Night Guard


Now that it was known that the "sickness" was an enemy assassin, the camp was on high alert.

The army had moved into the Imperial river basin to the north east of where Shirou had fought the assassin and closer to the Imperial City.

The night watch had been doubled and now included dragon-blooded officers. Naturally, Shirou had chosen to join them.

As Shirou patrolled the darkness of night, he carried a torch and his Artifact bow. His back carried a quiver of normal arrows and his head was filled with thoughts of the assassin, their weapon specifically.

From his reading it had been called "Ripping fang of the underworld", it had been made of a material he hadn't seen before called Soulsteel that seemed to sap life from things that it cut. The weapon now sat within his reality marble and he traced it quickly to try and understand it's wielder.

The knife was old, very old. At least a millennia, maybe two. It that time it had only been sharpened three times, once during it's forging, once after fighting some large monster and once fairly recently, maybe one or two years ago. It had been wielded by five people, all but one of them were supernatural. It's most recent wielder first took possession a few weeks ago. He prefered a reverse grip, for a knife that meant he was more of an assassin than an actual fighter.

Shirou could beat him, assuming he could catch him.

Just then, he heard something. Maybe a rustle in some bushes nearby. He froze and walked over slowly. He let his eyes search the bush, there was no weapon inside it. Did that mean it wasn't the assassin?

No, something was wrong. He turned around and scanned the area.

His senses told him there was nothing there but he could sense the blade. The assassin was there, maybe thirty meteres ahead. He had stopped moving, probably checking if Shirou had seen him.

He had, Shirou tossed the torch forward (It would keep burning on the ground which was covered in fresh grass) and drew his bow. The moment that the edge of the light touched him, the assassin became visable to his other senses too. Black on black was hard to see but Shirou still picked him out.

The assassin ran away, back into the darkness. It didn't matter to Shirou though. He nocked an arrow and took aim towards the dagger he could still sense. Slightly up and to the left, he adjusted his aim before loosing the arrow.

It flew true, however the assassin managed to dodge the falling arrow as if by reflex.

Shirou gave chase. As he did so he nocked another arrow. The assassin had got into the camp proper by now so it had become a race, could Shirou catch him before he killed.

He loosed again, the arrow arced up and over a tent to strike towards his hiding space. Again the assassin dodged fluidly. Shirou had to hope that these dodges were tiring him and his essence reserves.

On entering the camp he yelled out "The assassin is here, hiding in the shadows!"

Sounds of commotion filled the area around him as people rushed to ring the alarm bells. Shirou felt for where the dagger was and fired again towards the assassin. This time however he didn't feel them move to dodge.

He ran over to where he felt the dagger and saw it abandoned on the ground. The assassin had figured out his trick then.

Pain filled him. His bones cracked as he felt something stab into the side of his back from behind. He turned his head to see the assassin there, he carried no weapons but had stabbed his hand into Shirou's back. It hadn't gone all the way in but that didn't make Shirou feel all that much better.

Using his impaling hand to hold on, the assassin grappled Shirou who felt yet more pain wrack his body.

The grapple caused lancing pain to shoot through his body. With each moment that passed the pain got worse. Each time was like a knew weapon striking him, each shaper than the one before.

He struggled hard but he couldn't break the clinch.

"Trace on."

The weapons he summoned were copies of the twin blades. Each one was called in midair a meter away from the two of them. With a mental command the blades spun themselves into the assassin. He grunted but didn't let go.

Again Shirou let essence pool within him. Previously he had needed a short aria to peform the next recreation he had planned but in truth all he was doing was peforming multiple traces in sequence. He knew his body could do it, simply by willing it. Without any aria he let his power flow into the required forms.

Blades appeared in sequence. All of them were normal blades, the sort he had made while proving himself to the blacksmiths of the army. They had been pulled and deployed around the two of them on the ground.

"Fire!"

The blades shot forward, each embedded itself into the assassin. The assassin let go and began to stumble away, his body shot through by a dozen swords.

Shirou's essence responded again to his will and a pair of the twin blades appeared in his hands. He dashed forwards and cut quickly, the blades quickly taking the head of the assassin as he tried to back away.

Shirou looked down at the body of the assassin before he felt light headed. He had also lost a lot of blood. He tried to keep his eyes open and when a soldier crossed his field of vision he called out weekly before slipping into darkness.


A few miles away from the army camp was a smaller camp, this one held only four tents and one caravan that was decorated as if it was holding a body that needed a funeral. Dawn was coming and the beings that were resting finally realised that their ally wasn't coming back.

"Good riddance." said the beautiful woman sitting in the caravan who then continued "We never should have even contacted him."

"Our mistress did tell us to sabotage the Mask of Winters's circle if we got the chance. I think that getting their assassin killed fulfills that order." countered a woman who sat on a tree stump, compared to the last woman it looked like this one was rotting away.

The man wrapped in bandages said nothing and the rotting woman was unsure if he could even still speak. Regardless the grand grimscythe on his back said eveything about him that they needed to know.

"Do you think he was telling the truth? About there being a Solar in their army?" The rotting woman asked.

The pale one just gave a cold smile "Maybe. A better question would be 'How fast can our mistress get her spare Monstrance of Celestial Portion to us?'"

The rotting woman gave a laugh at that.


End of chapter.

Right. Introducing the Abyssal trio. They will be the main antagonists of what is left of this arc.