So, something of a followup on that one MoS snippet that was made once upon a time. Also, I am aware that MoS Shirou would not have UBW: I just don't care. I like the line too much not to find a use for it.

The Contents of Steel

The young woman's only mistake had been to date a woefully unbalanced young man, and then showing a terrible lapse in judgment by telling him where she lived at some point. When she had broken up with him a few weeks later, he had taken it personally. Very personally.

And then, when his frail ego and damaged pride somehow attracted the affections of a symbiotic, psychic alien, that mistake had finally claimed her life. The young man and his new lover had broken into her house one evening and then killed her.

That was what the reports that I had read earlier today had stated, anyways. And while I was prepared to take everything that MBI was telling me with a grain of salt and a heaping pile of distrust, there was a certain note of truth about all of it.

And, while this was a great deal more mundane than the usual monsters I dealt with, I couldn't turn a blind eye to it. He and his creature needed to be stopped before anyone else made the terrible mistake of trusting them.

Which was why I was casually watching him dig in to the cupcake that I had arranged for him to be served at a restaurant in mid-town Shin-Tokyo. I had to make sure that everything went according to plan. And when I was certain that he had eaten as much as he was going to, I stood up and sat opposite to him.

He looked surprised and a bit confused by this, and was probably going to say something before I beat him to the punch.

"Please, do not move Mr. Ishida," I ask him coolly, but politely. And then I placed a small detonator on the table. "Or I will have to push this button, which will cause you to explode."

"What?" he sputtered, inadvertently spraying tiny cupcake-crumbs as he did. "What are you- cause me to explode? What kind of crazy-"

"You would be amazed at what modern technology can do these days, Mr. Ishida," I tell him, and shrug. "The cupcake you just ingested is just a new kind of bomb."

While not technically true, (because magic was hardly the most technological of fields) it wasn't exactly a lie. The way I had carefully searched for a specific species of sugarcane, along with my painstakingly slow efforts to form a grinding wheel that would infuse flour with volatile spirits had to qualify my work as something of a science.

The detonator was a lie, just like that slice of cake he had enjoyed. The former was just for show, while the latter was actually a bomb set to go off after a certain amount of time after a human body tried to digest it after it had been primed with some of my prana. The hobbies of my former life had turned out to be unexpectedly useful in my line of work.

From the way he stared at me, I could tell that he didn't believe a word of it. And then he saw something in my eyes that turned his disbelief into cold realization that yes, I was completely serious.

"You're bluffing. You'd be killed in the blast as well," he reasoned with a shaken voice.

"You just ate my bomb," I inform him, silently amused by his attempts to outsmart me. Of all the things he could have chosen to drag up, that was what he chose? "Just how powerful do you think it is? But be assured that if you do not answer my questions honestly the effects will be very messy."

"What do you want?" he asked.

"I want you to answer my questions," I tell him patiently. "Firstly, did you ask number 63 to help you in the murder of your ex-girlfriend?"

"Wh-what?" he stuttered, choking on the words with his fear and surprise. "I, I don't know what you're talking abou-"

"Please don't lie," I interrupt him. "You're just wasting my time."

"I-I-I," he continued uncertainly, and then what little fire of resistance still in him was smothered under my cold stare. "Yes. I did,"

"Good. And she agreed?"

"Y, yes?" he said uncertainly, not sure with where I was going with this.

"Thank you. Now, for my last question," and now I tried to sound a bit warmer. I wanted him to agree quickly, before terrible things happened to his insides. By the way he trembled slightly, I wasn't sure that I had succeeded. "Would you mind bringing her here for me?"

He looked dumbfounded by my question, his mouth slightly agape. And then the words seemed to fully register, and his mouth closed and barely stopped itself from forming a smile.

"Seriously?" he said, barely containing his excitement. I wonder for a brief moment if I had ever worn my thoughts on my sleeve like that. "You're not joking?"

"No," I told him. "Please, go get her."

Without waiting for further encouragement the young man was out of his seat and fleeing diner, no doubt to retrieve her from whatever task he had set her to. I sighed briefly, and glanced at a clock on the wall, quietly hoping that my plans wouldn't be undone because I had chosen the exact wrong moment to set this meeting in motion.

But it soon turned out that my worries were unfounded, because only a few moments later the doors burst open once more as the young man and the creature bound to him returned.

That made things much easier. I was under the impression that it would be very difficult to ask the young woman questions if her Ashikabi was killed.

"Oh, you stupid piece of sh*t!" young Mr. Ishida shouted as he burst back into the diner wearing a triumphant grin. "You're gonna learn how badly you messed up now! Kasumi, kill this idiot!"

