Fate/Asterism Liner

Chapter 10: Ugly Truths

"So, what the heck is this place?"

Eil let out a hum as he looked over the mansion their group now found themselves at this night. The building showed the time of years of being left alone. Ivy covered the outer walls, and one could tell the interior had long since burnt out to a degree. But what mystified Eil the most however, was the traces of magic he could feel in the air. As if the ground itself was so saturated with traces that the land of his mansion had become marked by it. And he was sure it wasn't just the Card causing this feeling.

"This place gives me the creeps." Rin remarked, a visible shudder going through her body, and Illya stepped up.

"Nobody knows who lived here anymore, but, it's considered a haunted house." Illya stated, notably gripping Ruby rather tightly, "Everyone who comes here just has bad feelings… like something is crawling on them. Others say they hear somebody screaming, but not in pain… in anger. As if somebody had something torn from them."

"Freaky." Eil muttered. His eyes drifted off a bit towards the trees that lined the area, off down a dark path. Something about that path felt the most intense, like something was still there. He knew there couldn't have been anything, but… it was still there, and it was vastly unsettling to him. "Of the Magus families that lived in Fuyuki, there was the Tohsaka and the Matou… I know the Tohsakas are fine, Rin is here after all, but the Matous went weirdly silent. Reports said they were having issues producing proper heirs but, ten years ago, a Grail War was supposed to be held here, but it never came to pass. I wonder, did the event that prevented the Grail War have to do with both the odd disappearance of the Einzberns and Matous?"

Eil glanced over at Illya as the thought came to mind. There was a thought in mind to him. He knew Illya wasn't aware of her true lineage now, much less who her father was. He wanted to pose the question, to find answers. Something inside of him desired those answers, a rampant sense of curiosity he'd always felt throughout his life. But his better sense of self told him otherwise. He didn't want to drag Illya further into this world. If the truth really was that she was the heir to the Einzbern bloodline, then it would mean no pleasant story would await her future.

"Let's not stand around and get this done." Lluvia said. Miyu and Illya nodded, opening the gates and transporting everyone.

The move into the Mirror World only made the location all the creepier. The fog that hanged over the dark space made the already ominous feel of the grounds of this mansion worse than it was before. But the weirdest part however, had to be the silence. It was simple to assume that with the amount of time that had past, the remaining two Cards would have also manifested in their distortions. But the quiet… it was different. It was defeaning, and felt like something was watching them.

"Anyone else have a bad feeling, or am I just being paranoid?" Eil muttered, everyone scanning the tree line for any potential signs of a presence.

"No enemies, no Card… what's going on?" Lluvia murmured.

"This couldn't be the wrong place, could it?" Illya asked, Rin shaking her head.

"That's impossible. As long as we can enter the Mirror World here, then a Card has to exist." Rin stated.

"I see, that makes sense." Illya remarked, looking up, "Speaking of which, isn't the dimension kind of small this time?"

"I take it that means the distortions are shrinking as we collect the Cards." Eil remarked, "When this started out, they'd be several kilometers in radius at best."

"Wow…" Illya murmured.

"Yeup. Pretty crazy stuff huh?" Eil remarked. And in the following moment, he and Illya suddenly went red in the face, turning away from each other as they both awkwardly shuffled in different manners.

"No use in complaining about it. Let's start searching around." Lluvia said.

"Yeah yeah." Eil muttered. But, as he stepped off, he felt a sudden twinge in the air. A shock to his mind, like a warning signal had just gone off. His body then instantly reacted, his hand stretching out, a flash of blue producing the black Excalibur into his grip. The sword flew up as Eil dashed in front of Illya as the girl turned around. The heavy sound of metal clashing into metal rang through the air and got everyone's attention immediately. "Screw looking… the Servant found us first!"

The Servant who Eil's blade had countered was simply, easy enough to call, at least in appearance, a samurai. Flowing eastern robes with an armored coat, long hair, and an odachi nearly as long as the Servant himself was tall. But like the others before him, this Servant was blackened, twisted. Eil could feel it coming from the sword itself, the weapon far from pristine, instead, it was scratched, chipped, like something that did nothing more than hack away without a care.

