order, flat and absolute.
Saber’s body moved before her mind could formulate a protest. The muscles in her legs, trained for a lifetime of battle, simply unlocked. Her knees hit the wood with a dull, solid thud that echoed up through her spine. She stared straight ahead, at the pale skin and the dark thatch of hair between Caster’s thighs, at the thick, heavy shape already stirring there. The air was cool on her wet skin, raising goosebumps.
“You watched him,” Caster said, her voice conversational. She placed a hand on the back of Saber’s head, not forcing, just claiming the space. “You saw what passes for passion in that small world. Now taste what a real appetite is.” The flesh under Saber’s gaze thickened, lengthened, rising to its full, intimidating size. It was a weapon, polished and presented.
Saber’s breath hitched. Her jaw ached.
“Open,” Caster commanded, her fingers threading through damp hair. “Swallow it.”
There was no bargain. No poisoned choice like in the dungeon. No intellectual cruelty about loyalty or use. This was pure, blunt dominance. Saber’s lips parted. The first touch against her tongue was saline and strangely soft. She didn’t close her eyes. She couldn’t. Caster was watching her, studying every flicker of revulsion and shame.
Then Caster pushed forward.
The stretch was immediate, a blunt pressure that made Saber’s throat spasm. She gagged, tears springing to her eyes. Caster didn’t pause. She fed herself deeper, a slow, relentless invasion until the head nudged the back of Saber’s throat. The length lay heavy on her tongue, pulsing with a heat that was alien and alive. Saber’s nose was filled with the intimate, musky scent of her own body and Caster’s combined.
“All of it,” Caster murmured, her hips shifting. “Take it.”
The constraint was a primal terror. Saber’s hands, which had lain limp at her sides, flew up to brace against Caster’s thighs. Her nails dug into pale flesh. Caster hissed, a sound of pleasure, and pushed again. The world narrowed to the struggle in her throat, the burning need for air, the overwhelming fullness. Her body rebelled, convulsing, but Caster held her head firm, a groan vibrating down into Saber’s core.
Finally, impossibly, her lips met skin. She was full. Her vision spotted at the edges.
Caster held there for a long, timeless second, letting Saber feel every inch. “Good,” she breathed out, the word ragged. Then she withdrew, slick and shining, until just the tip remained. Saber gasped in a wet, ragged breath, her throat aching. The reprieve lasted a heartbeat. “Again.”
The rhythm that followed was methodical, a deep, throat-fucking cadence that stripped away every pretense. Saber’s pride, her kingship, her battle-honed strength—none of it mattered here. All that existed was the slick slide, the choked sounds she couldn’t suppress, the salt-bitter taste flooding her mouth, and the unbearable intimacy of Caster’s soft, approving sighs. Her own body betrayed her with a treacherous, building heat between her legs, a Pavlovian response to the raw assertion of power.
Caster’s breathing grew ragged, her grip tightening. “You learn… so beautifully,” she panted, her hips losing their precision. Her thrusts became shorter, harder, a frantic punctuation. Saber felt the telltale swell, the sudden rigidity. She tried to pull back, a last instinct of self-preservation.
Caster held her fast. A raw, guttural sound tore from the mage’s throat as she spent herself, the hot, bitter rush flooding Saber’s mouth and trickling down her strained throat. Saber swallowed reflexively, the act as automatic as breathing, a final, degrading obedience.
Caster slowly, tenderly, pulled herself free. She looked down, her face flushed, eyes half-lidded with satiation. Saber knelt, head bowed, saliva and seed glistening on her chin. She trembled, hollowed out.
Using a bare foot, Caster nudged Saber’s chin up. “Look at me.”
Saber did. Her green eyes were glassy, shattered.
Caster smiled, a real one, warm and terrifying. “Now you’re home.” She stepped back, turning toward the temple’s inner chambers. “Come. You need to sleep. We have work to do tomorrow.” She didn’t glance back, utterly certain of being followed.
Saber stayed on her knees for a long moment, the taste anchoring her in this new, awful reality. Then, mechanically, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She stood. Her legs held.
She followed the sound of Caster’s footsteps into the dark.