2,049If you had asked Artoria, at that exact moment in time, what she had been expecting when Shirou had woken up; you may not have received a very confident answer.
Artoria had come to learn quite a bit about her master, both from her own experiences and from his shared memories, yet still found him and his reactions to be a complete mystery about 30-40% of the time. It was a side-effect, she had discovered, of not only his bloodline but also the changes made to him psychologically by the Fuyuki Fire, a last parting gift of the fourth war, and physiologically via Avalon in the wake of his near-death experience with Primate Murder.
His mind didn't work the same way as others did, and that was ok. She'd come to find quite a bit of amusement in trying to follow his train of thought at times and always found him fascinating to try and mentally dissect.
The fact that she had spent the last couple of days doing nothing but standing over his sleeping form and thinking about him –as her master, friend, a little more than that, and an object to be guarded– did not help this at all. In fact, it made it quite a bit worse in a couple of ways thanks to her general worry over him as well.
So, when Shirou had sat up from his bed with a small groan, taking a short look around his room with somewhat dazed eyes and an expression clearly pinched in confusion, she had been somewhat thankful.
It felt like a normal response from him, despite her surprise at the suddenness of his awakening, and thus something that she could work with well.
He turned to look at her while rubbing one of his eyes with the heel of his palm and his lone uncovered eye regained some of its clarity as he recognized her, the fog in his mind receding just a little.
Exhausted, dazed, sluggish, inquisitive. All four made sense and still stayed within her expectations of his initial reaction upon waking up. There didn't seem to be any pain on his end –there better not have been between Avalon and Semiramis– but he clearly wasn't in the greatest shape of his life.
The dim glow of his crest on his forearms was a bit of a surprise though, she very, very much hoped that he wasn't trying to use Magecraft so soon after waking up.
But then, just when she had been getting comfortable and letting the comforting warmth pooling in her gut spread throughout her body unabated, reality took a solid heel-face turn from her expectations and left her floundering, just like always.
"Hey, Artoria." Shirou greeted her, a small grin cracking his lips as his hand fell from his face to reveal both of his eyes, shining with mirth, "How've you been?"
He had not just opened with that, had he? After days of being asleep, after the largest and most grueling battle he had ever been apart of, after making her worry for his health and safety this entire time he had not just opened with a 'how have you been'.
Her grip on her bicep increased to steel-crushing pressures and a muscle in her cheek, just below her left eye, twitched involuntarily. She took a brief moment, an entire half a second, to try and calm herself before her words spilled from her lips regardless.
"I have been worried about you, Master." She said, her mind racing at a thousand miles an hour and yet still unable to put a filter in place. "I have been standing here for days watching over you, worrying for your health and safety, wishing for your rapid return to the land of the waking, going over my memories of you and experiencing your own memories. And what do I get when you finally wake up, master? 'How have you been'. Are you trying to make light of what you went through? Do you think I'm incapable of accepting that you aren't up to scratch and are trying to put on airs?"
Shirou blinked in alarm at the rapid devolvement of Artoria's composure. She hadn't raised her voice; her eyes were devoid of any kind of wetness and her expression and face were the exact same perfectly composed skin tone that she had always been. She had only moved just enough to push herself off the wall and face him directly now instead of being side-on. But he knew, undeniably, that her composure was all but dead and buried, and her words proved it.
"Woah, woah. Artoria-" He began, his hands held up in weak surrender and making small pacifying movements downwards.
This was, as he had experienced in the past and continually forgot, the wrong course of action.
"I worried about you the entire time you've been asleep after you collapsed in front of me, Shirou." Artoria spoke, staring directly into his eyes, "You do not get to wake up after I've been so worried for so long, make light of the situation, and then try to placate me while I'm trying to show how worried I have been. You don't get to do that. Not now, not to me. Not about this."
"Alright, Artoria. I get it, I'm sorry. Really, I am." Shirou spoke quickly, trying to avoid being cut off by the Englishwoman yet again. "Things are just different for me. I'm still tired and my brain was trying to catch up with everything, I wasn't thinking."
"On that, we agree." Artoria huffed out, getting a short chuckle from the red-haired teen.
"I didn't consider how you would see it and be feeling." Shirou finished off lamely, getting a death stare from the woman for a few moments longer as well before she sighed with her head hung low.
"Fine, I accept that reasoning. But you still owe me."
"Huh? Owe you?" Shirou startled in his bed, making it shift ever so slightly.
In response to his surprised motion, she tilted her head back up and gave him a closed-mouthed grin while tilting her head to the side.
"Yes, you owe me. One 'command' of my choice. Are you saying you disagree?"
Shirou knew he could have argued against it, and logically he knew it was safer to do so, but he knew that Artoria had to have been pretty shaken up for her composure to be rocked to that degree. It would just be the work of a major asshole to ruin her growing good mood over something as simple as one command.
"Fine, one 'command' of your choice." He sighed dramatically, holding a hand out to her and shaking it firmly when she grasped it in return.
"Good. We have a deal, then." Artoria hummed in satisfaction, letting go of his hand and stepping back right as they heard two sharp knocks on the door to Shirou's room.
In unison, both of their heads turned to look at the door. However, before either of them could open their mouths to answer properly, the doorknob turned and Sakura's soft, soothing voice permeated the room.
"Apologies for the sudden entrance, Artoria. But I brought you some food and tea since you've been up here for so-" The purple-haired girl finally managed to push the door open far enough with her hip to enter the room.
A wooden tray table stacked with all sorts of delicious-looking foods and a small pot of tea with a matching fired clay cup clattered to the floor in an explosion of broken dishes and shattered ceramic. Food and beverages stained the floor, yet no one in the room found it in themselves to particularly care.