"We already fought Saber… so just who the hell are you?!" Eil growled as he forced his sword forward, catching the odachi on the guard of his blade, wrenching the Servant back and shoving him away, surprise coming across his face as he achieved it without the need of his enhancement spells, "What the… that took effort but… ohh… it makes sense." A smirk spread across his face as the data flowed into his mind, "Looks like this is Assassin! We're getting off easy today!"

"Alright! Illya, don't hold back, go to town!" Rin yelled, Lluvia laughing as she threw out a hand.

"Miyu, blow that Servant away!" Lluvia laughed.

Illya and Miyu joined Eil at the front as he called out his spells to enhance himself again. His sword flew up to block Assassin's blade as it came at him again. IN quick response to this, the Servant was very quickly blasted in the side by Miyu at near pointblank range. Assassin was shot off into the tree line. The Servant's attempt to recover was met by Illya launching a blast of her own at it from afar, the Servant blocking with his sword, skidding back into the open ground.

"Sorry to shame a samurai like this, but now's not the time for honor!" Eil snapped, rushing back in and thrusting his sword forward. Assassin moved his blade to deflect it, Eil shifting his weight as the blade moved, switching his grip to his left hand, black mist bursting around the sword as Eil spun around and swung it again, the wave of dark mist blowing Assassin back.

"Shoot!" A large mana ball charged at Miyu's staff as she shot into the air when Assassin charged again, nailing the Servant square in the chest. Eil took the opening to dash in again, mist wreathing Excalibur as he swung it again and blasted Assassin with a wide swing of the sword.

"Ruby!" Illya shouted to the stick as she dashed forward in the air, sticking low to the ground as she held Ruby downwards, her grip on the stick more akin to holding a sword. She shot past the linger traces of the dark mist as Assassin reeled in the air, and with a yell from Illya, she swung the stick. Though, now it was less of a stick, and Eil saw the flash of a blade through the air.

The air went still for a moment as the drifting of energy fell away. Illya stood straight and swiped the sword now in her hands, and Assassin collapsed onto the ground.

"Ahahah, it worked! My idea really worked!" Illya cheered as she spun a bit, spinning the sword she'd produced from Ruby. As opposed to Rin's version, the staff had shortened to a more typical hilt size, the "guard" being Ruby herself, with a full blade extending from the top of the Mystic Code.

"What was that?!" Eil asked, everyone else looking various degrees of surprise, Illya silent for a moment, her only motion being a few blinks.

"Well, I mean magic blasts are good and all, but I figured if I fight somebody who can get close, I'd need some kind of weapon, right?" Illya said, lifting up the sword in her hand, palming the flat of the sword, "And after I saw Rin make a sword herself, I figured it would be a good idea to make one of my own. Though I guess I was more inspired by you, Eil. Ehehehehe."

"Good idea, Illya." Miyu stated, then looking down, "But… if we defeated Assassin, then why hasn't his body vanished yet?"

"Eh?" Eil noticed that factor. Everyone then noticed how Assassin had yet to fade. Instead, the body of the Servant just stayed there, motionless on the ground. "That's… weird… there couldn't be another Servant around could it?"

"What? That's ridiculous! One Card, one Servant!" Rin said, though then she also looked suspicious about it, "But… that is odd. Keep your eyes open then! Scan around a bit!"

"It could just be taking longer." Lluvia said, a glare coming from both Eil and Rin making her fall silent, "But you're right, we can't take chances with this, get to looking around!"

While everyone immediately moved off to look around the area, she didn't move much. She felt something odd in the air, something coming from the body of the Servant. She knelt down a bit, and her eyes went wide a bit. She could've sworn she saw something twitch. Could Assassin still be alive? But, it felt odd. There wans't any other movement. No sign of any kind of breathing… but did Servants even breath? Illya at least assumed so. The bodies may have been made of mana, but they were physical, in a way. So then why could it have been twitching?

"Ruby, do you think anything about this weird?" Illya said, reverting Ruby to her staff mode, poking the Servant with the rear end of the stick, "It's still twitching… something's odd about this, don't you think?"

"Be careful Illya-san, you never know." Ruby remarked, Illya nodding.

