Shirou glanced at his watch. It was still early - he had stopped off at the market on his way home from school, to pick up some supplies, since his kitchen wasn't stocked for so many guests. But now he had to rush to get back in time for their trip up to Ryuudou.
"Hello, Oni-san. I've been watching you." Shirou froze as he saw the little blond girl step up to him.
"Uhm… Hello, Illyasviel." She didn't appear to be threatening today, so Shirou decided to hear her out. And anyways, the street was almost empty. If she did attack, he was the only one at risk here.
"Oh, you can call me Illya." she smiled, "there is no reason to be so formal."
"You aren't going to attack me, are you?' Shirou asked as he carefully put the grocery bag on the ground and got ready to duck for cover.
"No, not right now." Illya picked up the bag, "Right now I want to get to know you. You're not what I was expecting." She led the way to a playground across the street. She put the groceries down on a bench and walked over to swing. "Come, give me a push."
Shirou complied.
"I really like the swings, but it's so much nicer when somebody else is pushing you. I haven't had anybody to push me since father went away."
"What happened to him?" Shirou asked, making conversation.
Illya swung quietly for several minutes, and Shirou began to suspect that he might have asked an inappropriate question. "I don't know. My... caretaker told me many things, but he was lying." She turned her head to smile at Shirou, "I had a rather sheltered upbringing, but don't assume that I am naive." she said it lightly, but there was something hollow in her eyes.
'Right. don't lie to Illya' Shirou nodded carefully. Not that he would anyways. Despite what had happened the other day, she seemed like a nice girl. Maybe she was like Rin, and hid behind a uber-professional facade. Except hers seemed delicate.
"Anyways, that is why I am in Japan, to learn about what happened to my father."
"Who was your father?" Shirou didn't know of any local magi, but he was always willing to help.
"Kiritsugu Emiya."
Shirou missed his next push, letting the swing catch him in the face.
Illya giggled, "You should be more careful, oni-san."
Shirou went back to pushing, "when did father go away?" He asked, stalling for time so that his brain could process what Illya had said.
"After the last Holy Grail war, he left me in that cold drafty castle, and never returned." her voice held a tone of bitterness and anger.
"I'm sorry." Shirou was quiet for a moment, "Is your castle hard to reach? Father was very sick after the war. He hid it well at first, but something had happened to him back then. I know he made several trips somewhere in the first year that I was living with him, but he always came back looking disappointed, and after that, he was too weak to travel." Shirou wasn't certain how much Illya knew about his relation to her father, but given the 'Oni-san', she must know some. And given how delicate she was, it really was safer to let her ask the questions.
Now it was Illya's turn to look pensive. "I think I would like to get to know more about those years."
"Great. You can come over for dinner. I just bought food for company."
"I did not say I want to meet your friends." Illya jumped off of the swing when it was at it's apex, landing with lady like precision. "I said I want to get to know you." She turned to face Shirou and gestured. Shirou slumped to the ground.
-FAR-FAR-
"Where is Shirou?" Caster asked as Rin walked into the Emiya residence.
"I don't know. I saw hiw as school let out, but he was gone by the time I had taken my shoes from my locker. He's not home yet?" Rin asked, puzzled. "I can scry for him."
"Archer!" Caster growled, "What did you do to Shirou?"
The white haired Servant materialized next to Rin. "I? I had nothing to do with whatever folly that idiot is involved in."
"Why are you always blaming my servant?" Rin demanded, "He's always acted like a gentleman around you and Shirou."
"See, I'm a gentleman" Archer bowed to Caster.
"No, you're an asshole," Corrected Rin, "but you ACT like a gentleman around company."
"Don't give me any of that smug shit!" Caster stepped right up to Archer so that she was in his personal space, "I know you, and I know you have it in for Shirou!"
"Have I told you that you look cute when you are angry?" Archer replied.
Caster's eyes got huge, and a spell began to form on her hands.
"Caster! Wait - we are allies here." Rin turned to her Servant, "Archer, did you have anything to do with Shirou's disappearance?"
"No. As far as I know, he went out to school, that is all." Archer sighed, "Fuyuki city is dangerous right now, and that idiot is too trusting to do an adequate job of protecting himself." Both women nodded in agreement.
"I'll start my scrying" Rin volunteered.
"You do that, but I expect I'll have found him before you finish. Your scrying spells are too slow." Caster sounded a touch competitive.
