Making Progress

"Could you pass me the salt, please?"

With a smile on his face, detective Osaki Koyo handed the salt over to his faithful and trusted partner, Yomaura, who thanked him with a nod and a smile of her own, before sprinkling it onto her food with calm and methodical movements.

"Taya-san, can I have the salt next?" A glance to the side revealed his youngest daughter, Osaki Chiho, who was holding out her hands towards the red-haired woman, who obediently passed it along.

An involuntary sigh escaped him at the sight of his youngest now putting way too much salt on her food, no doubt spoiling its taste quite badly. But he supposed Chiho wouldn't care. She had often proclaimed to like the taste of salt, though he suspected it was also partly because of a desire to emulate his partner.

Yomaura was one of the only female role-models his girls had, so it was to be expected they'd try to take after her. Or at least, that was what he had been told by the psychiatrist when the subject had come up.

Not that such a thing was bad of course. If you asked him, there were few to no other women in the police-department or even in the entire city who could be better examples for his daughters to follow than Yomaura. Not to mention sprinkling too much salt on one's food was very mild when it came to bad habits.

Everything was better than having his daughters take after that woman…

"Grrr!"

It seemed that not everyone considered it harmless though, as Suki looked like she was about to blow her top at the sight of her little sister practically ruining her food. Normally being a composed and proper girl, with straight black hair and a typical Japanese beauty about her, there were few things that could set his dear eldest daughter off, but mindlessly spoiling the food she'd spent so much time and energy on always made her hackles rise.

"Imouto! You dunce." Suki hissed through clenched teeth, a tell-tale sign with her that her patience was about to run out, while grabbing said sister's hand in mid-motion. "Don't do that. I hate it when you do that, and you know it. I agreed on cooking today because you asked me to, but then you shouldn't spoil it with salt. You promised."

Chiho looked up at that, a puzzled look adorning her face, before her mouth took on the shape of an 'O' and she practically threw the salt across the table, as if trying to hide the incriminating evidence.

"Aah, Onee-san. I am so sorry!" She wailed, looking very guilty indeed. "I was thinking about other things, you know, the subject we discussed this morning, and I didn't remember. And when I saw Taya-san with the salt shaker, I just acted upon my first urge to take and use it. I'm really, really sorry, please forgive me." Chiho had grabbed her sister's hands during the last part, looking up at her with dewy eyes that seemed to plead for forgiveness.

It would seem to be an unusually strong reaction from both of the girls for such a minor happening. It had to be noted however that Suki, though she was absolutely fantastic at it, did not like cooking at all. She considered it a fickle art, with too much chaos and chance involved to make it fun for her.

Osaki's oldest daughter had always been someone who preferred reason and order above chaos, often electing to stay away from any pursuit that had too many aspects of randomness in it. Cooking just so happened to be one of those pursuits in her opinion.

It was an absolute shame though, because, as noted before, she was fantastic at cooking. Her meticulous way of working, attention to detail, and perfectionism made every meal made by her hands a feast on its own. Something everyone often told her, praising her skills and lauding her talent.

Osaki himself often did so as well, but even with all of that, Suki could not be persuaded into cooking more often. The only one who could convince her with any surety was of course little Chiho, but the brown-haired little girl understood very well that abusing that privilege would only take it away from her.

On the evenings she did manage to convince her elder sister though, everyone would be enjoying a true feast of a meal. With Chiho being the most content of all, and often eating the most as well, without any salt being added to it. An important distinction between meals cooked by her sister and those made by anyone else.

She never added salt to her sister's dishes, which was why Osaki, Yomaura, and Suki herself were willing to believe her when she said it hadn't been her conscious intention to mask the food's taste this time.

And as such, the outcome of the little spat was of course that Suki forgave her little sister. She always did after all, and Osaki had learned early on that his daughters were very privy to drama, even when talking about small issues. Which meant that they would blow small problems way our of proportion. 'It was all for the show', they had told him when he had asked.

A woman's thing perhaps? But Yomaura wasn't prone to it, and neither were the many other women he knew…

"Senpai! Watch out." The voice of his partner tore Osaki out of his thoughts immediately.

He looked at the red-haired woman with a questioning look, wondering why she had spoken so loudly, only to find her staring at his plate in front of him, with a look on her face that said she wasn't sure whether to laugh or to shake her head.

The black-haired detective cast his gaze downwards as well, curious as to where she could be looking at, but seeing only his plate of food in front of him, which he had not yet touched on account of it being too hot for now. Yomaura didn't let up on her stare at it though, prompting him to study it more closely as well.

That was when he realised that it wasn't his plate at all. Rather, it was Chiho's plate.

Looking up in confusion, Osaki saw his youngest daughter shuffling food into her mouth from a plate that, as was revealed under closer inspection, he saw was in fact his. The little minx had swapped their dinner when he had been absorbed in thought.

"Chiho." He exclaimed aggrieved, watching as she stuffed her mouth so full that her cheeks bulged as if she were a squirrel. "You can't just steal my food after ruining your own."

Especially not on an evening that Suki had been cooking. Chiho liked her sister's cooking a lot, but he did as well, maybe even more than her. Probably not, but that was not the point.

His youngest daughter completely ignored him however, and his oldest daughter herself was completely merciless to him after witnessing his plight.

"That's what you get for not paying attention during dinner." She told him with a cool voice, carefully looking away from him to convey an air of uncaring elegance and beauty. "I believe we have told you often enough not to dream while we are having a meal. Now you must bear the consequences of not listening to us."

Seeing that his own offspring was now betraying him, one stealing his food while the other endorsed, nay, actively supported it, Osaki turned towards his faithful Kohai, hoping for at least some aid for his poor, viciously attacked self.

It was not to be however. Yomaura only cast him a stern look, not saying anything, but pulling her plate closer to her as if to protect it from someone. Whether that someone was Chiho or him, he didn't know for sure, but it was clear either way that no help would be coming from that direction.

"How cruel." He proclaimed towards Yomaura, throwing his arms wide in a dramatic motion. "To aim such a powerful glare at someone as innocent as I am, while letting the real culprit here go free. That's not at all what I trained you to do, my Kohai. Have you no mercy on the downtrodden?"

"Not if those poor 'downtrodden' spent the better part of the meal dreaming about some stuff or the other." His Kohai told him heartlessly, her cool look now freezing over. "You should have stopped Chiho-chan yourself if you had wanted to keep your dinner. And no, you aren't getting my meal. Suki-chan made this for me, and me alone, because she loves me so much."

Ignoring Sukei's embarrassed cry of shock at those words, both adults looked into each other's eyes. One seemingly depressed, while the other was challenging and uncaring simultaneously, despite how odd that may sound.

Eventually however, both failed to keep up their stoic expressions, as their burst out into giggles that soon evolved into peals of laughter. And while the detectives were busy laughing helplessly, Chiho only looked at them for a moment before going back to eating, while Suki shook her head, bringing a hand to her mouth as if in indignant shock. There was no denying though that its main purpose was to hide a smile of her own.

"Alright, alright, I won't say anything." Osaki grinned eventually, after having recovered. "I'll just have to wait until sweet, talented Suki deigns us worthy of another evening of being cooked for by her."

"That will be tomorrow again if you stop behaving so scandalously right now." The aforementioned girl huffed in response, having regained control of her facial muscles a few seconds ago, allowing her to put up an annoyed expression again. "Really, I can't believe you two are respected detectives, Otou-san, Taya-san. You are supposed to fit the image the best, being the most serious and most dedicated workers in law-enforcement, but you don't behave like it at all. You two are always so childish here at home."

"But that's at home." Yomaura pointed out, still lightly wheezing, but capable once more of holding a proper conversation with the others at the table. "I agree that giggling and messing around is not the correct behaviour for when we are working, so we don't do that at the precinct. We save all that for you and Chiho, because we love you so much."

"Besides." Osaki himself began, watching in amusement as Yomaura's last comment elicited another embarrassed shout from his eldest daughter, "If we actually started behaving like this at work, our dear colleagues would either all get heart-attacks from the shock, or they would beat us up, tie us down, and interrogate us about who we are and where we have left the real Osaki and Yomaura."

"Agreed." Yomaura said to that, grinning widely once more. "I suppose we have somewhat of a reputation at the precinct, with our work-ethic that is apparently not at all what it should be. I do somewhat get them though. I mean, how dare we be so motivated while working as a detective at the Fuyuki-City law-enforcement?"

The last part was said with such heavy sarcasm that even Chiho picked up on it, even though she hadn't been listening at all previously, ignoring the conversation in favour of eating Yomaura's share of the food after having already finished his own share.

The little minx had snatched his partner's plate right from under her nose, something Osaki wasn't going to tell the woman about of course, until every last morsel had disappeared into the girl's stomach.

But apparently something they'd said had managed to arouse the girl's interest. Audibly swallowing her food, Chiho quickly took a gulp of water before giving all of her attention to her father and his partner. Dinner might have been important to her, but his youngest daughter had her priorities well in order.

The little minx had been interested in any bit of news about her father's job ever since she had been old enough to properly understand just what it was that he did for a living. Hearing about the precinct and his colleagues never got old for her, and even Suki's food was second in importance compared to it.

He supposed it was also partially his fault that she was like that. He loved his job, no two-ways about it. He had loved it since the beginning, and his enthusiasm, though tempered with age and experience, had never waned.

It often bled through when he was telling his little girls about the few things that he did during his job that he was allowed to tell outsiders about. That, coupled with the fact that their female role-model had the same job as he did when she had entered their lives, made it no surprise that the girls would become interested in his line of work themselves.

Especially Chiho had it really bad with that. Where Suki's interest in his job was limited to listening to his stories, watching crime-shows on television sometimes, and keeping up with current events pertaining to police-work, Chiho had taken it to a whole other level.

At first, she had kept herself restrained to interrogating him every time he came back from work, and Yomaura as well when she would accompany him.

That had already seemed quite extensive, but it had been nothing yet. Later, she had expanded her reach to doing her own research, meticulously combing over every paper and every bit of other news to find interesting criminal cases.

She even looked up courses and guides for beginning cops on the internet and in the library, determined to become 'as good as any Fuyuki-City officer' before she would attend high school and would no longer have as much time as she did now to pursue her hobby.

Osaki really was of two minds about it. On one hand, he thought it was fantastic one of his daughters was so incredibly motivated with following in his footsteps.

On the other hand, he couldn't help but worry about her. His line of work wasn't particularly dangerous, with him only being a detective, but it involved a lot of very dark things. Humans were capable of incredible cruelties when sufficiently motivated, and he didn't want to expose his dear Chiho to the brutalities of his job.

Not now, when she was only a child indulging in a hobby and attempting to emulate the role-models in her life, and, if he was very honest with himself, not later either. A small part of him would rather have she didn't strive to be like him at all.

But that was his overprotective-father-side speaking. He could say that he was mostly just proud of his hardworking daughter, always making sure to praise her for her work every time she came to him to present something she had worked on. Positive feedback was important for children, and he had been very grateful when Yomaura had seamlessly picked that up, praising Chiho and Suki at every available opportunity.

"In all seriousness though." He continued after coming out of his musings, his joyous mood quickly fading now. "Most of the time, there is nothing to laugh about at our work. On the contrary, things are often very depressing."

"Quite." Yomaura agreed with a sigh, her own grin melting away too. "Seeing what people do to each other is never fun, and it doesn't help at all when most officers who are supposed to combat the evil are too lax to get of their asses and do their jobs. We almost can't make any progress at all in this city."

The younger girls looked at each other, an air of sadness and worry generating from them. It wasn't the first time they had heard of this and it wouldn't be the last.

Being the total dears that they were however, Chiho and Suki had decided to try and cheer both of them up whenever the subject came up, with varying degrees of success.

"But you have had a lot of success these past months." Suki protested, as he had expected, rising from her seat to run to her room. A few seconds later, she came back to the table, holding a folded newspaper.

Upon unfolding it, she revealed its contents were about the exponentially increased number of criminals that had been caught by the police during the past months. It had whole articles praising the brave officers of Fuyuki-City for taking down those threats to society, and the space that wasn't occupied by those articles was instead used for the many interviews with happy people who praised them even more.

Osaki's lips pursed upon seeing it, a frown almost coming to his face before he pushed it away again.

It would have been a very nice gesture and a real confidence-boost, if it hadn't been for the fact that those arrests hadn't been made because of the efforts of the police, but rather because a mysterious vigilante had been picking up the slack for them.

So in the end, Suki's gesture, well-meaning and kind as it was, ultimately didn't help, as she was praising the ever-elusive vigilante rather than him and his partner. Not that he would tell her as such of course. The vigilante was still being kept a secret by his higher-ups. But then, how should he react to this?

"Alright. First of all, please don't just leave the table while we are having dinner, Suki, it is impolite." Osaki began, throwing in the rebuke more to win himself some time to think than out of actual anger or indignation. "Second, why do you still have that paper? Isn't it supposed to be from weeks ago?"

"I'm sorry, Otou-san." Sukey said, looking down despondently at his first words, accepting the admonishment without a word of protest, knowing she was in the wrong here. "But I just had to get this. It is the paper from the day you and Taya-san came home and told us that the gangs of the city were all broken and defeated. I just wanted to keep a memento of the day, as you both looked quite happy."

"Ooooh! That's so sweet of you, Suki-chan." His red-haired partner crowed in delight, now rising from her seat herself in order to walk around the table and scoop the girl up in a hug.

To all eyes, it might seem like a genuine expression of happiness and appreciation, and to a certain extent, it was. Osaki however also recognised it as a diversion tactic, to make Suki so embarrassed with the topic that she'd change it herself.

And just as he was thinking that, Yomaura continued: "To keep something just to remember the day so much progress was made. You are the best daughter ever! Oh, you're just so precious."

While the words were meant to be a distraction, which seemed to be working if Suki's spluttering was any indication, Osaki found that he could only agree with them. It was incredibly thoughtful of his eldest daughter to keep something like that around just to remember the success of the police and thus the success of him and his Kohai.

It wasn't unexpected she would do something like this though. Despite her somewhat cold behaviour at times, she was a gentle and kind soul that enjoyed seeing others be happy. She only had trouble expressing that at times with words, so she often let her actions do the talking for her.

'Such as cooking twice in a row despite disliking it and having little to no time, only because her father didn't get to eat any of her food.' He thought fondly, watching on as the girl in question flailed in his partner's grip, frantically trying to escape, but without success so far.

Yomaura's carefully measured comments did not go appreciated by everyone though. Next to Osaki, Chiho blew her cheeks out in anger at being classified as second-best daughter by her role-model.

She understood of course that it was less a matter of favouritism and more of enthusiasm that had prompted Taya-san to shout out such a thing, but it still stung at her pride.

It could not be said however that she resented Suki over it. No, on the contrary. She loved her elder sister like nothing else, which was only logical, because she was in fact the best sister in the world. And her cooking was also fantastic, there was no way Chiho could ever resent someone who was such a good cook.

But her pride had been stung all the same by the declaration, so she would have to do something about it. And though hating her sister was impossible, nothing was preventing her from impressing her parents herself as well. She would have to show Taya-san that she was also a very good child.

But what was the best way to go about it then?

Based on the circumstances, she could only assume Taya-san had proclaimed her elder sister to be the best daughter because Suki had had the clarity of mind to keep a memento of a very happy moment in the lives of the adults present in her room.

In short: Her Onee-san was very smart, so that made her a good girl.

But that was okay. Chiho herself also had something up her sleeve to show she was clever as well. Outo-san and Taya-san would be blown away by her insight.

"Yes, very good, Onee-san. Keeping that newspaper was indeed a brilliant idea." She started, giving credit where credit was due, before promptly dropping the bomb she had been sitting on for weeks now, right in the middle of the conversation. "But the articles are still somewhat wrong. After all, they make no single mention of the vigilante helping the police, Rakurai!"

Chiho, being a nice, but somewhat impulsive child, just sprouted the words out, momentarily forgetting that if the news about a vigilante hadn't been in the papers yet, it was probably meant to be kept a secret. A secret that was still very much unknown to the majority of the people, with no one even having a reason at all to doubt the official stories.

Even Chiho herself, the one who had discovered something was wrong, hadn't had any concrete reason as to why she hadn't believed the statements of the police. The little girl had just had an inkling some time ago that something was wrong about the recent streak of victories, and had started her own little investigation.

And indeed, the longer she had investigated the situation, the more things just didn't add up anymore. Contradictions appeared everywhere, time-lines were full of obvious faults, everything her father had taught her to look for when checking something's credibility showed up at least once. Eventually, she could only conclude that whoever had been in charge of making the cover story had been really bad at their job.

