KINGDOM OF SPAIN - Empurdiabrava, Catalonia. July 8 - 2:38 Hours.

They had been spending time in Empurdiabrava together when the news came. Every single thing they mentioned had chilled their blood deeply.

Thankfully, Mani and Sol were veterans in this regard. Manuel had gotten the car revved up almost instantly... never mind he was faster than the car could ever hope to be... running everywhere was tedious and undignified. Marisol was the kind who didn't mind, but he didn't like to let her charge headfirst into this sort of deal. It wasn't his way.

So after driving at nearly 250 KM/h for an hour or so, they reached Madrid in record time. When the Directory learned of the information they received, they wasted no time in making the information reach its intended recipients.

For one, the Lord Sovereign of the British Royal Arsenal had requested an extraction for all Cruciators. It seemed the Association would soon make their move after finding out the fate of the Sea of Estray branch and the fact Atlas had gone silent a month before. At least in the last case, it had not been their fault. Melqart... or Baal's shade, as they referred to, had awakened and he found the Mediterranean's fate was mostly acceptable, which meant the 'Dynamic Duo' that had delivered the message in the first place wouldn't have to cut short their escapade to strip a fake god of his powers.

The second one was that said deity was now making its way to London and given the fact they had handed out Divergent's Day heirlooms, there was a very high chance the world would soon have a new god-slayer among their ranks and the responsibility might even fall to Trastamara.

The third was that according to Ms Cameron, the younger brother of one of the Overbosses might be in London... and he might be a part of the Association.

Now that had been a major issue for them. This kind of news was never good at all.

So now Trastamara had to deploy a Sovereign to London on a recon mission. The idea was to run as many threads into what the hell was going on as possible. Afterwards, all it would take would be for the Knightscorp to contact the heads of Royal Arsenal and ready for the evacuation of British Cruciators off the Isles.

Easy plan this wasn't.

Faro de La Moncloa, Madrid, Kingdom of Spain.

The Directory's reunion had been convened around 2 in the morning. Worst of all, it had been on a non hectic weekday —a Tuesday to be precise— so every member of the 17 strong council had been sleeping, getting wasted (in what would be a legal flouting, at least for some, of drinking age laws) or doing something peaceful (nobody was, thankfully, in the middle of 'National Service' as the Knightscorp referred to). Naturally, a dimly lit meeting room full of grumpy young adults with enough power to turn Earth to breadcrumbs was the kind of thing even the Guardia Civil had realized was not a good thing, so they had only mumbled something about following orders and escorted the Limo out of the Palace and into the Directory's main meeting hall. The Cruciator's personal army could take care of things from there.

It did not mean there weren't plenty of not-so-happy faces everywhere.

"Why were we woken up this early?!" a 16 year old boy yelled. I was dreaming of Shakira!

"Next time I am woken up, someone's head's going to end on a pike. First warning!" a 17 year old blonde girl responded furiously.

"Sorry for interrupting your beauty sleep, princess!" a second, redheaded girl with a bob cut exclaimed even more brashly, starting a heated verbal exchange with the blonde opposite her.

Soon, the room erupted into chaos as eight boys and eight girls started bickering against each other. Some summoned their weapons to their sides anticipating a fight, swords, scythes and polearms manifesting from thin air... until at last a voice seemed to cut through the argument.

"TIMEOUT!" the voice of an auburn haired sixteen year old voice roared, cutting through the loud yelling in the room and prompting everyone to go silent. His blue-flame eyes seemed to glare in every direction, and soon everyone was seating back down. For his part, the boy in question was just happy the staff that prepared the room beforehand had opted not to turn the lights on. The last thing they needed was bright lightning to irritate them more.

With the infighting over, the boy took a seat as well, lifting his Surface up and looking over at the briefing from the Quintos that had only arrived. "So... I take it not many of you were briefed beforehand on why we're here, especially now..."

Murmurs spread far and wide among the other sixteen as they took a look at their tablets. Some frowned, others mumbled something to themselves and a few let their mouths drop open as they stared aghast at the briefing. One reaction, however, stood out in particular.

To the boy's right, a tall redhead with an Amazonian build and cerulean eyes hugged the tablet to her ample chest, tears streaming silently over her cheeks as she took in deep breaths through her nose "He's alive..." she whispered to herself —though given everyone's senses, not a word was lost to everyone else— "He really is alive... I..." she trailed off before looking to her left at the boy sitting next to her.

"Your Eminence! I ask for permission to deploy to Britain immediately!" she requested, standing up and making a salutatory gesture. The auburn haired sixteen year old, however, couldn't help but feel his heart skip a few beats.

"Queen..."

"Amaranth please! It's my brother we're talking about!"

"How can you be so sure?" the younger boy asked, crossing his arms as he stared up at her "We barely received information and the report is yet to be detailed... and you want to cross the Bay of Biscay in the dead of the night to go do what exactly?"

