Disclaimer: I do not own Fate Stay Night, Highschool DxD or anything else.

Fate: Devil Night

Chapter11: Interlude II

Human World
Japan: Fuyuki
Emiya Residence

Emiya Shirou awoke to dizziness and pain, his head aching as his eyes fluttered open. He could see someone standing over him, a face he couldn't recognize, and whoever it was, they were trying to say something to him. His vision was blurred and there was a ringing in his ears like someone had set off a mundane flash bang next to his face. He stared up in confusion and shook his head to clear the horrible—static—from his mind.

Why am I alive?

Shirou gasped as his vision cleared and he remembered what had happened. He'd fought his way through battle after battle until he finally destroyed the Greater Grail along with Angra Mainyu. Blinking away the spots in his vision, he saw that it was Azazel standing over him looking down at him. He still couldn't hear what he was saying but the look on her face said it all, she was worried about him. Why? He was confused, why was he here?

"-ight? Answer me Shirou, are you alright?" Azazel asked him.

"A-Azazel-san?" Shirou stammered in confusion. "What's going on?"

"Good you're awake," Azazel breathed a sigh of relief.

It was only then that he looked around the room and saw where he was. They were in one of the rooms at the Emiya Residence judging by the style of the room and the fact that he was currently sitting up in a futon. How'd he get here? Where was Sakura? All he remembered was destroying the Greater Grail and Angra Mainyu along with the whole of Mount Enzou after watching his sisters sacrifice themselves to deny it access to Akasha.

"What happened?" Shirou asked the question.

"I pulled you from the ruins of the mountain," Azazel answered with a sigh.

"What's going on?" Shirou muttered as he tried to sit up. "Why are you here, Azazel-san?"

"I just wanted to make sure that you were okay," Azazel smiled back as he turned to leave. "Rest for a bit, okay? You can't do anything if you can't even stand up straight, and from what I saw that girl you've got here looks like she needs you alive at least. The woman too for that matter…"

"Tch," Shirou gritted out. "Fine, give me a few minutes to catch my breath."

All he needed was a little rest and then he would be right back to it…

Wait…

Girl?

Woman?


Matou Sakura awoken slowly to the familiar ceiling of a guest room, one that she knew was at the Emiya Residence. She didn't feel tired, and her mind and body were fresh, which was surprising on its own. Her memories were hazy but she could recall a lone boy with white hair and tanned skin. He was familiar but she couldn't recognize him for a moment, nor could she think of his name. Finally his name came to her and she spoke quietly.

"Huh? Senpai…"

That's right, Emiya Shirou was her Senpai and the boy she loved more than anything in the world. Where was he? Why wasn't he here? Maybe he'd fallen asleep in his shed again last night and she had to go wake him up. She looked over at the clock and blinked in confusion when she realised it was ten o'clock already. He'd probably already woke up and was preparing breakfast right now. Pretending to understand, she got up. Sakura paused once she had gotten out of bed and looked down at herself. She felt lighter than before, better too. What was this? For some strange reason she felt like some invisible chains had been removed from her arms and legs.

"Ah…"

A bad dream…

Why did she dream of the worst possible outcome? She shook her head and left the guest room. An image of herself with white hair and clad in a black dress flashed through her mind. Her head was starting to hurt as she closed the door behind her and turned to look down the corridor. There was no one there and her confusion was growing with everything second that passed. What was going on? Why was she thinking of that?

"Senpai?"

She asked the empty corridor as she felt the wind from the outside hit her lightly from the side. The wind felt good against her skin causing her to stop for a moment and take a deep breath. The porch was filled with light from the sun and standing there lightened her heart. Her body felt as light as a feather, which she was finding stranger and stranger. Why did she feel so much better than before? She walked up to the living room door and slid it open.

"Senpai?"

There was no one sitting at the table, nor was there anyone standing in the kitchen. She felt amazingly refreshed as she entered the living room and slid the door behind her. She didn't know why but the world around her looked different for some reason. Her body felt so light and the air tasted good. Her heart felt so warm, like she was free for the first time in her life, as if some poison that was within her was taken out. The Crest Worms that her 'grandfather' implanted within her and the black mud entangling her heart.

