AN: THERE ARE CURRENTLY NO PLANS TO CONTINUE THIS!

Just FYI. Anyways...

Heart of Sword

The Yasoinaba station was deathly quiet as I stepped off the train and into the dense fog. The mist from my own breath was quickly subsumed by it, and for a moment I am remembered of the hell I had left behind only months ago.

On nights like this, with the added advantage of such a thick shroud, I had fought tooth and nail against the spirits of legendary heroes. I had-

No.

I could not allow myself to dwell on such memories. That time of my life was over. That war had been won and lost.

There was only one thing left to me now: my ideal, and my eternal quest for justice.

And one final year of education, because funnily enough fighting the war hadn't left me in a position to complete my studies. Not that Rin's exile had put me in a position to do so anyways: come final exams I had still been packing the few possessions that mattered to me into a duffle bag along with all the other essentials that I would need to start a new life in a different city.

Taiga's grandfather had been kind enough to set me up with a new residence with a distant relative of his in the sleepy little town of Inaba.

"Yo, anybody out here?" a young man's voice called out through the fog. "Emiya Shirou?"

"Ah, I'm here!" I shouted back, and moved towards where I had last heard the voice.

It is somewhat unnerving to walk through such a thick mist in a place I had never been, but luckily there weren't any stairs for me to stumble over. And, soon enough, I found the person calling out to me.

He looked like one of the young men that worked for Raiga Fujimura. Nice-looking but inexpensive clothes that got used so often that small creases would appear. Lots of piercings, hints of tattoo at the sleeves of his shirt and the many small nicks and scars that told of a life of fights. The easy, self-assured smile of someone that these things were readily apparent and enjoyed the worried looks that would occasionally be sent in his direction.

And, of course, there was the motorcycle. Always the motorcycle. That seemed to be important to any male related to or an associate of Raiga Fujimura.

It wasn't a sportsbike like most seemed to favour, but one of the long and ungainly monstrosities that must have been imported at great cost from America. It had jagged black and yellow stripes all along it wherever smooth polished chrome did not dully gleam in the night's gloom.

Clearly, this was the person that I would be living with for the time being.

"Ah, good evening," I greeted the young man warmly. "I'm Emiya Shirou. Sorry to bother you."

"Eh, don' worry 'bout it," the young man said with a shrug, and reached behind him in order to grab a helmet. "I'm Taro Fujimura, and you'll be crashing on my futon for the time being. Put this on, and then we can get going."

"... But you only have a motorcycle," I pointed out. "Where will I be?"

"You'll sit behind me," Taro said flippantly. "Plenty of room back there. Tie your bag behind you, and we're good to go."

"Isn't that against the law?" I ask, sounding worried

"Heh, look at you, getting ol' man Raiga to help you lay low with an attitude like that," Taro chided with a chuckle. "If we get caught by the cops in this weather we deserve to get fined."

I take another look at the thick fog, and concede to his reasoning.

I fasten my duffle bag to the bike and sit myself behind Taro and fervently hoped that the fog would just make visibility difficult and not make the streets slick as well.

"Alright, let's roll!" Taro cried out, and there was a thunderous roar from the bike between our legs.

We tore off through darkened streets Inaba like a bat out of hell, and despite myself I felt a grin creeping up my mouth as we did.

My final year of high-school might not be too bad after all.

*Days Later!*

"Dude, what the hell is your problem you little shit?!" my roommate shouted angrily from outside. "You can't just come here and mess up my bike like that! I just got it tuned up! I had to buy a new futon for that!"

I sigh heavily, and dogeared the page I had been reading in my textbook before rising from the futon that was my bed and approaching the front door.

I had put a solid day's effort into making Taro Fujimura's bike into one of the smoothest running machines in the whole of Japan, and to hear that it had only lasted three days before someone came around and messed it up irked me somewhat. Not so much because it caused problems, but because Taro would now spend days trying to bribe me into fixing it back up because he didn't believe in just asking.

Really, some people just couldn't be helped.

I opened the door to see just what was happening.

And was stunned by what I saw.

"... Did you just throw a motor-cycle around like it was a soccer-ball?" I ask dumbly of the world in general, as if I had not just witnessed as much for myself.

"Oh, so there's more of you punks, eh?!" the blonde-haired ruffian who was currently menacing Taro shouted, and without a moment's hesitation grabbed a lawnchair. "Well that's good! Your buddy here was about to apologize, weren'tcha!? You can go next, buddy!"