"I am retrieving him of course!" the redhead said enthusiastically "I just need to comb London. I could check every nook and cranny of the central city by sunrise tomorrow if I-"

"No. I could comb the whole city in around an hour or so if I really tried." the young boy interrupted "You could comb half the city by noon and very likely miss a few hints along the way. Don't try to argue with me because I am the resident Speedster Queen. Besides, are you really planning to fast travel to London like, in the middle of a magical Cuban Missile Crisis?"

For her part, Queen tried to come up with an argument that would allow her to do just that, but she knew she was jumping the gun. If the paper spoke of her brother, odds are he would be there for more than just a day. She'd have the whole week at least. She just needed to calm down. Her time would come. She would be able to rescue her baby brother... Just be a little bit patient...

Sighing, she plopped down on her chair, the long-sleeved white rashguard she wore as a pajama making her slumped figure look almost marble-like under the bluish, Tron: Legacy-esque lightning of the room. Happy to have addressed his girlfriend's plight (and convinced they would get to London by tomorrow afternoon if he could have his way), he turned to the rest of the Directory, who seemed to be doing all sorts of things from playing Metroid on a Nintendo Switch to Skyping their parents; Vivian —an 18 year old cheeky blonde guy who sat at the back end of the meeting table—, even seemed to have taken the interlude to run to the nearest Dunkin Donuts store and grab a takeout box before returning.

Amaranth glared at him with his head tilted. The older teen only looked innocently at the one helming the table before shrugging, then going back to devouring a chocolate filled donut.

"Right..." Amaranth commented, with everybody suddenly snapping back to attention "...that leaves the problem of directives 02 and 01... Specifically, the rise of a new God Slayer in London."

At this, the blonde girl who had been bickering with one of the girls before perked up and turned her head away from her phone to address everyone "Well, I might just have an answer to that, if you don't mind me going for a friend..."

"No shit Sherlock!" another blonde —this one sitting to the left of Amaranth— interrupted her "I know what you're talking about. We're not going to involve the idiot in all this!"

"Oh, c'mon Selene. You know Doni has more than what it takes to bring him down! We already know Alex Gascoigne is out of the country for now, so he won't be reaching on time for the awakening."

"I'd rather have Chelsea deal with it then..."

Amaranth coughed, trying to cut himself into the conversation.

"Selene, Amber's right. If we do not want another Campione running around, we're gonna have to rely on the only one we can summon at will. I do not fancy Chelsea's chances given what she's had to deal with these days. A very tired King Arthur is not going to have the panache for god-slaying shenanigans and Queen is going to be busy finding out what Clock Tower is up to and where her brother is. As for me, I have to run to the West Country to take care of some businesses."

"Wait!" a man with jet black hair and an impeccable Gakuran shouted from the midway across the table "Nobody said it had to be just you and your girlfriend plus someone else. Why not let more come?" he said before hearing the girl seating next to him —one with long black hair and blunt bangs— snort in amusement. "Well, pardon my concern Felicity."

"Yeah, Gino... we all know you just want to charge in to test your new toy..." she trailed off, smirking mischievously "'Sides, you only just got back from your 'I am my Past Self' phase! You aren't in any shape to go god-slaying."

"Well, you'd better know I left Patricia and Evan back in hell." Gino retorted, looking down on the table for a second. Amaranth sighted. This was getting out of hand.

"Sorry. I hate to interrupt your thoughts about your time as 'Cao Cao the mightiest hero' Gino, but we have to take into account that if more forces than necessary appear, we might have a firefight between our forces, what's left of the Mages' Association and the Witenagemot, with only the Ministry to call upon. After what happened a year and a half ago, I am not keen on relying on the British Ministry of Magic at all." He finished, with a new hand —this one from a silver haired boy with a long ponytail sitting opposite Gino— being raised to enter the roundtable.

"Yes Sydney?" the leader of the conversation asked.

"Is this why you're going to the West Country?" he started "Do you want to talk to him? To be honest, I don't think it's a good idea."

"Well, sleep nicely tonight since you'll do so aware of the fact that I am not going to talk to Mr Chosen One. I am going to look for ex-General Graham and learn everything he has to tell me about why he defected us and what the hell it is he knows about my cousin." Amaranth fired back, looking at Queen with a pained expression of sympathy "There are more people than just Queen here who've lost family."

At this, the rest of the room went silent before Amaranth sighed one last time, undocking the tablet from the table as he stood up.

"I will arrange a transport for tomorrow early in the morning. If we need help at some point, we will request assistance through Downing Street. I'd rather involve the government than the Ministry or the Arsenal. Alright? Fine. Session adjourned."

With those words, Amaranth proceeded right to the exit door, with Queen following right behind him as the rest of the teens started to stand up, undock their tablets and march in line behind their leader and hopefully back to the comfort of their suites.

For his part, Shirou wasn't having a pleasant dream.

