Chapter 26: Harbinger

Caster appeared for a split-second in between two enormous gouts of scorching flame that roared towards Blake and I. Just in the nick of time, the four-petaled shield, the representation of the unfailing shield used by Ajax of the Greeks, blossomed to life and caught the searing fires in its jeweled magenta grip. Ajax's shield was literally undefeatable- there were only a dozen or so Noble Phantasms that could break through it with sheer force- but its limits all depended on the durability of its user. The shield used its wielder's life force as fuel to continue blocking the blow, and even though I had Avalon healing my body constantly, there was only so much it could take before the degeneration caused by Rho Aias surpassed the Everdistant Utopia's healing powers.

When the first petal vanished, its defense finally halted by the fading power of the Single Action's first fireball, my skin evaporated in a mist of hazy blood. The second dissipated as well, along with the marrow of my bones. The third was the one that finally defeated both fireballs, although it also took several of my vital organs with it. Caster blinked in surprise as his flames vanished, right before an arrow narrowly missed his head and a red flash signalled Lancer's assault.

I dropped. Patches of my skin, angry and red with pooling blood, were already beginning to regenerate with the massive amount of prana I was cycling through Avalon. Blake took one look at me and paled to the point where her skin was more gray than cream. She tried to grab me as I fell, but the simple touch of smooth skin on uncovered nerve sent spikes of chilling pain through my entire body. I could feel my weight increasing as my body fixed itself, too slowly to be of any real use in battle.

It didn't matter anyway. The next thing I heard was an explosion, and at first I thought it was another of Caster's fireballs. The blue light twinkling from the point of impact, however, dissuaded me. Archer was on the other side of the field, looking equally stunned, and Lancer watched the slightly-singed Caster with a wary eye. If neither of them had done it, then who had? Was it Ozpin, finally here to steal the show? That wasn't possible, though; every one of Ozpin's attacks had a green theme to them, whether it was Dust or Aura empowering them to far-beyond-superhuman levels.

The realization hit just like Lancer's spear thrust into the thin layer of skin covering Caster's hand. It hadn't been an attack that I launched, but Archer. The Caladbolg he had fired earlier must have been powerful enough to shatter two layers of that crystal barrier, travel more than a kilometer and a half to our current position, and detonate right as Caster appeared there. What kind of infinite Luck did Archer have?

"Blake, help me up," I panted. My skin had almost fully regenerated, though only by two of the six layers the epidermis usually sported. My bones, however, were too fragile at that moment to hold me up without assistance.

"Shirou, you can't get involved in your condition!" Blake argued. "You'll get yourself killed!"

"I don't plan to fight," I told her. That instantly quieted her next tirade. "Blake, please. Even without my bow, I'm a fair support fighter."

Blake looked conflicted for just a fraction of a second, but in that time Caster had already dodged more than a dozen point-blank stabs from Lancer and just as many of Archer's one last look at the battle, and then to me, she nodded. Her eyes caught a gleam of sunlight as she pulled me to my feet, keeping me up with just a single hand. "Shirou."

"Hmm." There was nothing more to be said. I could hear the underlying worry in Blake's one word, even as full of confidence and conviction as it was. She believed that I could help, trusted to me to that extent, and I couldn't let her down like that.

I searched through Unlimited Blade Works, trying to find any defenses or attacks that didn't require the use of my hands. While I could theoretically attempt a Trace Bullet: Continuous Fire, the physical cues involved were needed to focus my aim, and I wasn't about to accidentally skewer my Servant and Lancer just because I couldn't use my arms.

"Kanshou, Bakuya," I decided. The two came crashing through a broken window, each one pulsing with energy. Archer may have been their wielder in some other life, but right then I held them in my hands as someone who was worthy enough to hold them, even if I didn't quite believe it myself. They settled behind my shoulders, vibrating eagerly in my prana's grip. I took one look at the elegantly weaving Caster and fired.

Unlike Caster, who probably had no idea that the Married Blades even existed, Lancer and Archer both had a lot of experience with them. Archer and I had both fought Lancer with them, allowing the blue-haired Servant to gauge their almost-unpredictable patterns with record clarity, and Archer was pretty self-explanatory.