"Shirou!" Taro shouted desperately, placing himself between me and the angry young man. "Get your *ss back inside and do your homework! The old man would kill me if you got hurt by some backwater thug!"

"Who're you callin' a thug, you bastard!" the young man roared, and smashed the chair down on Taro. "You're the shitheads who ride through town on your bikes all day, distrubin' the peace and makin' people scared 'n' all that!"

I scowl at this, and resolve myself to once again save someone. It didn't matter to me whether the young man believed himself justified or not: he was the aggressor in this circumstance. I could talk to Taro in private later, but this person had to be dealt with before that could be happen.

Besides, I somewhat doubted that he would stick around once he realized that he had bitten off more than he could chew.

"Excuse me, I'll be right back," I apologized calmly, and stepped back inside the house and closed the door. "Trace On."

Now that I was safely obscured, I was free to bring forth two of my most familiar weapons. They appeared in my hands with a brief flicker of power, and for a moment I reveled in the feel of their familiar weight in my hands. It seemed like such a long time since I had used them, and it was good to know that disuse would never tarnish or diminish them.

I smirked.

They were, after all, only copies. Not nearly as good as Archer's, alas, but they would suffice for this task.

And with that thought I open the doors once again and step out onto the street.

"Thank you for waiting," I said in that cheerfully false way that I knew unnerved people. "Now, would you please leave before things get out of hand?"

"Wh, what the hell?!" the young man shouted incredulously. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"I am defending my home," I state, and started towards him. "From angry teenager that has ruined my hard work and hurt my friend."

"Err, yeah," he said, and I was gratified to see that he began edging away from me. "But what's with the swords, man?"

"What else would I use?" I ask rhetorically. "I would prefer not to cause any more damage to the property, and swords are the only weapon that I have. Are you done asking questions?"

The young man takes another look down at my weapons, and flinches visibly.

"Che," he scowls, and turns his back on me. "I haven't got time for a deathmatch right now. I'll talk to you punks later. Just don't cause any more trouble for my ma!"

Ah. Well, now I could somewhat understand the source of his ire. From what I understood of such parental bonds, they could cause even someone who was normally calm to lose their inhibitions. I could only hope that this would be the last time such a thing would happen.

"Dude, Emiya," Taro said shakily, and stood up on wobbly feet. "You're freakin' boss, man!"

"Eh, what?" I said uncertainly, quirking an eyebrow at him. "I don't think I understand-"

"You're awesome! You just made Kanji Tatsumi run!" he cried out, and laughed maniacally. "You weren't an assassin for the old man, were ya? You were, weren't you! Hah! Hey, can I call you sempai?"

"... You're five years older than me," I pointed out, not quite certain how I was supposed to feel about all this.

"Yeah, but you have swords!" Taro pointed out with a grin. "We have got to get a bike for you! You're old enough for one, right? Yeah, you said you got held back a year. All you need is a license! C'mon! You'll be a total badass!"

A deep foreboding began to well up inside me at this.

I just knew that something bad was going to come from all this.

*A few days later!*

"Good evening Inaba! We're here to bring you a special report on the growing motorcycle-gangs here in Inaba, and to speak with some of the individuals in question! Joins us now!"

Yuu Narukami watched the news report intently, watching for clues of who might

"What the hell're you guys talkin' 'bout?! Get bent, you jack-offs!"

"What the- that's Kanji Tatsumi!" his uncle said with a scowl. "He should be in school!"

The image changed, and now there was what looked like an older teenager with vibrant red hair and simple white shirt with blue sleeves. There was a small streak of oil across his cheek, and a large motorcycle in the background.

"Excuse me, but do you think you could come back later? I'm trying to fix my friends bike here, and you aren't helping by blocking my light."

"Why are you causing so much trouble for Inaba, young man?"

"What? What are you talking about? Please, I would like to get this done early so that my friend can ride again, and I can get started on my homework."

"Hey, leave the boss alone you bastard!"

"Yeah, let sempai work!"

"He's not botherin' no-one!"

"Taro-san, you guys, this really isn't nece-"

"You can't just get in his face like that! I'll show you sons of-"

The feed cut off abruptly as the reporters were almost certainly chased away by the belligerent bikers.

Yuu frowned at this. Obviously, there was going to be a bit of a wrinkle in all this. He would have to watch the Midnight channel.