Far from being discouraged or scared away by the sheer scope of the secret she had been unearthing, Chiho had thrown herself even deeper into her private investigation.

She had seen however that this was way out of her league. She was not even in high school yet, and no matter how smart, there would just be things that she didn't understand or could not properly connect.

That particular problem however had an easy solution. She had just asked the help of her brilliant Onee-san, who was in fact in high school, and was super intelligent and always knew everything.

And sure, she had been unwilling at first to aid Chiho in her childish pursuit, but after Chiho had showed her the things that she had already found, Suki had readily joined the investigation.

And after some more searching, they had uncovered even more contradictions in the case they were on. By that point, neither sister believed anything what was written about the vigilante anymore.

Unfortunately, the evidence provided them no answers, but only added more questions to the mountain they already had.

Eventually, they'd shamefully resorted to looking through their father's papers when he had taken a few of them home, despite knowing they were violating quite a few house-rules with that act. There hadn't been much on them, only a short description of every crime-scene where a gang had been taken down, but it had been enough for Chiho to draw a conclusion.

There was a real-life superhero taking down the criminals in Fuyuki-City.

Onee-san had been disbelieving when she had told her of the theory she had developed, but after reviewing the proof herself, Suki could only agree with her that there was definitely something fishy going on.

Chiho had been all for going to their father at once, to confront him about the issue, but Suki had stopped her short the moment the suggestion had left her mouth. Her elder sister had claimed that it was clearly a secret, and that they weren't supposed to reveal secrets that were related to their father's work. That was dangerous. They had already messed up when looking into his paperwork, there was no reason to make things even worse.

And after some more heckling, Chiho had agreed to keep it quiet, if only because she realised that father would be disappointed with her if she revealed that she meddled too much in things that he didn't want her to meddle in.

The girls had decided together to keep their knowledge just as secret as the police was keeping it, with the last thing they said about it being Suki telling her that the correct term for such a person was 'vigilante', not superhero.

After that, they'd buried the matter and decided to not speak of it again...

'…'

'Oops?'

...

Though outwardly he was only staring at his daughter with an astonished and dumbfounded expression, Osaki was in fact very busy with frantically attempting to find out how his daughter had discovered the existence of the vigilante.

Sure, he had complained often enough that his colleagues were good-for-nothing lazy bums, but that alone shouldn't have been enough by far for her to jump to such an outrageous sounding conclusion. That would require extensive research and access to all kinds of information. Information Chiho was not privy to, he was quite sure of that.

And what was up with the name; Rakurai? Lightning Strike? It did fit, he supposed, but again, coming up a name like that, one that described the vigilante's MO so well at that, required intel that Chiho should have no way of getting.

Had she gone behind his back and looked at his paperwork? They had never done such a thing before, and he usually left everything in his study, where his daughters knew not to come.

But how had she figured it out then?

Eventually, after turning it over a dozen times in his head, he admitted defeat, not able to determine what could have led his daughter to that conclusion, and went on to simply asking her about it. Before he could though, he was cut off by Suki, who had put a smile on her face, one much too big for her, and then spoke in a voice so cheerful that he almost cringed just hearing it.

"Ah! Ignore her, Otou-san, Taya-san. She has watched too many of those anime series and read too many comics these past months. You know how she is when she gets enthusiastic about something, always finding ways to make everything sound cooler than it truly is. Of course there is no vigilante."

And as his eldest daughter kept talking, Osaki realised that she had been in on this too. Her rather poor and obvious attempts at damage control were proof enough of that.

Both of his daughters now had critical and very secret information in their possession, deduced all by themselves. Had the circumstances been different, he would probably have been proud of them, delighted even that they were so insightful, but in this situation, it was a major headache for him.

He couldn't exactly silence them, except by admonishing them harshly for prying and making them swear they wouldn't tell a soul. Fortunately, he was certain that they'd keep their promise, they were reliable like that.

But if they had figured out the truth, it was likely that others could do so as well. Others he didn't have any influence over and could very well have malicious intentions with that knowledge.

Making eye-contact with his Kohai, he saw that she had reached much the same conclusion as he had. Communicating non-verbally with a few moments, they eventually settled on a course of action. Find whatever leaks they had, both the ones his daughters had found and those that they hadn't, and then plug them as soon as possible.

A few more gestures from him indicated that his Kohai should start with the questioning of the first two leads they had.

Yomaura thus interrupted Suki in the middle of a sentence, cutting off the girl's rambling instantly.

"That's quite enough, Suki-chan." His red-haired partner said bluntly, a frown marring her face. "It is clear enough that you are both in on this, you and your sister. And for quite a long time already if I'm not mistaken."

The high schooler let out a surprised gasp at the red-haired woman's words, looking like she had been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Which was not entirely inaccurate, considering the circumstances.

"How did you find that out?" She asked with a small voice, looking incredibly put out that her diversion tactics hadn't worked.

"Because you never ramble that much." Chiho responded dryly, sitting down again on her chair, looking from him to Yomaura with a sheepish expression. "Is there any chance you can blame just me for all of this? I dragged Onee-san into this against her will, so it isn't her fault."

Suki turned her head so fast upon hearing those words that Osaki feared momentarily that she had gotten a whiplash from it. She didn't cry out in pain though, so he relaxed again and settled to listen to his daughters arguing with each other, which was no doubt what was going to happen.

Normally, he would of course break up any arguments as soon as possible, as he disliked strive within the family, but there was too much at stake here for him to do so.

It was commonly known among detectives that emotional suspects were far more prone to flapping out interesting things than composed suspects, and if you had arguing partners in front of you, you had struck gold. In terms of information gathering at least.

He would let his daughters argue as much as they wanted for now. He and his red-haired partner might be able to obtain some more information from that when tensions would inevitably run too high.

This all flashed through his head in a split-second, allowing him to hear Suki's reaction to Chiho's attempt to take all of the blame on herself:

"No, you dunce." She hissed through clenched teeth. "I joined in with as much enthusiasm as you when you came to me with your suspicions. I am going to take my share of the blame and you are going to sit down and accept that."

"But you always looked so reluctant." Chiho protested, looking incredibly miffed at her sister's refusal to go along with her plans to proclaim herself as the only guilty person in the house. "And you never would have investigated if I hadn't brought it to your attention."

"That was only for the show. I liked doing the research and connecting the clues with you." Suki murmured, demurely looking away and losing her momentum for a moment, before lifting her head again, resolutely staring Chiho in the face once more, expression indomitable. "And I would have figured it out myself after a while, I mean, it's not as if those idiots at the precinct could ever pull something off like that without the involvement of father and Taya-san, or without them knowing about it at least."

"You liked doing the research with me?" Chiho squealed happily, temporarily distracted from defending her point when hearing her sister's first statement, before she too realised that was not important at the moment and thus squared up again. "I mean, no, it was me who started looking into the police statements that were made during the arrests, and me who then discovered that they were all full of glaring holes. I only came to you after that."

"Yes, but it was me who discovered the recurring clues at every crime-scene after we looked into father's papers. You know, that they always strike at night, that they burn the power cables, that the entire gang is knocked unconscious instead of killed or just tackled to the ground as the police would have done in such a situation." Suki responded heatedly, leaning forward with her hands on the table, looming over the seated Chiho. "Someone ditsy like you could never figure that out by herself."

"Alright, I'll give you that." Chiho huffed, not reacting to the insult at all. "But I was the one who found out about the same thing happening in other cities now, which really confirmed our suspicions about a third party being involved. I really love the internet by the way."

"Yes, but…"

'This is way too easy.' Osaki thought to himself, almost feeling a sweat drop appearing at the side of his head, Yomaura being in much the same situation. They didn't even have to say anything or put any pressure on them, they just revealed everything outright.

Osaki thought back on his own teenage years. Had he been like them? So bold and brash?

He probably had been like that too, but he wouldn't have spilled everything he knew during an argument while forgetting there were adults present, so he had that going for him. Only his girls would do something like that.

He then noticed his partner leaning over towards him, bringing her face close to his in order to whisper into his ear without the girls overhearing anything:

"Do you think they actually forgot we are standing right here?" She asked softly, looking bemused at the sort-off-argument taking place in front of them, with either girl trying to take all of the blame for their mishap, while simultaneously praising and insulting the other.

"Probably." He responded gruffly, his mind working furiously to find an acceptable solution to the mess he had inadvertently found himself in.

Making sure the story wouldn't be spread by his daughters was not a real problem. As he had determined before, telling his daughters to stay quiet would work well enough for now. Even if they lacked a bit in common sense, they were wise enough to not go and speak of this to random people.

What was a problem however was that the first and foremost reason the girls had started looking into the matter was because the law-enforcement had a reputation of being lazy, and as such should have been unable to make as much progress as they had.

It was true of course, but still something he would rather not have many people know. The incompetence of the police being widely known would not be a good thing at all. It could lead to unrest, and bold people starting to commit crimes themselves where they wouldn't have before, because they would believe the police wouldn't be able to catch them anyway.

People were usually opportunistic scumbags like that.

In addition to that, he had learned that the cover stories that had been put out by the PR-people were not adequate at all, seeing that a girl barely in her teens had been able to poke it full of holes. They would need to be improved and patched up as soon as possible. He would have to ask Chiho for a list of the discovered holes later.

A sigh escaped him. Two major problems already and that was not even the end of it.

"Shall we break them up then?" Yomaura continued, looking way too amused for the situation as she watched the girls have their little spat. "We'd probably find out more from directly asking questions at this point. I mean, it's not as if they are hardened criminals actively working against us."

"I suppose not." He replied. "And let's hope they'll never become such. They wouldn't last a second in a real interrogation as they are now."

Seeing his Kohai nod and look away, Osaki rose from his seat.

He suddenly and harshly cleared his throat in order to remind the girls of his presence. It worked like a charm, with Suki, Chiho, and even Yomaura jumping like frightened deer at the sound.

His partner only cast him an annoyed glance, to which he replied with an amused look, but his daughters seemed to go through a lot of expressions in the few seconds after he had made the sound. They simultaneously went through shock, then surprise, followed by understanding, embarrassment, and finally sheepishness as they realised that they weren't alone in the room.

It was quite funny.

But that was not what was important here. He would have to step up and be the authority-figure of the family. The behaviour the girls had displayed had disappointed him, as they should have known better than this.

"I hope you are well-aware of what it is that you have done, and why your actions were wrong." He thus started in a tone as stern and disappointed as he could make it. "Not only have you meddled with things I have forbidden you to meddle with, but you even looked into my paperwork to help you in that."

The girls let their heads hang in shame, neither making eye-contact with him or his partner.

"Well?" He asked harshly, watching as his daughters flinched at the hard sound. "Do you have anything to say for yourself? Is there any explanation or cause for your actions during the past weeks?"

Suki and Chiho glanced at each other, seemingly communication in the same manner that he would communicate with Yomaura. After some nods, shakes and a single prod, Suki lifted her head to face him. She took a deep breath, shuffling with her feet all the while, before speaking very fast:

"Well,atfirstweonlysawdiscrepanciesintheofficialstory that was brought out concerning the greatest police-effort in years, and we wanted to investigate and then we discovered actual secrets and a vigilante and we got carried away and that's how we got here."

She said it all in one breath, finishing her sentence with a loud gasp for air. After panting for a few moments, Suki lowered her head again, not saying anything more but once more waiting for what he had to say in response.

Not that he could say all that much at the moment honestly.

After reflecting on the entire issue for a few moments, Osaki had to admit that the only thing the girls were truly guilty of was looking into his paperwork.

Besides that, they hadn't done anything wrong. He had told them of course that he didn't want their involvement in active cases, but the girls had had no way of knowing this had been an active case until they had basically solved it already.

Making eye-contact with Yomaura once more, Osaki shook his head in dismay. What was he supposed to do under these kind of circumstances? He couldn't just wave the problem away, but he also didn't want to be too harsh to them for misdeeds that were almost accidental. He would have to find some kind of balance here.

So after yet another sigh, he spoke up again.

"I must admit that your misdemeanour is not as dire as it seems at first." He began, narrowing his eyes. "But the fact remains that you are now in possession of very sensitive information, as well as being guilty of going through the papers of a federal officer, although I will admit that it is also partially my fault for leaving those at home."

Once more the only answer he received was shuffling of feet and heads lowering even further. No doubt they were expecting dire consequences and harsh lectures. "You will not be punished however." He told them instead.

The heads of both of his daughters shot up to give him a confused look, but before they could speak, he went on. "There is just no use. Some actions are just beyond what you can reprimand your children for. This was an actual crime that you committed, and while I won't arrest you or anything, I can only urge you to think about what you have done, and to realise that it was a mistake to act as you two did."

That pretty much wrapped up the matter of punishing the girls, who looked pretty down by now, and left only the task of plugging the leaks that were apparently plentifully present in the cover story.

Yomaura thus asked the downtrodden girls for the list of things they had discovered. The girl's reply was immediate and in fact did much to sooth his frayed nerves.

Nothing they had discovered was all that sensitive, and the leaks they had found could be patched up with little effort. It would be something he and his Kohai would have to look into as soon as possible.

Seeing that no one would be hungry after something like this, he sent the girls to their rooms for the night. He and Yomaura would do the clean-up. They had much to discuss anyway, and little time to actually do so.

Neither he nor his red-haired partner actually spoke at all afterwards though. Not until they were doing the last of the dishes.

"Do you think I have been too soft on them, Yomaura? He asked, while washing the dish in his hands, before handing it over to his Kohai so she could dry them and put them away. "I know they barely did anything wrong if one looks at it objectively, but letting them off without any actual punishment…"

"Senpai." His red-haired partner firmly interrupted him. "Don't worry about things like that. Chiho and Suki are very well-behaved, emphatic, and kind girls, who absolutely hate it when you are angry with them. I do not doubt they are already beating themselves up over this in their rooms. Further punishing them will not add anything."

Osaki hummed, looking pensive for a moment, before ultimately agreeing with her assessment. "When you put it like that, I would almost say I have to set them at ease tomorrow." He said, half-jokingly, but also half-not.

"You do that, Senpai." Yomaura agreed, putting away the last plate in the drawer. "But do that tomorrow. As you said, you can't let them off too easily, and besides, we have a lot of ground to cover tonight."

Osaki grunted in agreement, following his partner as she walked out of the kitchen, ascended the stairs and entered his private study.

Normally, he would have been opposed to talking about sensitive topics at home, preferring to save it for the precinct, but this could not wait.

It couldn't do much harm either. The only other people in the house who could hear them were already aware anyway, making the risks very few and very low. It was unlikely after all that there would be someone listening in at the moment from outside of the window or something.

Unlikely, but not impossible. As such, he made sure to check outside, before closing the curtains and locking the window.

"So Senpai." Yomaura started with a frown on her face, moving over to sit in the chair across from his desk. "What do you make of this? And what are we going to do about it?" Flipping her feet up to rest on the desk, she leaned backwards with a pensive expression of her own, biting her lip in thought.

"What I make of this?" Osaki parroted. "Nothing good. The fact that people were able to figure this out is disastrous, even if it were only the girls. We have kept Rakurai a secret for a reason, we can't afford to have that secret get away from us while we are unprepared."

"You don't have to tell me." His partner replied, her frown growing deeper at his words. "After riding on the vigilante's successes as we have, we can't have it that it becomes known that we only did clean-up. It would reflect incredibly bad on the police if the public finds out."

"I know. We have talked about this before." Osaki sighed, feeling agitated at the prospect. Normally, he would not care much about what people would think of him or the police in general, but a screw-up of this magnitude had the potential of fatally undermining the trust the populace had in the law-enforcement of the city.

People would no longer rely on the police, but they would try to solve their own problems instead, and he had read enough dystopian novels to know that such a thing could only end in tragedy.

"There's only one thing to do, though I dislike the option a fair bit." Osaki continued, taking a seat behind the desk himself. "We must bring the news out ourselves, yet we must also bend the truth a great deal."

"Bend the truth?" Yomaura inquired, cocking her head to the side but not moving beside that. "I do not like the sound of that. What exactly is 'bending the truth' in this situation?"

"We shall tell the press of Rakurai's existence." Osaki started laying out his plan. "But we will heavily imply that they have only helped us. Nothing about them being the one who has taken down all of the organised crime in the city in their own."

"Downplaying the vigilante's achievements?" The red-haired woman summarised, bringing a hand to her chin. "While exaggerating our own. I see, that would allow us to pretend we are being truthful while also putting us in an excellent position to deny any claims that we have done nothing."

