CHAPTER 5 - THE ENEMY OF MY ENEMY

I looked impassively at the scene below. Sakura Kyouko has just lost to the powerless little anomaly that has been throwing all my plans and notes out of the window since day one. I should just shoot him and get this over with.

But I can't. What if he starts showing up from now on? What if his yet-to-be-seen powers are of some use against the Walpurgis?

Well, in the worst case scenario, he turns to be a liability and I start killing him from day o-

I stop time as soon as I heard the mechanical action of the gun, turning around to find the silver haired girl and a bullet still coming to my direction.

Down to it, our powers are as different as they're similar. She can stop time. I can make my own time runs faster or slower regardless of the world's own time. I'm her only counter, she is my worst enemy.

She also uses modern weaponry, yet her bullets stop as soon as they leave her gun, while mine speed up or slow down to my time ratio as long as they're infused with magic.

I activate the bounded field of warped time, then pull the trigger. If first shot fails I'm good for two, maybe three bursts, but I have accounted to that too.

She does her trick, and turns, the bullet merely grazing her side, and pulls a submachine gun from god knows where. With my Beretta, I reinforce my own senses, and shot down a few bullets with my own before she unfreeze time, avoiding my immediate demise.

I retaliate with my own burst of fire, and jump out of the ledge of the building, quickly maneuvering myself inside of the top floor. Discarding the used clip and loading another, I put my trusty submachine gun in my bag and get the anti-material rifle I got just to this occasion.

'Close your eyes and focus on what you can't see.' Dad always said when training my magical sense.

So I did, making sure that I can see her, even with my eyes closed, even with the roof between us.

I release a shot, then another, then another, until the entire clip is wasted, then pull my contender and go to the opposite direction she was moving, using the quickly reinforced curtains to propel myself in the air, and taking aim to her chest before even meeting the floor.

Her shoulder nearly explode in a shower of blood, and she retaliate with a grenade forcing me to jump to the opposite building in the accelerated time.

Somehow I wasn't fast enough.

The shockwave from the explosive device hits my back, and I feel the blast with only my magically reinforced clothing in the way, the searing heat and pressure almost ripping my limbs in that split second before they break on landing.

I look at her, as she was fixing her shoulder with her own magecraft. This is as unfair as it's sad. She has better time control, she has healing magic, and apparently carries even more weapons than me somehow. I prepare the device I got for this very moment, and take her with me to at least protect my brother and redeem myself from my failure.

Another girl jumps in front of me. Rust colored hair, white coat and skirt, silver armor underneath.

I was kneeling to carry the newcomer, as we heard a series of explosions up on the buildings. I looked at Mami, but it was Sayaka who took her soul gem to check.

"Well, it isn't a witch."

That was when I saw her.

Ilya.

Ilya being thrown back by an unknown force.

A bleeding Ilya being thrown back by an unknown force.

A bleeding Ilya being thrown back by an unknown force while on fire.

"Kyuubei. I wish to be capable to use all my abilities to their full extent."

A bleeding Ilya being thrown back by an unknown, and soon to be inexistent force while on fire.

I woke up very confused. One moment I look at some sword, no Knight's Blade my brain supplied. A very new, but quite powerful blade, capable of hurting supernatural entities and damaging area of effect magic and distortions.

How do I even know that!?

"And where am I?!"

"…"

"Unlimited Blade Works." I whispered to myself, something stirring inside of me, some words being heard but not understood as if I was listening from underwater.

Barren, empty earth, only a hill with those five blades back there, no six, The Magical Knight's Blade also flickered in and out of existence, as if it was an ephemeral dream.

Then the whole place changed.

White fire surged from the center, bringing green grass, from that hill and stretching to the end of my vision, where it formed forests, mountains and even the sea.

And blades, uncountable blades. Small as daggers, some even smaller. Big as skyscrapers. Weak, common, rare, advanced, powerful, impossible weapons of old, new, and times yet to be…

"Wow! How did ya fix it so fast?" A childish voice spoke from above and behind.