*A few days later!*

I didn't want to know why two of my underclassmen were following me around, or why they thought that hiding in bushes would somehow keep me from noticing the way it rustled as they tried to get into a comfortable position or muffle their quiet bickerings.

I just wished they wouldn't. It was terribly distracting.

I'd been performing maintenance on his motorcycle when I'd first spotted them, and had only been mildly surprised when they hastily dived into a bush when I turned to greet them. It wasn't like it was the first time to happen ever since that reporter had tried to interview me.

I shook my head, stifling the urge to sigh once again.

Really, I liked Taro well enough, but sometimes I really wished he'd just leave things be. I wasn't exactly thrilled that the whole school now thought I was some kind of yakuza.

But instead of slinking away like most students did, these two had crept closer, trying in vain to hide their presence while also holding a whispered conversation. Which was never a good idea when moving through the undergrowth, because it always ended up being a stage-whisper conversation. It was hard not to notice someone when they were muttering loudly "Hey, be quiet!".

Suddenly, a twig snapped loudly, and I decided that enough was enough.

"... You don't have to hide from me," I called out to them. "I know perfectly well that you're there."

I was really beginning to question Raiga's wisdom in sending me here. It seemed like I was somehow attracting all the crazy in a mile-wide radius towards myself.

There was a tense moment, and then a moment later the two emerged from their vantage point.

"See, I told you this was a bad idea, Chie! We should have just talked to him like I said!" the young man chided his female counterpart while brushing himself off

"Hey, you saw him on the news, right!? Who knew what he would really be like?" the young woman - Chie, apparently – grumbled with a huff. "Who knew what a leader of biker-gang is capable of!"

"Did you even watch that segment? He was totally nice, even when all the bikers started getting rowdy!"

I sighed heavily.

I really needed to talk to Taro about all this 'gang' business when I got home. It was causing no end of trouble.

But for now, I needed to focus on the matter at hand. Which was that I was being stalked by underclassmen for some reason.

"Excuse me, but did you want something?" I ask as nicely as I could. "If you want to talk to a biker, I'd be happy to introduce you to Taro and the others. Really, they aren't as scary as everyone thinks."

"A-Ah!?" Chie said, looking worried at the question. There was an embarrassed blush on her cheeks as she spoke, and there was little wonder why. If I'd just been caught crawling in the bushes with a member of the opposite sex, I knew that I'd have the grace to blush. "O-oh, no thanks! We just wanted to watch-"

"-Ask you something!" the young man interjected hastily, and forced a laugh. "A-ahaha! I-If you wouldn't mind, of course!"

I grunted, and put down my tools and leaned against my bike. Unlike Taro's, it was a sportsbike. I had been adamant about that part: if I was going to have a motorcycle, I would prefer it to have enough speed and maneuverability to be worth the effort of tuning it up. And while I was prepared to admit that Taro's bike was very nice, there was no changing he unfortunate fact that it handled like a brick.

"Alright," I agreed with a nod. "What did you want to know?"

"U-Uh, have you noticed anything strange lately...?" Chie asked hopefully. "Maybe someone following you?"

"Besides you two, I assume?" I teased with a small grin. The two of them cringe uncomfortably at that, still embarrassed about being called out. I decide that they'd had more than enough, and answered them honestly. "No, nothing too strange. A lot of people avoiding me, but that's hardly unexpected because of the news-report."

"O-Oh," the two of them said at once, sounding disappointed.

"Well, do you mind if we just, sorta, stick around for a bit?" Chie asked.

"Yeah, just to see if anything happens?"

I raised an eyebrow at this, but shrugged.

"I suppose not, so long as you don't distract me too much," I told them, and turned back to my bike. "I have an essay to finish, and I'd like to finish this up so I can get home."

"Oh, okay. We'll just, uhm… yeah!"

The two edged away slowly, and then went back to hiding. This time behind a tree.

I resisted the urge to stare at them.

Really, if they wanted to be weird, they were welcome to it. I didn't want to know why.

*Later that day!*

Ding-dong.

The doorbell snapped Shirou out of his meditation, causing a small frown to form on his face as he did.

The house wasn't big enough for him to do his normal exercises, but it was usually enough for him to simply rest and center his mind for a few minutes every day.

"Hoy, Emiya-sempai, you want me to get that?"

"No, don't worry Taro-san," I shouted back to him, stifling a sigh. Really, I wish he would forget all this nonsense about me being his boss. It was beginning to get embarrassing. "I'll get it."