Osaki nodded slowly. It was the best option they had at the moment. He wasn't happy with the deception that came with it, and neither was his partner if her discontent look was anything to go by, but they had very few other choices, if any at all.

"But what about the vigilante themselves?" Yomaura then said, looking up nervously at him. "If he comes out with the truth, then we'll look even worse, won't we…?"

Osaki held his hands up in a soothing motion. Her concern was understandable, but ultimately unwarranted.

"Don't worry about that." He told her confidently. "They have not come forward yet or even made a single statement, despite the police claiming all the credit for their deeds. I don't think that will change if we start giving them some credit now. And besides, the moment they come out, we'll just arrest them, as has been our intention from the start."

"A solid plan then, if very opportunistic." The half-Irish woman nodded, not looking any more content than before, but now taking her feet off the desk and sitting up straighter in determination. "We'll have to present the plan to our superiors as soon as possible. There's no reason to assume they'll reject it, so perhaps we can already write some statements for the press."

"Preparation is indeed key to this." Osaki nodded. "To pull this off, the whole agency will have to be ready and informed of everything, lest someone screws it up anyway."

"Before we do that though," his Kohai suddenly said, grabbing a piece of paper and a pen, "We still have the new information to go over. The vigilante himself still needs to be caught, Senpai, and he won't do that himself."

Laughing once more at the mental image of Rakurai coming to them out of his own free will, Osaki agreed with her words, moving a few papers on his desk to the side to make room for the current case.

They had theorised some weeks back that Rakurai was a teenager, or at most a young adult, without any means of getting around except for walking or taking public transportation, based on the fact that all incidents happened within the city and because Rakurai's work had some traits of the work of beginning cops.

These were traits like improperly clearing a room, following the wrong path through a building, forcing him to double back several times and lose precious time, and losing composure when confronted with a truly evil person, like Sawachika.

His partner and he had as such been looking into every person living in Fuyuki-City that matched the description they had. And sure, they both knew it was a long shot, but it was the only real lead of sorts they had.

Fortunately for them, it wasn't like many people of the specified age were capable of the acts that Rakurai had committed so often. The culprit would have to be in very good shape, very healthy, extremely skilled in fighting in general or maybe a martial art of some kind, and also smart enough to find the gangs while the police had been unable to.

And unsurprisingly, there were very few teenagers and young adults conforming to that description. Tracking them down was easy.

A visit to every high school and every dojo in the city, as well as all kendo and archery clubs, also helped a lot.

With all of this fortune, it was perhaps only to be expected that it turned out to be a dead end.

Every possible suspect either had excellent alibis or factors that excluded them from the list, such as disorders, phobia's, plain stupidity and more, meaning that they were stuck on this angle.

So they had broadened their vision, easing up a bit on the requirements. And doing so again when that didn't yield any results either, and again, and again, and again. Up to the point where Osaki was quite sure that they'd had spoken with and investigated every teenager in the city who had something impressive to their name. But without any success. Clearly Rakurai was hiding better than he had expected.

No, if the vigilante was indeed a teenager or young adult, then they wouldn't find him by just going to schools and universities. They would have to adopt a different tactic. The trouble however was that they hadn't been able to think of such a tactic, especially since Rakurai had dropped off the map after taking down the last gang.

At least, until he had been found again by the girls, who had manged to connect him with act of vigilantism that had taken place in cities that were located hours away from Fuyuki, even with the car or public transport, which made their one theory utterly baseless.

Far from being deterred by this however, Osaki and Yomaura had just been spurred by it to work even harder.

"So he has been seen again in Urayasu this time?" The red-haired woman asked, looking peeved at the paper in front of her, dated two days ago, reading an article about criminals being taken down by an unknown person in the aforementioned city. "Heh, can't fault him. It was high time someone took out the trash at that place."

"True." Osaki sighed. He had been doing a lot of sighing today, hadn't he? Oh well.

He too was reading the article and couldn't help but agree with his partner. Urayasu's reputation was a poor one, with its crime statistics being a thing of legends, in a very bad way. Rakurai couldn't have picked a better target if he wanted to catch a lot of criminals in a short time.

"Are we discarding our theory about the vigilante being a teenager or young adult, Senpai?" Yomaura then inquired, seeing no reason to beat around the bush with this. They had to decide here and now if they wanted to spend more time and effort into pursuing their only lead, or if they wanted to abandon it.

Putting off making this decision would help no one except the vigilante himself.

"Because that would leave us with as much as we started with, which is basically nothing." She finished, looking a bit uncertain.

"It does look very bleak for that particular theory, that much is undeniable." Osaki agreed with his partner, speaking his own thoughts out loud. "But as you said, it's the only one we have, so let's stay on it for a while. It doesn't cost us much anyway, and it's always good to cover all bases."

Receiving a nod from his co-worker, he went back to the newspaper. He shook his head in consternation when he read than the MO was once more precisely the same as it had been in the previous cities. Well, as far as the news-agencies had been able to determine.

After half-an-hour of fruitless discussions, going over the same information dozens of times, and almost falling asleep the entire time, Yomaura threw her pen down in a dramatic gesture.

"I'm done with this." She hissed, massaging her dominant hand with the other. "Let's just write down some statements to give to the public for when we introduce the vigilante to them and go to bed then."

Once more, Osaki could only agree with the idea of his Kohai. She always had the most brilliant of plans.

"That shouldn't take too long." He mused, putting aside the accumulated writings about Rakurai in favour of grabbing an empty sheet of paper. "I have no doubt most people in this city will eat up the story of an 'awesome vigilante' roaming the streets.

"However, we must present it carefully. With all these comic books around, many will see Rakurai as a hero instead of a law-breaking vigilante. We'll have to be cautious of that and portray him as the law-breaker he is."

"Say, Senpai." Yomaura interrupted him. "Why do you keep calling the vigilante by the name Chiho-chan has given to him. Do you consider it such a good name?"

"It fits just fine yes." He answered shortly. "It describes his MO, his preferred circumstances of working, and it is cool enough for the public to remember. Don't forget, people adore all things that are cool, and will often name those things if they do not have a name yet, or if the assigned name is considered not cool enough. I wish to avoid that here."

"Wise." Yomaura grunted, before falling silent as the two began working on the speech.

For another forty minutes, the only sound was the scratching of pens on paper, as both were crafting the right sentences to use in order to play a crowd.

At long last, they were satisfied with what they had put together, although they would have to check again in the morning. Trusting the writing that one had done during the evening was folly, every writer knew that.

"Well then Senpai. It is time for me to go home I think." The red-haired woman said with a large yawn. "Thank you for your hospitality, and the meal Suki-chan made for us."

"Are you sure you should be going home at this hour?" Osaki asked concernedly. "You look like you can barely remain upright. Is it not wiser to take the guest-room? You are more than welcome of course."

His Kohai shot him a surprised look, before she grinned in self-recrimination. "I haven't exactly slept a lot over the past weeks, Senpai." She confessed, looking at the ground in a way very similar to the girls. "I have been very busy you see? And today's stress didn't help either."

After saying that, she bounced right back however, looking up again, a real grin now on her face. "So I happily accept your offer to stay here. It is warm enough to not need any sleeping wear anyway, and I can go without brushing my teeth for one night."

"Neither of those is necessary." Osaki replied. "There are plenty of night-gowns in the drawers in the guest-rooms and many unused toothbrushes in the cupboard under the stairs. Feel free to grab what you need."

And with another exclamation of gratitude, his partner indeed made her way out of his study, leaving Osaki behind, who could only shake his head at his partner's behaviour. Normally, she was so prim and proper, eager to please and cautious to not do anything wrong. At home though, she would mellow out a lot, and apparently even more so when she was tired.

Not that he minded. He was very fond of professional Yomaura, but he had found long ago that he liked informal Yomaura as well, at least as much as her professional form.

After putting away the paperwork, he followed her out to get to bed himself. Taking care to not walk in on his partner during her changing, he too put on his sleeping wear, brushed his teeth, and then brought said partner to the guest room where she would be staying tonight.

Before he could leave for his own room however, Yomaura spoke up once more. "Thanks again for letting me stay here. I promise I'll clean up here tomorrow, you won't even notice someone was in here at all, on my word. And if there's anything I can do in return, just say it."

"You don't have to clean it, you are a guest here." He answered, shaking his head to emphasise his words. "And repayment… Simply help me set the girls at ease tomorrow and we'll be even. Kami knows they'll want your forgiveness as well."

"That goes without saying." The red-haired woman responded. "We'll take care of our girls in the morning. For now, good night, Koyo."

"Good night, Taya."

And she closed the door of her room behind her, leaving him standing outside.

With a quiet laugh, he now made for his own room. His mood, which had deteriorated over the course of the evening, was now excellent once more. He had caught what Taya had said to him, and he couldn't help but be appreciative.

'Our girls', she had said.

Not 'your girls', or just their names, or any other impersonal referral, but instead something that indicated she considered the girls almost as her own.

It was good to know that the women in his life were getting along so well.

'Yes, good to know indeed.' He then thought to himself while he settled in his blankets. Yomaura really is far better person than she is.

'Our girls'.

'She' would never have said that.

Damn her, well and truly damn that woman to hell.'

And with those dark last thoughts, detective Osaki fell asleep, after an evening that was far more eventful than he could possibly have anticipated.


It was with a shake of his head that Joseph Balefor discarded yet another failed experiment. Human, animal, or even Homunculus, he just couldn't get them to cooperate with him.

It was very, no, extremely fortunate for him that there was no shortage of subjects, as his research was difficult and slow-going to say the least, and that was when resources were in abundance. Who knows what would happen if there was shortage instead?

In the beginning, back when he had just joined his current group, he had made more progress than ever before. Plenty of resources, time and protection were almost freely given to him. It had been wonderful.

Recently however, he had hit a roadblock. All of his experiments were going horribly wrong, seemingly without any cause. He could only hope it was temporary, as there was still so much to discover in his field of interest.

His objective was not to reach Akasha.

Well, it was, but he was not pursuing it directly. Unlike many other Magi, he knew it was useless to pursue that ideal with the means the Magus Association could currently provide.

So instead, he had taken to laying the groundwork for future generations, being satisfied with the knowledge that someone would one day reach Akasha partially because of his own contributions.

But not only those who wanted to reach the Root would appreciate the findings that he was going to make here, every single Magus in the world would. His work was revolutionary.

Everyone in the Moonlit World who hadn't lived under a rock for their entire life knew that Magic, the Od, came from the Soul. This could then be combined with the Mana in the air to make Prana, which would enable Thaumaturgy.

A select few people on the world even had Magic Circuits, the pathways, or veins if you prefer, in their Soul, through which magical power flowed inside of one's being.

Most people did not have them however, making it impossible for them to use any kind of Thaumaturgy in their lives by themselves, which was why those with Magic Circuits would always be superior.

But even for those with Magic Circuits, not all was well. 'To be a Magus is to walk with death' was a very commonly known saying among those of the Moonlit World, as the same Magic that could help one ascend to higher planes could also tear one apart in the blink of an eye.

Most Magi, himself and his partners included, didn't consider that much of a hurdle though. That was only for those too afraid to chase after their ambitions and after power, not for them.

But for brave Magi like Balefor, there were still problems, albeit of a different kind. The undisputed biggest of those being the lack of power Magi experienced too often.

Yes, that was correct. Even though the Magic Circuits enabled them to rise above the rest, they were often considered inadequate by those who possessed them. Too few or too weak.

There was always a shortage of Prana. Even those that would save their power for years in storage items outside of the body would see that supply burned through in weeks should they actually try to do something worthwhile. And most Magi weren't even capable of storing power like that, meaning that every moment not spend on work represented an awful load of Prana wasted.

Even he, Joseph Balefor, heir to an old family with many discoveries and victories to their name, had only thirty-three Circuits of average quality, and he was considered above average when compared to others. Of course, he had the added advantage of having a crest that contained one-hundred-and-twenty-one more Circuits inside of him, but that was still not enough.

Even with all of his power, which was far more than most Magi had access to, he still had to spend countless hours waiting until he had 'reloaded' his reserves, he was exhausted after a couple of minutes of fighting, and he just plain couldn't do some things because he couldn't amass enough Prana at once for them.

Fortunately, every one of the aforementioned problems could be led back to just one issue. If he could fix that, the rest would follow easily. And that particular issue was, as said before, the shortage of power.

His solution to this problem was a relatively simple one; He would have to make Prana an unlimited resource, so that every Magus in the world could do what they wanted to do, without worrying about reserves.

'Well, not every Magus.' He corrected himself with a small smile. 'Only those I deem worthy of it shall partake in the fruits of my eventual success. Those that do not have my favour will either have to endear themselves to me, or never gain access to unlimited power.'

Boisterous words, but he was sure he could back them up.

He had tried his luck with all kinds of methods, using everything in the Clocktower that he could get his hands on, just randomly browsing to see what would produce results.

But his endeavours hadn't payed off much. His attempts to lessen Gaia's influence hadn't born him any fruit, and in addition to that, he had been slapped down at once when his uncle had realised what he had been doing, telling him that messing with that deity was folly at best and disastrous at worst.

Trying to harvest more Mana from the air had helped in some instances, such as Shamanic rituals, some instances of Formalcraft and even with Runes, a tiny bit. But always very little, and with nothing else besides the aforementioned arts.

That was when he had started looking into sharing power between individuals, willingly or otherwise. The Crests that were passed on through families were a good example of (mostly) willing individuals sharing power, to a certain extent. Every generation contributed a bit to the Crest, and the later descendants could reap the benefits. And add their own share of course.

The downside about Crests however was that there were a very limited number of them around in the world today. Their precise origin was unknown, though it was heavily speculated that least a number of them had been created originally by Solomon, the King of Magic, who then had passed them on to Magi around him.

Anyhow, creating more Crests was nigh-impossible.

Combining spells and Circuits and whatnot together in an intricate manner like a Crest was undoable for most Magi of the present era, so the ones that did exist were guarded meticulously, and any tampering was frowned upon or even punished by the Clocktower.

Despite the Clocktower's dislike of tampering however, Balefor had eventually decided that studying Crests was probably the best and possibly only way to reach his ultimate goal, so that was what he had done anyway.

With full permission of course; His uncle was the bearer of the Balefor-family Crest after all, and the man had been willing to let his nephew study it as long as there would be no cutting, slicing, or other impairing things involved in the process.

Joseph had of course agreed, as he wasn't anywhere near the stage where it would be required to cut open Crests for more knowledge.

It had also been very lucky for him when his uncle had been able to arrange access to the stored Crests in the Clocktower, so he could study those too. It had been an absolute godsend for Joseph, who then had gained access to frameworks and references to compare with each other.

From that point on, it had all gone rather well. He had been able to sketch a somewhat coherent picture of the Crests in general, as they all had some recurring factors at the very least. It would seem they had all been build following the same base-plan, yet what that baseplan could be, he didn't know, yet.

Another useful piece of information he had obtained was about adding new spells and Circuits, in a way that was easier than the standard methods, which would no doubt help him a great deal later. After that however, he couldn't find anything new.

He had not been overly worried though. He had been the foremost candidate for receiving the Balefor-family Crest and he would have been able to study it more closely when it would have passed on to him after his uncle's death.

Until then, he had decided to focus on other matters and pursuits, such as working with living animals. Later though, when he had turned out to possess considerable talent in that field, he had branched out to human experimentation too.

It had just been a flight of fancy at first for him, partially to kill some time until his uncle finally died, partially for the recognition it brought him, and partially to prepare for his planned studies into humans. He had even made quite a name for himself and many people had hired him to make them some 'interesting projects'.

'And I must say that I am happy I did that.' Balefor thought to himself, back in the present. 'If it wasn't for my accomplishments back then, my current group would never have reached out to me.'

Without a doubt, he had it much better here than back in England.

Back at the Clocktower, back when he hadn't been a Sealing Designee yet, the circumstances he'd had to work under had been horrendous.

Not when he had been experimenting on animals or when dealing with willing subjects like his uncle, no, the Clocktower had been very sharing and accommodating when he had been doing that.

But it had been as good as forbidden to work on living humans. Experimentation could be done on the corpses that were pulled from the mortuary, or sometimes on Sealing Designees and criminals, but capturing people of the streets was forbidden.

Supposedly, this was because kidnapping people had a high chance of revealing Magecraft to the world, something that had to be avoided at all costs.