"Is that so?" Rin quirked an eyebrow. 'I'll show that old hag!'
Archer smirked, as Rin had unintentionally broadcast that thought, 'Oh, she's not so old. And she has a nice ass.'
Rin froze and slowly pivoted to glare at her servant, "Archer. Get your mind out of the gutter. We have work to do!"
Caster had already started her spell, but she still had a free moment to think, 'If that pervert starts causing trouble for Rin as well… His days are numbered.'
-FAR-FAR-
"He's at the von Einzbern estate. He was probably taken there by Saber and his master." Rin pronounced. Caster muttered something about etheral echoes and scrying interference.
"So what's the plan? Do we just go in through the front door and hope for the best?" asked Archer.
"No - it will be better if we sneak in, at least as much as we can. Once we are next to the bounded field covering the property, I will attune us to it, and then we can see how far we can get before we have to fight Saber."
"How long will the attunement take?" Rin had never heard of a spell like that. 'It must be one of the lost magics. If modern Magi knew how to cast something like that, it would make bounded fields obsolete.'
"It will take about an hour, but it has to be done from close proximity to the bounded field."
"That's fine - that will let us plan some tactics. Let's go." Archer volunteered.
The three reluctant allies set out for the mansion, Archer carrying Rin as he took giant leaps forward, and Caster skimming over the ground in level flight.
'Stop looking at her ass...sets!' Rin broadcast at Archer, 'Aren't you the one who's always going on about her being an enemy and all that'
'I can't help it - she's flying right in front of me. Also, sometimes you need to plan for the future, but other times you just have to live in the moment and appreciate what you have, because you never know when it will be gone.'
Rin glanced at her Servant, "Huh. that was surprisingly insightful"
"There!" Caster pointed to a small cottage. "Set down over there, and I will start attuning."
Fifteen minutes later, she was done with the chanting. "Ok, now we wait - there is no way to rush this part." They were inside the main room of the dwelling. "It takes some time for the Bounded field to get used to our prana signature."
Archer nodded, "Last time we fought Saber, you enchanted Shirou so that he was fast enough to deflect Saber's blows. Can you do that for me?"
Caster frowned, "You're a Servant of the bow."
"Yeah, but I'm pretty good with swords. I think I would have made a better Saber than Archer." He smiled disarmingly.
"It's a good idea. Go ahead and do it," added Rin. "in the meantime I will prepare a set of Prana infused gems." She pulled out a cloth bag and took out a half dozen gems. "I have stored several years worth of power in these. With a little effort, I can set them to release all of it in one explosive burst." She got to work.
Caster watched her for a moment before turning to follow Archer outside.
Archer stood looking across the forest at the barely visible roof of the von Einzbern mansion. Though it was shaped more like a castle than a house.
"Why are you being so helpful?" Caster demanded.
"Why not?" Archer paused, "Was the Archer that you summoned less helpful?"
"What?" Caster looked flummoxed.
"Oh, come on. Did you think I wouldn't be able to recognize you, Counter Guardian TOHSAKA?" Archer continued to stare off into the distance as Caster tried to compose herself.
"How? I don't look like her. She's still a child!"
"Yes, you do." Archer smirked, "Besides, you aren't the only one from the future."
"Apparently not the SAME future, though. I am not a Counter Guardian."
Archer turned to look at Caster finally. "Oh? You actually made Heroic Spirit? How on earth did that happen?"
Caster scowled at Archer, "It's because of Shirou. We didn't have long together before you, THAT you, murdered him, but those few days were some of the most significant, most formative of my life. His idealism, his drive to make the world a better place changed me. They cracked open the shell I had created around myself, and made me a better person."
"Ah, and unrealistic idealism always translates into being a hero." snarked Archer.
"Would you just shut up?" Caster sighed, "I became an apprentice of Zeltrech. Everything was going great, I was learning so much from him, and then one of his little experiments royally fucked up. Zeltrech managed to tear apart the boundaries between our reality and a neighboring universe. But it wasn't a universe that was remotely similar to ours. Soon, portals to the other world started to open up, and chthonic horrors began to leak through. And Zeltrech, that asshole, just shrugged and said he was going to move to the universe next door."
