(((Chapter 9)))
"Take these, Master," Louise said, handing what looked like a piece of lady's handkerchief. It smelled faintly of something sweet and floral.
He gave her a bemused look. "What for? Is there something on my face?"
"Just bring it with you," the Servant said, winking, before ghosting out. Confused, Shirou slid the gift inside his pocket before stepping out of the carriage.
The first thing he quickly noticed was the thick black smoke obscuring the sky above. It was such an oppressive and dangerous-looking atmosphere, and quite so omnipresent that he wondered why he hadn't seen it spread all over the City. Far more than fog, a blanket of smog should have covered the whole place, from dawn to dusk, dusk to dawn.
He turned and thanked the invisible driver, when then he noticed the next thing.
It was a smell his mind could not recognize, and yet his nose recoiled from it instinctively. It shot up his nose and choked him, making his eyes water, causing him to cough and cough like his lungs were about to vomit themselves out; until he thought about the handkerchief and placed it against his face.
"Are you okay, Master?" Louise asked him, through the invisibility.
"N-n-aackk!" The smell was like crude oil, mixed with sulfur and dunked in raw sewage, before being treated with decomposing flesh. It took a few moments of him just breathing in Louise's gift, of finding serenity in the simple floral scent before he was able to answer.
"...I'm alright, but my god that was horrible." Slowly, cautiously, he took off the handkerchief from his nose, his sense of smell having attuned to the sudden stench by degrees. It wasn't as bad now, but of course it was still pretty foul. "Do it just like we planned," he muttered, looking up and down the street through watery eyes as their carriage pulled away. His coughing had attracted a few curious eyes, but aside from that the busy street seemed to ignore his presence.
As he'd noted, among the pedestrians there were plenty of fantastic shapes here, so much that it would seem like he was a gawking tourist if he stared at them all. It was a surreal, alien landscape, far more than any foreign city he'd been in. He wondered if they were even still humans at all, or if they were existences like Servants.
In any case, he had no business with them as yet. He threaded through the sidewalk and entered the crowd, having recognized the landmarks he needed to go to in order to locate his ultimate destination.
It took a few twists and turns, but he found his destination. There it was, the words "Shishigou Life Insurance and financial relief (we also sell junk)" in bold lettering on a grimy, faded board. At first glance, it seemed like the sort of disreputable establishment one's eyes slide over through sheer instinct. The window display was boarded up by shoddy, splintering wood, and the door looked greasy-looking and forbidding, with far too many pieces of paper and graffiti stuck on it than was appropriate.
Then again, Shirou was never one for first appearances. He strode on up to the store, and when he found no bell, rapped loudly on the door.
He hadn't realized he'd been banging on it pretty hard when the door suddenly opened, accompanied by the sound of someone inside shouting, "Okay, okay, I said to wait, didn't I, you doo-ow my head!"
His hand had slapped with something hard, and yet soft. When his eyes had adjusted to the situation, he only had a view of his hand on someone's forehead before he felt incoming danger and somersaulted backward.
He recovered quickly, his eyes on the threat, when he faltered. For a moment, he thought he was looking at Saber standing there on the threshold.
"Saber?" he blurted out. That was when he realized there were subtle differences: like the shape of her face, the eyes, and her hair. Then he further saw that the person looked pissed, its arm outstretched like it was punching somebody.
"Aye, what of it?" the person asked with a challenging voice, a voice supremely different from even the black Saber, and so the difference with his Saber was solidified. It wasn't his Saber, but it looked similar enough that his senses had been thrown off. "Got a problem? Making a challenge?"
For a moment, he held his breath, having entirely forgotten he was a Master, as if he were a normal human facing down a monster. And indeed this person felt like one, oozing a palpable threat that he could not readily ignore, even if it weren't wearing any armor, only clad in an oversized, yellowing white shirt. As if he had forgotten there was his Saber on standby, Shirou's body geared for battle, ready to fight to the teeth.
"Saber!" someone shouted from behind the person. "Don't just stand there, either let the customer in or shut the door before the godawful smell gets in!" The sudden shout seemed to break the spell. Shirou rose, as the Saber lookalike turned around to address the person behind.