Balefor had thought it idiotic back then and he still thought so now. And presently, he could even back it up with evidence. Abducting people of the streets did nothing to expose the Moonlit World as long as you were a little smart and careful about it.

But no, that was not allowed, no matter how much time and effort he and some other like-minded people put into devising methods to obtain specimens without risk. Their pleas and accompanying ideas were constantly rejected out of hand.

And Balefor also knew why, and it was not because of preserving the secrecy.

It was forbidden because of that arrogant, prissy, bleeding-heart bitch of a Barthomeloi.

Lorelei Barthomeloi. The name alone was already enough to piss him off something fierce. That uppity woman pretended she was a cold, ruthless Magus, more than deserving of her first-rate designation, and in many ways, he had to admit, she indeed was.

What many people however could not see was that she also had a disgustingly weak side about her. It was her, along with that grandmother of hers, who had forbidden everyone to abduct people unrelated to the Moonlit World.

And most Magi had accepted this as a measure to preserve secrecy. But he wasn't so easily deceived as they were. He had understood that she was just weak. That had been made clear as day when she had personally come over to his chambers to slap him down after he had submitted his seventh request to obtain specimens.

She hadn't given any reasons, she hadn't explained, she had just torn up the papers with his research and requests on them and told him that if he dared to kidnap anyone, she'd kill him herself.

He had feared for his life at that moment and had agreed to stay down and behave like a good little boy, lest she made good on her threat. He didn't believe for a moment that it had been an idle one.

That she hadn't been bluffing was proven a little over a month after that incident. A friend of his, one that had helped him devise the plans for obtaining specimens, had been caught kidnapping infants from a maternity-ward in a hospital to use for his research.

Barthomeloi had been angrier than he'd ever seen anyone be that day. Without wasting a single second, she had quite literally torn his friend to pieces, right where he had been standing, when she had heard of it.

She had cited disobedience and endangerment of the secrecy as reasons for her brutal action, but there was no denying that she had looked very satisfied after that, like someone who had avenged others in a righteous kind of way.

It was also quite telling that the abducted infants, all of them in fact, had been returned to their mothers the next day.

Altogether, it was mostly circumstantial, he knew that. But he had often been praised for his perceptiveness, and too many clues pointed towards the same thing. That little bitch didn't deserve to be called Queen of the Clocktower.

He had been smart enough back then however to not mention his suspicions to anyone. That would just get him killed as well.

So he had kept his mouth shut, and his eyes fixed on animals. He had decided he would continue pursuing his greatest goal when he had his family's Crest. With that uppity bitch watching him like a hawk, it was much too dangerous to do otherwise.

He would make his breakthrough, and with his newfound fame and influence, he could then have his revenge and oust Barthomeloi.

Or maybe force her to marry him and teach her she shouldn't snap at her betters. That would be much more satisfying, he had to admit. The image of breaking the proud woman was very appetising indeed.

But again, things hadn't gone as he had wanted them to go.

His uncle, fearful of what he might do to the Crest upon receiving it and also disapproving of his belief that magical prowess was all that mattered, had refused him the Crest entirely.

His uncle had been a believer of hard work and dedication, saying that those two things could make up for any lacking talent, in complete opposition of Joseph's beliefs.

This difference in opinion had led to his uncle refusing to make Joseph his heir, choosing one of his own sons instead for the title, a man of mediocre talent, but with unwavering dedication and a penchant for hard work. In short, just what his uncle appreciated in a Magus.

It had been a big shock to Balefor when he had heard of it. The only chance for him to get a Crest, and it was taken from him. Not to mention that he'd never be able to amass the influence he would need to match Barthomeloi if he wasn't the head of a family.

He had realised it would spell the end of his ambition, completely and totally. He would have had to work on chimeras and other small pursuits for the rest of his life, just to earn his living. Not to mention that Barthemeloi still had had one out for him. If he had stayed, then he would have been challenged to a 'duel' at one point or another, he was sure of it.

And then, one evening, he had decided he'd had enough.

And the rest, as they say, is history. He had killed his uncle and stole the crest. After that, he had murdered his dear cousin. Just as a little goodbye-present to the family.

After that, he'd booked it, surviving on the fringes of society, living much below his standing for a while, getting by with illegal surgeries on the mundane people and other such pursuits.

He had despised it, but obtaining a Crest was worth some discomfort.

It became even more bearable when many of his former employers from the Clocktower had just kept on hiring him to make them some 'interesting guardians'.

Because of these 'assignments', he'd had some money again. Enough to live on for a while if he skimped on luxury, though his research didn't progress at all.

But then everything had changed, for the better.

A few months after fleeing from the Clocktower, he had gotten an order for a couple of chimeras, with in the same letter also a request for him to come to Japan to meet a group of individuals in the same situation as he was. A group he could perhaps join if he was interested.

Being interested, he had flown over to Japan. After thinking things through for a bit of course.

Japan was a nation far away from the Clocktower, filled with Hedge-mages, and with very little influence from the Nobles and from the Church. After some thought and considering the pros and cons, he had ultimately deemed it safe enough to go to. He could always flee if it turned out not to be safe.

That choice had been one of the best he had ever made, perhaps only second to killing his uncle and cousin and taking the family-Crest. After meeting with the others only once, he had already understood that this was his calling.

They had taken him in, granting him many opportunities he wouldn't have gotten if he had been in hiding alone or even if he'd stayed in the Clocktower for all his life. He had all the freedom he needed to let his artistic spirit come to expression, all the subjects needed, and best of all: no Bathomeloi breathing down his neck. Boy, he could only imagine how pissed she must have been back when news reached her that he had made off with the Balefor-Crest. He wished he could have seen her face.

Now, would he start another experiment or go to the meeting early?

Yes, he had to attend yet another meeting tonight. Burgon and Waudenstad had insisted on weekly 'conferences' to plan out new strategies ever since they had hit the first snags on their master-plan to kidnap the girl. Not that they'd really gotten anywhere with that.

There was some potential today however. Waudenstad had said he had thrown his all into it, and considering the rat-man's level intelligence, it should be something good.

Ordering his Homunculus to prepare his workspace for the next round, he decided to wait with starting a new experiment and first go to that meeting. With a bit of luck, it wouldn't take too long. The others were just lucky that he was willing to do so much to get the Crest of the Tohsaka's for himself.

He made his way out of his Workshop and walked towards the conference-room.

Despite being early however, he once more was the last one to arrive. Taking his chair quickly, he had an apology on his lips, but it was waved away by Burgon before it could be spoken out loud.

After some polite inquiries about the progress of his work by Burgon, the snide insults of Palerna and Alva, and the short nod of Waudenstad, they were all ready to begin.

"I thank you for coming, hm, yes." Waudenstad began, opening the discussion with one of his verbal ticks. "I was ordered last week to devise a simple, yet effective plan, and I think I have succeeded quite well, hm."

"Oh, excellent." Burgon said with a smile, leaning forward in anticipation. "Do tell us, Oliver. Don't leave us hanging after such a riveting and exciting statement."

"I agree." Palerna smiled, angling her head coquettishly to the side. "Though your previous plans were… how do I say this? …Quite complicated in nature, you are a certified genius. I look forward to what you can do when you take things seriously."

"It is nothing special." Waudenstad said irritably, looking peeved at their praise. "I have simply kept a close eye on her coming and going, her everyday life, and I have found a disruption in her normal schedule."

"And that is important, why exactly?" Alva asked.

"Because while the chance of taking her inside Fuyuki-City is small, and inside of her Workshop even smaller, we do in fact have a considerable chance if she is out of her comfort-zone." Palerna replied with a grin, one that grew wider when Waudenstad nodded in agreement.

"Correct, good to see there are some brains up there to compliment the looks." Waudenstad remarked, sounding completely serious for all intents and purposes. Probably, he actually was, now that Balefor thought about it. Nothing flirty there, not for the little rat.

That didn't stop Palerna from taking it that way though. The woman huffed, smiling and giving a small wave with her hand, as if to brush away the praise. "It wasn't hard to think of." She said in a voice of genuine modesty. "Everyone was probably thinking something of the sort, I merely spoke first."

The little rat-man giggled, rubbing his small hands together as he nodded. "But you nailed it quite well, miss Palerna. Now, listen to me, all of you, whilst I explain my very simple plan."

Balefor leaned forward in interest, noting absently that the other three did so as well. It was enough to prompt Waudenstad to begin speaking:

"As I have said before, attacking her in Fuyuki-City itself is dangerous. Of course, not in the sense that she might overpower us in a fight or something, perish the thought, but more that we only get one shot before she might file a complaint with the Clocktower. And as you all know, that kind of complaints are always taken very seriously."

Waudenstad smirked when he saw he had their undivided attention. "Hm, yes. That is why I propose to act only when she is well away from her own city."

"That sounds simple indeed." Burgon mused, going with a hand over his chin. "Do you not think it is perhaps too simple, old friend?"

"No, because while it may be simple to understand, I have never said it will be easy in terms of execution." Waudenstad scowled, though it was more at the situation than at Burgon. "The only chance we have of taking her when she is outside of her base is in about two months, when she will stay the night in Hikone of all places."

"Hikone?" This time it was Balefor himself who interrupted the ratman.

Hikone had been his first city, where he had successfully pulled off their trick for the first time. If the Tohsaka was indeed going there, that would be quite the nasty coincidence.

He came out of his musings just in time to see Waudenstad nod sombrely. "Indeed. A strange coincidence. And yes, that's all it is; A coincidence, nothing more. I have checked it thoroughly and repeatedly and have found nothing to suggest it was for the purpose of drawing us out."

"Good, that is good." Burgon sighed in relief. A sigh echoed by the other people in the room. "If you say so, Oliver, then I will believe you."

"That is all good and well." Alva hissed, looking once more as if he were on the edge of a tantrum. "But you still haven't told us your so-called 'masterplan' yet, Waudenstad. Why don't you start talking now, before I go off to abduct her myself."

"Then I will test your patience no longer." The addressed plotter replied without missing a beat, looking as if he hadn't even heard the added sarcasm. "As it turns out, there has been a curious initiative among many cities in this quaint little country. They have organised swimming lessons for the children."

"Swimming lessons?" Palerna parroted, looking slightly confused. "How does that have any relevance to the matter at hand?"

"I am getting there." Was the succinct reply from the rat-man. "As I was saying, swimming lessons have been organised for the youth. Apparently, it is not commonplace at all for this country to organise lessons for its children, making this a curious instance indeed. One I plan to profit from."

Adjusting the small glasses on his face, Waudenstad took another sip of water and continued:

"After all, our target is a child herself. Miss Tohsaka is of the correct age to be included in this, so she will have to participate, whether she wants to or not. And to answer the questions that you no doubt have now: no, she won't hypnotise herself out of this. That is against decorum, against the rules of the Magus Association, and not her style at all. Hm, yes?"

His eye twitching at the almost obligatory sounding hum at the end, Balefor decided to get to the crux of the matter: "And if I am not mistaken, then these swimming lessons have something to do with getting Tohsaka out of her stronghold?"

"Naturally, why else would I ever make a mention of it?" Waudenstad said snidely. "The eventual exam meant to test the capabilities of every student will be held in Hikone. Since it is far away from Fuyuki, Tohsaka and the rest of the children will also spend the night after the exam there, before driving back the next morning."

"She will be out of her Workshop and out of her city all together." Alva deducted, slowly spelling out Waudenstad's plan for him. "And since all of the other brats are going with her, they'll have to stay in a big hotel of sorts, which will be fairly open for attacks. We can strike then."

"Correct, mostly." The mastermind behind the plan said. "The only comment I have to make here is that we will not be the ones striking. I have already hired someone for that."

"Excellent foresight, Oliver." Burgon smiled, throwing his arms wide in a gesture of enthusiasm. "But if you don't mind, I would like to meet this employee of yours first."

The little man nodded in response, making a note of it on a piece of paper. While he was doing so, the room as a whole fell silent, allowing Balefor to ponder the plan in his mind. He couldn't say it was a bad plan. Very simple yes, but that was what they'd asked for, and it certainly sounded effective.

No, he had no complaints. The two-month time gap would allow him to prepare thoroughly without having to rush, so that was an added advantage.

Not everyone seemed to agree though.

"I do understand what you are going for, as well as the need for secrecy and discretion, but I still want to say that it seems unsatisfying to me." Alva began, not seeming entirely sure of himself, but soldiering on anyway. "To spend two months doing nothing about this, I don't like it. Can we not at least do something that will increase our chance of success?"

Burgon and Waudenstad pursed their lips and stroked their chins in almost identical motions, clearly attempting to hash out a plan that would give the perpetually restless Southern-European something to do. It didn't take them all that long either, as the leader of the cabal smiled after only a few minutes already.

"How about this then, Allesandro." He proposed. "We will still prepare for the main plan that dear Oliver just laid out for us, but we can still do things next to that. We will make it a competition. I say we all now start hatching our own little plans to try and get the Tohsaka for ourselves. The first one to succeed will have the first rights to decide what to do with her."

"Hm, so for instance, if I were to try and draw her out of her little town with, let's say, some of those gems that her family so highly covets, and I were to successfully capture her, it would be okay?" Palerna questioned.

As long as you make sure you don't get caught by her yourself." Burgon laughed in response to the inquiry. "For that will make all of our planning for nothing."

Hearing this, Balefor internally debated for a moment whether he himself wanted to try his luck at abducting the Tohsaka heiress before the two-month deadline, but ultimately decided against it. It wasn't worth it, as he simply couldn't miss the time it would cost him.

Fortunately, there was no need to. The twit would end up their hands anyway, and none of the others would know what to do with a Crest that was not compatible with them, meaning that he was as good as certain that it would go to him.

Of course, he seemed to be the only one thinking like that, as he others were now furiously scribbling schemes and plots down on the pieces of paper in front of them. Even Burgon was writing, though a lot calmer than the others.

Balefor met the senior's eye with a questioning look and was rewarded with a sheepish smile and a shrug, as if to say, 'what can you do?'.

Well, he wasn't going to do anything. Maybe if this plot also failed, but not before.

It would probably be for the best if he left now, but looking at the Southern-European duo, he couldn't resist the temptation to get one last little jab in at the very least.

"Oh, before I forget to mention this; Alva, Palerna, do make sure your experiments don't escape your sight again, please." He told them, carefully keeping any mocking out of his tone, knowing that they'd understand the jab anyway. "It was such a shame to have that particular one escape from you so deftly, hm?"

Alva glared at him in response and Palerna gave him a little pout, while Waudenstad and Burgon laughed at his words. Still pouting, the blonde woman gave a reply: "We said we were sorry that it managed to escape. Why do you keep bringing it up?"

"Because it is amusing, dear." Burgon replied in Balefor's stead, winking at the distraught woman. "The fact that you let a fledgling Dead Apostle escape from your workshop, the one that you created out of that pathetic, drugs-selling, whining boy even, does drawn some mocking chuckles even from the most compassionate of us."

"I am just happy that we can all laugh about it." Waudenstad said, the little grin on his face making him seem all the more like a rat. "If it had been one of Joseph's chimeras, or one of my Runestones, then we wouldn't be laughing at all, rather we would be scurrying for damage control. Those things would draw the wrong sort of attention right towards us."

Not much reason to laugh there, but the bald man wasn't done talking yet. "But as it was a Dead Apostle that got away, we have little to fear. Those abominations are spawned in great numbers even without us contributing. It also helps no one would listen to the ramblings of a just-turned vampire, they will just kill it and be done with it. No risk for us."

Balefor agreed with the assessment, it was sound and correct. The chance that the Dead Apostle would be the cause of their downfall was so close to zero that it would practically never happen. Nevertheless, it was still amusing to rib the two researchers every once in a while, just to make sure they stayed on their toes.

Now, with the mocking over and done, he should leave.

Balefor rose from his seat, straightened his shirt, and turned towards his leader. "Can I be excused then? I would like to continue my research."

He got yet another smile in return. It almost seemed as if the old man did nothing but smile the entire time. "Of course, young one. Go now and have fun. I think the rest of us are going to stay here for some more time, I feel like we are finally making some progress."

With a curt nod, Balefor exited the room again, leaving the posh interior behind. He could pick up right where he left off with his research.

The Homunculus he had left in his workshop should be done preparing his tools and workspace by now. All he had to do was grab a new specimen from the storage, secure it to the table, and start working.


"Where is your master?"

The question was roared with a thunderous voice, as Shirou slammed one of the Dead against the wall, holding it at its throat with his left hand, while his right moved Mjolnir in a threatening motion towards the pinned creature. Around them laid the disappearing corpses of its fellows, who had been taken down by Shirou only moments before.

