Blood stained his sneakers; black darkened with red, white tainted with maroon. They were unrecoverable. He would have to get new ones. A small store in the market sold a nice array of shoes, owned by the second cousin of one of the ladies in class 2-C. The shop had been passed on to him from his father, and from his grandfather, and from his great-grandfather, stretching back generations to the shogunate. Shirou could be assured that there would be quality footwear there, that he would find a moment of peace and normality in that tiny hole-in-the-wall. He needed that desperately.
"Master."
His Servant did not have time for peace.
He had trouble looking at the body—corpse—carcass—the thing because when he turned his gaze in that direction the object-that-he-refused-to-see lit on fire. It was not on fire, Shirou knew what kind of heat flames gave off. But his mind continued to lie to him. The thing was on fire, it said, because if it wasn't on fire then it would be alive. The only other thing that had not been on fire when it wasn't alive was his father, on that sunny day that he had visited a crematorium for the first time and permanently associated not-aliveness with fire.
Shirou took one step forward, then one step back. Another step forward, another step back. His Servant appeared in a blaze of shadows.
"This is the third body this week." Avenger always spoke with a quiet intensity. "Yet we continue to wander in this labyrinth, chasing false leads into dead ends."
"They're not even trying to hide it..." Shirou thought back to the TV reports about the last victim. Despite the disconnected distance the television set had provided, the bodies would remain on fire.
"Perhaps a serial killer," said his Servant, who had his hands in his pockets, and breath that created no fog in the cold. "Or a participant who doesn't care about whose eye they catch."
"Isn't that stupid priest supposed to take care of stuff like this?" The few times Shirou had met that man's gaze, his eyes had gleamed with a malicious intent. Something inside him ground and groaned whenever that happened. He knew, deep down in his gut, that he could never get along with that man.
Avenger huffed, amused.
"No, he seems to be content as a passive observer," he replied, "though with a man like him, I'm certain he has plans within plans unfolding behind our own. We'll keep a careful eye on him."
"I know..." Shirou looked up at the dark, clouded sky, frost hanging in the air and ready to fall at any moment. "I just feel like... there's too much to be looking at. The priest, this murderer, Tohsaka, that little girl..."
"Hah, if we ever get within observable distance of the child." His coat, colored in moss, shifted as his gaze drifted towards his Master. "You barely survived our last encounter. Keeping track of her might be a challenge."
"Hmph." Shirou flinched instinctively at the arrogant female voice. "Are you so quick to forget me, 'ally of convenience'?"
He winced and leaned against the brick building, taking a deep breath before turning to the woman with the sparkling hazel eyes. It was evident that her normal amusement and cheer had been dampened-but not erased-as she came to join their gathering around the corpse.
"Shero." Even a single word from her carried a strength of will that he could never hope to match. She held herself with confidence, as if the whole world owed itself to her.
She was much too intense for him, and yet she was his only ally in this War. Though she made him shift in his stained shoes for being too dirty and poor to be around her, he somehow felt she would have his back. That he could trust her.
That didn't mean he wasn't just a tad scared of her.
"Luvia," he said by way of greeting. "What did you find out?"
Her smile pieced itself together, shard by shard. She drew a few signs in the air, pulling mana from her Crest, and the surrounding space slowly warmed to a little below room temperature. He hadn't realized how much he was shivering.
"We are following a trail in snow that is rapidly thawing," she said simply, making Shirou frown.
"Damn it... I hate this..." he said, knocking the back of his head into the bricks. He looked up once again, silently begging the stars beyond the clouds for answers.
"You are not turning out to be a particularly convenient ally, girl." Her grin became more strained in response to the cool voice of his Servant. Eventually she huffed and crossed her arms.
"There is not much convenience to be found in this barbaric backwater," she muttered.
"I know, right~?"
A shiver went down his spine as Luvia's Servant drifted into place next to her, a permanent smirk etched into her expression. He always felt like a piece of meat being judged in her eyes. It was not a good feeling.
"A country full of people so pathetic, they'd rather kill themselves than speak up to their boss for abusing their overtime." Her long purple hair swept from side to side as she spun in place, motioning with her baton as if to conduct an orchestra. "No wonder birth rates are declining! Who'd want to live in this hellhole?"