They both leapt out of the way as the spinning swords converged on each other before deflecting and continuing to weave more intricate and unpredictable arcs. We only had ten seconds to finish this fight, tops, and that was only if Caster kept using the one branch of Thaumaturgy that I knew he had control over. Archer knew what I was going to do, though, so maybe we had a slight advantage.

"Magen David," I enunciated, calling for the symbol from my Reality Marble. A six-pointed Star of David flickered to life in front of Caster. The Magen David, or if you wanted the translation literally, the Shield of David, was special in that it was blessed to defend against anything that didn't originate from someone of Jewish faith. It was once wielded by King David himself, along with sling he used to slay Goliath and the sword he used to smite his other enemies and promote peace throughout his kingdom.

The next flicker of light exploded abruptly in Caster's face, and before I had the chance to snap at Archer and Lancer to go for a kill, his presence disappeared once again. My full weight reasserted itself at last. Blake continued to hold me up, even as Archer approached and Lancer escorted Tabitha inside the house. Thankfully, Archer had enough magical experience to repair the windows and scorch marks that damaged Taiyang's house. Thank the gods the man had gone to get groceries.

"Shirou, you alright?" Archer asked. He didn't bother waiting for an answer before he swept back around and summoned his bow. "No matter. Avalon will heal you even if you're still somehow hurt."

Wow, that was cold. No wonder I didn't like myself all that much.

"Ignore him, Shirou," Blake whispered. "You'll be fine soon, right?"

I winced as my organs shifted a bit. "Yes," I answered slowly. "In a minute or two. Just help me out a little longer and we should be good." I raised my voice a little so Ruby and Ren could hear me from inside the house. "Ruby, when is your dad getting home? We don't want him to see this mess."

As I spoke, I gestured to the charred and crumbling pile of ashes that was once a beautifully green lawn. Taiyang's house was nice, and it would cost hundreds of lien just to replace all of that grass, never mind how long it would take to regrow to its former glory. Avalon didn't work on plant matter either, as I once found out when trying to heal a sickly-looking rose that Ilya had given me.

"Excuse me?" Archer grumbled, waving a hand. "We have more important things to take account of than a lawn. Namely, why the hell you're pulling on my weapons when I never gave you the permission to do so."

"The last time I checked, you are me," I countered, baring Archer's transplanted arm for all to see. "That's the reason this transfusion was so compatible after all. Don't forget that when I lost my arm, you were the one that forced this on me. I didn't even want to keep it; it would have been easier on my soul without the forced synchronization you freaking shoved into my shoulder socket."

"Lost your arm?" Blake inquired, a deadly tone in her voice. She glared at me like I'd done something wrong. "And why haven't you told us about losing an arm? I'd like to know."

"Well, it got replaced in the end, so I thought it wasn't really a big deal, you know? Besides, that was back in the Fifth War, and there's a lot of things that happened then that you guys don't know about."

That was apparently the wrong thing to say, because Blake's glare only increased in intensity. Archer smirked and bit out a chuckle while Lancer looked Tabitha over. She looked supremely ruffled by the thought that the War could extend into the relative safety of Taiyang's house, but she was otherwise unharmed. I could feel the small leak of prana that exuded from her form, like she'd been fighting Caster's mere presence with prana. It was an interesting phenomenon, and should there ever be a device that safely measured prana output, I would have to scan her in a number of different situations.

Back to the task at hand. "Like I said, If I'm going to be of some use in this War, I'm going to have to break out some of our big shots. I've already finished Tracing Myrtenaster, as that and Caliburn will be my main weapons for now." Myrtenaster hummed brightly at the thought of being used on the gold-wire loop at my belt. I could feel the snap of prana from her Circuits empowering me, preparing for any battles ahead. "Lancer, tell me you still have use of the Twenty Runes."

Lancer's nod filled me with such relief that for a second I could only stagger in place, Blake already beside me to help steady me. Bless that girl. "Can you configure them to form an anti-teleportation barrier around the house? Caster has some kind of long-distance travel ability, and preventing him from using it near here is nothing but a good idea."

Lancer smirked. "C'mon, what do you take me for, kid? Although..." he frowned thoughtfully and tapped the cursed point of Gae Bolg against his temple.

"To make a setup like that, it would take some real creative genius. This could be my next Magnum Opus! Nobody ever said I was a bad Magus, after all. You know what, you've got a deal, kid. I'll get that barrier up and running within the day. I'll even throw in a quick glamour to hide the scrapyard Taiyang calls a front lawn."

