A/N: I really wanna show how much of a badass Shiro is, but he's so easy to pick on…!
...
FATE/Holy Grail War of 2814
by Shadow Crystal Mage
Chapter 2: Wanna Hear How the Naruto Manga Ends?/ Dumbass/ The Priest is a Creepy Pervert!/ Atrocious Disguises/ Adopted and Half Peurto-Rican/ Cursed With Such A Master/ CREEPY PERVERT PRIEST FROM AN H-GAME!/ Unspeakably Indecent Adult Things? I Wish!/"One is a moron, the other's insane!"/ Oh, and Wolkenritter Will Attack Mahora
Disclaimer: I own none of the characters in this story. If I did… well, this would all be canon. WARNING: MAY CAUSE HEAD EXPLOSION!
...
It was a very tense moment around the Einzbern-Emiya table.
Rin and Luvia glared at each other from opposite sides, both sitting in Ikari Gendo entwined fingers poses that were completely ruined by the fact their teeth kept grinding. Their respective Servants stood behind them, wary and paranoid. Between them on one end of the table Shiro also sat, eyes darting nervously between the two girl and both heavily armed men. Saber stood behind him, ahoge held high, invisible sword before her, point down but ready. At Illya's insistence, the invisible tip was resting on a brick bought in from the garden to protect the wooden floor.
On the end opposite Shiro stood the lolis and Berserker. Kuro had changed into her red and black outfit, to Shiro's and Saber's intense discomfort. Lancer seemed mildly amused by it, while Archer glared at the girl. To be fair, this was because Kuro had been glaring right back at him, and he'd finally gotten tired of just standing there and taking it. The girl seemed to find his less Stripperific outfit a personal insult. Illya stood in the center, flanked by the other two, the tall, imposing figure of Berserker rising behind her. Miyu's face was blank, but anyone who knew the girl could tell she was nervous.
"Right," Illya said, one eyebrow twitching. "Let's try again. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE?-!-?-!"
"The Holy Grail war," Saber said, voice bland and professional.
"So you've said," Illya said. "And that means what, exactly? Should we be expecting Nazis and sexy archeologists?"
Somewhere, Yuuno, Tsubasa Lee, Carter Hall, Adam Strange and Yuuno's aunt Lara all sneezed.
Saber blinked. "What?"
"Movie reference," Archer said. "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade."
Rin, Luvia, Shiro and the lolis turned to stare at the Servant. "What?" he said.
"You've lost your memories, but that you remember?" Rin said.
"Yes, for some reason. I also know how the Naruto manga ends. Wanna hear?"
"Who ARE you?" Rin asked.
"Amnesia from your botched summoning, remember?" Archer said.
Luvia laughed. "How pathetic, Rin. You managed to give your Servant brain damage?"
Rin's eyebrow twitched, and her fingers formed a gun shape.
Luvia raised her hand in a 'mage gathering power to ruin your day' gesture.
Their Servants tensed. Shiro looked between all of them more frantically as Saber tightened her grip on her sword. Kuro got ready to Trace as Illy and Miyu tightened their grips on their Kaleidosticks.
Berserker cracked his knuckles. The sound seemed to echo in their bones, made their guts wiggle uncomfortably.
"We're playing nice, remember?" Illya reminded them all. "Isn't anyone going to be Miss Exposition and explain everything to us properly? Because I for one want to know who that girl is who's sticking so close to my oni-chan!" She pointed dramatically at Saber
"YEAH!" Kuro agreed.
Rin and Luvia also turned their attention to the girl, though it looked like no explanation would make them less pissed.
Saber raised her chin stiffly, proud and imperious. "I am the Servant Saber. I am my Master's weapon in the Holy Grail War. That is all that needs to be known."
Kuro considered this answer. "She sounds like she really needs to get laid."
Lancer snickered. Saber glared at him.
Illya glared at Rin. "All right, Rin, stop holding out on us. What do you know?"
"What makes you think I know anything?" Rin said, though her tone was self-satisfied.
"You're always giving out exposition," Illya said. "So spill, Exposition Girl."
Somewhere, Great Detective Akane-sama sneezed.
Rin tapped a finger on her cheek mysteriously. "Well… I suppose you can talk to the priest."
"Priest?" Shiro said.
"I'm feeling lazy," Rin said. "Besides, he might as well make himself useful…"
Luvia sniffed. "The man is a creepy pervert!"
"No argument there. Well, let's get going!" Rin said.
