From its exterior, one of the houses did not seem like much out of the ordinary. A small house with walls of wooden planks and a black paneled Dutch gable roof, it appeared like every other house lined up alongside each other in the small rural Polish village. However, the spacious concrete basement beneath it whose walls were lined and cracked with twisting wooden roots that grew through them held a different story.

Inside, Mukuro Ine paced around her rectangular workshop, spying the weathered oak bookshelves in the corner that rested near a birch desk stocked with parchment and various documents. She then glanced through the face shield and gas mask of her hazmat suit at the other corner of the room adjacent to the stairs leading out of the basement. There, a withered body of a child laid in the soil of a raised bed next to a black tree.

The child's skin was almost unrecognizable, with small remnants of skin and bone being the only traces denoting that they ever existed in the first place. On the other hand, the young tree stood proud, with its higher branches curling slightly to accommodate the basement roof, and no irregularities to its health in the dimly lit workshop were present besides a lack of leaves despite it being late June. The tree's growth in such a dark environment would have seemed like a miracle to most, but the drying blood in the soil and on the tips of the tree roots pointed to a different story.

About a decade prior, the seventh-ranked Dead Apostle Ancestor, the Forest of Einnashe, had regrown and garnered the attention of both the Mage's Association and the Church. Reality-marble, Dead Apostle Ancestor, a phantasmal species, or whatever it was, it had run rampant for hundreds of years, but the forest became inert in the days after its awakening due to an assassin under the alias of "DEATH" if rumors could be trusted.

Whatever caused its demise, the forest appeared completely and utterly dead, lacking the poisonous gas or the murderous roots that made it dangerous originally. Though the Church removed their hands from the situation, with potential for study, the ambitious families of the Mage's Association took their opportunity. They sent groups of magi to get rid of the memories of any civilian witnesses who may have seen the forest and attempt to guard the forest from other magi until more associates of each family could come to dissect the forest first-hand.

As part of an initial small group of magi working under the Archibald family, it wasn't a difficult task for Mukuro to obtain her own samples of the roots and the blood that secreted from said roots, some of which still sat preserved and sealed within glass containers on top of her desk.

Once more magi finally did arrive, the forest proved to be just a normal forest. Even after it was scoffed at, few remained hoping for any development that might have carried them through the ranks of the Clock Tower. The strained situation of its study was exacerbated further by a hurricane which blew through the region, uprooting and destroying the large majority of the dead forest. Coincidence or not, Mukuro could not have asked for a better opportunity.

Even if her sister had superior Magical Circuits that made her the heir of the family, she'd never have Mukuro's origin of Supplementation. After isolating herself from the association in this small village, Mukuro was able to finely ground up the roots, mix it with the blood, and add its essence into the very idea of water in a process that went beyond mere Alteration magecraft.

She had added this water to the soil from which she had grown a cherry blossom tree, though as she looked at the tree in front of her, she couldn't help to think it was as far from a cherry blossom tree as one could get. Even if the tree wasn't currently exhibiting signs of aggression or poisonous gas that warranted her current outfit, she was excited thinking about how the decomposed child curled up in its roots was surely a sign that her experiments were coming to their conclusion.

Her progress had not been without cost however. She had only barely managed to find another subject to use after the body in the raised bed looked to be approaching their expiration date, glancing next to the tree at the door to a spare room where another child was supposed to have been locked in a prison of Earth. The child had long since gone silent after their tantrum when she had first borrowed them.

As she sorted her tomes on the bookshelves, she theorized that, after absorbing the blood of that final child, the tree would finally mature enough to extract some of it and supplement it into herse-

Mukuro paused. The comfortable tickle on her back, those subtle vibrations of her bounded fields, had disappeared suddenly as if it were a punctured balloon. She felt the disruption in front of her home, like whoever did the deed was daring her to come out there. She had placed some minor defensive bounded fields that would have attempted to ensnared any potential magi, at least enough to make them rethink their decision, but they would have had to actually find her house first. She had stacked layers of concealment on her bounded fields, which should have left them completely unnoticed or at the very least only worth a cursory glance.

She bit her lips as she looked at the experimental vial made from the roots and blood of the tree on her desk. She never recalled any magi operating in the area since she settled, there shouldn't have been any there to begin with, and doubted anybody from the association would have wanted her. Whoever it was, the speed at which the field was taken down meant they had to be serious; perhaps they were a magus killer. She pocketed the vial. If push came to shove, she might as well put her experiment to the test.

An hour before.

The moonlight illuminated the sidewalk he walked on, highlighting the smooth and crackless asphalt road running besides it. Though it had only been two hours since the night set in, Shirou Emiya hadn't passed by a single soul.

That wasn't to say the town was dead. Even if the streets he had passed by were void of human life, Shirou could see the light yellow of lightbulbs shining brightly against the pale white light of the full moon from the many homes in the town he had seen through their square windows with cross-shaped muntins.

Being suddenly reminded about the full moon, Shirou looked up at it. It was the time when Dead Apostles were at their most dangerous, an observation which Shirou couldn't help but have verified first-hand in the past. Still he walked on, reminiscing as he traveled about the bright smile he had seen one faithful day as the dawn rose in the horizon.