I turned around to look… up the skirt of some green haired winged girl.

I stared a bit more.

"Shirou, you're kind of creeping me out…"

That line broke me out of that sight's spell "Eh! How do you know my nickname?"

"What? Shirou is Shirou right?" She was suddenly engulfed in flames and started running around , while another girl, this one wearing flames as hair and no clothes at all…

"I see what you mean now Sylph. This is not how he acts at all. Besides, this one is shorter."

… back outside …

I stared at the dark haired girl in front of me, and she stared back for barely a second.

"Leave." Unfortunately, it didn't come out as intimidating as I wanted, with me being a girl and all…

She pulled a gun on me, and I manifested several copies of the progressive knife between us, forming a wall, then other common weaponry to rain at the other side.

My circuits felt barely warm.

I turned to Ilya, and traced a copy of Avalon to fix her wounds, as Mami arrived here. "What happened Shirou?"

"Homura attacked my sister."

"Is she ok?"

"Illya? She will be. Let's go home." I left unsaid what I'll do to Homura should we cross ways again.

"Ok. Sayaka is going to drop Madoka home, but what about Reddie?" She raised one eyebrow at me, so I shrugged.

"It's not nice to leave a young girl alone in a dark alley downtown…" I didn't felt the need to elaborate further, and neither she to hear.

"I'll take her with us. But I'm keeping her tied." Mami looked like she wasn't happy. I shrugged again and took my sister in a princess carry.

She limped into my line of sight, from one of the back alleys, her body twitching at irregular intervals. I have no misconceptions about my own chances in a direct confrontation, in my weakened state, but after witnessing the end of my daughter's fight I decided to take action personally and deal with this pint-sized menace before she have the chance to improve her already impressive magecraft.

Besides, if there's one thing I can do better than my daughter is ignoring pain. I can certainly push myself beyond the point of breaking and survive, just by having Avalon within me.

She approached her own doorstep, and I made the necessary corrections on the scope, and focused all the prana I could muster.

I pulled the trigger.

As Ilya described, I felt the world slow down, as if I changed from acceleration to stagnation, and the girl tried to evade the shot, only succeeding in avoiding an immediate kill.

I hadn't made the mistake my daughter did. The girl named Homura was dead, even if she didn't know just yet.

Packing my gear I retired myself for the night, before the administration of the shopping decided to shut down the elevators.

I'd rather not take the stairs in a wheelchair, it is anything but a comfortable option.

Reaching the basement and entering my van, I leave to the streets, casually pressing the detonator and blowing up the apartment she retreated into.

Time to go home and scold that stubborn daughter of mine. And my son too. At least if he don't present a good reason for wearing a dress. Well, that and escaping the hospital ward too.

I arrived home under the guard of Mami and Sayaka, finding mother's disapproving glare by the door. Mami shrunk a bit on herself, and I could see Sayaka's hand trembling, thankfully Madoka was already on her house and safe for the night so at least she will be spared from seeing an angry Takami. As I stepped forward and gave my goodbyes to the girls (so I would at least spare them this grief), Dad surrounded them by the other side, simply rolling out of his black minivan.

"Ah ah ah-an." Takami sing-songed in a disturbingly cheerful tone. "It's too late and dark and I'd never forgive myself if Minato's friends were attacked on their way back home. You two are welcome to stay the night. In fact, I'd love to get to know you better!" She opened the door in a welcome gesture, though the girls could see her smile was not of the friendly kind.

"Not you Minato." Dad spoke gravely. "Let Ilya with Takami, and help me bring the Redhead to her quarters for the night." I knew what he meant by that, and it wasn't a good thing. Even if Reddie was not the nicest person around, I'm sure she doesn't deserve dad's punishment whatever it is.

"It's Ok dad. I got it." I replied firmly, trying to keep my voice from reaching the higher pitches.

"I insist." He was a bit more firm, a tone my now recovered memories associated with time-out and small punishments if he wasn't obeyed, but the stacks were too high for me to even consider.