Sakura's hands, still in the exact same place from where they had been holding the tray table apart for her loosened fingers, subconsciously flexed a couple of times as if searching for the tray now lying on top of her right foot. Her eyes were blown wide and sparkling with wetness that Shirou had so rarely seen in the young woman, let alone with such a large smile on her face as now.
"S-Senpai?" Her voice was fragile, hopeful, cracking halfway through her muttered question.
"Hey, Sakura. It's me." Shirou gave her a soft smile and began to lift his blanket to slide out of bed.
After the chewing out he had just gotten from Artoria he wanted to do at least one greeting properly and he couldn't really do that from a bed.
Sakura jolted as she realized what Shirou was trying to do; the girl surged forward in an effort to not only give him the biggest hug of both of their lives but also to keep him from getting up and possibly exerting himself too early.
"Senpai!" She had cleared half the distance between the doorway and her intended position at the side of his bed when he reacted to her happy, yet worried, exclamation.
Instinctively, expectantly, his chin lifted a few degrees, and his eyes turned to face her, his girlfriend and faithful maid, when her voice reached his ears.
Yet, when he saw her with that complicated expression on her face, approaching him as fast as she was with her arms forward, Shirou didn't see Sakura Matou heading toward him. No, instead he saw a faded facsimile, with red eyes and silver hair interlaid with constellations and an expression that bordered on sultry.
It lasted not even a full second, a fraction of a fraction of a moment. In almost the time it took the young man to blink the image had appeared and disappeared again. He knew what it was, he knew it wasn't real, and he knew that Sakura would rather die than hurt or attack him.
Yet instinctively, reflexively, he flinched back.
An instinct born not of Sakura, or her actions. One so new and so weak that to call it an instinct was an insult to the thousands of years of evolution that gave rise to the synapses necessary for one to form.
Yet to Sakura, it was a blow nothing less than soul-crushing.
Her heels ground into the floor with an echoing crack of food and a terrible screeching sound that made both Shirou and Artoria wince, her body bent forward as if she had been struck in the stomach and her expression pale as if she was about to be sick.
On nothing but reflex her hands came up to her mouth as her upper body jerked involuntarily. Her legs wobbled weakly but managed to stay beneath her, at least for now. Her eyes wide and pupils shrunk to a size that would have made pinholes jealous.
It didn't take a genius to realize what was happening, and why, and it certainly didn't escape Shirou's notice either. The teen was out of his bed and in front of Sakura with a frantic expression in between two of her involuntary jerks.
"Shit- No. Sakura I know it wasn't you. I'm not scared of you or anything. I promise, I really, truly do." He spoke quickly, trying to get his girlfriend to look at him and calm down.
How was she meant to be calm? Shirou, her senpai, her everything had just flinched when she had tried to approach him! The man that she loved and cared for more than anything else in the world –anything– had seen her approach and had moved away from her!
Tears welled up in her eyes and streamed down her cheeks before she had even realized it, a sense of weightlessness overcoming her as her legs fully gave out beneath her and she collapsed on the spot.
'He's trying to calm me down. Senpai's trying to help me. He's still trying to help me despite that. Despite hurting him. Despite scaring him. Despite them living inside me. He doesn't know about them. He doesn't know they're still here, he doesn't know I can still hurt him. He doesn't know he doesntknowhedoesntknow!' Her head swam and her temples tightened painfully, her stomach lurched and turned, and her body jerked especially viciously as a burning sensation grew to a fever pitch at the back of her throat.
And in one panicked, despairing motion she looked up at him through tear-blurred eyes and saw nothing but love and worry staring back at her; and promptly bent forward, lurched her head down towards the floor, and vomited into her clasped hands.
"Woah!" Shirou shuffled back a step while still knelt on the ground, his hands up on instinct as drops and chunks exploded from the gaps in her fingers and hands.
Yet, like everything else this morning he was barely given enough time to try dealing with one thing before another sprang out of the woodworks with all the flair and subtly of Illya on a sugar high.
"Sakura!? Are you- Shirou!"
Both Rin and Luvia slid to a stop in the doorway of Shirou's room, their eyes naturally drawn to the bright purple hair of the vomiting and dry-heaving girl on the floor before they moved up to the object of their affection himself.
Both girls wanted to fling themselves at him and make sure that he never left their grasp again, but they knew that something else was going on here. Sakura would never be left in a position like this naturally and Shirou's own expression was equal parts worried and shocked in a way that just screamed trouble.
Both girls wanted to be close to Shirou but if there was one thing that they had been drilled on since childhood, and especially in the last few days, it was control.
Unfortunately, one of their inhabitants didn't have quite so much mental control and discipline.
In a shove of pure mental willpower that Rin had never felt before, and had never even known the goddess was capable of, the teenager found herself in the backseat of her own mind. The jolt from the sudden change shot through her as if the goddess had physically grabbed her by the shoulder and thrown her back, causing the twin-tailed girl to topple unathletically off the very fancy couch that had unconsciously spawned beneath her within her own mind.
"Wait! No!" Her blonde counterpart grabbed her outstretched hand and helped her back to her feet with a wide-eyed, worried expression. "ISHTAR!"
The screen in front of her was a recreation within her own mind of the world as she –now technically Ishtar– experienced it for the pleasure and benefit of the two inhabitants not currently in the 'driver's seat', so to say. And through it, she saw the next three seconds of events unfold with the wide-eyed gaze only found in someone watching an unspeakable horror unfolding and unable to do anything about it.