"Thanks, Lancer."

Lancer smiled at the sky, probably sending a small prayer to his father, Lugh. "No problem, kid. You gather up the others and get them ready for a trip downtown while i start setting this up. You're gonna have a long few days ahead of you if you don't even have spare clothes."

I nodded to him and turned to leave, but he slung a hand onto my shoulder before I could walk away. "Oh, and kid? If the girls ever try and get you to carry things, disappear. Run as fast as you can with your Reinforcement, no matter how much prana it shoots up. Carrying a girl's clothing while she shops is a fate worse than death."

With that, he twirled Gae Bolg around to point in the dirt and set to work sketching a few Runes. Surely it couldn't be that bad?

Lancer was right: it was that bad.

Ruby led us downtown after we'd finished fixing up all the minor damages to Taiyang's house. There was a small shopping center there, the only one on the whole island. Our first stop was the clothing department.

The moment a pair of bags, courtesy of Ruby's flinging hands, hit my hands... well, I bolted. Just like Lancer had advised I do, I ran as fast as I could and made it to the other side of the clothing depot in less than three seconds. The men's section wasn't as large as the woman's, but there was no less style in the outfits, and with the help of a perky, attractive blonde employee I got to work choosing my clothes.

There were several pairs of suits in my pile of garments that the assistant had insisted I buy, saying that the combination of black, red and white "brought out my eyes" and other such things. It was a small bonus compared to the fact that for formal dress, they fit quite comfortably, and I could move around in them with a degree of freedom that rivaled the armor that Archer constantly wore. I found a few hats to go with them that concealed my auburn hair fairly well, so those went onto the pile as well. After that was a considerably larger stack of jeans, full-sleeved shirts, and sleeveless tees. Once again, the blonde had practically demanded that I buy a decent number of those as well, although for what purpose I wasn't really sure. They did give me a good range of movement, and they were having a sale, so why not?

Finally, an hour had gone by, and the others came looking for me. I was having a nice chat with the blonde clerk from before when Blake sidled up behind me, a small smile on her face. "Looks like you already got your shopping done," she said in a mildly amused tone. I turned and, already half-expecting it, returned the peck she gave me. Ruby looked absolutely scandalized, Ren was watching things with a small, knowing smile on his face, and the clerk wilted in her seat. So that was why she insisted I get all of those sleeveless shirts.

"When did this happen?" Ruby asked Blake, grabbing hold of her wrists.

"I'm not sure I follow."

"When did you and Shirou... when did you..." Ruby started to tremble. "I mean, you were so quiet the whole time, and I was in the bed right next to you... how did you..."

"How did we do what?" I asked, raising a hand. Ruby blushed furiously.

"how long have you been having sex?!" she shouted, drawing a few surprised and bashful glances from our fellow shoppers. Instantly, Blake and I went red all the way to the ears. Where did she get that impression? Sure, Blake and I were sort of unofficially dating, but not... doing it.

"Ruby, why do you think we've been having sex?" Blake asked calmly, her voice a direct contrast to her face. She was visibly fighting to keep her flaming flush under control.

"Well, you've been kissing, and... Yang always told me that when two people do... that, they starting acting more lovey-dovey afterwards," Ruby explained quickly, at this point turned entirely away from us. Despite that, I could literally feel the heat radiating off her face.

"Yang..." I muttered, using it as a full-blown curse. "I should have known. I'll have a talk with your sister when we get back to Beacon, Ruby. As for Blake and I, I think you have the stages of relationships in the wrong order... although, knowing Yang, what she told you could actually be a viable option. Just... just give us a minute and we'll teach you how it really works."

Ruby nodded weakly, sinking into the nearest chair with what looked like palpable relief. "Oh."

"Although," Ren began, grinning slyly. I already knew what he was going to say; his voice was smooth and cool, but that only made me feel more embarrassed. "I have heard a few squeaks coming from the bed next to mine. The same bed, I might remind you, that Shirou occupied. Is there something you'd like to tell us?"

"You're a horrible person, Ren," I deadpanned as Ruby instantly went back to flaming-blush-mode. Blake let out a small snort through her slightly red face, and Ren smirked in a way that said "my job is done here".