"Something about this is just strange… wrong even." Eil thought, muttering incoherently as he put his arms behind his head. But then, something struck him. A sudden feeling of nausea overtook him as he suddenly felt warmer as well. He suddenly felt a flash. The image in front of him changed. He saw something dark, something bursting from Assassin as well as a scream… and then just as suddenly a blinding flash, and still with a piercing, terrified scream in the air, "Agh… w-what the hell… what… what was that?!"

"Hey everyone, I think something weird is going on here." Illya said, Eil turning around. It was a sudden realization that came to him as she saw the twitching coming from Assassin. He still felt nauseous, but the danger sense in his head was going off like crazy.

"Illya, get away from there now!" Eil shouted, Illya looking to him with a confused expression.

The scene to follow was something Eil could only call something out of a horror show. Assassin's body violently spasmed, and then the chest of the body suddenly exploded, gore flying everywhere and getting on the shocked Illya. A shriek of nothing but pure panic and fear rose from Illya's throat in the moment to follow, only furthered when a dark limb suddenly burst from the body of Assassin, grabbing the closet thing, Illya. The terrified girl was held by her throat as terror overtook her expression as she watched as the arm rose up more, something climbing out of Assassin's body. A second limb slammed onto the ground, the figure that rose out of the dead Servant shrouded in black, the drifting mist coming from it making it seem almost like a phantom. Illya's terror only escalated as she was lifted into the air and thrown aside, her body shaking as the phantom rose fully from the body, a skull mask showing under the dark hood, it's stark white contrasting with the shadow cast by the cloak's hood.

"Illya!" Eil and Miyu's voices pierced the air as they shouted. But, to Illya, it was like things slowed down.

The new enemy shifted an arm, daggers falling into place between its fingers. The sight of those wicked blades made her remember the previous fight. The way even one blast from Saber was enough to cut her arm, to draw blood, cause pain. Compounded with the sudden panic from the earlier moment, it was like something in her mind suddenly shifted.

"Knives… a blade… pain… blood. All because I stood there…" Illya's mind was stuck on the one before her. She shirked again when the enemy threw one of it's knives, only being saved because Eil dashed in front of her and blocked it.

"Illya, don't just sit there!" Eil shouted, standing firm as he barred his blade against the new enemy, "I know that had to have scared you, but you can't stand around… you could die if you don't move!"

"Die… I could… I could actually die." That one word slammed Illya like a hammer to the head. She flinched when the enemy attacked, Eil parrying the blow and driving the cloaked phantom away, but, Illya remained still, shuddering. She had hardly thought about it before now. Until the fight with Saber, she'd been thinking about all of this like it was some ridiculous magical girl happening. That it wouldn't get that serious. It couldn't have, that wasn't how this kind of story worked, wasn't it?

But, she was realizing it… this wasn't that kind of story at all. The blood on her face, marring her clothes right now, that had stained her white gloves red, the violent clash of weapons between Eil and their real enemy, suddenly made it clear. This was not a magical girl story… this was something worse, something horrifying at the core of its true being.

"There's more enemies!" Miyu's added shout got everyone's attention as well. From the woods, more of the specters appeared. Each one was dark, some in cloaks, some not, but all of them bore one similar feature. White masks of bone, with a singular hole in them that gazed out like some kind of eye, or more like one was staring at the abyss, and it had chosen to look back.

"Number of enemies is at fifty… no, greater!" Sapphire said, Rin and Lluvia looking at the stick that had spoken.

"What?! How the hell is this possible?!" Rin shouted, the others falling back to make a circle, Illya desperately moving to get up and join them.

"Nobody told me anything about an army!" Lluvia shouted, she and Rin throwing jewels out into the masses, Eil shoving his engaged foe away with a heavy blow.

"Come on, we can get through!" Eil shouted, already turning to head down the path Rin and Lluvia had carved out.

"R-Right!" Illya stumbled a bit as she ran, Eil turning as he faced forward.

"Illyasviel, Miyu, focus your fire to the front! We'll break through their encirclement!" Lluvia shouted, she and Rin rushing ahead.

"No holding back!" Eil shouted. He gasped again when another twinge hit him. His sword flew up and deflected an incoming thrown dagger, the blast of mana tearing through the enemies in front of it. But then a sudden pain pierced his left shoulder as he turned again. The sudden shift in weight made him reel back and hit the ground. His eyes shifted as a wet, warm feeling began coming from his left shoulder. He looked down a bit, and the hilt of a dagger was protruding from his shoulder, the blade having pierced his jacket, despite the enchantments meant to make it stronger. "When did this…"

"Eil, focus!" Rin shouted, moving in front of Eil and swiping away more daggers that flew at him, "Can you move?!"