Ishtar's twin tails lifted into the air only barely before she shot forward at a speed that neither of Shirou's other girlfriends could have ever possibly reacted to without the aid of their own deities. The invisible blade of Artoria, seen only through the angle of the King's own stance, avoided with only the slightest elevation in the goddess' charge, her timing sloppy and aim off-kilter due to the speed of the goddess' movements and Artoria's own instinctive want to not kill Rin.
The Princess of Heaven's arms reached forward invitingly and her brilliant red eyes shone brighter than some of her own golden bullets as a smile of pure joy lit up her features.
This image was not a figment of Shirou's imagination, it was not his own instincts for survival showing him something that did not exist and it was not something imaginative and unable to touch him. This scene playing out before him was reality and it was so very real that his body burnED.
"SHIROU!~" Ishtar's shout was nothing short of elated.
Warmth and desire flooded her body in equal measure and relief was the tidal wave that brought the ensuing tsunami in behind it. Her love for Shirou may not have been as pure or powerful as Rin or Sakura's own, but it was no less 'love' as the princess of the Sumerian pantheon felt it. She found him fascinating, she found him at least somewhat worthy of her, and she found him incredibly attractive. It would be nothing less than a waste for that to have been wiped out by her own hand and seeing him now, awake and mobile, brought a relief that she had never felt before in her entire life.
Her ruby red eyes drank in his appearance with all that she had, every spike of his hair, every letter in his equally brilliant golden eyes, every- knife.
It was a stiletto knife, no less than 27cm from pommel to tip and no more than 28cm. Its handle, a soft, hardy, dim white that the goddess knew could only come from bone and its blade a polished silver that made even some of the jewels within her room look murky and dirtied in comparison. Its flight was perfectly parallel to the ground beneath her and its tip was already about three centimeters from slicing through her neck like wet paper by the time she even noticed it was there.
Her gaze snapped away from the object of her fascination to the object of her imminent death as her body jerked midair. Her hips twisted and her legs curled inward as her back arched and her chin rose. All done in the hopes that it would minimize her profile while simultaneously twisting her out of the flight path of the blade with what minimal time she had.
She knew the kind of effects that Shirou could imbue in his blades, both from her own experience and her host's memories. She'd rather not take a hit dead to the throat to see what one this particular armament was forged with.
The near-instant death shot at her jugular shot past her in a crack of wind and went clean through the teen's wall behind her, the shattering of glass drawing her attention back to 'her' beloved as a thin, unbroken, stream of blood flew out of the cut on her neck as if frozen in time.
No, that wasn't quite right. Everything had slowed down. Her nervous system fired at speeds her body couldn't handle and her heartbeat in her chest so fast that it was starting to physically hurt.
Shards of glass flowed around and shallowly cut through Shirou's torso and shirt as his arm completed its upward swing, his feet clearing the windowsill as the first drops of blood began to bubble up from his sudden wounds. His eyes were wide in alarm and his expression somehow slackened and tensed all at once.
Glass shouldn't have been able to hurt Shirou, not if he had reinforced his body to move this fast. Ishtar knew that; she knew that even without having to consult the memories of her host, it was a simple fact that came with having speed of that caliber.
You either had the durability to match such a speed, you cheated somehow, or you died.
However, there was only one thing she could think of, one thing that sent a shock of pain to shoot from her brain to her toes in such a lightning-fast instant that her entire body seized up.
Shirou was in such a rush to get away from her that he had forgone all attempts at durability simply to focus on speed.
'NO!' A voice her own, yet not at the same time– her host.
As the realization hit her, and the pain wracked her form, Ishtar felt her grip on the metaphorical control stick of Rin's body slacken and a hand around her ankle. Her vision shifted and zoomed out as if she was being pulled through a tunnel and suddenly found herself in the cozy, luxurious, lounge that served as Rin's inner mind palace.
Mana exploded from every pore of her body and her teeth and fists grit so tightly that audible sounds came from them that made Ereshkigal momentarily lighten up on her annoyed glare.
"RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIN!"
Rin's body dropped from the air unceremoniously as the crack of air from Shirou's thrown knife shook the entire room. Papers, blankets, chunks of vomit, and blood circled, swirled, and slammed into the walls, floor, and ceiling. The glass following after Shirou rocketed after him like miniature missiles and cut into him like his own blades right as his head throbbed and his vision swam. His senses dialed in and out of clarity like an engine stuck trying to shift gears but unable to fully lock into one as the heel of his back foot met the ground.
Shirou tried to keep his speed up and recover properly but a sense of lethargy that had previously just been a nagging sensation at the back of his mind exploded to the forefront and sunk its hooks into his mind faster than he ever had a hope of reacting to. Just as unceremoniously as his girlfriend hit the floor of his room and slid until her head slammed into the wall, Shirou lost all sense of balance and mobility and crumpled like a deck of cards, bouncing along the ground of his own yard before striking the outer wall of his compound like a missile. A small groan all that left his lips as he slowly peeled out of the cracked, shattered crater he had made in his own wall and fell face first to the earth beneath him.
"Shirou, holy shit!"
"Well, we certainly picked a good time to come back." Scathach chuckled, scratching her cheek as Gray made a mad dash for her friend. "I think Semiramis is going to kill him for exerting himself so soon, however…"
XXXxxxXXX
It had taken about fifteen minutes, enough apologies to last a lifetime –maybe two– and almost the entire time spent assuring his girlfriends that everything was ok and that he didn't hate them or fear them, but Shirou had finally managed to calm everyone down from the fever pitch that his awakening had put them in.