I rose to be feet, rubbing warmth into them as I did, and made my way to the door. I slipped on a pair of slippers as I did. Even if it was spring, the air was still heating up. Once there, I

"Emiya Shirou?" the delivery-man asked.

"Yes, that's me," I answered, a bit confused. It wasn't as if I was expecting any kind of delivery, after all. I could only hope that Taro hadn't, either. Bad enough that he'd somehow acquired a bike for me: I didn't want to cause him any further trouble.

"Great! Let me just-" he pulled out a rag from his pocket and frowned thoughtfully. "Hey, what does this smell like to you?"

"Wha-?"

The piece of cloth was shoved in my face, and I struggled for a brief moment before I felt my strength leave me. I slumped down to the ground, my head spinning.

"One down, one to go," a faraway voice mumbled.

I felt hands on me, and heard a grunt of effort.

And then I was falling...

*Later That Night!*

Yuu watched in horrified fascination as the half-naked Kanji Tatsumi posed and flounced his way through his midnight show, the steam of the "Bad, Bad Bathhouse" doing some truly worrying things to his body in the process. There was no telling what was sweat and what was water. The towel never stood a chance of preserving his dignity.

"Well then, let's get this show on the road! Tootaloo!"

And with that Kanji strutted away in what could only be called 'peacocking'. No man had any right to flaunt that amount of his back-quarters in a suggestive manner.

The tv-screen mercifully faded to black slowly as he did so, putting an end to the rampant homoeroticism.

A moment later there came a ringing from his pocket. With nerveless fingers, Yuu fished out his cellphone and held it to his ear.

"H-H-Hey! I mean-! What the-!?" Yosuke sputtered out, obviously too flustered to

"So you saw it," it didn't sound like a question when Yuu said it. Very few things did.

"Y, yeah I saw it! What the hell was tha- wait a sec- H-Hey, there's something else coming on!"

Yuu turned his attention back to the TV.

Gone was the bathhouse, replaced instead by a desolate wasteland with a dying sun in the distance. Swords of all shapes and sizes were stuck point-first in the ground like gravemarkers of the world's largest melee battle that had ever been fought and lost.

And there, standing in the center of the screen with a huge sword over his shoulder and striking a heroic pose, was the man that Yosuke had said was named Emiya Shirou. He was smiling winningly, and his teeth somehow sparkled with blinding light.

"During the day, I'm just a mild-mannered high-schooler living with my delinquent friend!" he said in a deep voice, and swung his sword in a wide arc that ended with him holding it high above his head. The gleaming metal flared with searing light, and obscuring Shirou for only a brief moment before dying back down.

But where Shirou had stood a moment before there was now red sentai warrior.

"But at night, I fight the forces of darkness! Beware, doers of evil! With my sword of light, the supreme ally of justice will save everyone!"

"... the hell?" Yosuke said on the other end of the phone with a low whisper.

And then, without warning, the sentai fell over into an ignoble heap, and a laugh-track came on.

"But I'm just tooooo stupid to actually save aaaanyone!" Shirou said jovially. "No matter what I do, or how strong I get, failure is the only option!"

An animated image of a golden man standing atop a fallen young girl while laughing flitted in from the side, and behind it Shirou swung his sword and missed, causing him to fall to the ground once more.

More laughter.

"Watch me, everyone, as I make everything worse while trying to make it better! Yay!"

And with this the TV-screen once gain faded to black with the sound laughter echoing in the background.

"... Whoa," Yosuke gasped with surprise. "I would never have guessed that Emiya-sempai had that lurking inside him."

"Indeed," Yuu said shortly, frowning thoughtfully. "There does indeed appear to be two people this time."

"Y-Yeah, it does look that way," there was a brief moment of silence, and then... "Hey, do you think we could save Emiya-sempai first?"

*Later that week!*

"... Why are there no shadows in this place?" Chie asked as she kicked at one of the many stray pebbles that littered the ground. "I mean, it's not like I like fighting the things, but this is getting ridiculous."

"Indeed," Yukiko agreed cautiously. "We haven't seen a soul since coming here."

"Fwah!" the walking teddy-bear gasped, rolling on the ground. "This place is so un-bear-ably hot! Teddy feels like he's walking through a forge! Can't we go to the other place?"

"No!" Yuu and Yosuke cried out simultaneously, both of them wearing matching blushes.

"Ehem," Yosuke cleared his throat awkwardly. "I mean, after all the trouble we went to find out about Emiya-sempai."