After calming Ruby down once again and turning down a date from the cute blonde I'd been talking to, I hauled my clothes all the way back to the Rose household. The man was waiting for us when we got back, a small smile on his face. He didn't even notice the pile of ashes surrounding his house; evidently Lancer had done a good job in weaving illusions and Runes. We packed our new clothing away for the day and, with Archer taking up the first watch, allowed the sun to set on the first day of the Holy Grail War.

There were several Servants that were still unaccounted for, and Saber wouldn't have the slightest chance at being hidden for too long. Rider and Berserker were still unknowns, but there was always a small chance that the missing Ozpin could be negotiating a deal between us and Coco. The girl was brash, headstrong and too confident for her own good, despite being a part of CFVY with Velvet. They were a damn strong team when they got all of their teamwork right, and during the spars the first years were allowed to look over, they absolutely decimated all but a few select teams. Coco, in particular, was strong with her weapon, but she relied on her teammate, Fox, too much when it was warming up. If a Servant with the speed of your average Lancer came up, it would be disastrous for her if Berserker couldn't reach her in time. Rider, on the other hand, was a stalwart man from the little I'd seen of him, and his Master was an absolute airhead. And she'd said she was a teacher? How low were Hunting academies falling these days?

Anyway, they would be hard to track. While Rider would be easy to spot in plain daylight, he didn't exude much mana, and he seemed to be the wise kind of man who waited for the Servants to come to him, rather than the other way around. I had no idea where Caster was by now. Assassin and her Master were essentially taking my place during the War, the clumsy idiots who didn't know a thing about the Holy Grail. It was imperative that I got Assassin, at least, on my side, and to do that I needed to get into her Master's good graces. Berserker was hidden as long as Coco stayed hidden, which probably wouldn't be long.

That left us with three options. Archer, Lancer, Ozpin and I could hunt the other Servants, which would take time but be the best option in the long run. We could always wait for Servants to come to us as well, although that was more of a Caster's territory than an Archer's. Our third option was to simply ignore any and all threats until there were only three Servants left, and then go on an all-out offensive. Out of the three, it seemed like the second one was the option we were going down. Despite the efficiency of the first and the single-target focus of the third, neither of them had safety plans that involved protecting my team and Tabitha. While they were by no means weak, it had already been established by Blake's failure at even tracking Caster's movements that they didn't have a chance at competing with them.

"What do we do now?" Blake asked. I blinked and refocused on the world around me. It was already nearing sunset, much to my shock, and we were still walking down the street. Either I'd just been standing there for a while, or we were walking in circles.

"The first thing I need to do is check the stats of our resident magician," I decided, pulling my original Codex out of a pocket. The leather-bound journal, enchanted with the power of the Holy Grail, flipped open to Caster's page automatically. His profile revealed his face and the rings on his hand, which I assumed were his Noble Phantasms. There were five, one that probably corresponded to each of the Western elements of prana: Fire, Water, Earth, Air, and Aether. He, on the other hand, was a ridiculous Caster, almost as strong as Medea had been. His Mana stat was all the way in the A+ range, while his other two revealed stats, Agility and Endurance, hovered around C. Then, without warning, they fluctuated for a split-second to around A before dropping back down to normal.

"What in the hell..." Archer muttered, having Traced his own copy from mine. i flipped to Caster's skillset and Noble Phantasm listing. The first Skill caught my eye immediately: Prana Burst. It was apparently a Servant-specific skill, unlike the Class-specific Prana Burst that Saber enjoyed using. No, his Class-specific skills were more terrifying; in addition to the standard Territory Creation, there were also another two that I wasn't so familiar with.

"Philosophy?" I asked myself. The explanation was simple: While conducting experiments related to the nature of prana, the mana stat would instantly raise to A+++ and any spell costs- a ten line Aria, for example- would be halved in length and cost. Thankfully it couldn't be used very well in battle, but that was still freakishly powerful.

"Shirou, are you seeing this?" Archer asked pointing to the final Skill listed on the page. I flicked through the lines of text and winced Caster's final Skill was Alchemy, the ability to make perfect Homunculi by throwing around enough prana. There was only one family in the world that made Homunculi like that, and the Einzbern were the furthest thing from my mind this Grail War. If I had to fight people like Sella and Leysritt, or gods forbid, Ilya...