"Yeah it just… AAAGGGHHH!" Eil suddenly released a yell as he tried to move his left arm, which only invited a sudden, piercing agony to shoot through him, which caused him to collapse onto the ground, "Naaaghhh! Not okay, definitely… AGGGHHH DAMMIT THIS IS… AGGHHH!"

"Eh?" Illya suddenly ground to a halt as she saw the sight before her. Even if they'd only known each other for a few days, she'd never expected this. To see Eil writing on the ground, in abject agony as his hand clutched at his pierced shoulder and pained screams met every attempt to try and move, another, even louder scream coming from him as he forcibly grabbed the knife with his right hand and forcefully pulled it free, which was accompanied by a spray of blood from it that splattered across the ground, and she could see a line of blood moving down his mouth, a nick in his lower lip.

"He's hurt… he's… he's bleeding…" Illya shuddered again at the sight before her, Eil shakily lifting himself up as the others rushed to him. The sense of panic was still in her mind, only made worse by this sudden show. This wasn't like a hero powering through pain to stand tall. It was agony, pure and unrestrained. She'd seen someone she'd come to view as strong screaming in pure agony in a way that sounded alien to her.

And it terrified her. It again landed that hammer blow to Illya, that this was real, that it wasn't some happy story. And then, another dagger flew… aimed for Eil's neck, right where he couldn't see it.

"N-Noooo!" Illya's voice let out the scream, and that was when it all seemed to slow down. "It feels like a checkmate… their decisions were calm, accurate… our enemy wasn't even that strong… but we lost one move. But… it's wrong! He can't die because of one mistake, one thing he couldn't see! But not just Eil… at this rate… all of us… me… Miyu, Rin-san, Lluvia-san… that's not right! All of us dying? This isn't right… this isn't the world I live in… I have to protect them."

With that one thought, something changed. Illya's eyes turned golden, and a sudden light burst from her. The knife heading for EIl, and all the others that had been sent flying as well, vanished. The light grew to be utterly blinding. And then, all at once, it gathered, and exploded. The torrent of power was violent, brilliant, but terrifying all at once.

And once it was gone, hardly anything was left. The Assassin Card was lodged into the crater that had formed, and Illya stood at the center of it. Her eyes had returned to their normal red, but witnessing everything around her, they were wide, terrified of what had happened… what she'd done.

The only other clear patch was one behind twin barriers, one made by Eil, and the other made by MIyu. But even then, Eil, Miyu, Rin, and Lluvia all looked roughed up. And for Eil, it only looked worse, because as the barrier fell, he immediately put a hand over his injured shoulder, letting out barely held in yelp fro the sudden jolt of pain it caused.

"Illya…" Miyu murmured, Illya slowly shaking her head as she took in the complete devastation around her. The crater was massive, having cleared an entire stretch of the ground and even causing the burnt out mansion to be caught in the blast.

"What is this?" Illya murmured, her voice choking out the words, "Did I… did I do this?"

"Illya… just…" Eil stopped himself when he saw the look on Illya's face. It was fear. The girl had finally had it sink in just what kind of world she'd stepped into. And after this, the terror of what had happened to her and what she'd seen, had caused it all to come crashing down on her. Eil could only bunch his hand at his still bleeding shoulder as he saw tears starting to fall down Illya's face.

"No I… I didn't… I didn't think something like this would…" Illya murmured, shaking her head, her teeth gritting, "I'm sorry I just… I didn't want any of you to get hurt and I… I… I'm sorry, but I can't do this!"

"Illya, wait!" Eil shouted as Illya gripped Ruby and swiped the stick, suddenly vanishing through a magic circle. When it was silent again, the fingers of his left hand closed up, slowly, but tightly, his fingernails digging into his palm, "Dammit… I didn't want something like this to happen…"

"You can't predict everything." Miyu said, grabbing the Class Card, examining it closely, "None of us could have seen that coming… it was a close call… but at least we erected a barrier fast enough."