It had, however, led directly to his current situation as he sat on his own couch, attempting to catch up with everything that had happened while he was asleep.
A deep inhale came from Rin as she clutched his left arm tightly and sat so snuggled up to his side that she was half sitting on one of his thighs, her head pressed into his shoulder gently.
On his other side, a soft moan left Sakura's cheek as she clutched his right arm, sat just as close to him as her sister and basically nuzzled his shoulder with her cheek as she tried absorbing as much of her senpai's 'essence' as she could through the close physical contact.
She would have preferred the other way to absorb his 'essence', but she was still pretty tired from the Battle of Kings and her senpai had just woken up and was evidently very tired himself, so she dared not be so selfish.
Not that she was particularly selfish when it came to those kinds of activities, quite the opposite actually.
Shirou would have liked to find this situation annoying but unfortunately, he was unable to do so because, at least in his mind, it was fairly warranted given what had happened. That didn't, of course, mean that it magically gave him the use of his arms back though.
However, that aid came in the form of two people, one of which was incredibly surprising to the red-haired teen.
Sat to Sakura's right, and ready to lift anything to him if he needed it, was Luvia. Who, if he was correct in his estimation of her expressions, seemed to be taking as much enjoyment in his current predicament as was possible given the circumstances that had led up to it.
The other, bringing him refreshments and otherwise helping him out when he needed it, was the clearly very out-of-her-depth Angelica Ainsworth. The rather attractive blonde-haired woman moved with all the grace and finesse of a trained and seasoned warrior but constantly found herself at odds with the servantly tasks she found herself doing in the wake of Sakura's…actions.
Of course, beyond just how the fuck was Ishtar still around? The first question that he had asked had been about Angelica and her presence.
"Oh, sorry." Angelica said quickly, straightening out into an attention stance that would have made a drill master proud, "As you were still out of commission I made an agreement with Rin Tohsaka, as acting representative of Clan Muramasa, to place myself and all surviving assets of House Ainsworth under the vassalage of you and your bloodline. It is a pleasure to be formally meeting you within our new hierarchy, My Lord."
And then, a couple of silent seconds later, the young woman jolted and grabbed the edges of her dress to very clumsily curtsy. Obviously, an act that she expected that he expected of her but not one that she evidently had any practice in actually doing with any kind of finesse.
He wanted to say something in response to that, but the tightening of both Rin and Sakura's arms around his own distracted him before he could.
"Girls, I'm not going anywhere." He sighed, trying his best to assuage whatever worries and anxieties were bouncing around in their heads.
It didn't work, at least they didn't give any indication that it did, but the thought is what counted. At least to the teen himself, to his girlfriends, he wasn't quite so sure how well the failed attempt would land.
"Yes well, alongside that there's quite a few more developments that you'll be surprised to hear." Luvia explained, trying to keep her voice as light as possible despite the topics that skirted the fringes of her mind like drunk teenagers in a muscle car.
And, although he periodically tried to calm both of his shaken girlfriends down from their obsessed clinging, Shirou listened with rapt attention. His mind ran a mile a minute as Luvia explained everything to the best of her ability without also spending hours doing so. Small hums and nods were all that she got as he silently took the information in so that she could continue unabated.
There were a lot of things that he'd simply just need to see himself and quite a few people that had to be notified of his waking up, but learning this knowledge was undoubtedly the most important thing to do first. Even though everyone in the room was fairly certain that Irisviel wasn't going to be very happy with them if she found out.
"I see…What a mess." Shirou sighed, wishing he could massage her head right now but was unable to for obvious reasons.
Shirou was more than capable of reading between the lines that Luvia had laid bare before him; things were hanging in a very, very thin balance right now. So far no developed, or developing to their knowledge, countries had fallen to anarchy but the threat was a growing danger that got worse with each and every day that the common populace was exposed to the supernatural.
Already spontaneous activation of magic circuits –mostly in the east where the tear in Textures was currently located but not strictly confined there– was becoming a more and more widely known phenomenon and death tolls due to 'accidents' had begun to pile up. The populace of Fuyuki had been surprisingly insulated from this effect, though based on what Luvia had said, that was also because they were trying their best to help anyone that they discovered had awakened their magic circuits.
Another thing running in Fuyuki's favor was the stabilization of governance that they were trying their best to upkeep. In the wake of the tear in Textures, and the resulting en masse invasion of all manner of supernatural beings from around the world, the local government and a good two-thirds of the local law enforcement had crumbled like a house of cards in a hurricane.
However, what was left of that law enforcement, and more importantly nearly the entire Fujimura yakuza group, had more than stepped up to the plate to not only keep the order and calm the citizens but also to battle back the supernatural creatures looking to go after the city for all manner of reasons.
What this meant was that Fuyuki was left in a state of order and composure greater than even that of far-off countries, relative to the tear, like England or the United States.
It also, Shirou recognized near instantly, meant that there was going to be a target put on Fuyuki's back once that information inevitably spread. Whether from the Japanese government, another country, or the moonlit world itself. Bastions of strength and strongholds tended to be bright, shining beacons for those looking to profit or cause suffering and right now Fuyuki was a beacon glowing with an intensity that only a few other places in the world matched or exceeded.
One of those places, Shirou would like to say, would be the Clock Tower.
He knew better than to believe such a blatant lie, however.
Even long before the tear had been a part of their reality, the Clock Tower was one response too lenient or too harsh to the wrong person from crumbling in on itself. It was a den of liars and cheats, madmen and psychopaths kept in check only by martial law and their contemporaries. A cheap plastic facsimile of a working system of government aped by those who wanted to maintain appearances and hollowed out by the rotting, decayed touch of those who saw themselves and their work above the 'laws' put in place.