Caster was speaking with barely repressed anger, "But I wasn't going to put up with that... that. I wasn't just going shrug and walk off. Sometimes, you need to take a stand, to fight for what matters." Caster paused, before continuing. She was looking out over the forest, but she was seeing something from her memory, "I was everywhere, at every portal. I drove those things back from the largest gaps and reduced the infestation to manageable levels. And after that, I reached out to the very fabric of the universe and sealed the rip in time-space" Caster took a deep breath. "That must have been when I died, because I can't remember anything after that."
Archer nodded, and the two stood together, staring off into the distance. Looking at the passion in TOHSAKA as she spoke was… Moving? Awe-inspiring? He wasn't certain. 'This sense of redemption must be what Kiritsugu felt when he rescued me from the fire.'
"And that's why I can't let you kill Shirou - he's naive and over idealistic, but he is also right: You need to have ideals that you are fighting for, or you're not really alive. You're just going through the motions."
"And when he dies in his pointless crusade, don't you think the people that look up to him will be disillusioned?"
Caster have Archer a puzzled look. "No. I never said I completely agreed with that idiot. And I don't think any of the other people whose lives he touches will either, because you're right, he IS a fool. But he is also right. And he inspires people to be better, even if his own personal quest is doomed to failure." Caster shrugged, "And who knows, maybe this Rin will be able to pound some sense into his head. But that all depends on you not being an asshole & stabbing him in the back."
Archer nodded again, lost in thought, "In your War, did Shirou summon Caster?"
"No, he was the master of Saber." Caster replied. It felt remarkably good to finally talk to somebody about all the secrets she had been keeping inside, and Archer was a surprisingly good listener. Unlike Zeltrech, he actually payed attention to what she said.
"Hmm, so that means you came from a very different reality than the one you are in now. A reality with different Servants and a different future. So why do you think that I am the same as the Archer that you knew?"
Caster paused, surprised yet again. Apparently she had not thought this through as well as she thought she had.,
"True, I think Shirou is an idiot, but that is because he is one. I have no need to kill him." Archer concluded.
Caster considered that, "Why do you think the other Archer killed Shirou?"
Archer stood silently for a while, "Personal reasons, which are now irrelevant." he turned to look at Caster, "And maybe they always were." He smiled down at Caster.
TOHSAKA was surprised at how close Archer was standing. They were still standing like that when Rin walked out, "Ok, I'm done. How much longer before the attunement is finished?"
Caster almost leaped away from Archer, blushing furiously "ahm, we should give it a few more minutes, to be on the safe side.." She cast a furtive glance at Archer before walking to the other side of the house.
Rin rolled her eyes, muttering "She's such a Tsundere".
-FAR-FAR-
"Where do we start? This place is huge?" Rin said as the three rescuers stepped through the wall into the mansion (Courtesy of a shimmering blue portal made by Caster).
Archer eyed the giant foyer, with its grand staircase leading up, and a balcony running all around the periphery. And the whole place was covered with filigree and decorative carvings. It looked like a piece of the Versailles, or some other European castle that had been transplanted into Japan. "Knowing Illya, they're upstairs."
Rin quirked an eyebrow at Archer's slip of the tongue. "Ok, then lets go."
Rin was almost to the stairs when the blond girl in question stepped out from behind a statue on the balcony overlooking the foyer. "Did you really think you could sneak into MY home without me knowing? You might be Servant Caster, but I am a von Einzbern." She turned to aside to a spot of empty air. "Saber, kill them."
The air shimmered and was no longer empty, as Hercules materialized, "As you command." He leaped forward, sword whipping back to cleave the three intruders in one blow.
"Caster, NOW!" Archer yelled as he leaped to intercept.
Caster released her most potent reinforcement on Archer. But unlike the the sort of spells that Archer used, which increased his strength and speed to the limits that his body could tolerate, Caster's enchantment let Archer move without crossing the intervening space.
As Archer blocked Saber's attack and countered with his own strike, his swords appeared to teleport from place to place. And as Archer increased his own personal reinforcement, the swords appeared to be in two, sometimes three places at once.
Saber blocked all the attacks. "You are fast, little man. I am impressed. And your courage in the face of your impending doom is truly worthy of a Hero." Hercules's strike powered through Archer's defense, forcing the smaller man to throw himself out of the way. Saber was far stronger than Archer (Or any other Servant. Ever), and his speed was blinding.
'Uh. How can a side of beef so large move so fast?' Archer got back on guard as Saber cautiously moved in, "Caster, Rin capture Illya. She can tell us where Shirou is."
Caster flew up, "No, Rin - go find Shirou - I can deal with one little girl."