Shirou twitched. He was not much of a patriot, but he did not enjoy hearing his birthplace called a hellhole. He almost said something, but Avenger beat him to it.
"Pithy words from a wandering spirit no better than a Roma. Do not distract from the point, BB. What have you found?"
She pouted.
"You're never any fun," she announced before receding back into her usual smirk with a shrug. "Like my Master said—there wasn't much to find. The ritual circle in the slaughterhouse was smeared over with blood and dirt, so that lead is deader than the animal population of that building."
"Ruler said that he had felt... something," Luvia continued with a frown. "Something is tapping into the leylines and... warping them. They are disconnecting from the global network and... how exactly did he say it?"
"In the process of recycling themselves in a feedback loop to oblivion', or something like that," BB answered. "Basically, something's going fucky in Fuyuki~."
"This is nothing new," Avenger observed dispassionately. "Disappointing. I thought you said you were trained by a detective?"
"I-I was!" Luvia straightened and held a hand to her heart. "I worked with him on more than one occasion, I swear it! How dare you accuse me of dishonesty!"
"Such fire~," BB spoke playfully. "And what have you turned up? A couple of rocks with worms underneath? Did you enjoy your time in the playground, eating wet sand?"
Avenger growled a reply that Shirou didn't bother following. He looked back to the not-on-fire-corpse that rested there, watching them banter as its spirit suffocated on its way to the afterlife. A single cut slashed through both eyes, or what were now empty eye sockets, and scratch marks made scorching patterns on its cheeks.
"It doesn't matter," he muttered. "Accusations aren't going to get us anywhere. What's the next step we can take?"
"A formal alliance with Ruler," Avenger suggested. "He'll betray us eventually, but in the short-term I'm sure he'll understand the necessity of cooperation in this context."
"An enemy Servant that could manipulate leylines in such a drastic manner is a threat that cannot be underestimated," Luvia said quietly, "and Ruler should be included in the list of suspects. Rulers are granted exclusive powers over other Servants, and it is possible that he is attempting to misdirect us." She shook her head. "I don't want to believe it, but... I can't discount the possibility. That kind of power, even as a Servant, can get to your head."
"Thank you for such incredible insight, Master~." BB wrapped an arm around Luvia's neck as she smiled with all the authenticity of a rumored potential perpetual motion machine. "I'm sure that means we can trust the little shadowmaster here to be an entity of constant hatred, no? Perhaps the Saber Servant is just another honorbound samurai who will kill themselves at the slightest misstep of their silly bushido ideals? Hell, maybe the Archer class actually summoned an archer!"
"Enough, BB." Luvia pulled her arm off with a frown. "We are working through this. Be useful."
"You're doing an awful job of it." The Servant glided away from Luvia and approached him. Shirou's spine went rigid as she came up from behind him and wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her generous bosom onto him. He focused his attention elsewhere, grounding his consciousness in the splashes of blood on his shoes. "Poor Emiya over here can barely keep up with the conversation."
Okay, that was just uncalled for.
"I'm not an idiot," he replied, trying to turn around to say it to her face. But despite her slight build, she had him locked in a tight hold. "I don't need to be babied through magecraft."
Her grip loosened only so she could pat him on the head.
"There there, Senpai~," she cooed. "You don't have to pretend to be cool in front of me."
"I'm not pretending to be anything!" He continued trying to pull her off his neck, but in retaliation she pressed herself even closer to him. "I just want you to stop being condescending!"
"Enough," Luvia commanded.
BB sighed and finally released him. He rubbed his neck where she'd been clutching him as Luvia continued. "This is ridiculous. We can't continue to bicker out in the open like this. Shero, take us to the highest quality cafe in this boorish city of yours. After that, you will host us for dinner once more. I will not allow you to keep your extraordinary cooking to yourself and your guardian."
He groaned, putting a hand to his face. With Taiga's assistance, they had already cleaned out half his pantry last night, and now he had to do it all over again?
She's such a damn handful.
"Fine," he replied, "but afterwards we're stopping for groceries, and you're paying for everything."
"Why, of course!" Her usual arrogant smirk, less sinister and more charming than BB's smug expression, returned. "It would be dishonorable for me not to follow the accord of noblesse oblige. Tell me, do you take checks? If not, I will have my accounting team wire you a sufficient monthly payment as compensation."