Lorelei, her brigade, and probably a few others among the upper echelons of the Clock Tower were probably doing everything they could, and throwing around a lot of weight, to keep that façade of organization in place. Of that, Shirou had no doubts. However, in an organization that had never faced such large pushback before, which was predicated on and reinforced around secrecy and its maintenance, the teen highly doubted that they had the kind of spine needed to actually act out in the open, as they would need to do. Else London, and much much more, fell to the growing tides of chaos as the death toll grew and the thaumaturgically inclined rose up.
Though Lorelei's decisions and movements were an interesting spanner in the gears of the Clock Tower's regular dealings, he couldn't lie. It was unlike her to make such a drastic change from the Magus Association's historical ways, but he didn't doubt that she had some kind of logic that he wasn't seeing for why she was doing so.
The fallout from her getting Luvia's recap, when it eventually arrived in London, was sure to be absolute hell for him to navigate through. Especially since she was so damn set on having him as an ally.
She'd probably prefer pawn or underling but they both knew how that arrangement would end up if she tried.
"Oh, by the way." Gray suddenly spoke up, Shirou tensing at the teasing tone he could hear in the undercurrent of her voice.
Slowly, robotically, he turned his head to face her, having a distinct gut feeling that he was going to hate whatever the next words out of her mouth would be.
"I messaged your family when we got you inside. Your father wishes you well and your sister and mother should be here-"
BLAM!
"Right about now." Gray finished cheekily.
"ONII-CHAN!"
"MY BABY BOOOOYYYY!"
The couch suddenly tipped back as both Illya and Iri jumped on it to hug Shirou from behind, officially labeling Shirou as 'smothered' despite his girlfriend's best attempts before this.
"Gah! Can't- Breath!" Shirou gasped as the arms of both his sister and mother grasped at any part of him that they could to hug him tighter, leading to both of them pressing down on either side of his neck accidentally.
"Ah! Shirou!"
"Senpai!"
"Onii-Chan!"
"Sherou!?"
Instantly all the women in the room jolted in surprise and fear at his sudden shout, Luvia launched out of her seat to try and help him as the five women fussed over him.
And the whole time, Gray did nothing but devolve into a fit of uncontrollable cackles as she clutched her sides and fell to the floor.
XXXxxxXXX
Meanwhile, Central China
The twitching, groaning body of a cyclops collapsed to the ground with a heaving crash, its blood spraying in the air like the world's most grotesque fountain.
Around it, practically coating the entire valley it currently lay dying within, were the slain corpses of its brethren and enemies. Everything from humanoid demons to giant spider-type creatures and scaled monstrosities straight out of the greatest hits of Greece. If it was a creature that wasn't a one-off entity of legend, then the likelihood of finding at least one of its ilk as a cooled corpse somewhere within the valley was near certain.
The cyclops tried to lift a shaky, weakening hand to grasp at the figure that had taken it down. An entity that moved faster than its singular eye could blink and was even more unnatural to the face of this Texture than it and its brethren species.
The long black and red blade of the entity cut clean through him from ribs to shoulder in a slash so fast that the Cyclops hadn't even seen the motion of the swing. Its heart perfectly bisected and its lifted arm no longer able to complete its task without the bio-electrical instructions required by its nerves.
Its last living sight was of its murderer's cold, pale gold eyes staring down at it as its own blood stained their hair and clothing. The Cyclops wished that it could have died knowing that its blood was one last inconvenience for the figure, but it knew better after watching its massacre. It cared not for such petty ideas, only death.
With a final breath, its head went limp against the stone beneath it, a long, tired breath leaving its murderer's lips as she stabbed her long blade into its stomach to lean on it and shake her head vigorously.
"It got its blood in my hair." She muttered quietly, hoping that at least her aping of a wet canine had gotten some of the beast's blood off of her.
Okita Souji Alter, for she now remembered who and what she was, took a quiet, contemplative moment to look around the battlefield that she had just singlehandedly massacred.
It was one of many that she had left in her wake in the last couple of days, though it was also the largest by a fair margin, a fact that she didn't exactly like to learn. The more of these things that came through the hole in reality, the more she had to kill. The more she had to kill, the longer she had to be away from her Master. The longer she was away from her Master, the less human she felt.
So long as these kinds of supernatural creatures, in the numbers that she had dealt with and the lust to reclaim 'their' land that she had witnessed, continued to grace the surface of the planet the longer the survival of the human race was kept thrown up in the air. Flipping endlessly and waiting for the decisive day it finally met the ground and showed either heads or tails.
The fact that she was all that was necessary so far, and that said metaphorical coin was still up in the air, was a small mercy. As it meant that the survival of humanity –and the timeline at large– still had a possibility of coming true if everything played their cards right.
Or if they played them wrong; she couldn't rule out the potential incompetence of the supernatural entities invading the Texture.
At least she understood why her Master had gotten such a defective Servant as her from the summoning ritual now, she wasn't defective, not truly. Her skillset just wasn't suited for the kind of high-powered, high-stakes attrition game that the Holy Grail War was at its most base core.
No, she was a weapon of Alaya. Meant to be either a meat-grinder for smaller, weaker hordes –owing to her history as Proper Human History's Okita Souji– or a suicidal thermonuclear warhead meant to throw herself at the biggest, baddest thing around and not expect to get back up afterward.
Her particular skillset meant that her involvement was the most efficient of all the available Counter Guardians for the events of this particular timeline. Already she had visited five of the seven continents thanks to her skill, some of them at least three times over.