"Senpai?"

She checked the door corridor leading to the front gates and found it empty. It was quiet, far too quiet. She checked the courtyard next and found no one there. Confusion was slowly giving way to panic as she continued to search for the former redhead. She made her way over to the dojo and walked inside. It was empty too and looked to have not been used in quite some time. Where was he? Why couldn't she find him?

"Senpai? Are we playing hide and seek?"

It was impossible for no one to be here, because that was just a bad dream. She shook her head and left the dojo, making sure to close the door after she'd gone. There was only one place left to check, and she knew he would be there. After all, how could he not be there? Her mind drifted back to the dream, and the last time she'd seen him. His body was breaking apart as he pushed himself far behind his limits in order to save her.

"No…it's just a lie…right, Senpai?"

Yes, it had to be a lie. His body wasn't human, even before he'd gotten that Servant's arm grafted onto his shoulder. There was no way that he was gone, not after all he had done for her. So he had to be waiting around somewhere for her, that was it. She entered the shed, slowly opening the door just wide enough for her to pear inside and look around. There was someone inside lying motionless in the middle of a magic circle at the back of the workshop.

It was Caster…

No one else was there, no one but the clearly comatose Caster who looked like she had seen better days. Sakura simply stood there for a moment, unsure what had happened or why she was there and not her Sempau. It suddenly dawned on her that she was alone, very, very alone. No, it couldn't be, there was no way he could be dead. The pit in her stomach expanded and she fell to her knees as the realisation suddenly hit her.

"No…Senpai…please, please come out, Senpai! I-I can't be alone! I need to be with you, Senpai!"

She screamed out the words as her mind started to go white with agony. It was painful not to go crazy and lose herself in insanity. All she could do was cry as the realisation that the boy she loved was dead, and she was still alive. In her mind she was a coward and a cry-baby. She didn't know how else to make up for all the things she'd done so she couldn't even appreciate the fact that she was alive. This was it then, wasn't it? She'd been freed from the chains that bound her for eleven years but had lost the one thing that was guiding her through the darkness.

What was the point of her being alive?

"Sakura?"

A voice, distant and quiet but more than enough to make her freeze. Was she hearing things? Had she lost her mind again? She'd killed so many, ravaged Servants with her shadows and even killed her own sister. Despite that she turned, her eyes filled with tears, and looked at the doorway. She blinked away the tears and stared at the lone figure standing before her. It was him, her Senpai, wearing nothing but a pair of blue pants and the Shroud of Martin wrapped around his left arm.

He was alive…

"Senpai…I…" she trailed off as she stared up at him.

Shirou didn't say a word; he just walked over to her and knelt down beside her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her into a hug. She cried in both relief and sorrow. Nothing but self-loathing rushed through her as she recalled the final battle and the actions she had taken over the course of the war. Losing herself in the madness of all the world's evil, consuming Servants one after another until finally all that stood between her and the Holy Grail was her Senpai and her sister.

"It's okay Sakura," Shirou whispered to her. "It's okay."


Emiya Shirou entered his workshop as his whole body shook from the intensity of the memories that were not his own. Ever since the final battle for the Holy Grail more of Archer's memories had been leaking into his mind, not a lot mind you but enough that it was rather noticeable. It was troubling to say the least but he could deal with it, especially since he'd already realised just what their connection really was. Ravel's Pheonix Tears were helping but even that wasn't enough to take away the pain, even if it wasn't killing him.

Archer was another version of him from another world…

Shirou heard of the Kaleidoscope and Rin had even taken to using it when she had bonded with Ruby however Shirou hadn't thought he would ever really encounter it in such a personal way. Archer was originally a 'Emiya Shirou' who had started off as an untrained Magus in a 'old world' style Fifth Holy Grail War where the merging of the two worlds didn't happen and had went on to become one of Alaya's Counter Guardians after signing a contract in order to save others.