"Yes," Yuu agreed smoothly, nodding. "After being chased down the street by a biker-gang, I too would like to make certain that we can placate them with Emiya-sempai once we return."

"They wouldn't have been so hostile if you weren't so blunt, Yuu," Chie admonished. "They were pretty high-strung as it was, and you talking about both him and Kanji missing was only going to lead to trouble."

"But it got results," Yuu countered with iron-clad confidence.

"Well, yeah," Chie agree reluctantly. "But I think we could have done better than "Shirou came from Fuyuki City", and we only figured that much out once we googled who Raiga Fujimura was."

"Hey, isn't it kind of strange that was all we needed?" Yosuke asked. "I mean, we needed to know something personal about Kanji, didn't we? But Shirou? Only where he came from."

"Sometimes the places we've come from can be the most personal," Yukiko explained, and shrugged. "Or at least that's what one of our patrons once told me. I'm not really certain what he was talking about."

"This whole place is weird," Chie grumbled and kicked at another rock. "I mean, what's with those cogs? Why're they even there, and why don't they fall down?"

"I don't know about them, but I do know that Teddy shouldn't be here!" the bear whined piteously, panting hard. "Come on you guys, he's just a little further up ahead!"

"And what's with all the swords? What do they have to do with Emiya-sempai?" Yosuke asked, completely ignoring the bear's complaints.

Yuu paused at this, and gave his surroundings a hard look.

He looked down at his rather modest sword.

And then back at the field of peerless blades stretching out in all directions. A small smile spread across his face as he approached one sword in particular that looked promising, and freed it form the ground and replaced it with his previous weapon.

He swung his new sword, and was hugely gratified by the streak of fire it that trailed behind it as it cut through the air.

The assembled party watched this with mute amazement at his audacity.

With quiet satisfaction, Yuu shouldered his new weapon and addressed the group.

"...This place," he said slowly, and for no readily apparent reason the dying light of the distant sun glared brightly against his glasses. "Is amazing."

"Dude," Yosuke deadpanned upon realizing that the world around them was practically an arsenal waiting for the leader of their group. "That is totally unfair. Hey, c'mon guys! Help me look for some daggers!"

"Wh-what? No way! You help me look for boots, and then we're in business!" Chie shouted in response and began frantically scanning their surroundings before taking off in a random direction. "C'mon, this is a battlefield, right? There has to be some boots around here somewhere!"

"W-wait for me!" Yukiko said, chasing after her friends. "I want a new fan too!"

"Guys? Guys!" Teddy shouted. "You're going the wrong way! Shirou's over there! C'mon! We need to get a move on!"

*Some time later!*

"I still say it's unfair that only Yuu got something," Yosuke grumbled in complaint of the cold, unfeeling and unfair universe in general.

"Oh shut up," Chie muttered. "At least you have a chance of finding something out here. Yukiko and I are stuck with Deidara."

"No!" a distant voice shouted. "That isn't true!"

"Emiya-sempai," Chie and Yosuke said at the same time, and with a look towards Yuu took off in the direction from where they had heard the voice issue forth quickly followed by the rest of their group.

It didn't take them long to find Emiya Shirou, standing in a small clearing with an almost perfect mirror image of himself. The two of them were slowly circling each other, as if waiting for a moment of weakness to seize upon.

"Oh come on," the Shadow Shirou goaded. "You can't really think that you're anything other than a failure, can you? You can't save anyone! I mean, look at us! Rin had no idea how right she was when she called us distorted! Just admit it already! We can never be a hero!"

"I will never admit that!" Shirou growled out angrily.

"Archer was a damn sight better than we could ever be, and even then his ideals broke him!" Shadow Shirou pointed out. "No matter which way you look at it, we're going to fail! So why try in the first place?"

"How can you look like me, and still speak such nonsense!?" Shirou shouted. "The people I save is all the justification I need! I will be wherever I am needed, to save others!"

"Yeah?" Shadow Shirou said with a sneer. "And just who would that be? 'Cause I can't really remember much of that whole 'saving' business that we didn't screw up. Issei? Dead before we could stop Caster. Ilya? She died to save us. Shinji? Never stood a chance against Gilgamesh, did he? And how about Archer? He covered your *ss while you ran away, and he got the axe for it! And Saber! Don't get me started Saber! We could write a book about that! But oh, what about Sakura? Oh yeah, we can never forget about her, now can we?! Face it! You're not a hero! Like everything in this world, you're just an imitation! C'mon, tell me how much of a hero do you feel like!?"