Additionally, her technical nature as a Servant meant that food, water, and rest were things utterly unneeded for her to continue fighting at full capacity. The fact that the world itself was helping to keep her mana reserves nice and topped up as well was a nice bonus from an efficiency standpoint.
However, all of this combat and her near-complete cut-off from her Master left Okita feeling….empty. Her Master may not have been incredibly socially skilled or outwardly inviting but she had treated Okita as a person under her employment and not a tool or servant as Alaya and Darius did. More than just that, she felt like a kindred spirit to the Servant; a tool of bloodshed with a mentality that most people would consider broken in its entirety.
Right now, though, while fulfilling her duties for Alaya and humankind, her connection to Angelica had been nearly completely inhibited. To the point where just being able to feel the connection between them was near impossible, let alone establish a telepathic conversation or come to her Master's aid if required.
All of this murder, with no connection to her Master and unable to escape the itching, scratching, compulsion in the back of her mind to go hunt the next biggest congregation of supernatural creatures, left Okita Alter slowly breaking down mentally. Left to wonder how much of who she was actually mattered and how much of it was just left in to make her a more effective killing machine for the subconscious will of humanity.
She didn't mind doing her job, she really didn't. But when it was 24/7, around the clock with no breaks or reprieve of any kind she found her resolve beginning to degrade. Not to the point of cracking or some kind of mental breakdown, certainly not yet. But she knew that it would eventually come, at least if she didn't kick the bucket first, and that it would do so to pretty catastrophic results.
If not for her then at least for the humanity that she was guarding, and the Master that she so desperately wished to see again.
As she sighed and stood up, flicking the blood off Rengoku –who had quite a few choice words for her–, she wondered how her Master was doing and what she had been up to since Okita Alter's disappearance, when it had still been the overpowering will of Alaya in control and not her.
She hoped, at least, that it wasn't anything dangerous and that she was safe. After all, she was inside a city that was unusually tolerant of the dense mana and Mystery in the air, she didn't imagine there was much in the way of threats around those parts. Certainly not those that could break through that collection of Servants and monsters, that's for sure.
In one smooth motion, she sheathed Rengoku and stepped, blinking out of existence as if she had never been there to begin with.
XXXxxxXXX
"My baby boooyyyy." Irisviel quietly whined, hugging her son from behind as she nuzzled her cheek against his back.
Sat on her lap, with an expression that showed that he would rather be anywhere else in the world except where he currently was, was Shirou. The teen had been forcibly removed from Rin and Sakura's grasps –which had nearly started a fight right then and there– and now trapped sitting on his mother's lap at the ripe age of seventeen as she tried to squeeze all of the air out of his lungs.
"So, not that I want to put this to an end," He did, he very very much did, "But where is Tou-san?"
"Actually, I've been wondering the same thing. He pretty much disappeared the moment that you two found out that Shirou would make a full recovery." Rin questioned, grabbing one of her fists in a vice-grip and wrenching it down into her lap when it spontaneously twitched.
She hadn't felt any of Ishtar's influence in the action, but she refused to be caught off guard. She wouldn't allow her to hurt Shirou anymore. Never again.
"Oh! Well, Kiri realized that we'd probably be hunkered down here for a while so he sort of….went out to consolidate some gear."
'He's gathering ammo and explosives.' The unbidden thought was one shared almost telepathically between the inhabitants of the loungeroom, even those who didn't know him as well.
"You sure it's safe for him to be out?"
"I've been checking up on him four times a day and he promises that he's been especially careful not to engage in any fights!" Irisviel chimed in brightly, bringing her flip phone out to show her call log for proof.
Shirou smiled tightly and congratulated his mother on her forward-thinking, having already caught onto the loophole in his father's words. He may not be engaging in fights, however…
XXXxxxXXX
Kiritsugu made sure to keep his heartbeat steady and his breathing even as he slowly crawled through the underbrush of the Japanese countryside. Around him, and on top of him, charred dirt and stones rained from the sky. The concussive burst of sound from the recently detonated claymore still ringing in his ears even as he kept all of his senses on high alert for any of the elves that hadn't been caught in the blast.
He was fairly certain that two of them had been far enough from the blast center that they could have moved in time to avoid debilitating damage, and in a one-on-one fight, he had no desire to see how well he faired against the creatures of mythos. His next storehouse was only a few kilometers away and had multiple vehicles stored in it as well, but so long as the elves survived, he was always going to be in peril.
Now, how to lead them into one of his-
KABOOOOOM!
A bright flash went off in the gaps between the trees and two dying screams echoed through the forest. The greying man let out a silent nod in response and kept his crawling going.
That was one of his heavier impact traps, sure to kill any of the elves that had been even remotely close to it upon its detonation, but one could never be too sure. And Kiritsugu certainly hadn't made it this far in life by being reckless.
XXXxxxXXX
Shirou merely just shook his head slightly to dislodge that particular thought from the forefront of his mind. What his mother didn't want to acknowledge, in this particular case, wouldn't hurt her. And he was in no real hurry to be the one to do so.
"You look uncomfortable, Shirou." Scathach grinned, crossing her arms as she leaned against a wall nearby. "Something wrong?"
"Should something be?" Shirou shot back on instinct, staring her in the eye as she continued to grin teasingly at him.
"Hm, maybe for you." She hummed, her teasing grin taking on an edge slightly too sharp for any of the women in the room to be comfortable with.
"Scathach. I understand that you want a bout with Shirou but trying to start one right now—" Artoria began, making a small, placating hand gesture as she took a few steps towards the Queen.