"Eh? Now?" Shiro said. "At this time of night? Won't this priest be in bed?"
"I wish," Rin said. "That'll give me an excuse to drag him out."
"Aren't we sort of noticeable?" Miyu asked. "I mean…" She made an expansive gesture.
"Not to worry!" Luvia declared. "I have just the thing…!"
...
"This," Saber declared, "Is absurd."
"Agreed," Lancer and Archer chorused, though the two glared at the latter slightly. For the moment, the need to kill each other seemed to have been subsumed in their deep connection over the agreement of how stupid this was.
Due to the innate hostility between Rin and Luvia, neither had been agreeable to letting their Servants shift to spirit form. Saber had staunchly refused to in the face of this, and while Berserker hadn't said a thing since he'd made his ultimatum, the fact he was still obviously there spoke volumes on his position on the matter.
Disguising them wasn't an option. They didn't have anything to cover up Archer and Lancer, never mind Berserker, and the only thing that would have fit Saber and her armor was a bright yellow raincoat and rain hat, which she pointed out made her look even more ridiculous and noticeable.
Luvia's 'just the thing' wasn't helping.
"Who would be fooled by these atrocious disguises?" Saber continued, fighting the urge to scratch off the hand-sized paper mask Luvia had taped on her face around her eyes. Shiro and Lancer wore similar 'disguises', cut from a handy cereal box whose contents would need to be eaten soon. Archer, damn him, had somehow acquired a black domino mask that hadn't need to be taped on, and actually made him look quite distinguished. Kuro had managed to do the same. Rin and Luvia were both wearing allegedly magical glasses they'd bought from an ermine. Illya and Miyu, in a burst of creative, just flipped their hair in front of their faces. It made them look like cousin It, but at least they weren't taped to anything.
"You'd be surprised," Illya said from where she rode piggy back on Berserker's shoulders. The large Servant had been surprisingly agreeable to that. Kuro and Miyu were siting on his shoulders next to Illya, seemingly enjoying the ride. "Green Lantern wears as much and no one can tell who she is."
Shiro frowned. "Illya, why do you say that about Green Lantern-chan? Have you met her? Exactly what's going on with you?"
Kuro reached over and flicked Illya upside the head. "Dumb ass!" she said, considering the mirror pain to her own head to be completely worth it.
Rin blinked in confusion. "Wait, Illya, are you saying Shiro doesn't know about your magic?"
"What? Magic?" Shiro exclaimed. "Illya has magic? Since when?"
"Well, he does now," Illya growled at Rin.
"Wait, if he doesn't know about your magic, how did you ever manage to explain Kuro to him?" Luvia asked, also confused.
"Mom told him she was adopted and half Puerto-Rican," Illya said. "I was kind of surprised it worked, but not much."
"And he didn't wonder about the fact she looked like a palette-swapped version of you?" Rin said incredulously.
"It's Shiro," Illya explained patiently.
"HEY!" Shiro protested.
"Well, can't argue with that…" Rina said, while Luvia nodded.
"Truly, my sins are unforgivable, to be cursed with such a Master," Saber said.
"HEY!"
"Suddenly, I'm feeling embarrassed about having to kill you," Lancer said.
"It does seem to be beneath us," Archer agreed.
"HEY!"
In the shadows, Berserker's blank mask seemed to smile.
...
Fuyuki city wasn't known for having costumed anythings, with the sole exception of the rarely-seen and mysterious magical girls who Batman knew from Superman to be Kaleidos Ruby, Sapphire, and 'Kuro'. Therefore, Batman thought it was quite noteworthy when he saw several people, two matching the descriptions of the said magical girls, another girl in a mask that completely hid her identity, two older girls whose faces for some reason seemed to be extremely plain and non-descript, a man dressed similarly to the masked girl, except he probably would be arrested for indecent exposure, and three others, two in strange armor and one in a school uniform who were wearing masks that looked like they'd been cut from a cereal box. A giant of a man that looked like a Todd Mcfarlane creation walked with them, carrying the three smaller girls on his shoulders.
"Oh-kay…" Batman said to himself. "That's something you don't want to see too often…"
He, of course, followed them at a safe distance. This eventually led them to a church on top of a hill. The girl in what could only accurately be called a 'battle dress', the two masked men and the dark-clad giant all waited outside while the two older girls, boy in the uniform, and the girl who was most probably Kaleido Ruby– she had a red stick after all– walked in.
