Shirou stretched as he walked down the street. The food had been good and he had found that Narbareck had apparently not ordered too much before she walked out so he still had some money left over. Walking to an out of the way spot in the park he mentally looked for land marks then spun up his circuits and stamped his foot on the ground.

What actually happened was that water was created from his prana an inch from beneath his foot and seeped into the ground pouring in the cracks in the dirt. The water drifted down until it encountered a glass object then it latched onto the object and with a jerk the ground erupted. Shirou caught the glass object heading towards his head and then examined it. The black liquid roiling around inside the jar seemed to eagerly greet him.

Of course it would, the first thing he did when he obtained it was to bind it to him. While the Piece of Chaos may have had its origins in Nrvnqsr's body but now it was as much under his control as Avalon. It sat there as a formless substance that just begged to be moulded into something. Looking it Shirou believed he could almost see the primordial ooze from which the earth sprang forth. Shirou couldn't wait to get his hands on it. Reluctantly he strapped the bottle to his belt, noting down the fact that in future he needed to get some form of bag of holding to carry all his stuff around. Yeah, he needed some wallet or pouch that he could open and pull out various mystic codes. That was definitely something to consider later, once his work here in the city was done.

His work here in the city that was a thought. He really lacked the ability to avoid sticking his nose in these kinds of business didn't he? From what he heard about Roa he wouldn't die even if he was killed. Shirou didn't really have a way of preventing his soul from reincarnating. Except one, the big one, the one he swore he would never use.

Shirou smiled ruefully, he truly felt better today. All the things piling up, complications that ate up his time and gave him more to worry about. The stress of having to deal with such a high-ranked ancestor welled up in him and he found himself giving a horribly sub-optimal performance. Now that the pressure from Nrvnqsr was gone he could finally think clearly.

Roa was not a Dead Apostle Ancestor. That did not make him not dangerous but it did mean that Shirou would be able to handle him. Unlike the previous one if he kept his wits about him he should be able to go into the fight and win. Shirou's hand drifted to his necklace for the third time in the last half an hour. Upon activating [Poseidon's Eye] he should know exactly where the reincarnating Dead Apostle is and he should be able to track them down instantly. The problem with that was he knew he should get Arcueid before he went to confront Roa but he also knew that if he located him he would be very tempted to charge in immediately.

Shirou stood paralysed momentarily with indecision before he deliberately raised his hand to his necklace and poured his prana into it. Getting an image of the city he quickly signalled out the various power sources. There were quite a few sources of prana. The large one at the school he identified as the blue haired exorcist that he had faced a few days ago. There was also the massive one at Arcueid's place whose identity was obvious. He tried to look for Narbareck but found him unable to pick up anything about her at all. The fact that he couldn't track her made him severely nervous for a few reasons.

Lastly he scanned the Tohno mansion and what he saw made his blood run cold. Usually there were about four moderate powers in the mansion. He referred to moderate powers as beings that were not on the level of an Ancestor or a very powerful magus or him.

Now however there was only one and moderate did not seem to be the correct term to apply to it. Any magical energy that approached the being got devoured and he could feel the water in the air start to get colder.

Shirou started to immediately take off and then stopped. Arcueid was sleeping and a way's away from him but whatever was in there could lead to serious danger. Thinking quickly he came up with a plan.

"Len," he yelled out ignoring those few people around in the afternoon. After a minute or two the black cat popped out. "I think I found Roa," Shirou addressed the feline. "He's at the Tohno mansion. Go find Arcueid and tell her that. I'm going to go ahead and engage him. Thank you."

At that he took off heading for the Tohno mansion. He ignored the stares of the bystanders as he ran at speed barely verging on human. Arriving at the mansion and seeing the locked gates and the vacant streets he vaulted through over the gates and headed towards the door. Knocking on the doors once he noted they were locked he immediately kicked the door breaking the lock and causing the hinges of the door to bend. Sprinting through the door he entered the dining room and stopped.

Sitting at the head of the dining room sipping tea was Akiha. She looked ever the picture perfect beauty that she portrayed herself to be and yet something was clearly different. Ripples in the air approached and Shirou flung himself back noticing as he did that the water in the air froze in front of him.

"You," Akiha said, looking at him, "Shirou wasn't it." She laughed and it was a hollow thing. "You said you would be the one to stop me." Her voice started to rise and a note of hysteria slipped in. "So why the hell didn't you."