"Scathach what are you about to say?" Rin narrowed her eyes suspiciously at the legendary woman, a sense of tension winding itself up in her body uncomfortably.
"Onii-chan!" Illya hopped in front of him, trying to block his view of Scathach while creating a knife of wires behind her back and pointing it directly at the woman. "Why don't we have some leftovers from last nights–"
"I just thought that you'd want to know that Caren fused with two other Goddesses. She's calling herself Super Caren now."
The knife in Illya's hand shot at Scathach's head and hit nothing but the wall as she tilted it to the side, the room deathly quiet as everyone slowly, robotically, turned to stare in Shirou's direction. His stare blank and his body unmoving as he stared in Scathach's direction, even with Illya still in the way.
He wasn't moving, so maybe they could keep him from doing something outrageous?
XXXxxxXXX
Five Minutes Later
"Sherou no!"
"Shirou please!"
"Senpai don't!"
The three young women clung to Shirou tightly as he marched his way through the streets of Fuyuki, trying their absolute best to hold him down but unable to do so with their still-recovering bodies.
However, like a man possessed, he continued his march. Grinding away at the distance between him and the church no matter how slowly he had to do so to avoid hurting the girls.
"Senpai you just woke up! Please!" The despair in Sakura's voice made him flinch slightly as he took a step, something flashing through his eyes.
"You need to recover Shirou! Don't do this! Not right now!" Rin argued as well, her voice cracking a little as she spoke, and her eyes grew moist.
"Sherou I understand your hatred of Caren but please listen to us!" Luvia tried to argue, tugging slightly harder on his right arm.
"You still haven't fully recovered Senpai!"
"You can't go off doing this stuff so soon, Shirou!"
"Please just hear us out and stop! That's all we ask, Sherou!"
Slowly Shirou's relentless march slowed to a halt at his girlfriend's insistent, terrified arguments. He could hear it in their voices, see it in their expressions, feel it in their actions. They were all terrified, not of him but for him.
The actions of the Goddesses four days ago and the events of his awakening had cracked something fundamental in all three of them, he could see that now. He wouldn't lie to himself; it was probably true of himself as well. Luvia had done well in keeping herself in check in the relative safety of his living room but here and now he could see the scars that she now bore as well.
They were terrified of letting him go off somewhere by themselves, but more than that they were near catatonic at the idea of him being hurt and them being unable to do anything to stop it or help.
"P-Please Shirou…" Rin hiccupped, a few tears rolling down her cheeks.
"Just come back with us to your house, please." Luvia begged quietly, her own eyes damp and lip quivering.
"That's all we ask, Senpai." Sakura added on softly, trying her best to smooth out her expression but unable to hide the endless pit of despair that sat in her eyes.
Shirou opened his mouth, closed it again, opened it once more, and shut it with a solid click. The memory of his fury when his girlfriends had been revealed to be 'dead' through Ishtar's lips played through his memory like the world's first 8K 240fps cinema experience. The feel of the wind ghosting over his senses, the taste of his mouth at the time, the scent of the goddess's prana, all of them coming back to him as the memory played. Shirou would have liked to say that he had gotten out of that fight with the goddesses with only his physical injuries, but he knew better than that, he had been hurt by them just as much as the girls had.
And it was unfair of him to hurt them more just because of Caren. Her smiting would come one day, of that he promised the world itself, but today would not be that day. Luckily for her.
"Fine." Shirou relented with a small sigh and the slightest uptilts of his lips, letting himself lean back from the slight pressure that the girls were still putting on him. "I'll come back with you girls, promise."
Three bright smiles were what met him in response, tears flowing down all three of their cheeks, but not anywhere near the same quantity as what Rin had been releasing before. A few drops to equalize the burst of emotions that they felt instead of a consistent flow as sadness overcame them.
"Awww cute!"
'Taiga!?' Shirou turned and looked up in a blur to face the sound of his distant friend and homeroom teacher that came from a rooftop nearby, the Fairy Letters in his eyes spinning ominously as they widened upon seeing the woman in question.
"Yo, Shirou!" Taiga Fujimura crouched on the lip of a rooftop nearby in a well-made, finely pressed black suit with a very generous number of buttons undone and a white fur-lined, black coat hung over her; a sheathed katana rested over the back of her shoulders.
Her red eyes glowed in the shadow of her fringe and two feline ears, the same colour as her hair, flicked idly atop her head as a wide, sharp smile stretched her lips.
"How ya been, sleepyhead?"
If not for the sheer quantity of battle lust dripping from the entity who had once only been a regular woman, albeit stemming from yakuza roots, Shirou may have even found such a question innocent.
Unfortunately, he could never be so lucky.
XXXxxxXXX
Omake: What could have been
"Hey, Artoria." Shirou greeted her, a small grin cracking his lips as his hand fell from his face to reveal both of his eyes, shining with mirth, "How've you been?"
The room was silent for a moment as Artoria stood stock still. Slowly she looked him up and down, analyzing him in a way that he hadn't experienced since his first meeting with Lorelei Barthomeloi.
He wanted to ask what she was searching for, but before he could she beat him to the punch.
"Do you feel well, Master? Physically."
"Yeah, I'm a bit tired but I don't think I've got any injuries, or anything left." He nodded, looking himself over.
"Good." He heard the sound of her footsteps and the sound of rustling fabric.
Quickly his eyes looked back up, only for his entire body to lock up in shock as he saw Artoria's actions. The woman slowly unbuttoning her shirt as she took slow, measured steps towards him.
"Because if I hurt you doing this, I don't think I could ever forgive myself." She placed a knee on the edge of his bed and leant forward sensually.