He circled around cautiously, moving to the back of the church. He found a back door, unlocked it, and slipped it. The insides seemed plain enough, with no creepy props or old blood stains to cause alarm, but then again, the sort of weird business that made people like these come to churches after midnight might be the sort of thing he, as a conscientious citizen of the world, might have to deal with.
Managing to make his way to the area behind the where the mysterious people were meeting, he took out a hi-tech long distance listening device and listened.
There was exposition. There was a scream of, "AH! A CREEPY PERVERT PRIEST RIGHT OUT OF AN H-GAME!" followed by "Illya, how would you know about that!-?" There was more exposition. There was the priest acting really creepy. There was one of the most stupid moral dilemma discussions Batman had ever heard, and it didn't help that there were some good points. That actually made it worse.
As the immediate part of his mind made note of all this, a more philosophical part of Batman wondered why he always ended up running into weird situations like this when he was out of the country. There was no chance Clark's ridiculous 'vacation' theory had any weight, but… no, it was ridiculous, and that was it.
They were wrapping up. Neither the boy nor the young girl– she'd apparently transformed before entering the church– had refused to back out of this ridiculous 'war', making Batman wondering what exactly was going on with parenting these days. Really, what kind of parenting would make a little girl not want to turn around and run away from a situation like this as fast as possible, yelling for the police the whole way?
Somewhere, Green Lantern Takamachi Nanoha sneezed.
The boy was partially excusable, through barely. He obviously had serious issues, and didn't seem all that bright. Given what Batman had just heard about this 'Holy Grail War', that terrified him. It could be so easy for the boy to make so many stupid decisions that would make this already-shaping-up-to-be-bad situation even worse.
In the church, he heard the boy sneeze.
"Eh? Onii-chan, use a handkerchief for that! That's unhealthy!"
"Ah, sorry, Illya-chan! I must be coming down with a cold."
Figuring they were moving on to the inanities, Batman moved back to the rear entrance. Though this was likely an excellent time to challenge this 'priest'– and he didn't need to be religious to know there was something extremely fishy about this 'Kirei'. Come to think of it, when was the last time he went to church for something that wasn't a funeral, a case, or to intimidate some priest for info?– some instinct warned him it wasn't a good idea. The man had admitted he had been a Master during the last, supposedly disastrous war. It wasn't unreasonable to think he would have magical attack capabilities. He'd need to make some preparation. Besides, it would be easier to do some more independent research.
He stepped out the back and door froze, staring up at the dark-clad giant waiting there. Up close, the details of his armor– and it was armor– were quite disturbing, making his eyes hurt slightly. The behemoth stood there, armor now fading into, now outlined by the suddenly brighter-seeming darkness. It stared down at him, blank white eyes intent. Batman tensed.
It tilted its head, then suddenly raised one arm, the chain wrapped around it silent as it made a sweeping away gestured, an obvious dismissal. One finger rose up to the front of its horned helm, and one white eye seemed to flicker. Then it disappeared into the darkness, fading into it completely as if it had never been.
This, Batman considered, once he was properly done being paranoid and looking for footprints and getting himself to a safe distance and was just following them back to their homes, was probably some sort of bad sign of complications to come.
After they headed back home– by an extremely bizarre coincidence, all but one of the girls, the one in red, lived opposite each other, and she was just a few houses over– he slapped a couple of monitoring devices where he figured they wouldn't be seen, even accounting for the tendency of Japanese superheroes to stand on top of any tall, thin object they could get their feet on, like lampposts and telephone poles. Then he went back to putting the fear of HIM into the superstitious and cowardly criminal lot of the city…
...
Morning came. Bruce Wayne, having only gotten into bed a couple of hours before, found himself dreaming, also contrary to popular belief, about solving a complex time-travel mystery with Sherlock Holmes and the Grey Ghost, who for some reason sounded like his father.
Shiro had had a restless night alternately sleeping fitfully and staring at the blonde girl who had insisted on making camp right under his window, claiming she needed to protect him. This was complicated by the fact that his little sister and adopted sister had both insisted on 'chaperoning' and had crawled into his bed with him, leaving it rather crowded, since they'd both latched on to one of his arms and hadn't let go. It made it very hard to get a proper night's sleep. Thankfully, Berserker hadn't crawled into the room with them, disappearing instead into its spirit form. It was an awfully convenient ability to have. Pity Saber couldn't do it…
The door downstairs slammed open. "Shiro! Illya! Kuro! We're home!" Irisviel von Einzbern-Emiya cried into the otherwise silent house.