"I dunno about this guy. I think he's a challenger, Master."
A loud guffaw. "What? And they just up and knock? Is it Emiya or something?"
The Servant looked over its shoulder at him, its eyes traveling up and down his body. "No, but he sure smells like his Servant. I've got a bad feeling." After he just stood there for a few moments, it beckoned. "Well, you heard Master, come on in, if you've got business, mister. Otherwise, fuck right off."
"Ahh... right. This... is Kairi Shishigou's shop, right?"
Another face appeared from behind the door, grizzled, scarred and tanned. It beamed. "Yes it is, come on in, dear customer, come in," he ushered Shirou inside, before slamming the door behind him. "Do forgive my Servant's manners, we're a bit low on resources at the moment, and tempers are easily frayed."
Shirou's eyes adjusted to the indoor sight, and he saw quite the jumbled mess. What was ostensibly a waiting room was littered with all sorts of short shelves, upon which were numerous strange objects. Each of these had a price tag attached, along with the word "Negotiable, just ask" on it. A big whiteboard on the right announced some sort of "special" on something called catalysts, asking the reader to stake their luck. A big table dominated the room towards the end, where many more esoterica lay on it, and on the shelves behind it.
Confirming the presence of Saber behind him, he greeted the man who'd let him in, "Yes, well, good morning. You are... Kairi Shishigou?"
The man chuckled as he settled in on the seat behind his table. "That I am, friend. Neighborhood friendly necromancer, at your service. And you're... I know you, don't I?" Shirou's heart stopped, his eyes quickly going to the Servant, who'd settled on some sort of lawn chair at the back of the room. "You're that Rin Tohsaka's Servant, aren't you? Her Archer?"
Shirou blinked. Oh right. "Yes... Yes, I suppose I am."
The man snapped his fingers. "I knew you looked familiar! Just a bit different, of course, but you've got the red scheme going on, and I recall you've got the same shape in the body..."
Shirou nodded, allowing the man to come to his own conclusions. That had been Rin's plan regarding his identity-should a magus really ask, then Shirou would answer that he was the new Servant. But if they didn't, then let them assume he was the old Servant. Rin wanted it to drive a "big fat wedge into that greasy-haired shit's eyes", whatever that meant, and Shirou played along, though he wasn't confident in his acting.
"I never got the opportunity to ask her this, but did her operation work?" Kairi asked.
"Operation?"
"Oh, well, of course I ain't expecting you to recall-but still, you look pretty good for someone who's supposed to have Madness Enhancement."
"Madness Enhancement?" was what Shirou was about to ask before Kairi's Servant beat him to it.
Kairi turned and addressed Saber. "Oh yeah, this was before I got the dough to summon you, Saber. A young Rin Tohsaka came in here a ways back, wanted to know where she could find the parts for a ritual she needed. She was a lot nicer back then, methinks, as she told me she needed it for a project: to place Madness Enhancement on her Servant."
"What's that then?"
Kairi looked from the Servant to him, then shrugged. "It's a skill, and one mostly seen on Berserkers. Like, how would you feel if some magus comes and says she's going to give out like, Magic Resistance, or the Riding Skill, to, like a Caster?"
The Servant crossed its arms. "I don't know, are you telling me to fight this Caster or something? Bah, whichever case it might be, I'm still gonna slaughter the poor babe."
The man smiled. "I always liked your moxie, Saber. Well, to you it mightn't matter, well, what if I told you I'd be sticking you with Madness Enhancement, and then you'd be all crazy and unable to think most days, requiring me to put a very expensive Command Seal just to put your rabid ass down? What do you think then?"
"I'd think I'd'woulda killed you before you let me sink to the level of a mindless Berserker," said Saber. "While also pointing out: you wouldn'a been stupid enough to even try'n bankrupt yourself like that." The Servant met his eyes, scrutinizing him as if it and Shirou had just met. "Oh, I see now. Poor thing, did that Master of yours really do that thing on ya? You don't seem crazy. Well, something like Madness whatever's not enough to put the screws on Mor-"
"Ah, enough, enough, don't antagonize the customer, Saber." The man looked at him shrewdly. "Particularly since I can smell death on him. Whatcha got there on you, Archer? A pint of dried blood? Someone's nose, boogers attached?"