I hate dealing with nobility.
"Despite having been melded into that mass for a very long time," Avenger commented over their link, his tone tinged with amusement, "I can sympathize with your feelings, Master."
[A hand held out, a pain held back]
Shirou reluctantly seated himself at the table, goggling at its sweeping spiral construction. Six legs twisted counterclockwise from a white base on the floor to meet the center of the glass tabletop. From there they uncoiled themselves and reached out to the edges, holding the pristine surface up like the spindly fingers of an alien hand.
He had never been here before, only heard it mentioned by other classmates, and found himself feeling very out-of-place.
Luvia huffed from her seat across and to his left.
"I suppose this will do well enough," she said, looking around with her nose wrinkled in a way that told him she was only being polite. "I am disappointed in the distinct lack of skyline seating, but as this city lacks a beautiful skyline to enjoy, I will forgive this transgression."
"I dunno." BB smiled as she nibbled on the provided fougasse. "I kinda like it. For a country bumpkin, you have pretty good taste in cafes, Senpai~."
The way her teeth shone through that grin disturbed him. Even the astralized presence of Avenger wasn't enough to help him feel more comfortable around a predator like her. He wanted to get used to her attitude, especially since they were allies and all, but she always made him feel like he was on the verge of falling out of his chair. Or, more aptly, that he felt the shudder of fear and adrenaline that came right before one fell out of their chair.
"Uh, yeah, thanks," he replied, looking away and awkwardly scratching at the back of his head.
"You are far too underdressed for this establishment, Shero," Luvia commented with narrow eyes. "I do not like it."
"Well, you didn't exactly give me a chance to go get my formal kimono on," he said. "What was I supposed to do?"
Her gaze ran up and down his body, and he felt like a butterfly about to be pinned into her mental collection. She pondered him for a few silent moments, and he didn't think it was because of his question.
"Then tomorrow, we will be going shopping," she finally stated. "I refuse to accept that you can only dress up in a kimono. You will be getting a suit."
"I have a suit!" he protested. Granted, it was his father's, and he hadn't quite grown into it, but it was the thought that counted.
"I am certain it is not up to snuff," she countered, "so you will be the recipient of the generosity of the Edelfelt clan. Be grateful."
He mumbled some choice words under his breath but resisted replying in full. He could not argue with the fact that he could use some more formal wear.
Very soon a server came by and took their orders, which mostly consisted of tea with names he could barely recognize, though BB added in a croissant. After he left, an uncomfortable silence ensued. Shirou wasn't sure how to break it, BB's expression spoke of how much she enjoyed his squirming, and Luvia was looking at the wall behind him, seemingly lost in thought.
"How can you... warp a leyline?" he asked after he couldn't take the quiet anymore. "Isn't that something that's plugged into the world?"
"I don't have a good answer for you." Luvia's gaze dropped to meet his own again. "You're right, leylines are equivalent to the magic circuits of the world. To even try to move their physical location so that your rituals can be made more powerful is virtually impossible for a modern magus. If Ruler was telling the truth, then the perpetrator must be a Servant. No one else could have the skill or power to do so."
"You are forgetting the very real possibility of something far worse," Avenger commented, his voice drifting from the shadows that danced on the wall next to them. "Fuyuki may be hosting a Dead Apostle Ancestor. I have dealt with their kind before. This is not outside of their abilities, though it requires a great deal of blood."
"I see why you think so, Avenger," Luvia replied, "but the leyline warping, as Ruler described it, has progressed quite quickly. I would say far too much so for the relatively low amount of murders to provide the amount of blood needed to power such a ritual. But it is something to keep in mind—we cannot discount any potential suspects when we know so little."
She bit her cheek as she looked at the table again, interlacing her fingers with each other as she put her hands in her lap, subconsciously straightening her posture.
"But, ultimately, why...?" she mumbled. "By his account, the leylines are being disconnected. That robs them of their access to the global well of mana, disempowering them completely. If the culprit wished to halt the Grail War entirely, that is a dramatic but effective way to do so. But if that were the case why wouldn't they stop at just the disconnection? Why are the shape of the leylines being changed? Whydunit...?"