His roar was accompanied by actual thunder in the sky, as lightning flashed from the clouds that Shirou had summoned a while back, while he also had donned the armour he had gotten from Mjolnir.

The red-haired Magus had been hunting the Dead Apostle for quite some time now, ever since the beginning of the night. He had not been able to pinpoint its exact location, but at least he could determine that he was actually getting closer to his prey.

And wasn't that a strange thought for him; he was considering a Dead Apostle to be nothing more than prey for him, instead of the terrible predator that it should have been.

Here he was now, taking down the vampire's minions by the dozens, feeling no fear at all as he was slowly closing in on the normally so dreadful creature in order to fight and vanquish it.

In all honesty, he wouldn't have ever feared for himself even if he hadn't possessed his current might. The only difference between that Shirou and the Shirou he was now was that Shirou of the present could actually win this battle.

Provided there would be a battle at all of course. He had found that tracking down the Dead Apostle was more difficult than he had anticipated. He could only hope he would find it before the night was over, or things would get even harder.

Dead Apostles had a connection with their minions, and this one would no doubt notice soon that someone was hunting down its familiars. That meant that it would most likely relocate as soon as possible, which would probably throw Shirou off its trail completely. After all, he couldn't be present during daytime, as he had his friends and school to worry about then.

But since his nose indicated that he was getting closer, he was not very worried yet. He still had some time left, and the Apostle didn't seem to have noticed his presence for now, if the calm state of the Dead was anything to go by.

The vampire's familiars weren't relocating for safety, or amassing to attack him at once, but instead remained largely stationary on their spots, only reacting when he came too close. As such, he could conclude that either the Apostle hadn't noticed him yet, or that it was consciously keeping everything relatively silent in an effort to misdirect Shirou, so it could safely escape.

And for now, since the origin of the smell of death wasn't relocating, he would assume it was the former.

But despite that, he still had decided to attempt something that had the potential of saving him a lot of time; That being singling out one of the Dead and trying to interrogate it.

It was a very long shot, since every book that he had ever read, and his father as well, had agreed with each other that the Dead were nothing but mindless husks that only moved through the will of their master. You couldn't interrogate something that did not speak, did not think, did not feel.

But he had still attempted it, if only to check for himself. He had to admit though, while leaning back slightly to avoid the clawing hands of his conversation partner, that the books and his father had been absolutely correct.

"SSSSCCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

Another screech echoed through the alley, as the being held against the wall once more made clear that it wasn't capable of coherent speech, coherent thought, or indeed any thought at all. Shirou had expected as much, but it was still a shame there was no short-cut to finding their master.

So with a sigh, the red-haired hero pulled his arm back slightly, before slamming the Dead Man against the wall again with enough force to kill it once more and reduce it to dust. And to accidentally put some cracks in said wall, but no one was living in that rundown building anyway, so it was okay.

Shaking his hand to get it free from the dust, Shirou took a deep breath through his nose, once more confirming that the origin of the scent of death was still in the same place.

That same breath however also revealed that there were more of the Dead in an alley somewhere to his left, and that they were currently conversing on a specific spot, in a way that he had only seen before during the times that they would attack him. However, since they weren't coming to him at the moment, it could only mean that someone else was being attacked right now.

He would have to intervene. Saving a life had priority over tracking the still-stationary Dead Apostle after all.

Shirou immediately flew to his destination with the help of Mjolnir, and to his great delight, he was on time to prevent the poor woman from becoming another minion he would be forced to slay. From up above, he could clearly see how she was trying to run as the Dead gave chase. The woman was running impressively fast, even though she had a slight limp, all the while calling for help.

Having seen enough, Shirou went in the offense again.

He flew down to the ground at his maximum speed, making sure to land between the woman and her pursuers in order to cut them off from their prey, coming down with great force, shaking the ground from the impact and even cracking the stones beneath him.

Absently, he registered a feminine yelp behind him, followed by a thud that indicated the woman had tripped. He winced slightly, hoping she was okay but unwilling to take his eyes of his opponents, lest they might try to pass by him and attack her anyway.

Both parties stood across from each other, staring silently for a moment, neither side moving an inch. One side was frozen in instinctive surprise, the other in quiet contemplation.

Then all sped forward at inhuman speed.

The minions of the Dead Apostles, though not sentient, were nevertheless fearsome opponents for any unprepared hero. They were faster, stronger, and more resilient than any normal human had any right to be. They had fangs and claws and were almost never alone.

A good thing then that Shirou was in fact prepared.

After having kicked off from his spot, Shirou was upon them in less than a second, too fast for them to perceive, much less react to. The first of the Dead promptly received a blow to the head that would have knocked over a fully-grown elephant. It proved to be enough to obliterate his head on the spot.

Two of the others, driven by instinct, immediately lashed out at the shape responsible for the demise of their comrade.

Their claws hit nothing but air, as Shirou had already taken two steps backwards in order to dodge such retaliating strikes, after which two quick jabs at the now-exposed midriffs of the ones who had failed to strike him were enough to reduce the number of opponents from four to two.

Not stopping to mourn their comrades, both of those that remained then attempted an attack of their own, in exactly the same style the previous ones had used for their assault. Which consisted of blindly lashing out at him in very predictable strikes with very telegraphed movements.

Looking at them, the golden-eyed Magus felt only sadness. They had been nothing more than a teenage boy and an old woman before the Apostle and its minions had gotten hold of them, and now they were not only dead, but their bodies were desecrated in one of the most horrendous ways possible.

The sadness did not stop him from dispatching them though. The people they had once been were gone now, and mindless slaves were all that remained. Defeating them would be a mercy to both the bodies, and the spirits of those that the bodies had belonged to.

Done with dodging, Shirou caught the claws on his vambraces, easily blocking the assault with superior strength and unyielding arm-protection. Shirou then threw his arms wide, throwing his opponents off balance as they stumbled backwards for a moment.

He immediately went for the presented openings and struck them in the throats with a fist, shattering their necks and killing them right away.

And just like that, the fight was over. The Dead were now reduced to ash that was picked up by the wind, while Shirou's cape fluttered lightly behind him, painting an impressive, if slightly cartoonish picture.

He quickly inspected his vambraces for any damage, ignoring the huff from Mjolnir at that action. And true to the hammer's word, there was not even a scratch on them.

He'd swapped his vigilante-outfit for his armour when he had realised what he was chasing, just in case the Apostle had something that could potentially pierce his skin and injure him. It was also about time he got used to wearing it, as he had no doubt it would be incredibly useful against larger threats.

He was still wearing his mask however. Nothing too special, just something that properly covered the lower half of his face, making him all but unrecognisable.

But he was forgetting something again, wasn't he…?

The sound of someone crawling backwards over the ground, accompanied by almost hysterical breaths, reminded him promptly of the presence of the victim behind him.

He turned around slowly, not wanting to scare the no doubt-terrified woman even more than she already was. He had already determined that his magic-sense didn't pick up anything from her, and the fact that she had been helpless against the Dead confirmed his suspicions.

This woman was not aware of the Moonlit World, and probably didn't understand anything of what had just taken place. Nor did she have any business understanding or even knowing in the first place.

He would have to alter her memory a bit, perhaps change it to being chased by normal criminals, before the vigilante that he was playing now had driven them off.

"How-? What-? Who are you?" The woman managed to get out, looking at him with eyes wide as saucers, laying with her back on the ground, head lifted, and a hand raised in order to point a disbelieving finger at him. "W-what d-d-did y-you do t-to t-those p-p-people?" She then screeched, stuttering from the raw terror coursing through her veins, which was reflected in her eyes.

Shirou flinched, looking away slightly and raising a hand to scratch the back of his head. He really should have anticipated this. It would stand to reason that a normal human, ignorant of the Moonlit World, would be shocked to near speechlessness by being chased by the Dead and being saved by someone who could pound others to dust.

Maybe it was for the best that he would remove this entire episode from her mind, instead of just altering the memory. Things like this tended to traumatise lesser informed people quite heavily to say the least. Even in the unlikely event he messed up now and she would get away with her memory intact, she would probably still need years of therapy to recover from this.

Or maybe she'd get over it by sunrise. Shirou wouldn't know, he was no psychiatrist.

But he was getting off topic again. Looking at the terrified, sniffling woman in front of him, Shirou knew he'd have to act now. Delaying would only hinder and inconvenience both himself and the woman, and he imagined neither of them had a lot of time to spare for hindrances such as these. Not this late at night.

Yet he was still hesitating, for some reason.

It might just be prudent, he then decided, to ask her a couple of questions about her pursuers, to see if her information could help him find the Apostle faster. Maybe she could point him in the right direction, or at least share observations that may be of use to him in his hunt.

Yeah, that sounded about right. So with that in mind, he carefully approached her.

"H-hey, answer me!" The woman cried as he soundlessly began walking towards her.

Belatedly realising that such a thing could be seen as threatening, Shirou stopped walking immediately and raised his hands to show he meant no harm.

"Please calm down, ma'am, I mean you no harm." He decided to add, hoping that talking with her might prevent her from losing it completely. "I merely wish to ask you what happened with you and why those people were chasing you."

He spoke in a calm voice, his body relaxed and his posture nonthreatening.

It seemed to work. Although her eyes were still fixed on Mjolnir in his right-hand, the woman noticeably made an effort to compose herself after hearing his words, taking a deep breath and sitting up straight instead of laying on her back. After shaking her head a few times, she already seemed a lot calmer.

The look she gave him was still cautious however, but that was only to be expected after something like this. He also decided that seeing defiance in her eyes was a good sign right now.

"I-I asked y-you a question f-first, y-you know." The woman stuttered out, apparently not as calmed down as Shirou had hoped. "Answer m-me first, and t-then I'll answer y-you."

"Equivalent Exchange?" Shirou asked bemused, impressed at the woman's nerve even under such pressure. "I suppose it is only fair. To answer your questions: first of all, I am only a simple vigilante, who is trying to help people. I cannot tell you anything else, I am attempting to keep my identity a secret after all."

Kiritsugu had made it clear enough during the trainings he had given to his adopted son. If it is at all possible, avoid giving out any kind of information about yourself, even if it seems unimportant to you or if you're going to alter their memory anyway. Once you've told someone something, there is always the risk of it getting out beyond your grasp.

"A vigilante?" The woman questioned, tension now largely disappearing out of her body for some reason. "I've never seen a real vigilante before, nor have I heard of one. Are you perhaps new at the profession?"

"I have been active for several months now, actually." The golden-eyed Magus corrected, not surprised she didn't know of him. "But I haven't been in the news at all, so it makes sense you don't know me."

"Hm, I'll buy that for now I suppose." Was the candid response, with the green-haired woman now smiling cautiously at him.

"But what was all of that just now with those people? What did you do to them? Who-, or should I say, what were they?" She pressed, now apparently feeling comfortable enough to cease stuttering and start demanding the answers from him.

The red-haired hero did not answer for a few moments, weighing the pros and cons of telling her in his mind.

It might just be that she had valuable information, and that to obtain it, he would have to explain a few things to her. But it could also be that she didn't know anything, which would mean he was just wasting time here.

Normally, he would alter her memory immediately and then continue on his way, but it just so happened that his instincts were telling him to choose the other option of informing her a bit. Seeing that they hadn't led him astray yet, and that Mjolnir wasn't saying anything against it either, he decided to be truthful with her.

"Those were the familiars of a vampire." He thus told her, faintly enjoying how her expression shifted form confusion, to understanding, and then to shock and horror at his words.

"Vampire?" The woman whispered, looking at him with wide eyes again. "Those exist? And one is in this town right now?"

"Yes to both questions." Shirou replied. "And I am currently hunting it, which is why I must ask you again to tell me what happened. It is important that I catch this thing before sunrise. Can you give me any information that would make my task easier?"

After a few seconds of silence, during which the woman visibly had to compose herself again, he got his reply:

"Uh, right." She mumbled, looking a bit out of it. "I uh, I was just walking a few streets away from here, when these, uh, vampires came out of an alley suddenly and started chasing me."

Not extremely useful, the dead were currently present just about everywhere in downtown.

"But," The woman then continued, drawing his attention towards her again. "I know that the direction they came from is the same direction as where the old factory is located. You see, they moved the entire company somewhere else recently, I believe it was a company that made construction items of sorts, and just left the building behind, including everything in it. That sounds like it would make for a good hiding place for a vampire, right?"

Shirou smiled, that was something he could work with, especially since the woman was kind enough to provide him with directions.

"But now that we have helped each other and everything." The woman continued, standing up and dusting herself off afterwards, "Maybe we should introduce ourselves. I am-"

"No!" The golden-eyed Magus said sharply. "Don't tell me your name, I have no business knowing it. This whole incident is better off forgotten by us both."

"Forgotten by us both? Like, forgotten forgotten?" The woman questioned with a peculiar look on her face, before it changed into awe, which, admittedly, was just about the last thing Shirou had expected. "You mean this is like Harry Potter? Or Men in Black? Or one of the other films I watched with the girls? You are going to make me forget this ever happened? That is, well, that is so cool!"

"…"

Shirou had no reaction to that. He somewhat knew the films she was referring to, and she clearly grasped the concept of memory-erasure quite well, but why would she consider it cool?

"I'll indeed have to make you forget." He confessed. "Though you don't have to worry, it is harmless and you won't miss the knowledge either."

To his immense surprise, he then got a warm smile from her in response. "I know it won't hurt, you are too much of a sweetie to let that happen."

Shirou blinked. "Where do you base that on? How would you know I am, well, that I am a 'sweetie'?"

"On the fact that you are still entertaining this ignorant woman." Was the succinct reply. "As well as the fact that you saved my ass from those zombies just now, while you could also just have walked away. Believe me, dear, I have much experience with people walking away, and I know how much easier it is than stepping in and doing the right thing."

That got unexpectedly heavy, and Shirou was saddened to hear it. Not to mention that it made him feel like a jerk to practically do the same, though he understood that the circumstances were likely vastly different.

"For what it's worth, removing these memories truly is the best option I have here." He offered, hoping to set her, and himself as well, more at ease with what he was going to do.

"I do not doubt it for a second, otherwise you wouldn't have done it, sweetie." The woman smiled, walking towards him to stand in arm's reach of him. Just as he was about to look her straight into the eyes to start modifying though, she put a hand on his shoulder.

He cast a surprised glance at it, but the woman explained before he could ask. "Just a little pat on the shoulder. I figured you deserve something like this with all of the hard work you put into this, while people like me are completely ignorant. It's not right to let a teenager do all the work."

"People like you are purposefully kept ignorant by people like me." Shirou countered, grabbing the woman's wrist in order to remove her hand. "So please, do not villify yourself. Also, is it really that apparent I am young?"

He pulled his hand back right away though when he noticed the green-haired woman flinching at his touch. Not a flinch of discomfort or fear, but one of pain.

Now, he might have been someone strong enough to push over an elephant with ease, but he was quite sure he had measured the strength of his grip enough for it to be painless and well within the comfortable zone.

The only conclusion here was that she had previously been hurt, which made his hero-senses tingle all over again.

"You are in pain." He said sharply, deliberately making it sound like a statement instead of a question. He would accept no denial here, no stammering excuses that were now coming from her mouth, as she was quite clearly in pain. Fortunately, he could actually help her with that.

Very recently, Mjolnir had seen it fit to bestow yet another power upon him. This ability was not rooted in the Magecraft of his world, but rather in the mysterious power that he had wielded ever since Mjolnir's arrival. It was a power that he had seen the uses of right away.

'Cleansing Power', was what Mjolnir had called it. The power to cleanse and remove everything unnatural around him. It encompassed a lot of different abilities, each and every one of them incredibly useful and highly coveted among Magi.

A very important condition on it however, was that it could only be used on something that was 'not naturally supposed to be there'. Now, there was some leeway, as it depended on what he considered to be unnatural or not, but that was the crux of the matter.

An interesting addition was that, because Cleansing Power came from the mysterious power, it did not follow the rules of Gaia. One might expect that Magecraft was unnatural, but the Cleansing Power apparently didn't see it like that.

He didn't yet know precisely what he himself considered natural and what not, but he would just have to take some time to figure that out.

A very important trait of the Power however was that it couldn't be used against any kind of natural, living creature, no matter how evil they might be in their hearts. He didn't know whether that was because he by nature wanted to save everyone or because the Power simply worked that way, but it was not possible. Not as long as they remained simple humans.