He was a man with far too many regrets…

In the end though they were fundamentally different people…

For now he had other things on his mind then the disjointed memories of his other self, namely meeting his King again and dealing with the aftermath of the war. Caster was in a coma and wouldn't be waking up any time soon, not after the damage she had sustained at Saber's hands. His sisters were dead and so was Rin. He couldn't save them no matter how hard he'd tried but he had no regrets and he wouldn't insult them by mourning. Even if he couldn't save everyone, he didn't care, he would keep trying anyway.

The nature of Emiya Shirou was 'Salvation' after all…

"I hereby announce," Shirou chanted as he stood in his workshop next to the new magic circle he had drawn, the first one currently being occupied by Caster. "I call upon whom which I have sworn to serve, Thou, demonic creature from hell, if yee would answer me then hear my words. I am the one whom embodies all the good in this world, I am the one who will vanquish all the evils in the world. Yee devil, appear before me and answer my call."

The magic circle igniting in the familiar flames of the demonic phoenix, a ring of orange heat that burned all that dared to get close. The flames quickly died down a few moments later and a lone figure was revealed amidst the burning embers. She was still as a beautiful as he remembered her, the girl he had sworn to serve and protect. She was his King and he was her Queen though it felt like a lifetime ago since he had last seen her.

"S-Shirou?" Ravel stammered out in surprise as she caught sight of him. "Shirou!"

"Hi Ravel," Shirou smiled back. "How've you been?"

"You're alive!" Ravel shouted as she took a step towards him. "We weren't sure what had happened when the Grail War broke out! All we knew was that a massive amount of energy was starting to appear and then it was overshadowed by this holy energy that scared the elders."

"It's all over now," Shirou reassured her. "We won, the Holy Grail was destroyed and we made it through everything alive."

Some of them anyway…

"Tell me everything."


Days passed and life continued on as they all came to terms with what had happened to them. It may have only been a few days but the Holy Grail War had been a brutal affair and one that had left its mark on them all. A man named Dilo, a bishop of the Holy Church had been assigned to Fuyuki as the priest of the Kotomine Church which was currently being rebuilt following the end of the war. He was a nice fellow who had even started teaching Sakura a bit of Magecraft but had otherwise stayed clear of Shirou despite the latter being the winner of the war, no doubt aware that he was a devil.

Sakura had retaken the name Tohsaka and had salvaged her sister's Magic Crest from Rin's wrist. She had sold the Tohsaka Estate and Matou Manson before moving into the Emiya Residence, taking one of the many unused rooms for herself after Shirou had offered to let her stay on a more permanent bases. They'd gone through both the Tohsaka and Matou residences for everything of value, stripping them of anything of worth to them such as Mystic Codes.

Everything had seemingly returned to normal...

Kotomine Issei was the adopted son of Kotomine Kirei and a priest in service of the Holy Church's Burial Agency. In the twelve years since that fateful day when he was taken in by his father, he had been trained in various ways with the sole intention of hurting others. Though Kirei had originally taken him in to see him suffer, Issei himself had liked fighting dangerous creatures and had joined the Burial Agency for the sole purpose of killing the things that go bump in the night.

He was surprisingly good at healing others both physically and spiritually. His father had also taught him Bajiquan and Magecraft as well as how to wield Black Keys properly. Since then he had been trained as a Magus, someone who could use Magecraft, with twenty Magic Circuits. While he was admittedly good at healing Magecraft, most of his offensive capability was centered around his Sacred Gear—an artefact that had apparently been given to him by the God from the Bible—called the Boosted Gear and the dragon sealed within it. His name was Ddraig and he was known as the Welsh Dragon, the Red Dragon Emperor. According to Ddraig, the Boosted Gear itself was known as a Longinus-class Sacred Gear which had the ability to double the user's power every ten seconds.

It was a very powerful artefact…

He still remembered his first encounter with the mighty beast…

Issei floated aimlessly through the black void, unable to really focus on anything other than the all-consuming darkness around him. What happened? His mind was a mess, his memories fading in and out. Finally after what felt like an eternity he pulled himself together and tried to move. Forcing himself into a 'standing' position, he stopped and breathed out. A moment later a massive red dragon appeared from behind him and came to a stop, its head staring down at him.