"Suddenly Shirou's mystic sense went haywire and he felt ripples converging on him from all sides. Channeling prana into his ring a wall of water around him and after an instant became a wall of ice. Shirou's eyes grew wide as he examined the ice.

"Temperature control. No, you're just absorbing heat." He shook his head a strained smile taking its place on his face. "But this is still not enough to even scratch me." He raised his hand and pointed at Akiha and the ice broke off into shards and flew at her. Akiha dodged the ice flying at her with graceful movements. "Ice would be your weakness as it is already in a state of low temperature. You can't affect something that is already without heat."

The ripples again appeared but the water in the air condensed into a wall once again. Once again heat was stolen from the wall of water and transferred into ice. Once again Shirou shattered the ice and threw it at Akiha. This time the throw was more accurate and Akiha was hit on the shoulder by a piece of the ice. As soon as she was down the ripples stopped but they started up again when she reopened her eyes.

"I see," said Shirou. He clapped his hands together and summoned a huge amount of water. With another gesture he turned it into steam. The stream billowed out from in front of him and in under a second both he and the room were completely covered in the mist. "Your ability doesn't come with proprioception or touch. In other words your ability to direct the hair comes mainly from your sight," the voice came from around the room not in any one specific spot. "Without your sight your ability to use this power is crippled.

Akiha flooded the room with her power trying to catch the elusive magus. But to no avail. Suddenly she felt a heavy blow onto her back and she stumbled and almost fell. Snarling she turned around and focused her power on the enemy behind her in order to take out her opponent.

"You know actually I think I was initially wrong," Shirou continued his speech. "I misjudged your ability. I thought it drained heat and that was why the my icewall was able to stop it. You know, as there was no heat to steal." The voice appeared right behind her again and this time Akiha was kicked straight through the door and into the kitchen. "But instead when one of those tendrils brushed me it took a bit of my od." The mist receded slightly and Akiha could make out the features of Shirou through it. "The water was moved by a combination of my od and the outside mana. You took od from my spell but you were unable…"

Shirou stopped talking and took in the state of the kitchen dumbfounded. Unlike the pristine appearance of the dining room the kitchen looked as if a battle had gone on in there. All the appliances had been knocked over and there were cuts where Shirou could observe. Lying down face down on the floor was a pink haired girl. Shirou scanned her quickly enough to determine that she had passed on. Her cause of death was absolute draining of lifeforce.

The smile on Shirou's face grew a tiny bit stiffer and he turned to regard Akiha. The girl's hair colour had changed in the fight going from her usual black to a crimson blood colour.

"I have the set," Akiha said.

"What?" said Shirou further narrowing his eyes.

"Both of them I got. Not just Hisui I got Kohaku too. She deserved it though. She was trying to kill me. Though I deserved it in the end." Akiha's face painted a picture of suffering, "I'm a monster after all."

Shirou dreaded hearing the answer to his next question, but he felt it was the one that had to be answered anyway. "What happened to your brother?" he gulped out.

Akiha just laughed and then suddenly the entire world rippled. Od was being drained from every shield he threw up and it was only the fact that she couldn't steal mana that prevented her from overcoming his defence. Of course if he wanted to he could have taken her out in one hit. Her body was sturdy when compared to a human but nowhere near sturdy enough to deal with a blast of water heading at over the speed of sound impacting against her torso.

Shirou abandoned his goal of figuring out her power and using the fourth examined her. What he saw struck him with anguish. Akiha was not going to survive. In the second floor of the mansion lay Shiki's dead body and her friend and confident Kohaku lay dead killed in her room. At this point even if he sealed off her bloodlust she would only stay in this life for the time it took to make a noose. He could have saved her earlier but he didn't have the time.

Filled with despair he kept looking and looking for some way to save her and he found none. Then he saw it. It was small and attached to Akiha in some odd way. Shirou wasn't able to precisely tell what it was as for the first time in a while he found himself lacking context. But he was able to tell who it was.

Michael Roa Valdamjong. The serpent of Akasha. The one who inhabited Akiha's brother originally. The one who caused him to hunt down people. Ultimately destroyed by Akiha yet it transferred to her and influenced her to kill her brother and then her servants. It was its fault. The reason why Shiki's dead. Why Akiha is going to die. Why Shirou could not save them.

It was his fault. All his fault. Shirou was going to kill him. No Shirou was going to erase him. Shirou had upon first obtaining his magic and working out its potential had laid down one absolute restriction on himself.