Shirou gave him the slip of paper first. "I am on an errand for Master. She wanted some things..."
"Well let's see now... This and that-" he laughed and shook his head. "I don't have anything on this list. They're not exactly ones you can easily store. Even as a necromancer, I feel bad for admitting that. But there's a limit to my skills, and-well, it's just my advice as a professional: keeping them around for longer periods makes them lose their potency as ritual materials."
"Master wanted to know, then, where one might acquire the materials."
"Oh, she wants to get it herself? Now I'm sad." He rolled his wrist at Saber. "And here I thought she'd contract us for some wetwork... Now that'd really be nice for business."
"It sure feels like forever since our last contract," Saber said.
"Indeed it does, well, as to the first on her list..." Shirou spent the next few minutes writing down locations and facts of the creatures they needed to "hunt" in order to get what Rin wanted. They were supposed to be located at certain spots in the Labyrinth, and needed to be harvested, then used quickly for the ritual before its potency disappeared.
"You folks won't be having a veteran, highly-skilled necromancer with twenty-five years of experience on hand," Kairi said, pointedly indicating himself, "So I hope your Master's got some skills at extraction. It's not quite like gutting or boning a beast, but it's close. I'm sure she's got ritual knives that'll help purify any possible curse factors-otherwise she'll need to use some hardcore divination to purge them. Let's see... well, I guess that's all I can say for you, Archer."
"Thank you," Shirou said, pulling out and giving the man the bag of jewels. "You have been very helpful."
"'You have been very helpful'... Just listen to him. Tell me truly, Archer, did that Madness Enhancement really lobotomize you?"
"What do you mean?"
Kairi snickered, and made the jingling payment disappear through some sleight-of-hand. "Because I thought Rin Tohsaka was going to give me a piece of dead thing as payment, and yet the smell of death's still on ya. And since it is..." The man leaned over his makeshift desk and crossed his fingers over the top. "What else can this necromancer do for ya Archer?"
"You're quite a character," Shirou muttered, producing, then tossing him the severed hand. Kairi raised a brow, but said nothing of the notion of being casually thrown a piece of dead meat.
"Hum... traces of mana still left, clean cut through the bone and muscle..." Kairi took a sniff. "Traces of one, maybe two enhancements, severed from the rest of the network... Question, is the man dead?"
"I don't know," Shirou shrugged.
"Ah, so that's why there's still a whiff of the Malebolgian Mark. Moving on... there's remnants of pretty strong magic in here, which I would assume to be a Command Seal. With the Command Seal you could've given it to your Master, Archer, but it's interesting that you did not. I will assume that those things disappeared off somewhere. With those Command Seals, this thing would've been a lot more valuable. Without it, well..." Kairi made a face. "What is it, 40? 50? Whaddya think, Saber?"
"Why ask me, idiot?" the Servant said.
"Hmm... let's make the final price 45, then."
"45 of what?" Shirou asked.
"Bits," Kairi repeated, as if it were the most obvious thing to say, his brow raising slightly. "Quantum bits and pieces."
"Will it be enough to get me that piece?" Shirou asked, pointing to a dusty revolver he had seen on his first scan of the room.
"Oh, so you're interested in bartering? Well unfortunately, no, Archer, the hand wouldn't be enough." Kairi snorted and pointed to a box beside him. "You can buy this complete ceramic tea set though. It's cursed, but it'll do your Master good to serve it to enemies, or you could even kill your Master yourself."
"About how many 'bits' would it take for the gun?"
"I'll give it to ya for 900."
Shirou regarded the man with the forbidding face for a few moments. "How much would that hand get me-if it had a Command Seal."
"Buddy, for even one Command Seal, I'd give you the gun, go down on my knees to suck your cock, then give you credit for every piece of junk in this place."
"Aha!" cried the Servant. "You finally admitted it's junk!"
"Not now, please, Saber," Kairi said. He looked intensely at Shirou. "I freely admit to the business being so broke I need frigging Command Seals to stay afloat. But them's the breaks in this town, and with this I can barter entry to the Labyrinth, then find me more of them rare materials to sell."