"A dragon?" Issei asked in confusion.

"Yes," the dragon responded looking slightly irritated.

"Where am I?" Issei inquired as he looked around the empty void.

"This is your mind," the dragon answered clearly. "So you're my partner this time around, huh? Well, I suppose that I could do worse."

"Who are you?" Issei questioned as he gazed down up at the massive Phantasmal Creature.

"I am the Red Dragon Emperor, the Welsh Dragon Ddraig," the dragon proclaimed with no small amount of pride in his voice.

"A dragon…" Issei trailed off in surprise.

"I was sealed in the Sacred Gear called the Boosted Gear centuries ago," Ddraig explained simply. "And now I've ended up with you."

"Why are you here?" Issei asked further. "I mean, why are you talking to me?"

"I've been watching you," Ddraig shrugged uncaring. "You're not like the others."

"What do you mean?" Issei questioned in confusion.

"Never mind," Ddraig shook his head and turned away. "You'll find out eventually."

When Kirei found out he'd smiled and told him flat out that he would make a fine Executor. After becoming an Executor at the tender age of six on Kirei's recommendatio, Issei had fought in several conflicts against heretics and the inhuman monsters that hid in the darker parts of the world. Even a few Devils and Fallen Angels that had run amuck. Issei was someone who enjoyed fighting his enemies with his full strength and crushing them with his bare hands.

Now here he was standing outside of the home of the devil who killed his father...

"We're here," Issei spoke up as they approached the gates. "This is it."

Behind him were four young women around his age, each one also being affiliated with the church, and each one a nun wearing robes. First was Asia Agento, a rather short woman with long blond hair and green eyes. She was regarded as a Holy Maiden because of her ability to heal almost all wounds with her Sacred Gear Twilight Healing, an artefact granted to her by the God from the Bible. Next was Xenovia Quarta, a young woman with blue hair and dark yellow eyes. She was one of the few natural-born Holy Sword wielders of the modern era and was the current wielder of the legendary Noble Phantasm Durandal, a fact that was known only to a few in the Holy Church and Heaven. Then there was Irina Shidou, another young woman with long chestnut hair tied into twin tails and violet eyes.

Finally there was his adoptive sister, his father's biological daughter, Hortensia Caren. She was also a priestess but unlike either Kirei or Issei she did not possess any magic circuits having been born instead with a body that reacted whenever anyone demonic was nearby. It caused her to experience the same pain that the demonic person experiences, usually when possession if involved. She called it Masochistic Pneumatic Automatism Diathesis.

Despite having no real physical or magical power, her personality alone was usually enough to beat Issei into line. Kirei had remarked on more than one occasion that while she may look just like her mother, she acted just like him. And was that pride he used when saying that? Never mind, anyway Issei had gotten used to her angelic persona and teasing over the years but he had never actually won an argument with her. It was like arguing with a female Kirei and he could never keep up with either of them.

He was a fighter not a talker…

After first stopping by their father's destroyed church, Issei had led the others through the streets of Shinto and quickly hopped on a bus which took them across the bridge into Miyama Town. Once there they made their way through the town towards the residential area and walked towards where Issei knew they lived. It wasn't long before they reached their destination and stood outside of the Japanese-style household that was the Emiya Residence. Issei didn't bother knocking, not when the Bounded Field over the household had already registered his presence and that of the four behind him.

"Is this the place?" Irina asked the question.

"Yes," Caren confirmed as she walked over to the front door.

Just then the door slid open to reveal a white-haired young man around their age…

"Executors," he greeted with a nod. "What are you doing here?"

"My name is Kotomine Issei," he replied. "I believe that you knew my father, Kotomine Kirei?"

"…Come in," Shirou said finally as he stepped aside.