I shook my head, and my throat produced a 'un-un' sound a tad too high pitched, and dad sighed surprising me with a full 'Magus Killer' Glare (that yes, deserved the capital): "Hand the girl over to me." His tone was positively Glacial (also deserving capital).

"Sorry dad. You're not hurting her unless we have no choice." I replied without fear, as I have faced worse threats to bodily harm and even planetary destruction twice.

I heard a weapon being drawn. "Dad?!"

"What did you do to Minato?" I sighed. This is going to be a long night, and an even longer talk.

"I am Shirou Emiya. Just not the one you know." The weapon was aimed at my head. I could feel the Origin bullet inside. "Zelrech has sent me to a lot of universes, I don't know if to fix a few hopeless situations or just to laugh at my misfortune." He had relaxed somewhat at the mention of Zelrech, but I was still under the aim of a potentially lethal anti-magus bullet. "Dad? Can we finish talking inside?" I traced Avalon to prove my identity, and his eyes widened in surprise.

He took a long breath, culminating in a long sigh. "I too old for this shit."

"Not as old as I am. I lost count by now, but I swear I'm almost a hundred years old." I said off-handedly.

He looked at me strangely. "A hundred, you say?"

"Yeah… You wouldn't believe half of the crap I have seen." For once I was able to get it off my chest. "Dad…" I put the Red haired girl in the couch, and turned full attention to my father.

"…I…"

"…I missed you." I gave him a hug.

"It's alright son." He hugged me back.

Kyubei looked at the girl pulling herself out of the rubble. She looked so small, so fragile.

Objectively speaking, she was fragile. All humans are. Not the most fragile existence in the universe, but much farther from the stronger ones.

If their power was to be quantified, 95% of it would come from their emotions, not even 1% from their physical forms.

So much potential, yet so little exploited. At least the Incubators were allowed to change that.

They couldn't rob humanity of all their members, but they could take a few with more potential, for the sake of the race, and other species all over the galaxy and even beyond.

"What are you looking, Incubator?" The girl knew of his mission, it seems. He only revealed his title to those who knew.

"Your leg stills there." He replied. Intellectually, he knew the girl was in pain, her face's expression also confirmed the fact. "If you lose too much blood you'll die." He didn't know what pain was, beyond the scientific description of 'Neural sign of bodily damage'. His species didn't feel pain.

His species felt nothing, actually.

He understood damage though. He understands life and death too, to a certain extent. Survival and destruction he preferred to consider, as some of his memories from older interactions registered one of his contractors saying there was a difference between both set of words.

The girl smiled, her blue eyes accepting her death even when she was put to death by fire, under claims of being a witch. Not that she was one at that point. "There's a difference between being alive and living 'chouchou'." She smiled, even imprisoned in chains. She could escape with a minor application of magic, sure, but her gem was already dangerously dark. "I'm still living, even when I had to kill my friends. I chose to die for that sin, and by dying I'll not be broken."

She mocked him on her very end. Like he'd somehow feel angry or offended by her lack of logic. She refused to keep the connection she could sever, enduring the pain that the humans said to be so uncomfortable, instead of simply crushing her own gem and dying.

Their eyes crossed, a crooked smile in her face, eyes like the bleeding girl on the floor, and she mouthed "by choice" before she fell unconscious.

The memories returned to where they belong, and he turned his attention to said girl on the floor. "Are you choosing to die?" It was a genuine question. Since he didn't understand emotion on an emotional level, certain situations were beyond his scope of prediction.

His question was ignored, and the leg was reattached after she managed to take it from under the rubble. Her gem darkened further. So close, yet so far. She pulled a grief seed, cleansing her taint to manageable levels.

He did understand commitment, and the girl's level of commitment was worth praise, well, humans liked praise for their qualities at least. What he didn't understand was the intensity she displayed on her commitment. He could name, the humans had a created word for that… Determination?

Yes, humans defining trait was emotion. And the emotion that defined Homura's existence was determination. Thus, Homura's defining trait was Determination itself.