"And really," BB cut in, her tone uncharacteristically serious, "if it isn't one of those stupid vampires, how do we explain the serial murders? Which Servants could even be summoned that power their rituals with human sacrifices? Or is there no link between them, and we're actually dealing with two separate entities...?"
"If that's the case," Shirou said, "then we have to go after the serial killer first. They can't be allowed to keep killing while we're out investigating."
"Shero, I don't know why someone would do anything as drastic as disconnecting the veins of mana if they weren't planning something bad," Luvia tapped her fingers on the glass to emphasize her point. "Something that could possibly endanger the entire population of this city. As awful as it sounds, we must prioritize the leyline problem. If you want to save the most amount of people, you have to let some others go."
His fists clenched around the silverware in front of him.
"I—"
"Master, be careful," Avenger interrupted. "The little Einzbern just entered and is coming your way. There's an emergency exit near the restrooms."
Luvia paled and BB frowned.
"Damn, and I didn't even get my croissant yet," the Moon Cancer pouted.
"Oh, don't worry, this won't take long."
Shirou's blood froze at the childlike voice. The small girl approached their table, accompanied by a server who carried another chair, and her Servant, a tall woman with long black hair, dressed in the most elegant of kimonos. The girl, Illya if he remembered correctly, waited patiently as the server placed the chair down and bowed, walking away. Her crimson gaze swept over them.
"Well?" she asked quietly. "Aren't you going to make some room?"
No one moved for what felt like hours. Finally, Shirou scootched his chair somewhat closer to BB to make a little more room for Illya. Luvia sent him a glare. When he shrugged, she sighed and shifted over to open up some space.
"Thank you." Illya curtsied and sat down.
"You're welcome," he replied, finding it within himself to project a small smile. Her eyes flicked up at him, neutral in intent, before settling back down to the other two.
"Keep one leg out of the table," Avenger spoke over their mental link. "Be ready to run. I'll distract them."
Shirou was glad that he was supported by a Servant like Avenger, but he committed himself to engaging with Illyasviel. He wouldn't run. It was his duty to take the burdens of others upon himself; their feelings towards him were unimportant in this regard.
"You are not very good at covering up your tracks, onii-chan." She kicked her legs in an imitation of a little girl. "Anybody could have pursued you guys, and given how well you dealt with Berserker the other night, splitting up would have spelled the end for one or both of you. You should feel lucky that it was me trailing you."
Her smile was both the aged wisdom of a mother and the bright energy of a child.
"What do you want?" Luvia almost growled.
"Want?" Illya echoed, looking up to the ceiling with a finger on her chin, the picture of childish innocence. "Well, I want a nice bubble bath, as I found out that I didn't have anymore of the special soap that I like. I want to check out the water park in the town across the river, I've heard it's really fun. I want to see onii-chan's body torn to pieces, though I want his head intact so I can torture him for the rest of my life. Oh, and I think I want some nice ginseng tea."
She looked back to him, her smile somewhat more menacing.
"I know that, at the very least, I can take care of one of those things while I'm here."
Shirou shivered, a fear that he wished he wasn't able to feel locking down his larynx.
"Man, it's sad that a cute kid like you is so screwed up in the head," BB said with a sigh. "You should be enjoying playdates at your age, not plotting to murder someone."
"Yeah, well, we don't always get what we want in life, do we?" the Einzbern snapped back without looking away from Shirou. "Tell me, onii-chan, did you have a happy childhood? Did Papa take good care of you? Were you allowed to feel safe and secure?"
the stench of burnt wood burnt cement burnt flesh it burnt him it burnt him it hurt it hurt it hurt it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts
"Breathe." Avenger's voice pulled him out of the waking nightmare. "Stay in the present. Don't lose focus."
"Yes," he said quietly. "He wasn't always around, but when he was, I felt... okay."
"You did, hmm?" She put her elbows on the table and leaned forward on her hands. "You're so lucky! I envy you so, so, so much."
The way her eyes accused him of a thousand crimes underscored the sincerity in her voice, driving and twisting a knife into his heart.
"Why...?" he whispered. "What happened to you?"
"This kind of woman is not uncommon," Avenger interjected. "There's a story behind every smile. Reaching out is futile. All she'll do is sharpen your olive branch into a wooden dagger to stab you in the back."
Her vicious expression flickered.
