He who is a hero
Shirou and Rai entered the castle and began to look around, they quickly noted however the the internals of the castle didn't connect in the way they expected. They could take the stairs up and yet end up on the floor below or they would walk around in circles while searching for a new way forward.
"We need to think of a new strategy" muttered Rai as for the third time they found a corridor that somehow looped back on itself without a single corner. Shirou was inclined to agree and the two began off in different directions, agreeing to meet back at the entrance in an hour.
Shirou passed by corridors of every colour as he searched for Nereth, eventually however he came to a set of ornate doors. The doors themselves were easily twice as large as Shirou thought they would need to be. The door was constructed out of the same rainbow stone that made up most of the castle but the stone was decorated with gold, silver and a material that looked and felt like a spider web.
He didn't know what was on the other side but he had no other lead that he could follow up on so he pushed the door open and stepped inside.
Rai was not searching for more than five minutes before he bumped into Nereth, they had actually bumped into each other as they were both running towards the same corner from different angles.
After a joyous reunion, Nereth explained about a group of prisoners she was leading out and Rai saw them standing awkwardly in the corridor she had been running down.
Rai set off again but this time for the entrance with the prisoners and Nereth in pursuit, they would get all of the prisoners out and then return to help Shirou.
Unknown to any of the escapees, they were being watched. The Rakasha known by her title of "Princess" smiled as she saw the side characters begin to get out of the castle, only one of these humans had truly captured her interest.
It was his memories she was currently using her black book to read, it was he that she had put on the path to defeat the king and it was she who had planned every event that had passed over the last few hours. All for two purposes, Her rise in rank and to obtain a new tool.
Internally she laughed at her game. Even if she failed the second objective, the first was almost done already.
With a moment of effort she appeared behind a door that lead to the throne room, not the one that the boy had entered through as that would have caused problems but another that opened behind the thrones.
She put her ear to the door to listen to the battle to come.
Shirou saw the room beyond the door and the only way he could think to describe it at first was "Madness, greed and vanity". The room was covered in expensive looking materials and there were mirrors and portraits on every surface, however everything was distorted in some way. From just what he could see from where he stood not only was some gold seemingly rusting but there was silver corroding as if copper. In addition each mirror was warped in some way causing the room to remind him of a hall of mirrors.
Sitting on a throne of black metal on the far side of the room was something that looked like a man, Shirou doubted it was a man however because of what the "Man" was wearing. On it's robe stood out countless faces, as if stitched together out of only faces. The crown he wore also looked like there were bones used to complete the design.
The Fey stood and spoke in a voice that demands that listeners obey, the voice was deep and resonating in the great hall that he was in. "State your name intruder" spoke the voice that felt like it rumbled the earth. Shirou thought it good sense to not tell a fey his name so he replied "I am a hero, here to save captives and slay monsters".
The fey laughed, the booming voice echoed for a while after but before it did end Shirou draw a simple iron sword from himself. The fey's laughing cut of abruptly when he saw Shirou trace the sword, now the fey looked as if he were looking upon some sort of animal in a zoo.
"Are you a half-rakasha by chance boy? No I doubt it, I don't sense the chaos in your blood" the king rose and thrust his hand to his waist "In my hand appears a sword, It kills all it cuts and spares nothing, with it I shall take the head of this boy and use his skull as a drinking cup". As the fey spoke Shirou saw fine threads nit together in the king's hands, the threads seemingly came from nowhere but by the time he had finished checking that the king held an ornate blade in his hands.
Shirou looked at the weapon and it had the same issue that he had previously with fey weapons, they were too chaotic for his reality marble to recognise. On the chance that the weapon had the abilities that the king had spoken of (Which reminded him of gae bolg except with his head instead of his heart) he would have to be careful and end this fight quickly.
Shirou lifted his iron sword and ever so slowly began walking towards the king, keeping his guard up as much as he could. As he walked he stepped on a paining that was lying on the floor and he heard a yell of pain from it. As he glanced towards it, the king saw his chance and charged to win in the first strike.
Shirou fell back and threw his sword, he had gotten out of the way of the king's cut, as his own weapon flew towards the king it cut into him but instead of the damage he expected the sword simply bounced away.
In his head he heard a feminine voice, the voice of the girl he had met earlier "Your weapon may have been iron but it's legend was not of being used to slay the fey, the iron you use and the iron that is bane to Raksha are not the same" it took Shirou a moment to find her meaning, his iron weaponry was not pure, it used some high quality steel in it's construction to make the blade more resistant to breakages. However it seemed that the fey were exclusively weak to pure iron.