"Y-yeah," I said, my voice cracking from the dryness that suddenly pervaded my throat. It was getting hard to breathe, and I had to shut down my prana reserves completely for a few seconds to get back to a semblance of calmness. Blake took my hand and rubbed her smooth thumb along the hard calluses that ran along my fingers. "So... What are the chances we'll have to deal with another monster like Ilya?"

Archer winced. "Too likely, I'm afraid," he responded. He cast his slate eyes to the ground and searched, but for what, I didn't know. "What do we do now?"

"Now we get back to Taiyang's house and eat dinner. We can think about this tomorrow."

Dinner was a lively affair at the Xiaolong residence. Ruby and Taiyang's boisterous conversation infected the rest of us, and soon even the stoic Archer was talking and laughing with the rest of us. Dinner was composed of standard Western fare, and while Taiyang was a decent cook, Ruby and the rest of my team made it clear that Archer and I would be doing all of the cooking from then on. During that short hour of relaxation, we talked about all kinds of things: Ruby's grades, our fighting styles, even Taiyang's job as a Huntsman. I learned a handful of useless facts about the business of Hunting, and while they might have been useful in other situations, most of them involved holding your weapon in a specific way or slashing and cutting at two different intervals. I had already learned that from several of Shisui's past wielders, and the knowledge, while devastatingly useful to anyone else, just slid over my precursory ideas.

After dinner, I sat myself down in one of the guest rooms with Blake, Ren and Ruby. Archer already knew everything that I was going to say, and Lancer was wise enough to stay out off it for the time being. Tabitha was, frankly, too young to be hearing about the second-bloodiest Grail War in history, so I sent her out as well. Chances were that Archer was already telling her about Ilya and how I lost my arm.

Blake began to speak the moment the last rays of the sun dipped beneath the ocean. "Shirou, what was that about Ilya earlier?" she began gently. Her voice took on a harder tone as she gripped my arm tightly. The display was enough to make Ren wince at the force, and blood collected in a series of pinkish splotches on my tanned skin, but I shrugged off the lingering pain. "And what was that about losing your arm? Tell us everything, please."

"Alright, but you won't want to hear it," I warned. Blake stubbornly shook her head and furrowed her hands further into the practically new bedsheets. "It's your choice."

I took a deep breath and began looking back to the day when Ilya and I first met. I quickly relocated to when I'd lost my arm. "I guess I should tell you about my arm first. Ren, you've seen it, right?" I asked, referring to the point where my shoulder and arm met.

"Yes," he replied simply. "It's a darker tone than the rest of your body."

"That plays a major role in it. During the last Grail War, I wasn't doing nearly as well as I am now, far worse in fact. I only had one ally, and that was my friend Rin. My Saber at the time, a fantastic swordsman that very well could have been the most talented Servant in the War, managed to get herself into some trouble and I was stuck with defending her while Rin dealt with the opposing Servant's Master, Ilyasviel von Einzbern. Ilya's Servant managed to find us; he was the Berserker in the last War. I managed to fight him off for long enough that we could get out of there and back to civilisation, but in the process, I lost my arm."

Yes, that was the day. I remember Berserker's sword-axe cleaving off everything from my shoulder down with perfect clarity; despite the obvious blood and lack of appendage, I had been so focused on keeping the injured Saber out of the battle and somewhat safe that I didn't even register the pain until we were back at the Emiya estate with...

"Archer suffered some damages during the fight against Ilya as well," I recalled. "She was monstrously powerful, the kind of Magus that only came around once in a century at best. One of his arms was hanging onto his body by a thread when we got back, and he was dying anyway, so he and Rin made the decision to graft the arm onto me. You all remember when I said Archer was me, from an alternate future, right?"

They all nodded, and I smiled at the knowledge that they had, at least, bothered to remember that bit of information. "Well, it stands to reason that two people who are the same would have the most success with grafting limbs to each other. He transplanted his arm to me, and that was how I became so knowledgeable about all of the swords I have in my mental collection. When he gave me his arm, he also gave me the memories of all of those swords."

"Wait, but how is his skin and hair so different from yours?" Ruby asked. "He has white hair and tan skin, while yours is a light gold at best and you have orange-ish hair. Is he an older version of you?"