That was weird; from what Rin said the man supposedly was swimming in wealth. "I see..." Shirou said. "Well, that's something to look forward to."
Kairi blinked for a few seconds before he slapped his hand on his head. "Aw, fuck me, was I just being taken on a ruse by a Servant? Shit, that was really good, Servant Archer. Really... classic and all. And here I thought something would happen, with the way you said, 'What if this thing had a Command Seal'-Hahaha, joke's on me. Fucking kill me now."
"I apologize if I gave off that impression," Shirou said. He wondered what the man would have done if he'd showed off his "thousand" Command Seals. Then again, if Shirou had known how to transplant the Seals to someone discreetly, he would've gladly taken Kairi Shishigou on his offer (obviously except the fellatio).
And so, Shirou had to settle for browsing the shelves for something he could use that was within the price range for the severed hand by itself. He bought a few ingredients, pieces of dead beasts he could use for some of his magecraft. He bought one of the cheap catalysts on "sale", wondering if he could barter it somewhere else. Then he rounded off the purchase with a few bullets to finish off the rest of his money.
"Whatcha buying bullets for, with no gun?" Kairi asked.
With a small smile, Shirou hid the bullets in his pocket. "Now that is a trade secret."
He bid farewell to Kairi Shishigou and his Servant, with a promise to return when he was able. The necromancer looked less than enthused now, a contrast to his initial attitude.
Once outside, Shirou walked for a few more streets before he said, "Saber."
"I am here, Shirou," she said, over the telepathic link Masters and Servants shared.
"How was it, Master?" Louise asked.
"I didn't get what Rin needed, but they pointed us in a direction." What was worrying him more than having to find the materials was something else that Kairi Shishigou had mentioned. But he shelved that thought for later. For now.
"Still, that child was interesting," Saber mused.
"'That child'?" he echoed. All he heard next was a disturbing sounding chuckle.
"Oh, it's nothing," Saber said quickly. It didn't sound convincing, particularly when Saber went back to chuckling right after. He had never heard his Artoria be so darkly amused like this, not even when she had been trying to teach him a lesson. What had she seen back there that had made her go on like this?
"...Almost a shame I never got to appear," she next said. "I would've loved to see the look on her face." When he wanted to know what she meant, he was met with absolute silence for the rest of the trip.
Rin made a long, lingering sigh. Her head sank back into the leather cushion of her seat.
"I almost didn't want to believe it, but that's really what he said?" she asked.
"Yep."
Rin looked again at the piece of paper on which he'd written the facts as Shishigou had stated. "These are a whole range of categories... which means we'd be trawling through hundreds of rooms before we're finished."
Shirou stroked his beard. "Well, we can always find a different solution to the problem."
After a moment, Rin shook her head. "No. No, we're going straight with the plan. I can't pass up this opportunity."
"Huh..." Shirou glanced at her Archer, who stood silently near the door. Now that he knew the Servant had been infused with something Shishigou had implied to be "unnatural", he suddenly had a lot of foreboding about what she had wanted him to get, when they'd finalized the plan that morning.
"Let's just give you Presence Concealment!", was what the young woman had said. "Well, it'll be a weak one since you're not an actual Servant. But it'll help you get to some type of 'astral form', as if you were!" The words had been accompanied with a voice and face filled with cheer that he couldn't help but smile at her antics.
But that was before. Now that smile took on a more sinister aspect, as that of a mad genius about to embark on a new project on a particularly willing subject.
"He said he was open to the idea of being hired to acquire the materials."
Then a cramped look came over her face. "Now that I cannot do. My gems supply's a little... strained this month. Perhaps on the start of the next... Hmm, I wonder if he'd accept an I.O.U..."
As Rin muttered to herself, Shirou sat back and thought about trying to find a way to get a Command Seal from his arm onto something else. He really needed that gun, and a few other things only possible with a few more of those "bits".
"Well, no other time to start than the present," Rin cried, slapping her fist on her other palm. "Give me a couple of hours to get ready, Bob, and let's meet at the basement."