Caren smiled slightly and walked passed him followed closely by the others. Shirou looked them all over and then sighed as he realised that this was going to be the start of a long day. He slid the door closed behind them and motioned for them to follow him. He led them through the house and eventually reached the living room door. He slid it open and they all entered the living room a moment later. Ravel, Miyu and Sakura were already there sitting at the table though thankfully Taiga had already gone home earlier.

"Shirou?" Ravel asked with narrowed eyes. "What's the Church doing here?"

"I don't know yet," Shirou told her before turning towards the newcomers. "What is it you want? Are you here for revenge?"

"No, I couldn't care less about revenge," Issei started seemingly dismissing the notion. Kirei may have taken him in and raised him but that didn't change the fact that he was a monster. Issei would have killed him himself if it weren't for that fact that he owed the old priest for saving his life ten years ago. "We want your help with something; a few days ago four of the Excalibur fragments were stolen by Fallen Angels; we want your help in finding them and getting them back."

"Excalibur…" Shirou trailed off in confusion as he recalled all that he knew about the legendary blade.

It was a Holy Sword and regarded as the Last Phantasm crafted by the Fae prior to them withdrawing from the world. Sakura's Servant Saber had wielded the complete but tainted version of the sword back during the war and Shirou himself could replicate it using his Reality Marble though it wasn't capable of matching the original unless he chose to supercharge it with prana, turning it into a Broken Phantasm. There weren't too many beings in the world that could survive a direct hit from something like that, though from what Ravel had told him, the weapon itself had been shattered long ago and had been made into seven separate swords, each one far inferior to the Sword of Promised Victory.

And now Fallen Angels had stolen four of them…

"This is bad," Ravel spoke up suddenly looking worried. "If the Fallen Angels really have stolen four of the Excalibur fragments then it could lead to war."

"We've tracked them to Japan," Caren continued. "Specifically Kouh city."

Ravel froze at that and then narrowed her eyes once again. Kouh city was devil-controlled territory under the jurisdiction of the Gremory and Sitri clans. Though they were also members of the seventy-two Pillars of the Underworld, she had personally never had much contact with them outside of formal events. Her brother Raiser was engaged with the heiress of the Gremory clan but Ravel knew that it was their parents' decision more than any act of their own.

Raiser was also rather obsessed with the girl…

Rias Gremory…

Wait a second…

"Kouh city?" Ravel mused in shock. "Don't tell me they plan on using them to kill the devils there."

Doing that would lead to war, one that could be even worse than the last Great War and the Devil Civil War put together. The two devils in charge of Kouh city—Rias Gremory and Sona Sitri—weren't just the heiresses of their respective clans but also the younger sisters of the current Lucifer and Leviathan. Sirzechs-sama and Serafall-sama wouldn't react kindly to their little sisters being killed by Fallen Angels using the Church's prized Holy Swords.

"It wouldn't surprise me," Issei shrugged seemingly unconcerned.

"Okay we'll help," Shirou spoke suddenly.

"…Really?" Issei blinked in surprise. "I got to say I thought you'd take more convincing."

"I don't need convincing in order to help someone," Shirou responded honestly. "Besides, I'm a devil now too, and I can't exactly leave my King's side when she's already made her decision."

That's right, he was Ravel's Queen and she had already made her choice. She wasn't going to let the Three Factions be plunged into another war, not if she could help it at least. She was going to hunt down the Excalibur fragments and retrieve them as well as stop the ones responsible for this blatant act of war. That meant heading for Kouh city and talking with the local devils there. Hopefully she could convince them to help or at least stay out of the way and let them all deal with it.

"We're going," Ravel declared as she slowly rose to her feet.

"I'm going too," Miyu said as she too stood up.

"Me too," Sakura added.

"Miyu?" Shirou asked his sister and kohai. "Sakura?"

"I don't want to be left behind," Miyu replied simply. "Not again."

"I have a lot to make up for," Sakura responded also. "I can start now."

"It's dangerous," Shirou told her.

"We're going," Miyu repeated as she looked him in the eye.

"…Well that's it then," Shirou nodded in defeat.

"Let's go."

Author's Notes:

And here is Chapter 11.

Please Read and Review.

See Ya Later…