In order to be affected, one would have to do terrible things to oneself. Things that went against the natural order in grotesque ways. Merely being a Magus or a totally evil villain wasn't enough. It would take something like stealing the essence of others to prolong one's own life in order for the Cleansing Power to have any effect.

And as such, a Dead Apostle and its minions were fair game, and he had already managed to destroy entire groups of the Dead by blasting them with white waves of Cleansing Power, which seemed to work pretty much the same way as lightning blasts. Just aim and shoot basically.

Its strength however did not just lie in destruction of evil. It was also a very potent Healing Ability. When he would unlock mastery with that ability, he would be able to cure any wound, curse, or malady with ease, be it magical, divine, natural, or anything other in origin.

He was currently limited to minor wounds, such as cuts, scrapes, bruises, and the like, but he was progressing fast, mostly by healing the few criminals he had accidentally damaged to badly.

It would also prove useful for this situation, to heal the still rambling woman.

"Ah, well, yes. I suppose I feel some pain. It's not from the chase just now- or maybe a bit, I think?" She rambled, fretting slightly. "It's just that, well, some of my clients insist on being harsh with me, and, uh, they don't really know when to stop."

Shirou frowned at that, wondering what kind of profession would require her to accept abuse from her clients. Certainly, she wouldn't have to take such a thing laying down.

In his relative innocence in such matters, he failed to consider the most obvious option, leaving him guessing at what she could be doing for a living, which the woman herself noticed pretty easily.

"Oh, right. You are a teenager, you might not get what I am trying to say." She mumbled, looking contemplatively at him, before straightening her back and motioning towards herself, afterwards spreading her arms wide as if presenting herself to him.

He looked at her more closely, as she was no doubt intending for him to do. He could say right away that she was a very beautiful woman, coming close to even Sakura, Ayako, and Tohsaka. She was wearing a short green cocktail dress with a low cut, which displayed quite a lot of cleavage too. She also wore a jacket over it, as well as thigh-high boots.

All in all, a very impractical outfit to wear late at night. Unless you were one of those women who made their money by…

Oh!

That kind of clients.

"I see you understand now." The woman said with a humourless smile, hunching slightly once more. "I am often not strong enough to defend myself, and no one bothers with me afterwards, so I have learned to just take it. We all learn that at my… job."

Alright. Even if Shirou hadn't been intending to heal her before, he would now. Truly, it was an unfair world to live in, even more than he had thought. This woman in front of him seemed to be barely twenty years old, if that.

The more he learned about the world at large, the more massive his task became to save all. But he wouldn't let that discourage him, he would continue on, working as hard as he could to fulfil his dream, starting right now.

Without another word, he reached out to the woman in front of him again, taking her hand in his. Ignoring the puzzled and questioning look she shot him, he then called forth the mysterious power from inside himself, and pushed it out towards her, his goal clear in his mind.

The woman looked on with increasing shock, as trails of golden light came from Shirou's hand and spread to her own body, quickly travelling over her skin and healing any malady they came across, fresh and old.

Bruises disappeared, leaving only clear skin. Scars smoothed out until no indication of any wound was left. Cuts stitched themselves, fractures in bones healed, sprained muscles relaxed, and much more took place inside of her body.

When it was done, Shirou let go of the woman's hand, but she didn't notice, too occupied with the sudden lack of the pain that had accompanied her ever since her foster-father had started drinking when she was young, marvelling over the lack of pain.

When she was done with that, she turned towards Shirou again, a true, genuine smile on her face. Without saying another word, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead.

"I, well, I- I don't know what to say. Thank you! Thank you so, so much." She began, bringing her hands together in front of her and bowing deeply. "I never thought something like this was possible."

Shirou cocked his head to the side as he observed her. "Do you feel alright now, miss?"

"I am perfectly fine." She replied instantly. "I haven't felt this good since-, since forever. It was amazing to see that. I am ashamed at my own audacity, but I have to ask: Do you have any more of these amazing tricks?"

The last part was said in such an eager tone that Shirou almost had a vision of Sakura jumping at an opportunity to cook with him. The green-haired woman almost looked like an excited child hoping for the magician in front of her to perform another trick.

Perhaps it was that child-like enthusiasm, coupled with her likeness to Sakura, however slight, that spurred him to agree to another trick, just this once.

Well, that, and the fact that he had lost quite a bit of time here. He would have to pull off something big if he wanted to get back on schedule.

Without another word, he raised Mjolnir up into the sky, simultaneously taking a deep breath through his nose to locate as many of the Dead as he could right now. He had been making good progress with cleaning the streets, but there should be some more packs close-by.

Detecting four more groups within his range, Shirou tore lightning down from the clouds. Five bolts came down in a spectacular fashion, four of them obliterating the groups of the Dead he had detected earlier, and one coming down on his hammer, for aesthetic purposes.

The show seemed to have its intended effect, as the green-haired woman let out a squeak of surprise as she fell back on the ground.

Well, almost fell on the ground. Having foreseen such a reaction, Shirou was quick to grab her arm to pull her back up. She had been on the ground enough for today after all.

"Thanks." She mumbled, looking alternatively at the sky and at him, not saying anything more than that, but instead opening and closing her mouth at regular intervals. It seemed she needed a moment to properly grasp what he had done.

"You know. That was the most impressive thing I have ever seen, and I would love to glorify it into the sky, but for now, I don't know how to deal with the fact that there are people who can do things like that, so I'll just remain silent." The green-haired woman then whispered sheepishly. "Please don't be offended."

Feeling sheepish himself as well at her praise, Shirou scratched the back of his head, simultaneously assuring the woman that he was not offended.

That little move had won back some of the time he had lost here, but he needed to get moving now. Turning back towards the woman, he gave her an apologetic look, to which she gave a resigned one in turn, though still with a smile.

"I'm going to have to lock those memories away now." The golden-eyed hero said apologetically.

The woman pouted at him but gave in after a few seconds.

"Alright, go ahead." She sighed, before looking up with a slightly nervous expression, fidgeting in place. "But what should I do if I'm ever faced with the supernatural again? If I don't have these memories, I just know that my mind will freeze up again. It would make me really easy prey."

That was true, he could easily admit that. When defending yourself against a threat, knowledge was often just as important as power. It was something that could tip the scales in just about every situation he could think of.

Could he take that knowledge away from her now?

No, no he couldn't. But he also couldn't just leave her with her memories intact. She seemed trustworthy, but that was by no means guaranteed and this was too risky and volatile a situation to leave it to chance.

Was there a solution that would solve both problems?

Yes actually, there was.

"How about this then?" He started, catching the woman's attention again. "I will lock the memories of these events away, but if you are ever in the presence of something unnatural or impossible, that lock will break."

His first response to that was a surprised blink, followed by a shake of the head and a muttering of 'irresponsibly overpowered wizards'.

"Sounds acceptable." The woman then smiled after having taken another shaky breath, folding her hands in front of her in a sign of gratitude. "Then I suppose you can do it now. No sense in delaying."

"Then look into my eyes." Shirou ordered, waiting until he had eye-contact and then doing exactly what he had promised he would do, erecting a barrier. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it was the best one he had at the moment.

When he was done with the process, he wished her good luck with a soft voice, before quickly disappearing before she would recover from the disorientation the mind-magic would cause. No sense in repeating the entire conversation they just had after all.

Flying away from the scene, making his way over to the old factory, Shirou had mixed feelings. On one hand, he genuinely hoped to see the young woman again someday. She had been a very nice person, whom he had enjoyed talking to for as long as it lasted.

On the other hand, such a thing would mean exposing her again to the dark side of the world, and that was not something he was willing to do.

Unknown to him though, that was not a choice he would get to make. There was no way he could have anticipated this, but the woman regained her memories very quickly, the very next day in fact.

When Shirou had healed her injuries, he had unknowingly bestowed upon her a small amount of his mysterious power, of the Shirou-Force. It was but a drop compared to the amounts he could channel himself, a drop in his reserves that was replaced immediately, but to a mundane mortal, it was more power than they could ever obtain through normal means.

That power had settled into her. The drop had been given to her in good fate by the wielder of the Shirou-Force, so it was not leaving anytime soon, nor did it have any negative consequences. Only positive.

Not only had it healed her, and continued to do so with every new wound, but it also boosted her physical capabilities by a large amount. She would never be as strong as Shirou himself, but she was far above any baseline human now.

The day after meeting Shirou, the woman had to entertain another client, who happened to be one of the those that were much too aggressive during their appointments, seeing women like her as nothing more than things to do with as he wanted.

The woman, who didn't work alone, but at a place that tried to protect its girls from something like this, though often ineffectually, naturally attempted to protect herself, although she didn't expect any success. All of the other times had proven she simply wasn't strong enough.

It was to her great surprise then, that a single open-handed-slap managed to not only get the guy off her, but also sent him careening into a wall. Barely able to believe it, she sat on the couch, frozen in mid-motion.

She did not have much time to be surprised however before the next shock came over her.

She had knocked out the guy who had been assaulting her, but his friend, another one of that highly aggressive, wannabe-dominant kind, had then pulled a knife on her, shouting several verbal abuses and threats at her.

Still in shock about her own deed, the woman hadn't reacted in time to stop his swing at her.

It turned out that it didn't matter though, as the knife broke on her skin the moment it made contact.

Having regained her bearings at that moment, the woman quickly thought back on the few self-defence classes she had been able to attend. A punch then proved enough to knock the guy out as well.

And as she hastily returned to her lodgings afterwards, her mind reeling from what had just happened to her, she could only think about the impossibility of what had just transpired. A thin, waifish woman like her shouldn't be able to knock two men around with that kind of ease. It was impossible.

In fact, it was deemed impossible enough that the lock on her memories was broken that moment. The entire event of the previous night was then placed into her conscious memory again, and she could recall all of it.

After a minor freak-out in her lodgings when she had realised that it hadn't been a vague dream and magic was indeed real, the woman tried to make sense of what happened.

Recalling what the kind vigilante had done for her, that being healing her wounds by infusing her with some kind of golden light, gave her something to work with. After a few tries, she managed to call on the power again, making her veins glow a soft golden.

She couldn't actively do anything with it, it only served to passively increase her abilities for now, but it was still the greatest gift anyone had ever given her.

She didn't switch careers afterwards, as she understood she had to keep all of it a secret, but she did manage to make her own life and that of her fellow girls a little easier. Mainly by dealing with the aggressive customers.

And since those customers were often married or otherwise in position where one shouldn't visit women like her, the legal fall-out was minimal. She did discover thought that her durability was also high enough to make her able to take bullets with relative ease.

All in all, Rikudou Reika could only be grateful to the magical vigilante, and hope she would meet him again, one day.


Shirou looked at the building across from him with a deep frown.

It would seem that he had found the hiding place of the Apostle at last, if the smell and even the general feel of death around the abandoned factory was any indication. The information he had obtained from the woman was spot on as far as he could determine right now.

He had made his way over here for the last thirty minutes or so, slowly circling around the building to mob up all of the remaining Dead. He was quite sure too that he had gotten all of them, save for a few stragglers that would die quickly when he would cut off the head of the snake, so to speak.

He hesitated in approaching though, for things were not quite as he had expected them to be.

If one had asked Shirou only yesterday what he thought a Dead Apostle's hide-out would look like, he would have answered something along the lines of a sheltered place, with plenty of shadow everywhere, easily defendable and with the smell of magic permeating through everything, as all Dead Apostles were capable of at least some kind of Magecraft, which they often used plentifully.

The first two points were right on the dot as far as the factory was concerned, but he couldn't for the life of him discover any traces of magic outside of the Apostle's presence in itself.

Wasn't he supposed to feel, or rather smell, a little more than that? Especially from the hiding place of an Apostle that appeared capable of terrorising a town for months on end with a great number of familiars, without being found out by anyone.

Shirou had expected an old and powerful vampire living in a fortress protected by magic. Not an old factory that he could seemingly just walk into.

And even if the lack of magic could be excused, there was no way an Apostle as old as this one probably was would neglect to post guards outside of his hide-out. It wasn't a security risk to do so, for if its hunters had made it this far, trying to be inconspicuous wouldn't help at all.

So it was almost certainly a trap, laid out when the Apostle noticed its familiars being picked off group by group. It was definitely still present in there, so it had to be planning something right at that moment. Maybe Shirou was being watched right now even.

Normally, he would have either snuck inside or executed a powerful and fast attack that would leave his opponents unable to react while he was taking them down, but neither however would work if the thing inside knew of his presence already.

And even if it didn't, there were no less than ten entrances to the large factory in front of him, all of them probably trapped, and the building itself was surrounded by empty ground.

The golden-eyed Magus was in fact thankful that the building laid on the outskirts of town, for it allowed for more secrecy and minimised the chance of innocent people getting caught up in the fight, but it made him very noticeable as the only living human for quite some distance.

Still, it wasn't like he could do anything about it, and that Apostle needed to go down regardless.

No time like the present then. There was no more reason to put it off, he should go.

And what that thought, Shirou pushed off from the building he had been standing on, feeling the concrete shatter beneath him as he took a mighty jump straight at the factory.

He landed in front of the main door, and channelled the mysterious power into the hammer in his hand, before unleashing a mighty lightning bolt straight at the locked doors in front of him. If he was storming the building anyway, then he would storm it with everything he had.

The doors were blown inwards by the force of his attack, torn completely off their hinges, and were sent flying into the wall on the opposite side of the hangar behind the door. Wary of traps however, Shirou had elected to remain where he was for a few seconds, well away from the door.

And it turned out he had indeed triggered a trap with his over-the-top entrance.

Not a second after his attack, a large vault dropped from somewhere on the ceiling to land right on the space he would have stood on had he entered the building right away. It seemed to be quite a heavy one too. Not nearly enough to bring him down of course, but anyone without considerably augmented durability would have been killed on the spot.

It was strange though. It had been a trap, as he had expected, but it hadn't been a magical one. He would have detected it from across the street if Magecraft had been involved, but there had been no whiff of it. It had to be a mundane one then, that probably functioned with motion or something like that. The door opening being the cue to drop the vault perhaps.

Looking back, Shirou saw that there was a contraption against the door, going up the wall to the ceiling, giving credence to his theory. It was also likely that there would be more of them ahead. Shirou was very durable, but perhaps it was still for the best that he avoided the traps as much as he could.

He was once again proven right only seconds later, when he discovered a tripwire that lead directly to six guns that were poised to shoot at anyone tripping said wire. That would have killed an unprepared human, even a Magus, with ease.

Now of course, no Magus, Enforcer, Executor, or otherwise would ever contemplate stepping inside a building with a Dead Apostle in it unprepared. Reinforcement alone could have made this very survivable, and Runes stitched in clothes or tattooed on skin could have made this no more than an annoyance. Certainly this Apostle knew that as well, but why was he trying then? Hoping for a lucky strike perhaps? Or did it genuinely not know that its traps would be so ineffective?

On his way to the top floor, where the origin of the smell of death was located, Shirou discovered that, whether the Apostle knew or not, it was definitely not taking half measures. The red-haired Magus encountered more guns, a dozen explosives connected to doors, more explosives connected to the locks in those doors, a few tripwires again on random steps of the stairs he was climbing, and even more heavy things falling from the ceiling when he opened the doors after disarming the bombs.

The red-haired hero fortunately managed to spot most of them before he would trigger anything and was also able to disable them efficiently and quickly. He had however accidentally triggered two bombs already. Those bombs had been placed very strategically, namely on doors were there had already been a trap, effectively making it a double trap.

Shirou hadn't been prepared for multiple traps at one spot at first, but he had learned quickly. Especially after a forklift truck of all things had almost fallen on his head after he had stepped through a door at the sixth floor. Fortunately, he had spotted it just in time and had been able to dodge it, and had made sure to proceed with absolute caution from there on.

The times he'd had a bomb exploding on him though did prove once and for all that such things were utterly useless against him now. Discarding the air-pressure from the explosions that had put him on the backfoot for a moment, he barely even felt anything beyond some heat and a little shrapnel bouncing off him.

When he got past the seventh floor though, things started to get progressively weirder, to the point where he almost believed himself to be in a videogame.

There were motion sensors in the ground and in the walls that activated flamethrowers, pit falls with spikes at the bottom, saw blades coming from the ceiling and even an actual boulder sent rolling at him.

Others were connected to even more guns, to a cage with a small number of the dead in it, it just went on and on.

There were even attempts at changing the factory into a maze, if the numerous sloppily erected walls on a couple of the floors were anything to go by. By that time however, he was done playing games, and had smashed right through those walls.