Shirou used the time allotted to discuss things further with his Servants. He didn't give voice to his concerns about the ritual Rin was planning, as that would probably rile up Saber even further.
"The Labyrinth seems a dangerous place," Shirou said. "For the duration of our stay, and until we can determine if it's safe, you should probably stay in spirit form indefinitely, Louise."
"But how will I be able to help you?"
"Just be on the lookout, like back in the City. Besides, this way, Rin wouldn't get too suspicious about you. It's Saber who's supposed to be your Master, after all."
After running down a couple of contingency plans with Saber, Shirou went on down to the basement, to the room where he'd first entered Tohsaka's mansion. Rin was already there, several tomes floating on the air next to her. Her nose was buried in a scroll of paper.
"I'm just confirming our destinations to come," Rin said, without looking up. "Just stand by on the circle over there, Bob, if you please." Rin's Archer was also there, standing by. In that stiff, almost unmoving pose, he seemed like a stone sentinel.
"I know this may be pointless to ask," Rin said. "But you are bringing your Servants right?"
"That's the plan."
"Well, good. Now we can probably split up to cover more ground." Heaving a great sigh, Rin rolled up the scroll and stepped into the circle. She thrust her arm out and cried, "Open, sesame!"
The far wall, which he'd passed through from the forest, glimmered after Rin said those words. A great blast of wind surged from the wall, almost buckling Shirou's knees. A moment later, Rin strode confidently into that storm, disappearing into the wall with a small pop.
Shirou hurried to follow.
He of course did not expect to see the forest again. It was still jarring to see something else entirely, even if it did look like the inside of Illya's old castle. Torches lined the stone walls, illuminating a single iron door that lay at the end of the hall. Rin was there waiting for him, her scroll unrolled before her.
"Welcome, I suppose, to the Labyrinth," Rin said. "I've already told you of its nature, but now to show you how it works in person."
"This place is?"
"One of many 'entrance' rooms that we magi can force the Labyrinth to take us. It should be noted that the Labyrinth is indeed a chaotic place. If you entered it and encountered a forest, typically on the next go you'd find a desert instead, or a castle like this. You would then be unable to exit the way you came, because the 'entrance' now led you to somewhere else. Now you're lost. It makes it difficult to create an empirical topographical chart for the whole place. But over time, we've adapted methods to counter some of the Labyrinth's features.
"First, we've developed a ritual known as [Unbound Ariadne]. It applies a concept to oneself, similar to the one that defeated the Labyrinth of legend, where one 'can always return to the origin'. It only works the one time, so we apply the ritual every time before we enter, or we're forever lost inside the place. When you stood inside that circle, the ritual had already bonded to you-so we're safe, relatively. We can find our way back to the mansion with no trouble.
"So what happens if unfortunate circumstance, or a rival's malice, closes the entrance behind us? That ritual becomes useless, so prudent magi like myself install the [Magic Words of the Forty] inside the very heart of our mansions. It's a door that leads to several of a hundred 'entrance rooms' in the Labyrinth, like this one, or that forest you were in. What's unique about the special doors is that it forces the Labyrinth to always be anchored to those specific entrance rooms. They're quiet, relatively free from beasts and is itself a room, which means no native element of the Labyrinth can pursue you from another room.
"It's an expensive operation, and we have to keep paying bits monthly to the Harway family (who've patented the process, damn them). This is why I couldn't hire Shishigou-I'm tapped out from paying for upkeep."
Rin walked over to the wall on their left. He felt her infuse some energy, into her surroundings, forming some sort of wellspring of mana underneath her feet. "I'm moving us to another room, take my hand!" she told Shirou. He rushed to take it, and instantly felt like someone had grabbed the back of his clothes and tugged. A white flash filled his eyes, and not a second later, he saw that he was in someplace else-a rugged slope extended before them, and snow-encrusted pines surrounded them.
"Master, enemies!" Saber said. Shirou whirled, also sensing them, his bow already Projected. He looked around, and saw tall, spindly things, like twigs and branches merged to form a humanoid form, striding towards them through the trees with the sound of rattling bones.
"Now that's an interesting magecraft," Rin said, her eyes on his bow. "But forget about them. We ain't needing materials from them. Let's get on back to the entrance and try another route."