He could see the same hell he had seen on that fateful night. The bodies screaming loudly as they burned in a searing hell. However, he stood up, suddenly aware of who he was.

He was no longer the boy that had been alive that fateful night. Instead, he was himself. The raging fire could no longer scar his mind or scare him as easily as his younger self. For that, he was thankful. Sadly, the fire would still consume the lives of thousands... and if that wasn't enough, he couldn't move.

That was, in and on itself, a nightmare —unable to save those who needed his help when he was perfectly capable of—, but it wasn't what surprised him about the dream. He'd have dreams related to this night before, but none like the one he was having now.

In those dreams, it had always been people who had died, people he knew —Archer, Saber, Gilgamesh, Rin, Sakura, Kiritsugu... even another version of himself— and was close to or had been close to. However, this time, he saw someone he had been seeing quite a few times in recent weeks. Someone he thought he'd never see in this hellish wasteland.

The red headed girl with the diamond colored eyes.

She looked different from how she had in his other dreams though. She was taller —probably older— and her hair was much longer, tied into a long, braided fishtail slung over her back. She stood before the figure of none other than the man he had taken to loathing the most —Archer— and was, surprisingly, as tall as he was. They both glared at each other in the midst of the fire and the screaming —not once exchanging words— before Archer traced Kanshou and Bakuya, tossed them off and summoned his bow, tracing and firing —in one swift motion—, Caladbolg.

The action in and on itself shocked Shirou. Neither him nor Archer would engage an enemy with that much power straight off the bat. However, the thing that shocked Shirou most was not the action in and on itself... but what happened afterwards.

Time seemed to slow down to a crawl as Caladbolg headed towards the redhead... before she started walking towards Archer, who seemed to have been frozen in place as much as Shirou himself, and stretched her arm towards Caladbolg, her fingers caressing the sword's cylindrical shape before simply walking past it. Time then returned to normal... and Caladbolg went well past the former site of it's target setting off a conflagration somewhere in the scorching fields.

When Kanshou and Bakuya returned, she summoned a golden sword —simple in it's details and with a circular pommel, it stood out for one peculiar thing: it's round end— and casually swatted both to bits. She didn't just knock them off course. She literally tore them apart with a flick of the golden weapon she held.

It was then that Archer choose to make his move. He launched himself into the girl with the full ferocity of a Servant. Had he not seen her side-step Caladbolg when Archer attempted to dispatch her, he would've screamed at her to run. Instead, he watched with wide open eyes how the redhead and the white haired man clashed blades, with the girl not even seemed to be worked up by the Servant's strikes as she swiftly parried them with her sword, not even bothering using both hands.

Their dangerous dance kept getting more frenetic, however. Archer seemed to be getting more worked up as he lost three copies of the fabled Chinese Dao swords and after kicking the woman back a few meters, traced the sword that he had used against Gilgamesh.

He traced Caliburn.

However, before he could swing the sword in an arc towards the girl, the whole landscape was rocked by the echoing sound of a conflagration. The fires swarmed Archer, wreathing him in flames and causing the girl to hold an arm to her face to shield herself. When the flames were cleared, Shirou couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Where Archer had been, stood a humongous giant, not unlike Heracles, but with a body made of hundreds of blade ends. The outline of a vaguely human being could be seen given how the blades were arranged, but it was clear they were not enough to make the thing look human.

The battle became a blur after that.

However, Shirou could recall the ferocity of the beast as it charged the woman, the girl leaping around, parrying charges and sliding in between the amorphous biped's hulking frame... and even being restrained by Enkidu —the chains of heaven— summoned by the power of Archerman and how she could incredibly tear them open with ease. She was definitely not a goddess, but the strength of those links should've been hard to tear given their origin. Instead, the girl took what little chain she could find scattered on the ground and used it to lasso the abomination, managing to pull it into it's knees as it roared and trashed like a bull in a rodeo. The girl too, yelled in defiance, roaring back at the beast's shriek...

The young Emiya woke up dry, but suddenly feeling out of breath. His heart raced, his throat ached and most importantly; his eyes were glassy with tears.

Important: So yeah, we're going there. I decided to write this story and go through with everything because this question (Shirou's biological origin and family) since it needs to be answered. We should always attempt to write about things that have not been addressed and this is one of the most important issues that no one in the Nasu Community has attempted to address. So I have decided to instead. Hopefully, this doesn't engender irrational spite. Like well, the other stories I've written. If some people don't like the idea that Shirou might feel attachment to his past, the door has a big sign with the word exit on it and is illuminated in case of a power outage.

As a disclaimer, the Nasuverse characters belong to Type-Moon and all associated companies. MGLN to Tsuzuki Masaki. RWBY belongs to RT and it's current writers. Campione is the property of Go Taketsuki, Percy Jackson is the brainchild of Rick Riordan and Synchronicity is solely my property.