Now, Shirou had never been one for video-games, and neither were Sakura, Taiga, or Ayako, but even he, and the other three as well, would have been able to recognise that this Apostle had clearly played a little too many of them.

Dodging the nth boulder by just a hair, the golden-eyed hero had to admit that he had severely underestimated the Apostles' ability to protect itself without Magecraft. Admittedly, its defences were not stopping him, and would not have stopped other powerful Magi or groups of less powerful ones either, but anything below that would never have made it through. He dared say that even Kiritsugu would have been impressed by this.

It was also slightly concerning though. Defences like this couldn't be build in a short time, especially not since he would estimate that over 80% of the materials used where not from this factory itself. It must have taken quite a lot of time to collect it all and to put it all together.

And an Apostle being on the loose for a lot of time meant a lot of people dead, for sustenance and for familiars.

And that meant that he was many months too late.

He couldn't have done anything, he knew that, but he still took a moment to mourn all the people he had failed by not arriving in time. He couldn't make up for it, just as he couldn't make up for his actions in the fire, but he could at least attempt to do so by killing the Apostle now.

Finally arriving at the top floor, Shirou took a deep breath to centre himself again and to return his focus, the armoured teen took his time observing the last door in his way, after which the Apostle was doubtlessly waiting for him.

Shirou's mind worked furiously on a plan to enter. Just like outside, the best plan seemed to be the one involving a lot of brute force where he would just enter through the door, regardless of what laid behind it, but perhaps something could be said for finding another entrance? Choices, choices.

But then, as if to mock him for his frustration, that choice was taken out of his hands.

The door suddenly opened half way, inwards. A head was stuck through the opening, with red eyes cautiously peering down the hall, until they landed on Shirou.

For a moment, for just the blink of an eye, neither being moved, Apostle staring at Magus, and Magus staring at Apostle. The Apostle being too surprised that someone had made it up here past its traps, and the god dumbstruck by his opponent being foolish enough to give up an incredible advantage by opening the door to its inner sanctum.

It was just a fraction of a second, but it was enough for Shirou to take in his opponent's form.

There was no denying that the man had been handsome once, with an angular face framed with black hair, with pleasing features and the part of his body that was visible being lean and toned.

It was quite ruined now however, by the unnaturally pale complexion and sickened look, the air of filth and death around it, and the blackened veins that ran all over its body.

The very human-like appearance and behaviour of the Apostle, instead of a more beastly one, should have indicated that it was several decades old at the very least, but it couldn't be, not with the way it was behaving. Opening a door with an enemy outside was a rookie-mistake.

While he was pondering that, Shirou was not idle. The moment he had properly observed his opponent, he had already kicked off from the ground, rushing towards the hole in the defences in front of him.

The vampire then showed that it was greatly superior to its thralls, for it actually managed to somewhat follow him with its eyes and even widened said eyes before the Magus was upon it.

But despite that superiority, it had no chance of doing anything beyond that, as Shirou brutally rammed into both it and the door it was half standing behind.

The result was precisely as one would expect. The door was instantly smashed to pieces, splinters being sent everywhere, and the Apostle went careening backwards, flying through the entire room and smashing into a wall dozens of yards away.

Not wanting to give it a chance to escape or do something creative, the red-haired hero rushed forward again, swinging his hammer in an arc towards the creature, aiming to take its head off.

But once more the vampire showed it was far beyond humanity and far beyond its thralls, as it managed to dodge his swing with Mjolnir, if only by a hair, by jumping to the side and letting itself fall on the ground.

"Curse you!" The Apostle cried, in a surprisingly smooth voice, attempting to crawl away, before remembering that it could walk bipedally as it jumped back onto its feet. "How did you get up here- no, how did you even find me?"

It received no answer, as talking in battle was a sin.

Shirou did allow himself a moment of surprise however when the Apostle, after realising it would get no reply, pulled a grenade, an actual mundane grenade, from its belt, ripped out the pin, and threw it at Shirou, in a perfect straight throw.

Normally, the golden-eyed hero would have easily dodged something like that, but he needed to keep the pressure up on his enemy, lest it tried to get away. So instead, he caught the explosive in his left hand and easily crushed the piece of iron, letting it go off uselessly, as he didn't take any damage from it.

The Apostle's eyes bulged at the sight, which made it look even more unhealthy, before it threw itself to the side again, running towards the corner, where, the armoured teen now saw, even more guns and explosives were stored.

Did it not have any other tricks that it could use? Certainly, it didn't actually think that mundane weapons would be enough to defeat him, right?

Those traps outside had admittedly been very well thought out, and could have actually stopped even an experienced Enforcer from climbing the stairs, if they were very unlucky, half-blind, had a very bad and very long day behind them, and were taken by surprise several times in a row.

But to grab for guns and bombs in a direct confrontation was useless. Even a normal Magus who focused only on research would barely be stopped by that, let alone a determined Enforcer, or Shirou himself.

This was again proven beyond a doubt when the Apostle grabbed a machine gun and unleashed a hail of bullets at Shirou, all of them harmlessly bouncing off from his armour and even from his skin.

"Die already!" The vampire then spat in a mix of fear and anger, as it pulled out a remote and pressed a button.

The intensifying smell of death told Shirou that the Apostle had apparently stored some of its familiars in its hiding place after all. As he watched, a door at the back of the room was opened to reveal half a dozen of the Dead.

Unable to spare the time to deal with them one at the time, Shirou waited until they were almost on him and then swung Mjolnir in an arc, lightning coating the hammer, hitting all of them in one swing and reducing them to ash.

Upon turning around once more, Shirou spotted his enemy trying to reach another back door, no doubt intending to flee while he was occupied with its minions. He had no intention of letting it flee however.

Lifting his hammer again, Shirou unleashed another blast of lightning at the vampire, hoping to incinerate it in one blow.

Unfortunately, the Apostle noticed in the nick of time and actually managed to dodge, though the pressure wave from where the lightning struck the ground still sent it flying once more, away from the door it had been intending to flee through.

It crawled back to its feet swiftly however, and then shot Shirou a crazy grin while standing up straight.

"So, the great hero has finally come to slay the beast hah? Well, I anticipated this already." It howled in a victorious tone. "I will not die here, and I won't be taken back to them. I will become more powerful than any vampire has ever been, even Dracula, and I will have my revenge one way or another."

'Them?' Shirou thought confusedly. 'Dracula? Revenge?' What are on about, vampire?'

Said vampire then pressed another button on the remote, that had apparently managed to survive both the lightning bolt and the unexpected flights through the room. Upon the button being pressed, Shirou heard a creaking sound, as if a garage door was being opened in a room beside this one.

More of the Dead poured out of their hiding places after that, coming from the same door as the earlier ones, yet this time they were not running towards him, but rather towards the stairs.

While Shirou was looking at this, the Apostle then continued his rambling. "This might seem random, but I know how you heroes think. You'll have to choose between them or me, and we both already know you'll go after them. Think of how many people they'll kill otherwise…"

Shirou tuned the vampire out after that, as it kept talking about villains, heroes, and the hundred rules of being an Evil Overlord.

It would seem it had no knowledge of the Moonlit World at all, that was pretty clear by now.

If its strange fascination with becoming stronger than Dracula wasn't enough of an indication of its ignorance, then the fact that it believed that an Enforcer or Executor would prioritise saving random people over killing it immediately proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was in way over its head.

Okay, he was admittedly correct about Shirou in that aspect, as Shirou would not allow people to die if he could do anything to prevent it, but he was a very special case.

How had the Apostle managed to survive that long if it was so ignorant? How had it become so powerful?

Questions for a later time, the red-haired Magus decided, as he raised a hand and pointed towards the fleeing creatures. He then quickly drew the Rune of Fire that had given him such impressive results back when he did his first power testing, invoking its name in a stern voice.

"Sowilo!"

The Rune of the Sun, the Rune of cleansing fire. Powered by the mysterious power inside of Shirou and enhanced by his incredible aptitude for Runes as a whole, it unleashed a torrent of fire on the Dead.

Even though the familiars of the Apostle had been progressively getting away from him at speeds a normal human couldn't hope to match, the firestorm caught up to them easily, overtaking them in moments and burning away everything in its path, leaving only some charred remains to prove anything had ever been there.

Having dealt with the immediate problem, Shirou spun around back towards the Apostle, who was by now staring slackjawed at the destruction that had been wrought.

Taking advantage of his opponent's lapse in attention, Shirou jumped forward again at great speed, throwing himself bodily against the vampire in order to bring it down. The poor Apostle, to stupefied to react on time, was unable to even just brace itself, as it was slammed against a wall hard enough to shatter the bones of any normal person.

It did not go down that easily though. Upon Shirou disconnecting from his opponent to get himself some room to manoeuvre, it lashed out at him with its sharp claws, aiming to rip the teen's throat out.

It was a move not entirely unlike a swing with a fist to hit someone. A swinging motion in a wide arc. Probably with quite a lot of power behind it, but also so horribly telegraphed that no serious opponent would ever let it hit.

Shirou blocked it with his forearm, neatly catching the claws on his vambraces. He then threw a punch at the Apostles head, which was dodged at the very last second.

The vampire then jumped forward, pushing itself off the wall with its feet in order to gain momentum to throw Shirou on his back. The red-haired hero however simply caught the Apostle's wrists and stopped it dead in its tracks.

For a moment, the vampire struggled in the hero's hold, until Shirou decided to emulate Thor for a short moment and head-butted his enemy so fiercely that it was once more knocked into the wall behind it.

Shirou himself didn't notice all that much from the colliding of heads, but going by the vampire's pained groan, it was definitely having a headache now.

Not giving it a chance to regain its bearings, Shirou stepped forward and launched a haymaker into the Apostle's midriff, effectively ending the short fight.

The air was forced out of the undead's lungs, making it wheeze to get some back. Its efforts were rendered useless however when a hand grabbed its throat in a vice grip. The vampire was lifted bodily off the ground, pulled away from the wall for a moment, and was then slammed back into it with even greater force then before.

Safe to say the wall was about to collapse from all the abuse it had suffered through.

It wasn't lethal, not to something like an Apostle, but it would still hurt like hell, which was exactly what Shirou had been going for. Inexperienced warriors tended to lose their rational mind when in pain, and he had already determined that this Apostle was inexperienced indeed.

Watching impassively as the Apostle struggled feebly against his grip on its throat, pained choking noises the only thing that were audible, Shirou contemplated whether to kill it at once or to interrogate it first.

He certainly had no qualms about killing it, or any others of its kind. Apostles were not human, they were not animals, or even plants. They were monsters, plain and simple. They had lost all of their humanity the moment they had been turned, and killing the abomination that came from such a process was the greatest mercy one could show to the tortured soul of the thing that had once been human.

Shirou had heard such plenty of times from his father, as well as any other source, so he was inclined to believe it.

The only reason Shirou was even contemplating leaving it alive for now was because it was no threat to him at all and he still had some questions it might be able to answer. One of the most prominent being how in the name of Asgard it had managed to survive that long without any knowledge of magic or the Moonlit World.

But the most important would no doubt be inquiring about who the Apostle had meant when he had mentioned 'them'.

Sorting everything out like that in his mind made it clear to Shirou what the proper course of action would be at that moment. He had dropped the ball back in Fuyuki when he had mostly refrained from interrogating the criminals that had smelled like magic, and as such he'd had to break into the police station to rectify the mistake. He wasn't going to mess up like that again.

The red-haired Magus then let out wisps of the mysterious power, as well as some of the Prana that he now had in such abundance. It created an oppressive aura around him, very well suited for intimidating those that were out of their league, such as the creature in front of him.

"Apostle." He started, instantly noticing the brief look of confusion the use of that word got him. "When I was outside of this building, I noticed just how powerful you are. I saw and fought the countless minions that you controlled without even paying attention. Your aura was present all over the city.

Yet now that I have you in front of me, I see nothing of that power that you were suggested to have. Your physical strength is severely lacking, your defences are average at best, and your ignorance is immense. I am quite sure you did not fall prey to another vampire, for then you would surely be more informed and more impressive than this. So tell me now, how did you come to be like this?"

The words were spoken clearly and firmly, yet his voice was calm, as he chose to let his aura and his actions do the threatening for him.

A flash of defiance sparked to life in the vampire's eyes at his words, but a dark look from Shirou coupled with an increase in the pressure of the aura around them snuffed it right out.

The golden-eyed Magus loosened the grip he had on the creature's throat in anticipation of an answer, but still held it firmly enough to keep it from escaping.

The Apostle had never been a brave man, even before his untimely death. He had spent his life running away from his problems, never being able to face them. This fundamental aspect of his character had not changed in death. He was still the coward he had always been.

And because of that, the Apostle's resolve broke to pieces when confronted by someone stronger than it. And subsequently, it could only do as it was told.

"I was made into this, yes, but not by another vampire." It squeaked, still thrashing in vain now that its lungs were able to get air again. "I was just selling dru- just minding my own business, when a bunch of criminals attacked me. The next thing I know, I was in a room with two lunatics. It's all their fault, not mine, really not, I swear."

By now its thrashing and struggling had increased to the point where it was kicking around, flailing wildly in Shirou's grip, though that failed to even catch the teen's attention at the moment. He was occupied with far more important matters.

'Kidnapped of the streets?' He realised. 'By criminals? Could it be-?'

It was a hopeful thought. This was a potential clue, one he wanted to pursue immediately.

So without further ado, he pulled the still thrashing Apostle closer to him, ignoring its surprised yell at the sudden movement.

"What more do you know?" He asked sharply, now using every intimidation technique his dad had ever taught him, looming over the Apostle despite being at least a head shorter than it. "Do you know where you were? Do you know who did this to you?"

The answer came significantly quicker this time, partly because of the increased intimidation, but also because the vampire was only too glad to finally be able to vent its frustration.

"They said they wanted to experiment." It hissed, clearly affronted anyone had dared do such a thing to it. "They said they were going to perfect the procedure, that I was a testing subject. Just an animal. Can you believe that? They thought I was just an animal. Me!"

Its voice then shifted from affronted to borderline hysterical. "There were others like them too, three of them, sometimes passing by to talk with the lunatics. They never even looked at me you know? I was nothing to them, nothing at all. They just hurt me over and over again, until they had changed me into this."

The Apostle then starting ranting about unfairness, about his 'rights', but Shirou wasn't really listening anymore.

Five Magi. Two 'lunatics', and three occasional guests in the room.

It was more information at once than he had gotten before altogether.

His opponents were five Magi, two of whom were dabbling in something that was guaranteed to get one a Sealing Designation: Dead Apostle-research.

It seemed a foolish undertaking, researching something that existed to hunt mankind, but many impatient and overly arrogant Magi with more ambition than common sense pursued this line of research anyway.

It wasn't entirely without merit either. Dead Apostles were superior to humans in almost every way; physically, in life-span, in Magecraft and so on. The promise of becoming more powerful had lured many a Magus down this risky and deceitful path.

And without exception, they were either killed or Sealed, depending on their usefulness. Neither the Church nor the Clocktower appreciated its members looking into one of the enemies of mankind, and hunted those who did with fervour.

But now, two of those people had apparently managed to slip away, settling in Japan, far away from the powerbases of the Church or the Magus Association. They were free to continue their insanely dangerous research here, despite all the risks involved.

Worse, they had become Philosophers whilst doing so.

It wasn't uncommon for Sealing Designees to run from their fate of experimentation or lock-down. Among those who fled, there were two classifications: Hermits and Philosophers.

Hermits were those that quietly did their work in a secluded space, away from anyone else, while not endangering the secret of Thaumaturgy. The Enforcers generally left the Hermits alone, not actively pursuing them, maybe giving it a try every once in a while depending on the research itself.

Philosophers on the other hand were those who actively involved those around them in their work, often against their will. These kind of designees were a danger to the secret of Thaumaturgy, and were thus hunted all the time by Enforcers and Executor alike.

And he, Emiya Shirou, now had the 'fortune' to stumble upon not one, not two, but five Philosophers at once, who had managed to set up a very efficient scheme to obtain specimens for their no-doubt sick and wrong experiments.

"-more powerful than even you."

'…'

Realising that he was neglecting his conversation partner, Shirou's attention was pulled back towards his impromptu prisoner, doubly so when said prisoner started laughing maniacally, all the while gloating about how it was stronger than anyone else. Apparently completely forgetting that it was at the red-haired Magus' mercy at the moment.