After another white flash, they were back at the indoors of the castle from before. "Illuminating, isn't it?" Rin said. "I wanted us to get through to someplace I knew, but the Labyrinth sent us there instead. It's frustrating, sometimes, but that's why I pay the Harways for this."
Shirou let his bow fade. "Where did you intend to go? And couldn't we just use the door over there?"
"Oh, you want to explore this room? Go right on ahead, but it won't lead you to another room. I think."
"How do you move from room to room then? Does it require another ritual?"
"Nope." Energy began to pool from beneath Rin again. "Just throw a punch made from mana at the walls. Best way to explore a maze." He took his hand, and off they went again.
After a couple of wrong turns, where they ended up in a storm-drenched seaside cliff with large, disturbing shapes lurking in the murky horizon, and then at the outskirts of a medieval looking town, whose inhabitants Shirou was prepared to swear to be faceless people.
"The Labyrinth, despite its random nature, actually still has landmarks, of a sort. They're places we can easily teleport to provided we have the right materials. It's been anchored to the City by pioneer magi, and they're useful for people who can't afford the Harway entrances."
"Why didn't we use them, then?"
"Because with the exception of a very few, they're kind of dangerous places. They're the complete opposite of the safe entrance rooms. One example is Csetje Castle, a menacing area where countless magi have entered and never returned.
"And as for the 'safer' landmarks? Filled with opportunistic magi, probably the same type of people who attacked my mansion. They're the ones who couldn't afford [Magic Words of the Forty]. I wouldn't want to teleport to those landmarks even if we were on the run from dangerous creatures."
"So moving from room to room's the only way forward?"
"Pretty much. Well, there's a pattern we can exploit: for example Shishigou says the 'Organ of Deceitful Images' can be found from Swamp Toads, which from the bestiary are said to be found in swampy areas. We just need to keep breaking down the maze until we can find a swamp, and hope the creatures are in that room."
"I see." He was beginning to realize that exploring the Labyrinth and hunting for materials would be a tedious task. No wonder Kairi Shishigou would charge so heftily for his services. Nonetheless, he took Rin's hand, and off they went.
"Uh-oh. I know this place," Rin said. They were at the bottom of a hill, glazed brown by a distant sunset.
"Enemy Servant," Saber announced in his head. That was redundant, as Shirou had himself seen the shape moving in at them at high speed from the top of the hill.
"Oh crap." Rin actually sounded worried.
"Should we flee? Or fight?"
"Neither, it's our, well my responsibility as a magi to see to this troublesome fellow. Just stay on guard, Bob, and don't say a word, please. Let's not rile up the Stray Servant."
Shirou watched as the figure became more distinct to his eyes. It was a scrawny, brown-skinned figure, wearing a skimpy outfit of white. It wore some sort of veil over its head, and wielded a multi-colored blade.
"I told you about Stray Servants, right, that they can escape to the Labyrinth and stay there indefinitely?" Rin said, in a whisper. "Well, meet the very first one, an egregious example of irresponsibility which echoes into time. She has grown so bloated and powerful that it would take an alliance of all True Masters to take her down, an impossible event. She endlessly wanders the Labyrinth, and it is hoped that in one of its infinite rooms there is something that can kill her, but no magi clings to hope.
"Instead, they have no choice but to appease her, if ever she is encountered. And that's a silver lining, or we'd never be able to explore the Labyrinth again. Luckily, she is somewhat simple-minded, or dim-though don't say that to her face or you'll end up just a tiny speck of mana in this place. Just answer her questions truthfully, don't contradict her, and we can be on our way."
"If she's so dangerous, why don't we run?"
"Because she'd be angry, and she'll get into a foul mood for the next few days slaughtering any magi who crosses her path. And that's bad, especially when they get to asking her who'd insulted her. Running away is an insult. It'll be a hit to my reputation, even if I'm a True Master. Shush now, she's here." Rin curtsied at the Stray Servant, who was already within hearing range. "I bid you greetings, oh wonderful and powerful Scourge of God! Glorious Maiden of the Steppes, oh all-powerful Altera!"