As Rin ran up the stairs, the 'one little girl' jutted out her arms at Caster, and a whole flock of bird homunculi flew out of her sleeves. Caster gestured, and floating blue panels encircled her. The first few birds smashed into the panels and ceased to exist, but the others stopped and darted around, trying to circle past the portals to nowhere. As they did, they seemed to become disoriented, flying in circles. Several actually got so turned around that they began to attack Illya. "Tell me where Shirou is, and I will let you live"
"LET me live?" Illya asked, incredulous, "when Saber is mere moments away from turning your precious ally into a thin red-coated smear? I think not!" She followed up the trash talk with a blast of lightning from her remaining homunculi.
The lightning all swerved, as if the space between the birds and Caster had been twisted into a pretzel. Illya had to jump aside as several blasts struck where she had been standing moments ago.
"You don't understand, little girl. I am servant Caster. Even when I was alive, my skills far surpassed those of any other modern magus, and now with the raw power of a Servant, there is no way you can be a match for me." Caster taunted.
"Oh, please. Leysritt!" As Illya called out the name, her maid leaped down from the top of support column, swinging a halberd at Caster.
Caster just had a moment to wonder what on earth she had been doing up there as she redirected the blue portal to block the attacking maid.
-FAR-FAR-
"Shirou!" Rin burst into a bedroom, as the red headed teen staggered groggily out of the bed.
"Wha..? Oh, Rin. " Shirou tried to get his bearings, but his head refused to stop swimming.
"Shirou, didn't anybody ever tell you not to go places with strange girls? Come on" Rin grabbed his arm and led him out of the room. "I dispelled the ensorcelment on you, but it will take a few more minutes to fade completely." Even in this rather tense moment, Rin couldn't help but notice how well muscled Shirou's arm was under her hand.
-FAR-FAR-
Archer leaped aside from Saber's attack, darted behind him, and lashed out with four simultaneous blows at Hercules unprotected back.
Saber blocked all but one, and that one only left a thin scratch on his side, despite having enough force behind it to cleave a tree.
"I am the bone of my sword" Archer Traced Caliburn and smashed it down on Hercules' arm, leaving a gash. It healed instantly as the larger hero punched Archer with the pommel of his sword, creating space between them.
As Saber drew his sword back, Archer continued his Aria " Steel is my body and fire is my blood," He ducked under Saber's sword, " I have created over a thousand blades," He blocked an attack with Durandal, "Unknown to Death, Nor known to Life," His counter attack missed, "Have withstood pain to create many weapons," Saber leaped in for a powerful smash, forcing Archer to call forth Rho Aias, " I have no regrets. This is the only path, " Archer paused and took up a ready stance. Saber narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "So as I pray, Unlimited Blade Works."
The world flared red, and changed to a sword studded plain. As Saber shifted to a defensive guard, Archer leaped forward, stabbing Saber from the front with Durandal, in the back with Kusanagi, chopping a leg with Caliburn, stabbing with Gae Bolg, throwing Kanshou and Bakuya and more, all simultaneously.
-FAR-FAR-
"This way!" Rin led Shirou down the corridor, back the way she had come, 'this place is huge! why on earth would any person need this much space?' The waste offended her sensibilities. Of course, her own mansion was also far too big for a single person, but never let it be said that Tohsaka was impartial. Her school idol persona wasn't ALL fake.
"Uhm, Rin, I'm fine now. You can let go."Shirou gently pulled his arm out of Rin's grasp as they approached the stairs.
-FAR-FAR-
Illya staggered as reality around her warped. The balcony was now a maze of distortions, portals and pocket dimensions.
At the same time, Leysritt tried to close with Caster, but each time she took a step towards the Servant of the Spell, she found herself further away. She dodged around a blue portal and finally got a clear shot at Caster's back. But as she swung her halberd, it somehow got tangled with the suite of armor standing across the balcony. As she stumbled, trying to avoid falling down, she staggered into Illya, knocking her down. "I'm sorry, Illyasviel-sama!"
Caster smirked as the two tried to straighten themselves out. "And that is what happens when you challenge a Servant." She raised her hand to strike the pair down with a blast of lightning when she felt a sharp pain in her side.
Shirou and Rin had just reached the balcony overlooking the foyer when they saw a hooded and cloaked women slam a dagger into Caster's back. As Caster collapsed at her feet, a faint smile could be seen on the woman's face.