The issue was it would take time to find a new iron weapon from his store, time he didn't have in the middle of battle. The voice spoke again within him "You don't need time, if you battle within the storeroom" again it took Shirou a moment (which he spent dodging another attack) to find her meaning, somehow she knew about him and his abilities, he suspected the book she carried, and she was telling him to activate his reality marble and simply search for a weapon while fighting.
"Not yet" he thought, he still didn't know the effects of activating a reality marble in creation. As the earth herself worked towards crushing it while he was home he shuddered to think of the forces here that were allied against him.
"I will help you" spoke the voice again, suddenly the girl from before stood besides him. The king was shocked "Princess, leave here now, he is my prey", the princess turned to Shirou and spoke pleadingly "Please, now". Shirou nodded.
I am the bone of my sword.
Steel is my body and fire is my blood.
As he began the invocation the king quickly stood and swung his sword at Shirou's head.
I have created over a thousand blades.
Unaware of loss,
Nor aware of gain.
However the princess got in the way of the attack with a sword of her own.
Withstood pain to create weapons, waiting for one's arrival.
I have no regrets. This is the only path.
The princess shoved the king back and readied herself
My whole life was Unlimited Blade Works.
I think listeners know what music to put on now
Fire ran, tracing a circle of red flames around the outside of the room.
The princess looked to him with a beautiful smile on her face as the new reality set itself into shape.
A field of cracked earth, the occasional sprout of new life that started growing after the end of the grail war. The sky a glorious blue without a single cog to be seen. Countless swords and other weapons, stabbed into the ground.
The king looked around in shock as he muttered "This boy can perform sword shaping? I saw him though, he lacks the graces to perform shaping"
Shirou looked at him as he pulled a sword from the earth, "I have this power, I can create a world filled with every sword I have ever seen", Shirou raised the sword and ran towards the king. The sword he wielded was not iron but it didn't have to be. The sword shattered upon contact with the fey as if it had flesh made of stone, regardless the fey was wounded by the attack, it left a scar on it's neck.
Behind him, it looked like the princess was praying "The hero stood upon the field of swords and saw his enemy, when the third cut landed the monster was dead" Shirou thought he knew what she was trying to do, the king could summon his sword by speaking about it, the princess was in turn trying to shape the battle to the outcome she desired.
Shirou threw down the handle of the broken sword he carried and picked up a strange lance object from the ground, in his mind it instantly became known to him. It was a weapon he had learned from Gilgamesh, a spear of lightning that was Indian in origin.
As the king ran towards him Shirou knocked away the point of his blade with the lance he carried and jumped back.
"Come spear of the divine that calls down the lightning of gods" Shirou chanted the words to activate the weapon as he prepared to throw it "Fly, Vajra".
The lance became a bolt of lightning that struck the king and sent the sword flying out of his hand.
Angrily the king ran towards his sword to recover it, as he did Shirou searched for the weapon he would use to land the third blow. He saw then, the perfect weapons.
As the king rushed towards Shirou for the killing blow Shirou took one of the twin swords he had found and threw it, Kanshou flew through the air with nothing to stop it. Just before it hit however the king knocked it's flight aside just enough to cause the sword to miss.
The king was dangerously close now and Shiro raised Bakuya to stop the attack, as the king attacked however his angle of attack changed and it passed right through his guard.
Shirou felt the sword cut through him, yet he refused to accept it. He was not dying here, he was going home and this blade wasn't going to kill him.
The king fell back as his sword shattered, leaving no wound on Shirou. The king and the princess knew the truth, the sword was a work of glamour and Shirou had just shattered that illusion and revealed what it really was.
The king prepared, he would take up a weapon from this boy's world when he attacked and defend himself. Shirou however did not attack, he held up Bakuya. The king didn't realise why until Kanshou, which had arced back to it's twin, plunged into his back.
The king's eyes went wide, then he fell. As he fell it seemed like he drifted to the ground like a feather, before shattering on the ground.
The reality marble broke and Shirou and the princess returned to the throne room.
And thus the chapter ends.
This was a long chapter compared to my normal size, in the original plan I actually had this chapter and the previous chapter in one section.
If you have anything to ask simply send me a message and if you want me to reply to a review you need to have an account for me to reply too.
Anyway first use of UBW during the story. I feel like I didn't write it very well but tell me what you think.