The speeding blur swept past Rin, and barreled in on him. Sensing no hint of hostility, Shirou stood there cautiously, meeting this Altera's eyes firmly with his own. They stared at each other for a full moment.
Then the woman scrunched up her nose, and made a sniffing sound.
Shirou stood bewildered, as the woman repeated that sound, tilting her head this way and that, all while sniffing. Then she circled him, still sniffing, like a dog sizing up an unknown object with its nose. Altera came full circle, and stopped again in front of him. It felt a little unnerving to be scrutinized by her clear eyes, like being regarded by a soulless automaton doing a successful caricature of a human being.
"You." She paused. "You smell familiar. You smell... precious. Who are you?" Behind her, Rin waved frantically with her arms, mouthing something silently.
"Bob."
"Hrm..." Behind her, Rin made a frustrated face and slapped her forehead. "I sense you are not telling the truth. This upsets me." Rin's expression turned to one of horror.
"Ahhh, it's nothing, he's nothing, great and honored one!" Rin cried. "He is but a simpleton, too new to the ways of-"
"The magus will silence herself," Altera said, without turning around. And so Rin did.
"Do you know me, Bob?" asked Altera.
"...No."
"That is troubling," the woman said. "Because I can smell you, so you are you. You are supposed to be you. Yet your face is not you. So it cannot be you. This is troubling."
"I assure you, I would have remembered knowing someone as remarkable as you."
"Perhaps I am mistaken, yes." The woman blinked. "I shall think on this." And then she kissed him.
Shirou stood like that for a while, wondering why this brown-skinned beauty was suddenly kissing him out of the blue. It was just a meeting of the lips, nothing quite vulgar, but it felt warm and intimate.
After breaking the kiss, Altera's expression did not change. "Yes. It does taste of you. But then the smell is not you." She closed her eyes. "A despicable problem. I shall see you again, perhaps, once I know the truth. We have a long ways to the end of this dream, after all. Farewell."
And then she disappeared, like she were turning into spirit form. The warmth of her lingered, as did the questions.
Shirou heaved a sigh, only to see Rin staring at him, wide-mouthed. "What... the hell was that?"
"Wooow, that Servant was so bold!" Louise said in his head. Saber said nothing.
Behind her, the ever-silent Archer touched thumb to forefinger and gave him an "okay" sign.
ATTENTION READERS!
Earlier in the story, notice the two pieces of details presented:
"A big whiteboard on the right announced some sort of "special" on something called catalysts, asking the reader to stake their luck."
and also,
"He bought one of the cheap catalysts on "sale", wondering if he could barter it somewhere else."
For the curious, Kairi Shishigou's list was as follows:
1. hair from a fox tail
2. soil-caked fragment of a plow
3. petal from white flower (maybe it's a lily? -M)
4. cloth fragment, blue and white (Zouken tells me it's Japanese but I'm not convinced)
5. old dragon scale, practically indestructible but looks battered, like someone punched it too many times
6. chipped golden fragment (have a hunch it's a catalyst for Atalante but not sure, try it out)
7. bronze reins
8. bone fragment (CAUTION: cursed)
9. segment from Japanese warrior armor, wooden, infused with weak magic
10. creepy-looking hacksaw, dried blood on edges
11. frayed leather girdle
12. old, tattered dress (can also wash it up and wear it yourself)
13. crucifix (no, really it's a catalyst, swear to God)
14. parts for some mask
15. vial with strange shit inside (don't try it, I sure didn't)
16. sheet of paper with Chinese writing (gibberish, supposed to be code for something)
17. origami swan
18. ornate torc
19. griffon feather (wing)
20. baby sphinx tail
21. mane from a dire lion
22. broken fragment of a magic wand
23. wrinkled card with the class symbol of Archer (it really is a catalyst, swear on me mum)
24. old light bulb (okay, I'm not just listing random junk, I FOUND these in labyrinth)
and many more! Just ask the friendly proprietor!
So now the question remains-what did Shirou buy?
Shurpuff says: Thanks for reading! I've got not much to say this chapter, other than that. I'm busy trying to set up P-reon, while also penning another story, but look forward to next chapter!