"... shut up," Shirou whispered

Shadow Shirou paused in his taunts in order to glare balefully at its mundane counterpart.

"What was that?" he asked snidely, and snickered. "I couldn't hear you over the sound of you failing at everything you've ever done!"

"... I said shut up!" Shirou roared furiously. "Shut your lying mouth!"

"It's only a lie if it isn't true!" the shadow hissed. "Admit it! Admit that you've thought about it! Admit that you know it! Admit that I am a part of you!"

"Never!"

The shadow's mouth opened with a smile that should have been impossibly wide. Its teeth seemed too for its mouth, too sharp… like needles.

Or knives.

Shirou clutched his head and fell to his knees, groaning with pain.

"Oh shit," Yosuke muttered. "This can't be good."

Cuts appeared along the shadow's face, blood dripping down unheeded. It's golden eyes burned brightly even as they were blinded by oozing redness.

"I am a shadow..." the shadow said calmly. "The true self..."

It reached up to its face and, as if it were nothing more than a mask, ripped its own face off. The teenagers that had come to rescue Shirou gasped or, in Chie's case, shrieked with fear at the sight. But instead of muscle and bone, there was only gleaming metal. Rows upon rows of perfectly serrated edges, like the metal plumage some kind of demonic bird.

Only Shirou was unaffected by the act. He had watched it with cool detachment even as his dark counterpart showered his face with its blood. This was nothing new to him. This was not unfamiliar.

"And my body is made out of blades!" the bladed monstrosity screamed.

*POV SWITCH*

I watched the not-me as it bled copiously from wounds that were slowly spreading all across its body, and wondered briefly if that was what I looked like when I expressed this world inside of me.

My silent musing is interrupted as a pale-faced young man moves in front of me, no doubt trying to protect me from this... monster.

"Hey! You!" I shout at the young man, trying to gain his attention. "Stay back. This is going to be dangerous."

"Emiya-sempai, you have to let us deal with this or it will just attack you!" he tries to order me instead.

"Attack me?" I repeated, somewhat amused by the notion. "So what if it does? This thing might think it is a part of me, but even if that's true... then it still isn't the important part."

I raise my hands as if to embrace someone, and above us the enormous cogs turn. Their movement is like a deafening thunderclap that does not stop, reverberating and echoing inside my chest. It caused the ground to tremble, small pebbles to skitter across the ground, and every sword in that desolate plain to sing with a metallic keening.

It was strange to be back here. Stranger still for it to so readily bend to my will without the usual agony that being here entailed. But that didn't matter. This was home, more of a home than Fuyuki could ever be. And I was glad to be back.

It had been too long.

My mind burns with recollection of this world, and despite myself I find myself smiling.

"Allow me to introduce the rest of me."

And as the unnatural sky churned and the earth rumbled, it began to rain swords all around us.

*POV SHIFT*

Shirou's shadow screamed in agony as it was struck again and again by hundreds of blades, but even if it was being hurt, the sounds of metal piercing flesh lasted only for a brief moment before the air was filled with the sound of ringing steel. Swords were deflected away, landing forlornly on the ground with loud clangs before vanishing. Again and again, swords upon swords struck and proved themselves to be lesser than the sword they sought to destroy. They broke upon its armoured skin

Eventually, as with all rains, it dried up. The swords stopped coming, but the shadow still remained, none the worse for wear. It looked even more intimidating, in fact. And more importantly, it looked pissed.

"Even here, your swords are just as broken as you are," the Shadow Shirou mocked, and swords that looked more like spines erupted from its back with violent spurts of blood. "You did not truly think this would be so easy?"

Yuu Narukami would happily admit that he hadn't the slightest idea of how the midnight channel worked, but even so he was pretty sure that as weird as it could be it shouldn't be possible to make the freaky sky-cogs turn, make the ground quake and then have swords fall out of the sky. It defied belief, but it had still happened.

"... I really thought it would be," Emiya said with a quiet sigh. And then he crumbled to the ground, obviously fatigued by... whatever it was that he had done.

"And that is why you fail," the shadow droned, and brushed off some of the last of its ruined flesh away, leaving only blood-smeared metal."It is not enough to be only a sword. Such singular devotion can only result in failure. It blinds you!"

"Hey!" Chie shouted, and struck a battle-stance. "Just who do you think you are, talkin' to people like that!"