"With pleasure, Ashikabi-san," the creature said, and advanced.

Well, I suppose that that answered whatever questions I had had for her readily enough. I could now be relatively certain that she was willingly complicit in the crime, which was useful information in my ongoing study of the Sekirei.

"You are number 63, Kasumi?" I ask, just to be sure. I didn't want to discount the possibility that the man had acquired yet another number in the brief interval since I had read his file earlier that day.

"Yes," she said, and without warning the sword was bared. "But you don't worry about that any longer. Your time is almost done."

And if my suspicions hadn't been proven a moment ago, they certainly would have been when she leaped forward in order to relieve my neck of the heavy burden of the head resting on it. And she would have been successful, too, if I hadn't seen this coming from a mile away.

I calmly duck below the blade, and was already preparing a counter for her next attack even as she twisted her wrist around in order to bring it in for another attack. There would only be a few moments, but it would be enough.

"Trace on," I chant softly, and carefully flood my body with prana in preparation for what was to come. "My body is made of steel."

I chant softly, and wince slightly as rows upon rows of edges form beneath my skin. Without a care for the consequences, I merely raised an arm to block the side-slice that was coming.

The sekirei's weapon cuts through the outer layers of my flesh, but soon stops much shallower than it should have. Her surprise was obvious: a widening of her eyes, a slight opening of her mouth in disbelief. The way she dropped her now blunted sword and recoiled from me only confirmed this.

She tried to back away from me, afraid of something that should not be.

But it was far too late for that.

Faster than any human had a right to be, I lunge at her and with my other hand I jab a rigidly flat hand into her stomach. The force with which I applied the blow ensured that my fingers, though they might have been crude and blunt for the task, acted just like a dagger.

"No," She gasps, her hands latching onto my arm as if to plead with me. "Please..."

"There is no mercy in metal," I inform the creature, and with that I twist my hand inside her and then wrench it free. She manages only a gasp of agony before all of her vaunted strength leaves her, and she sags away from me.

The young man may have ordered her to kill them, but it was still her hand that had done the deed. She was still a willing accomplice. She could not be allowed to destroy any more lives.

Thinking of the young man reminded me that I had not killed him yet. With an annoyed sigh, I turned my head to the side in order to look at the cowering little monster of a human who was even now trying to scrabble away from me with wide, terrified eyes.

How disgusting that someone so eager to end the lives of others would meet his own end in such an undignified manner. While most of the monsters I made it my purpose in life to destroy were not eager to meet death, they very rarely lacked the pride to do so showing such fear. (Most of them were simply surprised, in fact.)

With a small shrug, I turn and walk away. From the way he let out a relieved sigh, I can only imagine that he thought I was going to let him live.

Which was foolish, of course.

When I was certain I was a safe distance away, I turned around and watched him intently, silently counting down. The adrenaline pumping through his veins would have had to accelerated things, but not by much.

But there was no fire, no explosion. That would have quite likely endangered whatever innocent bystanders that were still to be found. No, there was none of that. Instead, there were just a few dozen pounds of kinetic force suddenly released inside of his small intestines and stomach all at once. Which caused his belly to explode outwards.

Just as I had told him: messy.

"My my, you are effective, mister assassin," I recognized the voice almost instantly: the creature that called itself Karasuba. "You should wear your uniform, you know. So people know who you work for."

She was waiting for me just outside the diner, wearing that strange smile she seemed to wear whenever she saw me at work.

"How odd," I comment, and without an ounce of concern for the chaos I was leaving behind "I'm certain I told you wait at headquarters until I was finished with this. Yet here you are. You would make a poor assistant."

"I couldn't just leave my taichou to fend for himself in a new city, now could I?" she purred, even as she surveyed my work. "Benitsubasa is going to be so jealous when I tell you were spent today with another woman."

"Her feelings on the matter are irrelevant," I inform her curtly, and send a text message to Minaka to send the clean-up crew over to take care of the mess I had created.

The creature didn't seem to be listening, because she just kept going.

"Especially when I tell her how you impaled her with your hard-"

"If you're trying to get a rise out of me, you should stop wasting your time," I cut her off, seeing where she was going with this. "I have work to do."

"'We' have work to do, you mean," she corrects me, sounding a bit annoyed.

I look back down at number 63. She had been all-too willing to kill on her master's behalf. And then I look over at Karasuba. Eager, murderous Karasuba.

Monsters, to be sure. But were they all? Or only most? How many would be saved by their deaths? Would it be more than 108- no, 107?

"No," I tell her. "I really don't."

There were still things I needed to investigate before my real work began.