'What the fuck is happening right now?'
XXXxxxXXX
Heyo! Tis I, the very, very tired man.
Once more with chest; I apologize for nothing!
Holy Crap has this month been hectic for me but I got this chapter out and that's all that matters.
Gotta love when an expected 34-hour fortnight turns into a 74-hour fortnight with next to no warning. The money is great but I'm just the tiniest bit salty about it.
Regardless of how my work-work is going, my writing-work is actually doing really well and I'm super stoked to show off just a little bit! My original story, Young Swordmaster's Journey, has finally crossed the threshold of 10K views and is currently sitting on a 4.7/5 rating with 61 followers and 36 favourites. Which isn't a lot in the grand scheme of things but its so far from where I started that its actually insane that I got to this point.
I've also gotten a profile picture commissioned for the story using the funds I was able to raise through it and I'm currently looking forward to doing even more commissions in the future for the story! (Speaking of commissions I had a really goddamn talented fan of Those within the Shadows DM me about making some artwork and are currently planning some stuff with them). Apart from that I'm also in the process of writing a short story for a small writing contest that is going surprisingly well despite the short timeframe I have (I found out about the competition with less than a week until it ends) but the difference in 'proper' writing versus fanfic writing is jarring. And I'm also planning a potential Warhammer 40K fanfic that already has the first chapter written.
But enough about irl stuff, how was the chapter? I had quite a few things that needed to be gone over for Shirou's end of things and there's still plenty more to come despite me timeskipping over some of the exposition. Artoria is finally taking steps towards being aggressive and the introduction of a character that some of you actually guessed was going to appear, Jaguar Man (Sexy suit ver.)!
Also Kiritsugu is going to give the supernatural world PTSD to match that one world war one meme or so help me god I'm going to drag Ishtar to hell.
Now time for the Shilling Corner!
Original Story: Young Swordmaster's Journey (on Royal Road)
Discord: ctMzhq3 OR plasmaassassin
AND NOW TIME FOR REVIEW REPLIES!
AidenJacksonSmithDSBB: Wow you just really don't want anyone except Morgan to win, huh?
Jokerprice: Dude….please. The tungsten and feathers thing was a metaphor…..Also I'm glad that you enjoyed the chapter and the breadcrumbs that I've dropped in it!
Voidicus: You'll find out….eventually.
Zensored: the question is will she be the first servant or will one of them beat her to it?
Just a bored Highschooler: Oh it'll affect it something fierce
Temsen: the only thing as strong as the outcry for her to stay dead is the outcry for her to come back and actually prove herself as a threat. Its quite funny actually.
Rajo: Captain-flying-chinese-man was a homie to define all future homie's, that's for sure. And yes that job situation was an extremely close call, I'm amazed I managed to dodge it that quickly.
Ariadne Venegas: They….are? It was mentioned last chapter that they were trying to find her. It has not, and you'll see soon enough. As for Sakura and her interactions with her 'passengers', its certainly not an amicable one, that's for certain.
Adro-Sama: She's coming back! Or she's not! Who knows honestly.
AnimeFan13579: There's a lot of things that that 'side story' alludes to, connects to, and influences. Which is why I was making jokes about how it was meant to be a short side story and basically became a separate scene all of its own volition. As for how it does so, I'm not going to reveal any of that just yet xP. You'll just have to keep reading.
GoldQuartz: A solid theory, I like it.
Immage: Funny you should say that :D
TheSlySage: I'm glad you're loving the concept of the tear and I just wanted to point out that Fiore, Illya, Semiramis, Caren and Lorelei will not be in the harem.
Primordial Inscriptor Z-09: Dude is fucking mega busted. When I asked my lore guy if Merlin would be able to leave a message for Shirou in the future by knowing exactly when the memory transference would show him the answer I got was "Yeah I'd say he can, but I can't really give an explanation as to why" XD
Pop manga mondeluz 1945: Hello once again! I don't have a massive amount to say about your review though I have read through the entire thing multiple times. I love the detail that you've put into it though I am a bit disappointed that your experiences of people taking canon Shirou in this direction has painted a negative light on my own take on Shirou (Though believe me, as a MHA fan and ex-rabid fanfic reader, I get it). And finally, the interactions between the Modern Texture and the Reverse Side of the world is an interesting one for me to explore considering that, to my knowledge, there's no canon gateways between the two in an manner (artificial or natural) except maybe the Wandering Sea? But I don't remember a great deal of lore about that clusterfuck. Regardless, I hope you continue to enjoy the story, and I'll see you in the future!
Zukafew119: Hello hello, another month graces us. Only a few comments this time. One, Francesca is Prelati who Medusa turned to stone during the opening moves of the Yggdmillennia invasion. Two, the trimming of timelines is more of a "the world" thing which encompasses both Gaia and Alaya and the main thing that decides if a timeline gets cut or not seems to just be 1. If humanity is going to straight up die out, no ifs ands or buts. 2. If humanity is going to continue progressing or just idle and stagnate. Three, a black company is a Japanese term for a ridiculously exploitative company, so I was saying that that business was super terrible to work for. Four, trust me, I'm not going to keep FGO dragging on. I do want this series to end eventually, believe it or not. I hope that you enjoy this chapter and continue to enjoy them going forward, see you next month!
AAAND THAT'S THE END OF THE REVIEW REPLIES!
I hope you all have a good day and know that the day that my ass has the money to afford the DLC for Factorio, you fuckers aren't seeing me for a minimum of three months. (I'm legitimately seething that I couldn't get it the day it dropped please somebody fund my addiction its not a poor financial decision I promise.)