"Get to the damn point, Einzbern," Luvia's fists clenched, and she looked ready to lunge over the table to hit the little girl across the face.
"Hmm," Illya repeated as she turned to his ally, her mocking smile returning. "Did I really have a point coming here? Maybe I just wanted to see you all squirm. Or maybe I wanted to distract you all while Berserker silently kills everyone else in the building? Hmm... I'm not so sure anymore. As soon as I saw onii-chan's stupid face I kinda forgot what I was thinking about."
"She's lying," Avenger said. "We know that Berserker can split herself up into multiple copies, but I would be able to tell if she did. There's only one of them and she's standing right there. Don't be afraid. I won't let anything happen."
"Well then, you've said your piece." BB waved a hand in the general direction of the door. "Feel free to leave. We'll be okay without you."
The little girl looked at the Servant and Shirou felt the hairs on the nape of his neck stand up as the tension increased. Despite Avenger's assurances, he was getting worried that if something were to happen, there would be people that he couldn't protect. He couldn't allow that. Illya still needed to be saved.
"Illya..." he said, and she glanced at him. "I understand that you want to kill me."
"No, no, that's not quite it," she said, scorn filling her voice. "I want to hurt you."
"She'll never get the chance," Avenger said, and out of the corner of his eye Shirou could see the shadow of Illya sitting on her chair darken somewhat. But the Servant behind Illya's chair shifted, too. If Shirou didn't do something, it would all go bad, very quickly.
"That's okay." He nodded in acceptance. "If you need to hurt me, you can, but I have to do something important first. I just need you to wait a little while. I won't run away, but what's going on in this city could hurt or kill a lot more people than it already has. I need to stop it so that no one else dies. Once I do so, though, you can hurt me as much as you like for as long as you like, I swear it."
Her stare turned more and more incredulous as he spoke, both baffled and amazed. When he finished, a pregnant pause hung in the air.
"Wow, onii-chan, I'm impressed," Illya stated after a few moments. "Either there's something fundamentally wrong with you, or you have a lot more guts than I expected." She giggled. "Well, either way, I suppose I'll find out how much guts you really have eventually. Sure, I'm okay with that. I'll know if you leave the city, and if you don't come to me soon enough, I will find you and end you, then and there."
He nodded again.
"That's fine," he assured her. "I'll take care of my business. My life will be yours soon enough."
Her eyebrows rose a hair higher.
"Good, I'm counting on it," she said, and then pushed herself away from the table to stand up again. "I'll see you soon, onii-chan!" She waved as she walked away, Berserker bowing and following her.
"Goodbye," he replied, giving a little wave in reply. As she left the building, he turned back to his companions to find the most poleaxed expressions he had ever seen on their faces. Well, that was mostly Luvia. BB looked like she had just seen a tree uproot itself to move closer to a nuclear reactor in the middle of a meltdown. He couldn't feel anything from Avenger, almost disconcertingly so, as he had been getting used to the sense of the Servant's presence in his mind.
"What?" he asked uncertainly. "What did I say?"
Dantes's saga will be, along with Mash Alter's, one of the most unique, I think. In particular, I am aiming to make this completely deviate from the track of a normal Grail War, and instead unfold more like a mystery/detective story. It's going to be a lot of fun. I hope you guys will stick with me through it.
I couldn't have written this chapter without the help of my Loresingers: Aberron, TungstenCat, Exstarsis, Katkiller-V, and KentaKazami. In particular, Exstarsis provided such valuable insight into Dantes's character and persona and encouraged me to flesh this out further than I had originally felt I could take it. I've mentioned it before, but she writes a Dantes/Nightingale romance story called The Star and the Darkness that, if you are interested in seeing more of your favorite edgelord, I highly recommend you go check out.
So apparently I infected TungstenCat with some kind of sexy nun virus, because she ended up posting another Kiara-related one-shot called Martagon Lily. As a bishop for all things related to our Beast and savior, I am obligated (and delighted) to urge you to go read it. Another quality piece of work.
KentaKazami once more did me a great favor and rewrote Tamamo 2, so I recommend you go check that out. Sakura gets a little less bullied (and yes, I am sorry for having done it the first time).
Your ending theme for this chapter is The Kreisau Circle by Mick Gordon.
Thanks for reading, and see you in the new decade.