"Of course not, although he is a bit taller." I showed her the fringe under my hair. There, progressing a bit further along the roots of my hair, were the signature patches of white above each temple that denoted the use of Projection. "One of the many reasons Projection isn't used that much anymore is because if you use it enough, it changes the color of your skin, eyes and hair. My hair is eventually going to bleach to Archer's white, and I might be able to do something about the skin, but I'm not quite sure. Thaumaturgy hasn't done much in the way of commercial makeup."

"And Ilya?" Ren asked, putting his two cents into the conversation. I paused mid-explanation, my older sister's visage flashing briefly behind my closed eyelids. Blake's fingers tightened around my bicep, a sign that she'd heard my breath hitch.

"She was my older sister," I forced out.

"We don't have to talk about it..." Ruby began. I shook my head.

"You'll end up hearing about her anyway, so I might as well explain now. She was born about a year before I was, back in another country to the West. My father- Kiritsugu, that is- married a woman named Irisviel before the Fourth War, and Ilya was the result. He left to participate in the Fourth War and ended up being estranged from the Einzbern family, of which Ilya and Irisviel were a part. In the end, he adopted me and raised me as his own child. I don't think he forgot about them, though." I looked back to the brief times I'd catch Kiritsugu sitting on the deck of the Emiya estate, simply looking towards the sunset. "Before he died, he would often spend hours just looking west and thinking."

"So Ilya participated in the Fifth Grail War, then?"

I nodded. "Yes, although she did so under the direction of her grandfather, Jubstacheit. When I first met her, she tried to kill me with Berserker, or as you know him now, Saber. Things got a little more complicated from there. It turned out that she was there to kill me because she thought I'd taken her father away from her. We ended up reconciling in the end, but... She was a homunculus, after all."

"A homunculus?" Ruby asked. Surprisingly, just as I opened my mouth to answer, Ren explained.

"A homunculus is an old myth from the East, beginning with the popularization of implanting Dust into the body to use as a power source and emergency Aura extender. Homunculi were supposed to be artificially created humans, people who were given life by the use of special brands of Dust being combined with human genetic material, such as a strand of hair or flake of skin. Of course, the ideas have never been proven, but it's been a big part of Atlas' Research and Development departments for several years now."

"Ren is... surprisingly close," I admitted. "While we didn't use Dust, the process is startlingly similar. Irisviel was a homunculus as well, so she was naturally sterilized at birth to prevent any genetic material from being damaged, but when the time came Jubstacheit (the bastard) took a few eggs from her and fertilized them with prana. The result was an exact genetic copy to pass on all of Irisviel's memories to. Homunculi are notorious for not lasting very long, and the Einzbern were masters at creating them. She was given a ridiculous amount of prana to draw from, but that was where the problem started. The Holy Grail needs a vessel to hold onto the energy from seven Servants until the time comes to summon it, and that vessel was agreed upon prior to the First War to be a homunculus from the Einzbern family..."

"That's awful!" Ruby exclaimed. "Why would they do that to a poor little girl?"

"Ruby, not every Magus is as nice as I am," I explained, grimacing. "Most of them won't bat an eye about burning down a poverted orphanage if it meant getting a bit further in their research and, subsequently, closer to the Root of the Swirl. A single homunculus, which aren't regarded as normal humans anyway, would hardly be a consequence to a person like Jubstacheit. Honestly, if I ever met that man..."

"He sounds like an asshole," Ren agreed.

"Wait, so who's the vessel for the Grail this time around?" Blake asked. I could almost see Archer's ears perk up at the question, and Lancer tilted his head so that he could watch me with one red eye.

"It has to be someone on Earth, because one of the conditions for the Grail to be activated is that an Einzbern homunculus has to be present. If I were to guess, I would say that it is one of their research homunculi sent to investigate the damage from the Fifth War. What I'm more worried about is the Grail's recharge time."

"What do you mean by recharge time?"

I frowned. "Well, the energy to make a wish has to come from somewhere, right? Not even the power of seven Servants is enough to grant a wish that defies all of the laws of the world. The Grail is supposedly kept in an energy-rich dimension for sixty years after each War ends to recharge its energies. Now, I have no clue how the absorption of energy works, but a jump from sixty years, to ten years, and finally to six months is a pretty radical jump. There must be an outside source that's fuelling it."

"The question is," Ozpin voiced from behind me, "what would that energy be? Perhaps... Dust?"