Aftermath


Shirou burst out of the stairwell into chaos. The four he had come with were fighting various enemies. The Exalted were fighting other exalted, the male dragon-blood's soldier was seemingly in a sword duel with another soldier while the other soldier was seemingly holding a doorway against a full squad that was trying to break through.

Indoors in a cramped room wasn't the best place for a bow but Shirou had learned from his fight with the Dragon-blood on the top of the tower. When he puts his heart into it, his essence would respond and his skills would improved. It was not a charm for he could control those at will, instead it seemed that it became more 'true', as if fate was on his side.

He kicked off the bottom step in a jump, as he landed he drew his bow and fired it over the female soldier's shoulder. It hit one of the soldiers in the adjacent room in the neck. He drew again and placed an arrow into the side of the soldier the male was dueling.

True, his helmet made it harder to see but not as hard as he would have thought. Now that the bow was attuned to him it seemed to almost respond to his will. It steadied itself as it was turned toward a new foe. The dragon-blood the thief dragon-blood fought caught the arrow that Shirou sent his way but Shirou used the time to shift into his blind spot and fire again just as his ally struck. Forced to pick, the enemy dragon-blood blocked the blow and let the arrow hit the back of his leg.

Trusting in his ally to finish that fight he turned to the female dragon-blood who had already defeated her foe. She glanced at him an her eyes went wide. Shirou was scared for a moment that his mark still shone but when the woman charged toward him she shoved him out of the way of a giant axe that was being swung toward him. Shirou's eyes took in the axe as he fell against the ground and watched the woman strike the overly buff dragon-blood who had somehow snuck up behind him with an oversized weapon.

Her strikes seem to have hit pressure points or something like that as the man crumbled to the ground, likely dead. Shirou got up and fought more alongside the others.


Around ten minutes later the enemies stopped getting reinforcements, two minutes after that the all clear was sounded. Their army had taken the port town.

Shirou took a step towards the exit but before he took another he collapsed. While the reforged married blades gave him strength and stamina, the tiredness would still hit him when the battle ended.

Shirou could barely move, it took both of the soldiers to lift him to where the medical tents were being set up to treat the wounded. His wounds were mended by the doctors they had and eventually he was left alone in a bed.

It was only then he remembered, his reality marble hadn't even slightly bothered him during the fight. He hadn't done that much projection, true, but he had been badly hurt and no blades had materialized within his body. He just let himself rest and slip into dreams and from there into his reality marble.


He stood at the forge. There was one thing he now wanted more than anything, a Noble Phantasm in the form of an arrow.

Hrunting was the obvious choice, but he didn't really need a homing arrow at this point. His charm enhanced skill was enough to hit practically any target.

Caladbolg then? He actually couldn't find the orginal in his reality marble. He had Archer's reforged version though and that was a good enough starting point.

He took the Blade/Arrow in his hand and read it's legend.

"Caladbolg II: The Fake Spiral Sword, a high-power and wide-range attack that makes even destruction of the landscape possible, It is the prototype of many magic and holy swords of later ages. When swung it releases a sword-shimmer that stretches from the magic sword like a rainbow allowing it to cleanly slice off the top of hills at full power. Reforged by EMIYA to serve as an arrow that creates a twisting distortion in space when fired."

It was one of the longer legends he had read, seemingly made from both it's origin as Fergus's sword and Archer's arrow. Not much actually needed to be changed about the legend itself, it just needed to be imbued into a new weapon that he forged himself.

Orichalcum would be the metal of choice, he made a long rod of it and made it into a shaft. He then took a larger ingot and forged it into an arrowhead that could slash the air itself.

When he picked up the arrow he noticed a problem. He had made an arrow that was far too heavy to fire properly.

He put the project aside to think, he needed a different magical material for this sort of arrow. Blue Jade was meant to be air elemental right? Maybe it was lighter, it is certainly more suited for this sort of project. His powerbow was blue jade but he didn't want to take it apart in his reality marble, just in case he needed to replace it in the future. He had a good supply of black jade (From the dragon-blood he fought at sea) and white jade (The tower dragon-blood's armour and the oversized axe) but he knew all he needed was to forge an ingot of any magical material and he would forever have access to it in his forge.

Well, he might as well add the two jades he did have. He collected the weapons and armour and set about melting them down into ingots. He would do more forging but only when he had seen some more blue jade.


End of chapter.

I cut the fight scene short as I realised that because I never had Shirou learn the names of his companions that scene got really complicated.