"I manged to escape them, you know? All by myself." It continued, looking very pleased with itself. "I ripped myself loose when they weren't paying attention, and dodging those white-haired, red-eyed freaks was easy. Getting outside was a piece of cake too."

'…A little more detail would be appreciated', Shirou didn't say, instead choosing to remain silent and let it speak.

"Must be feeling really smug, those guys in that manor of theirs, at the edge of a city that seemed so idyllic there in the mountains. Don't know where it was, I just ran away for a long time, not looking at any road signs or anything. But I managed to get here. Against all odds, I survived this hostile world, that was out to kill me."

That was slightly useful at least.

"You think you have me pinned down, don't you?" The vampire continued, now grinning maliciously, looking like it had some kind of secret that it was about to reveal. "But you don't! No one can hold me down, not anymore. After escaping their clutches, I learned of what I was now. Something more powerful than any human could ever be.

"I craved blood, so I feasted on it, made myself stronger and stronger every day. I discovered so many new things and I promised I would thank those lunatics when I find them again, right before killing and enslaving them of course."

"You used all these people from before, you mercilessly slaughtered and turned them, simply to have a shot at revenge? On people you don't even know the slightest about?" Shirou interrupted, his mood changing from annoyed at the Apostle's cowardness and arrogance to actual burning anger at its vile deeds.

"Sure did." The thing crowed, looking proud of itself. "And don't worry, I'll find them. When I have minions everywhere, no one can hide from me. I can even walk in the sunlight, you know? Something that almost no other vampire can do. I have read Dracula and seen those films and anime that portray Vampires. I'm already better than most of them, and one day, I'll be as powerful as Alucard!"

"I don't know who that last person is." Shirou confessed. "But from the tone of your voice it is someone powerful. But all your bragging makes me wonder, why do you think you are going to achieve all that when I'm here to kill you again? It is clear that I am much stronger than you after all."

"That's what you think! But you will find that you are foolishly mistaken, as I am going to use my true strength now. Here I come!"

And with those words, the Apostles hands wrapped around Shirou's wrists, as it tried to pull the red-haired Magus' hands of its throat. At the same time, it legs came up to kick Shirou repeatably in the stomach.

But while the attacks were admittedly stronger than before, by at least a half, they still failed to even faze Shirou, who kept his hands in place and didn't react at all to the kicks in his stomach.

Ultimately, it was more awkward than troublesome.

Once more the Apostles eyes bulged out of their sockets, now that it was again confronted with something beyond its understanding. Its thrashing and flailing became increasingly desperate, as it realised that even its best efforts where useless.

"What the-? How-? No! I am stronger than you, better than you. You can't kill me!" It screeched, now resorting to attempted biting and clawing.

It was no more effective than its other tactics had been, despite the claws and fangs it now had. "You won't kill me, you won't. You're a hero after all. I am only a poor victim, I swear. T-t-they did this t-to m-me, y-you must be-believe me."

But Shirou had heard enough. The being had told him everything it knew, so it was time to wrap this up.

The Apostle, perhaps noticing the hardening look in Shirou's eyes, descended into outright pathetic begging, but Shirou was deaf to it. In the short conversation that they'd had, the vampire had proved itself a despicable being.

It had not even tried to hold on to its humanity, even though it had been granted that chance when it had skipped the mindless Ghoul-phase of its turning, probably because of the experiments. It had just skipped straight to the murdering, in a vain attempt at revenge and out of a desire to become powerful.

It just wanted power, Shirou knew. It was using revenge as an excuse, but this being here was one of those types that craved authority over others, not justice or righteousness.

He would not feel bad about destroying the being in front of him, only about doing so much too late, after many had already fallen prey to its whiles and hubris.

"No, don't! I-I can reward y-you. I h-have money! Its not my fault, I swear-"

Shirou once more channelled the mysterious power, calling upon its cleansing aspect, just as he had done before while he had healed the green-haired woman. Unlike with her though, this cleansing was not meant to heal and invigorate. Its light was not soft and golden, rather it was a harsh silver-white, its shine blinding, giving off an unforgiving aura of power.

The white light flowed from Shirou's hand into the Dead Apostle, spreading through its body, silencing its pleas, and destroying the vile creature. The light took over its entire body, as the light began shining out of its eyes and mouth. Barely two seconds after that, the body crumbled into dust.

His job finally done, the golden-eyed Magus turned his back on the pile of dust on the ground and walked away. He did not look back. There was no need to.


Half an hour later, Shirou stood outside again. The reason it took so long was because there were still many traps scattered throughout the building, and he had taken the time to deactivate them all, to prevent other visitors from losing their lives.

As he walked away from the terrain, his mind went over what had just taken place.

The fight had been not nearly as difficult as he had feared beforehand. There had been no magic whatsoever, not in terms of traps, outright spells, Bounded Fields, nothing. The Apostle himself had admitted complete ignorance of the Moonlit World on top of that, making it very unlikely that it had allies or friends anywhere.

The smell of death was letting up now. Even while standing as close to the hide-out as he was, Shirou clearly noticed the graveyard-odour disappearing now that its origin had been removed.

The missing person-reports were thrown into a trash bin, as he no longer needed them. The vampire had killed so many people, so many soulless husks had prowled through the streets before he had killed them again. It both saddened and infuriated him. Why did this Apostle have to do this?

With regular Apostles, as regular as they could be anyway, there was an explanation for being as they were, as they were completely inhuman. They were predators, created to hunt and kill mankind. And even though Shirou would never stand for such actions, he understood what drove them.

This Apostle however had had the very real chance of holding on to its humanity. As said before, it had skipped the Ghoul-phase of its development, it hadn't had another Apostle close by to corrupt it, it still had its entire memory intact from what Shirou had been able to gleam from its mind. It had no excuse at all to sink into darkness as it had.

It made Shirou feel… unpleasant, to be so blatantly reminded that outright evil people also existed. People that didn't deserve to be saved. The kind his father had spoken of.

Emiya Kiritsugu had realised early on that his adoptive son was quite crazy.

Not necessarily because his dream was to save everyone and to make all people smile one day, as his own dream had been the same far into adulthood after all, but more because of the complete lack of self-preservation that the boy showed.

His son was determined to save everyone, no matter what it would cost as long as he would be the one ultimately paying the price.

Being a very experienced hitman and assassin-for-hire, Kiritsugu had known however that some people just weren't worth saving. Some people were just evil for no discernible reason. And he knew that, even if he failed to convince Shirou that he himself mattered as well, he absolutely had to teach his son that those people had to be removed, one way or another.

The young Shirou at the time hadn't understood that very well, still convinced that everyone should be able to live happily ever after, but now, after several months of intense crime-fighting, hunting Sealing Designees, and having faced one of such individuals that were beyond saving, he understood a little better.

Following the way of his father, the way of killing the few to save the many, would never be his way of course. He would protect the innocent with everything he had, but when he would have no other choice but to remove someone evil in order to make the world a better place...

Well, he was now one step closer to being able to do such a thing.

Now, Shirou did not actually think all of that at the moment, but the general unconscious feel was there. The first seed had been sown, and it would have far-reaching consequences in the future.

For now however, Shirou just lamented the fact that he had taken a life, however twisted that life may have been.

It was yet another reason for him to dislike Urayasu, next to its filthiness and its great number of criminals. It would forever be the city where he'd fought his first real battle against a true opponent of the Moonlit World, despite how lacklustre said opponent had been.

Fortunately, the problems with the criminals had been largely resolved by him. Sure, there were still a lot of them running around, but with over half of them behind bars now and the police no longer stretched thin because of the many disappearances that kept stacking up, that would largely be fixed by the city itself. And he would be back a few times to lend a hand.

That left only the matter of the trash making the city a smelling heap of filthiness.

Leaving without fixing such an obvious problem left him with a bitter taste in his mouth, but as always, Mjolnir came through for him, showing him a Runic Array that seemed made for this situation.

It would slowly destroy anything useless lying around, while 'encouraging' people to clean up anything that was useful. It would remove chemical components on the streets, in the water, and in the air. It would remove gum, blood, and other stains, and it would cure the people, the animals, and even the plants of the damage that the pollution had wrought upon them. Only that particular damage though, nothing else, as that would take entirely different Runes.

And the best part was that they would do so over time, slowly, and more important, unnoticeably to anyone who wasn't aware already of the spell's existence. The secret of Thaumaturgy wouldn't be revealed that way.

It was an incredibly useful, if insanely complicated spell, but it had to be said that it had downsides as well.

The most prominent of them was the insane cost of powering the Array.

Drawing and activating the Runic Array would already cost a lot of power, but even after that, it had to be supplied constantly with more. If he ever stopped supplying for even a moment, the Runic Array would cease to exist immediately.

Keeping it up would mean an incredible drain on his reserves, but Shirou estimated that he could miss the power, at least until the city was mostly or even completely clean again.

It took a little more than ten minutes to cast the spell, as he had to carve the Runes into the ground at a secluded spot, but its effects were instantly noticeable to him. The air around the array becoming noticeably cleaner, and the stains on the ground surrounding him disappearing without a trace.

It was slow-going, but the spell made up for that through its incredible meticulousness.

His task done here, Shirou took to the sky once more.

He would probably return to Urayasu a couple more times, to roll up every remaining criminal and to keep track of the Runic Array, but after that, he would move on to the next city on his list before Hikone, that being Iwakuni, where he could potentially find more clues.

Finally, he had made some actual progress.


The Lord inside of his room in the Clocktower could only pace in ever-increasing agitation.

Despite the hope-giving report of several weeks back concerning the criminal they were trying to catch, they hadn't made progress at all ever since then.

It was frustrating, and doubly so to admit it, but his target had buried itself deep, far beyond the reach of him or his Enforcers.

Alright, not necessarily his Enforcers, as in 'working only for him', but everyone got the point.

He knew Joseph Balefor was somewhere in the one country he never wanted to visit again, but that was as far as his knowledge went. After having arrived in Japan, the murderer had seemingly disappeared entirely.

Frustrating, frustrating to no end.

He had half-considered going over there himself, but he was smart enough to know he would only hinder the professionals. He would follow later, when the target had been found, in order to drag the scumbag back to the Tower for his trial and to get the Crest back. Until then, there was very little he could do besides managing things.

Sighing deeply, the Lord put the matter out of his mind for now. Getting annoyed by it would only be a waste of time and effort.

He looked on his watch, seeing that it was almost time for the next big event. As such, he put the papers on his desk in a drawer and locked said drawer well.

After that, he quickly combed his hair and washed his face. It wouldn't do to look anything less than perfect after all when meeting up with the fellow Lords. Showing weakness would only be blood in the water for the more ambitious among them.

With that done, he left his office, on his way towards the Arena that was present in the Clocktower.

When one's honour was slighted, or when one wanted to fight someone for training, or when agreements couldn't be worked out in a peaceful way, the Arena was the place to be. A place were you could settle differences in an aggressive way.

And this morning, a one-sided slaughter was about to begin.

Oh, no one would really die. People rarely died in the ring after all. Someone was about to lose his reputation and take a severe blow to his ego though, that was certain.

Some pompous fool had asked to marry Lorelei Barthomeloi, the dreaded Queen of the Clocktower, the strongest Magus of the generation. Upon having his proposal be denied, the fool had demanded she reconsider. When the Queen had refused again, he had challenged her to a duel, as was his right, demanding that if she forfeited or lost, she would marry him.

Suffice to say that the fool was going to suffer, a lot.

The only reason he was being humoured at all by the Barthomeloi-family was because the Queen was under pressure. Many Lords in the Clocktower were insisting that she marry someone soon, so she could produce powerful offspring and forge important bonds between her family and another's, solidifying her authority and enforcing the status-quo.

Barthomeloi had been able to stave them off quite efficiently however by claiming she would only marry someone strong enough to face her in battle, which was close to impossible to anyone but a few.

Zelretch would be able to defeat her, but he wouldn't be interested at all, in either the fight or the marriage.

Along with him, some Apostle Ancestors maybe, but they would be equally uninterested and not nearly foolish enough to try such a thing.

And of course, ORT would definitely win, but the possibility of any alien god fighting Lorelei Barthomeloi in the Arena, willingly adhering to the rules, was absolutely laughable.

But one thing was for sure: she was definitely not going to marry today. Everyone knew that, except that one fool apparently.

Making his way towards the arena, in the direction of the cheers and whistles he was now beginning to hear, the Lord could not keep his mind on the matter at hand. He was too distracted by the matters of the past and future.

He was aware that he could be considered a luckier man than most, having survived things that he'd had no right of surviving, but today, he prayed for just a bit more fortune coming his way.

For there to be some progress with the case of his friend's murder.


Author's note.

First we have a family dinner at the Osaki's (plus Yomaura, who's an honorary Osaki anyway), where Koyo's newly introduced daughters show that the secret of the vigilante is not very secret after all. The chosen approach to deal with that is to slowly give out the information to the public, so expect that Shirou's fame and notoriety will increase in the coming chapters.

After that, a closer look into the mind of Balefor, and a glimpse of his past. We now see a bit of what drives him, and what his goal is. Now, for all of you who want to shout now that his goal is unreachable, that is completely true, but Joseph doesn't believe that, so he's going to continue.

We of course know that dear Joseph is probably never going to succeed. Hell, even his partners believe that (spoiler), but everyone just nods to him, because he's useful.

Also, for all those that want to say now that I have made Lorelei Barthomeloi too nice, with her aversion to amoral actions, well, no. She is not nice at all in my story. Lorelei Barthomeloi is a first-rate Magus, the Queen, and has a life-time of brain-washing by her family behind her. The only thing I did in my story is letting the brain-washing stick less to her mind than in canon and most fanon, and add a kinder nature to her underneath all that. That opens up the possibility for character development.

Our dear Magi also make plans to get Rin in their hands. For those of you that wonder why: they want to have a Magus to either experiment on, or to serve as their lapdog if her talent is great enough. Now, we know that she is a prodigy, so it will probably be lapdog, but experimentation is still a real possibility.

It is also a test to see if they can pull something like this off. If they can, they might just try again, and again, and again, and so on.

But that's not the only thing they have been doing. They all have their own projects, with among them some Dead Apostle research. One of their specimens escaped, and now Shirou had to pick up the slack, which he does successfully.

Shirou also meets a certain green-haired woman. If you've watched/read Apocrypha, you'll know who she is. She now has her own abilities, but don't fret, she is not suddenly overpowered. She is strong enough to handle mundane threats, but any experienced Magus will still kick her ass seven different ways to Sunday.

She will remember Shirou quite fondly however, which will be quite convenient later down the line.

We see the vampire in his very own hide-out in a factory. To get in, Shirou had to pass all kinds of traps that seemed to come straight out of a video-game. There is no real explanation as to how the Apostle managed to build that. It's plot-convenience.

The battle between Shirou and the Apostle was very one-sided, but that was the intention from the beginning. I can imagine you all want some real fights, but I cannot make an OP-Shirou and still have him struggle with a run-of-the-mill Apostle. This was mostly to show just how strong Shirou already is.

The vampire had some information for Shirou, after which Shirou disposed of the Apostle with his newly-found Cleansing Power. I thought of this Cleansing Power after reading that Thor healed a man with Terminal Cancer once. That put the idea of healing in my mind, and from there it was a small step to a Cleansing Power.

Keep in mind what I have said. It only works on what the Shirou-Force, thus Shirou himself, considers to be unnatural. It would not work on Magi or Heroic Spirits or the like, but very well against things like Dead Apostles and Zoukens. In theory also against Types from other planets, but those are several leagues too high for now.

An example of something it would not work on is for instance the Caster of Fate Zero. Despite his evilness and insanity, the Cleansing Power would not work on him at all, since he is not necessarily unnatural (at least, not in Shirou's opinion, which is really the only thing that matters). The monsters he summons however are susceptible to the power.

For the image on the Apostle dying, think of Supernatural when Angels kill Demons. For those that do not know Supernatural, look up something along the lines of: 'Supernatural angel kills demon' and click youtube or something. Keep in mind that in this story, the light will also spread over the body and that at the end there is only ash left, instead of an entire body that drops to the ground.

Shirou makes an effort to clean the city, which will work quite well. It will be repeated many more times. Why? Because he needs a positive way to get Gaia's attention. That will not happen for a long time yet, but it is the first step.

I have for now decided on a mother-hen Gaia, but if the general consensus is that you all want something else, then I can take that into consideration. No antagonist though. The Earth Goddess will end up firmly on Shirou's side.

The 'mysterious' Lord hunting Balefor for personal reasons also returns, to give us a bit of insight into the Clocktower.

That's all for now.

Ted.