"Why does that matter?!" Eil snapped, and there was raw emotion in his voice, "Didn't you see her face?! Illya was terrified! She saw the worst this twisted world of ours has to offer all at once! She's just a normal girl, and we dragged her into our mess! We may have been ready for something like this, but she wasn't! I don't care if it was a close call or not… what I care about right now, is that we messed up, and now, our friend has seen the worst of this world of ours, a world that isn't hers to begin with!"

"I know that." Miyu said, her tone tense, and darker. "But what choice is there? If we don't gather the Cards, then what would happen to this city? Don't Magi move forward regardless of the consequences?"

"That. Isn't. The. Point." Eil turned around as what was barely more than a growl came out of his throat, and Miyu flinched at his expression. It was a different kind of pain, emotional pain. His expression was a vain attempt at being stoic as angry tears marked his face. "It's that…"

"Maybe after we're out of here?!" Rin cut in as the dimension showed signs of beginning to collapse in on itself. Eil let out another growl as he looked to the side, Miyu quickly opening the transport circle and pulling them back to the real world.

And Illya was nowhere to be seen. Odds were, she'd already run home.

"So, she's gone." Lluvia murmured, glancing at Eil, "How about you, your shoulder took a bad hit."

"I'll be fine." Eil muttered even as he began wincing like the pain still wasn't done with, "It's nothing… just the sudden shock."

But, Miyu saw something else. It was hard to notice due to his hand, but she could see a soft glow under his hand, a white one. And from it, she felt some kind of heat in the air as well. One could think it was just a warm breeze, but the air was almost completely still… it had to be something else.

Eil then sucked in a breath and released it. He'd clearly managed to calm himself a bit.

"Don't misunderstand me, Miyu." Eil said, his hand slipping from his shoulder, and there was a sad look in his eyes, "I'm… glad we're friends with Illya but… I didn't want this kind of thing to happen to her. You know as well as I do, she wasn't raised a magus. She's not prepared for this kind of thing… for this kind of ugly truth of the world."

"I know." Miyu's tone was strained, and despite her usual stoic expression, the way she gripped her arm betrayed more than her face could, "But that's what this kind of thing means… if you don't go in prepared for it, then you've failed."

"Hey, that's a little harsh don't you think?!" Rin said, giving a sigh, "Eil's right. Illya didn't grow up like we did. She was normal. We magi are expected to face this kind of thing… she never was."

"Honestly, her fear after seeing that is entirely understandable." Lluvia added, folding her arms, or more precisely, hugging herself, "It takes a special kind of person to see that and remain unshaken."

"I'll go talk to her tomorrow." Eil said, putting his hand on his shoulder again, "The best thing we can do right now is just… wait, see how she reacts, what she does. We still have a week to get the last Card… I recommend we all just cool off for a bit before we take care of it."

"Yeah that's… that's probably for the best." Rin said, shaking her head, "Man, this is all kinds of weird…"

"I thought the point was to gather the cards as quickly as we could." Miyu said, Lluvia shaking her head.

"You're not wrong, but… sometimes Miyu, people need time to slow down and collect themselves. I admit… what we saw today got to me a bit. I'd like to take a siesta myself… especially since our last foe will be Berserker." Lluvia said, and that added a sudden hanging feeling of dread, "We'd do best… to prepare as much as we can."

"Tch… hate to agree with her, but she's right." Rin muttered, biting her thumb, "Our last opponent… and it just had to be the worst Class, didn't it?"

"We'll figure it out." Eil said, stepping past the gate and onto the road, "But before our final battle… let's just stop for a moment and rest, and plan… and get everything sorted out, so that there's no loose ends."

Eil looked up at the night sky as he spoke. The sky was oddly clear for a city as big as Fuyuki, dozens of stars were still visible in the night sky. But, his eyes went to a particular one, Polaris.

"A Zvezda is guided by the stars in the sky, following the asterisms that form its lines… go where your heart says to, and don't look back." Eil thought, reciting to himself the family saying, "Before fighting Berserker, before ending this… I need to learn the truth about Illya… about what happened to the Einzberns… and why Illya was able to do something like that. I won't be able to finish this until I know the truth…"

A/N

Man busting this out in one night was a thing, but eesh, so very worth it! Emotional fallouts everybody! See ya next chapter!