"Y-yeah!" Yosuke chimed in, and twirled his daggers. "You can't just say whatever you like!"

"Don't worry, Emiya-sempai," Yukiko said with sudden determination, and unfolded her fan. "We'll protect you."

"You too live the ideal of saving others?" Shadow Shirou asked, and then smashed the ground with its bladed fingers. "Very well! Then you too shall be destroyed!"

It turned to face them fully, already snarling hatefully at them. Yuu wondered for a moment just why someone who was - according to Yosuke - a pretty stand-up and nice guy, would have something like it inside of them.

But that was a mystery for another day.

One mystery at a time, and the one he was most interested in at the moment was this: how to kill it as quickly as possible.

*POV SHIFT! LAST TIME, I SWEAR!*

I watch the four of them fight, silent amazement plain upon my face. I had seen ancient heroes fight and destroy eachother, but it was a strange sight to see high-schoolers years my junior perform feats of magic that would have made even a prodigy like Rin green with envy. Effortless materialization of elements? Yes. Perfect expression of material weapons? That too. Fighting on even grounds against a demonic materialization of my own psyche that was empowered by my own latent reality marble? Yup, they managed well enough.

Summoning deities to do battle?! Yeah, they had that down pat.

It seemed impossible to me for such things to happen, and yet they were. Yuu in particular seemed to be managing quite a few, as I had already caught him using three so far. As absurd as the notion seemed, somehow he had roped several deities to abide by his commands, healing and protecting his comrades or raging down terrible magics upon the dark reflection of myself.

They beat the not-me like a red-headed step-child, freezing and blasting it with lightning when not raining titanic blows upon it. Soon enough the creature-

I paused, and suddenly realized what I had just called it moments ago inside the confines of my own mind. A dark reflection.

It felt as if a burning coal had just been pushed onto my last nerve, and what little resistance to the notion was gone.

That... thing, that wretched beast really was a part of me.

And with that realization, the beast seemed to lose its power. The blades that made up its skin shattered, revealing yet another Emiya Shirou beneath them. (Though I noted with mild curiosity that he was slightly smaller than I.)

"Heh," I laughed, and allowed myself to fall fully to the ground. I suddenly felt every lost battle inside of me, gnawing at my resolve. "Saved again. By kids, no less."

I didn't know what had come over me. I felt raw, as if every nerve in my body were exposed. As if the top of my skull had been removed, exposing the grey matter within. As if the smallest mistake would tear me asunder.

Despite this, I force my feeble legs to stand.

I look down at the not-me, breathing shallow, ragged breaths as it glares balefully at me.

"Listen: you're me," I inform the shallow imitation of myself. "But I am not you! I haven't given up yet, and I never will!"

"Heh. You're not a superhero," the not-me whispered weakly, and grinned manically. "Just a fake hero. A hollow copy..."

- A faker! – a distant but familiar voice taunts me.

Wry bitterness wells up inside me.

How long could I deny it, when fate seemed fixated on reminding me.

One last time, at least.

"And who says a copy cannot surpass the original?" I ask, and smile.

The not-me stares blankly, and then it too smiles.

"Close enough," it muttered.

And then it flares with blinding light, transforming into-

Into...

No. That was impossible.

It couldn't be.

But it was. It really was...

The spectre of the past, with radiant armour and golden hair. Shining green eyes and soft, pale skin...

And a shining blade of such perfection that it made me want to cry just to look at it.

She looks down upon me, just as beautiful as the first time I saw her, and merely nods in acknowledgement.

And then she is gone once more. But I feel a familiar presence inside me, and it fills me with quiet joy. A weight I had not even been aware had settled on me is suddenly lifted from my shoulders, and without knowing it a real smile appeared on my lips.

Even if it was only a seeming, it felt good to have her back at my side.

Better than I had ever thought possible, in fact.

I felt hands on my shoulders lifting me, and was glad for their support.

Time moved, but I was too distracted by the warm feeling inside of me to take heed of it. I knew the feeling would pass, and I wanted to savour it for as long as I could. This... completeness. I didn't want to give it up.

Tomorrow I would thank Yuu and his friends, and then I would take a second step towards my dream. My first had failed miserably, but I liked to imagine that I had learned from my mistakes. I would not be so easily broken, now.

Tomorrow, I would help them with whatever it was they were doing. I would be an ally of truth first and then, maybe, justice.

I might even become a real hero along the way.