He must not change a person without that person's permission.

Right now however he was confronted with a situation where if he let him go he would cause more damage to the world when he reincarnated. He would leave more broken families like the Tohno's. He would kill more people and raise more dead.

But that was a lie. In that instant he wanted to kill him because more than anything else in the world he hated him. That was all there was.

Shirou walked forward. The ripples came thick and fast. Most were blocked by the water whirling around him. One or two of the ripples bypassed his defence but were unable to drain him of his relatively high od in the span it took for him to send a blast of water at Akiha and disrupt her concentration.

Walking forward he came to a stop in front of the red-haired girl. He had only met her once but he liked her attitude and he had a feeling they could have become friends in future. Either way he said looking into her eyes that gleamed with anticipation as she stared back at him. She will be a person that he would never forget.

After all how could you ever forget the first person you failed so utterly?

Reaching down into her very being he grasped the concept of [Michael Roa Valdamjong] and swiftly crushed it. His rage-filled focus pushing him to the heights of fourth magic he had never reached before allowing him to destroy the very concept of the being with no resistance. After all what was left of the Serpent of Akasha but a concept. He had no body; no soul, no mind and thus he proved himself the most vulnerable to Shirou's magic.

Looking back into Akiha's hope eyes he picked up a strange mix of emotions. There was pain, a parade of agony deeper than Shirou had ever felt. There was resignation, she knew today was her last day on earth and faced it with resolve. There was regret, so heavy it appeared to be crushing the woman where she stood. But beneath all of that one emotion stood out.

Hope, she hoped when she died that she would see her brother and her friends again. Shirou didn't quite know what would happen when a person dies. Magus believes a person returns to the route. The church believes that the person enters heaven or hell. Sumire believes a person reincarnates into a fish. But in this one instant he truly wished that Akiha's wish would come true.

"I'm going to kill you," he said to her using a statement that would seem like a threat in any other case.

"Please," she replied.

Shirou raised his hand before he paused for a moment. He felt he had to say some words before she died. But condolences seemed empty and apologies seemed pointless by now.

"We will meet again," he said. The words sounded ridiculous as he said them but he somehow knew them to be true. For a moment he almost felt like he glimpsed a future where both Akiha and Shiki met again but the vision was fleeting and insubstantial and gone before he even acknowledged it.

His hand descended and in an instant Akiha's body had ceased to exist.

xxx

Walking out of the Tohno Mansion he met Arcueid who was standing outside. "Will you be okay," the vampire said concern evident in her voice.

He didn't bother asking how she knew what went on in there. At that point in time if a dragon tore down the rest of the mansion he wouldn't have noticed.

"I think I will be," he said. His smile was weak. It was far weaker than usual but held a genuine quality. "I'll just have to keep moving forward, learn from my mistakes and become the perfected [Shirou Inke]. That's all part of growing up."

"So what are you going to do next," Arcueid said inquisitively, "because I think Len really wants that binding thing done."

"Yeah I'll do that next," Shirou said looking wistfully at the sky. "Then I think I'm going home."

"I'll come with you," Arcuied said.

"What?" said Shirou flatly. "Do you know how hard it was for my dad to get used to Sumire. How do you think he'll react to the freaking White Princess?"

"Nope, not changing my mind, you helped me with Roa. I can feel the portion of my powers he took returned to me. Plus," and at this point Arcueids voice noticeably hitched, "Shiki showed me how amazing the world is. If I go back to sleep and ignore all the stuff he showed me it will be like it didn't matter. Like he didn't matter."

Arcueid turned and walked away from the manor. After a moment Shirou followed her.

Author Note A short chapter but one that was incredibly hard to write. Akiha is actually my second favourite girl after Arcueid so this chapter hurts a bit. I may have to revise it in future if the character interaction is a bit too off. The theme of this chapter may as well be regret. The time period was too short for love or friendship to blossom. Shirou only had one meeting and Arcueid only went on one date with Shiki. However both had the same thought at their deaths. They were a person that I feel like I could have got along with. If I had only done this thing they would have still been alive. I never really got to know them.

ex555 I never really got fanfiction app on Smartphone. Need some time to not be doing this. I have not watched ultraman or kamen rider. Never been a huge fan of cheesy japanese shows. Will read the fanfics though.

Tobias97 Sacchin may or may not be in the next chapter.

One last chapter of the arc. Please read and review.