All three on the bed jerked upright, resulting in a three-head pileup that left bumps all around as Saber managed to make the transition from 'dead to the world' to 'ready to kick as and take names' in approximately the time it took them to do to hear the door slam.
"S-saber, no!" Shiro managed to say. "It's just our parents! Calm down."
Saber frowned at him, looking a bit troubled, but before she could say anything, there was an enthusiastic pounding up the stairs, and they heard a door slam open on their floor. "Illya-chan! Kuro-chan! Rise and shine my dears, mommy's ba– huh? Where did they go? SHIRO! DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOUR SISTERS ARE?"
Saber's head slowly turned to track the source of the voice. Her eyes were wide, as if in recognition.
There were a series of loud steps, and suddenly the door of Shiro's room flew open, banging against the wall, rebounding, hitting the open palm of the purple-clad woman who'd opened it and slamming back on the wall again. "Shiro-kun! Wakey-wakey! Do you know where your sisters are? Oh, there they are. Shiro, Illya, Kuro, the three of you haven't been going beyond the bounds of your brother-sisters relationship and doing unspeakably indecent adult things to each other, have you?"
"M-mother!" Illya cried in protest, arms waving frantically and smacking Shiro on the nose. "Don't say such lewd things!" Boy, I wish!
"Boy, do I wish," Kuro muttered under her breath, which Shiro conveniently failed to hear because, well, Illya had just hit him.
Saber stared at the woman, wide-eyed and slack jawed. Her invisible sword, which had appeared out of nowhere and technically still needed to actually appear clattered to the floor from her limp hands.
"Oh?" Iris said, turning at the sound. "Shiro-kun, you naughty boy, you had a girl over in your room for the night while your father and I were away! Naughty-naughty, Shiro-kun! Especially since your sisters are her– eh? Saber-chan? Is that you?"
"Irisviel…" Saber said softly, voice low and dramatic.
At least, that was the idea. She actually managed to get as far as "Irisvi–" before Iris suddenly squealed, leaping forward to glomp on to the surprised Saber and hitting her with the force of a small truck. "Saber-chan!" Iris squealed, making the glass creak ominously, the neighborhood dogs bark and causing Kuro to trace a pair of earplugs for herself. "It's YOU! I never thought I'd see you again! What are you doing sleeping in my son's room?"
"Y-your son?-!-?-!-?-!" Saber manged to sputter out.
Before Iris could reply, a voice outside the door said, "Iri-chan, could you please keep it down? You know that's not good for the dogs."
Saber froze, and Iris, surprised at the sudden change in mood of her old friend and Servant from long ago, hesitantly let her go. Her husband stepped through the door, took in the tableau and froze.
"Emiya Kiritsugu, PREPARE TO DIE!" Saber cried, grabbing her sword off the floor.
"Oh, crap," Kiritsugu managed to say before a Servant pissed off with his last order to her charged at him.
Day came.
...
"What are we going to do today, grandpa?" Shinji asked.
"The same thing we do every day, Shinji," Zouken said. "Cross as many moral event horizons as we can and take over the world!"
Shinji and Zouken,
They're Shinji and Zouken,
Yes Shinji and Zouken,
One is a moron, the other's insane!
Shinji and Zouken, Zouken, Zouken, Zouken, Zouken, Zouken, Zouken, Zouken, Zouken!
Sakura, proving she wasn't in any way possibly related to these two, snuck out of the house during their theme song.
Rider, knowing she wouldn't have time later after the two were done, washed and towel-dried her hair. When it trails to the floor like that, you have to be careful.
...
Somewhere, Wolkenritter were getting ready to attack Mahora, and a chef was moving around boxes full of bombs, gas and loli gynoids. But that's not really part of this story right now…
...
- To be continued...
...
A/N: And now, one of the sillier aspects of this world: Domino masks, no matter how small, WORK! Completely covering your face with your hair so you're practically Sadako, EPIC FAIL. Buckets on your head pretty much have the same effect…
Sailor Moon and Shiro are disturbing similar. Both are Determinators fuled by the Power of Truth, love and Justice, both are spontaneous Deus Ex Machina activators, winning with this most of the time, and both are dangerously brain-dead with occasional bouts of even more disturbing insight and intelligence. Granted, that's a gross exaggeration and flanderization, but still…!
So, Morganni, is that permission to use your name?
Please review, C&C welcome.
Until next time, this is Shadow, signing off.