The sound of shoes shifting and a wooden chair creaking ahead of him caught his attention however as he glanced at its source. There, sitting in a porch chair, he could see an older looking Polish man, wrinkles apparent on his face, who was wearing a thinner overcoat not too dissimilar to his own despite the summer weather. The man eyed Shirou as he approached and he could see the man bending forward as he stopped by the front of the man's house.

"A tourist are you? Japanese from the looks of you," the man said with a weary voice.

Facing the man, Shirou responded, "Yes, I've just arrived in town after a recommendation from a friend."

That's not too far from the truth, Shirou mused as he scratched the back of his head with one hand. For the next minute, the man stayed silent and fixed him with a hard gaze. I haven't had to go to Poland too many times, but I didn't think my Polish was that terrible, he thought as he adjusted the red holy shroud he wore as a scarf. He had the choice to make it into an overcoat when he first received it from an acquaintance from the Church, but he found the similarity to a certain Archer he knew too striking. Shaking his head from his thoughts, he turned to leave, but the man finally spoke up.

"You don't look like a bad sort. You should be careful, these times haven't been too safe," the man said, pointing behind him across the street.

Shirou turned to see another wooden building whose large signs denoted it to be a general store of sorts. On the front wall of the shop was a noticeboard with a glass cover and once he looked it over, he silently sent his appreciation to one Rin Tohsaka for her tip to come here.

On the board, he read off the missing person poster for an elementary school child named Edward Pawlak who had been missing since yesterday, the paper and ink of which was still relatively fresh and bright. Shirou's brows furrowed as he could see the other missing person posters on the board, many weathered looking ones being old enough to be covered over partly by other notices such as community events.

"What do you know about these disappearances?" Shirou asked the man, turning back to face him once he looked over the board.

The man sighed, saying, "They've been happening for the last decade. Normal people with normal families and normal lives just upped and vanished during the night. A couple of years back, only a person or two disappeared in a year so we didn't think too hard about it, but multiple people have disappeared in the last half year alone. That Pawlak boy was the latest…"

As the man droned on, Shirou thought it over. Dead Apostles shouldn't be able to satiate themselves with only a few people in an entire year and in a town as small as this, people would have to notice more people than reported disappearing… yet, the current pattern over the last half year resembles one. Probably the work of a magus.

While he was thinking, the man held his head down, perhaps disappointed to have to drive out another tourist for their safety. Noticing this, Shirou put on a kind smile and assured the man, "These disappearances will stop soon. I'm sure of it."

The man immediately opened his mouth, but left it agape as if rescinding his previous thought before finally saying after a moment, "Don't do anything rash, you hear me?"

Shirou wandered the town, heading towards the outskirts where a magus was most likely to set up their workshop. As he approached the end of the neighborhood, in which the lined houses bordering the road stopped to give way to the long path leading out of town, he smelled a deep earthy smell. Though smells like that weren't uncommon, especially in these kinds of rural areas, he could feel the slight disturbance that denoted magecraft and it was most likely a bounded field.

He had to blink his eyes a bit before he could make out a house at the end of the street in a similar design to the others but which was surrounded by a wooden fence. From over the fence, he could see trees without any leaves branching out into the air.

Making sure he didn't accidentally step into the field, Shirou circled around the property. It had a few windows on each wall and one on the wall of the Dutch gable roof. As the windows should be made the same as the others in the town if their appearance were any indication, the windows should be divided into four small glass panes each separated by muntins instead of being one large glass pane, making the windows too small to escape or enter through. Behind the house, there was nothing of notice besides one back door, making only two possible entrances or exits that a magus could go through when counting the front door that had steps going up towards it.

Circling back to the front of the house, Shirou moved closer until the earth smell was right in front of him and he thought over his options. He could break in discreetly, but the people who were taken may be put in danger if he fought in the magus' workshop.

Looking around to make sure nobody was around, he held out his hand. Since the Holy Grail War around ten years ago, he had been steadily improving his projection magecraft.

However, after realizing his need for improvement if he wanted to accomplish his dream, he accompanied Rin to the Clock Tower as her apprentice where he took basic classes. The experience at the Clock Tower in itself didn't improve his combat abilities all too much aside from learning to use the circuits that he had instead of creating new ones each time, though he did meet a certain strong-willed blonde he could call a friend like Rin. The real game changer came from what he discovered he had within himself.

Envisioning what he needed, he reached to pull it out. Though he would probably be able to potentially overpower the field enough to disrupt it, a more discrete but threatening method would be needed. He locked and loaded the gun in his mind, preparing to pull the trigger.

"Trace… on."

A small blue glow emanated from his hand and from it, a demonic crimson spear manifested itself as he called out its name in his mind: Gáe Dearg, the Crimson Spear of Exorcism; it was a weapon that had the passive ability to nullify magical projections through the tip of the spear.

Spinning it briefly in his hands, he gripped the spear and swung its tip towards the approximate area of the bounded field in front of him. Once, twice, he quickly cleaved at the field until he could feel the absence of its disturbance on the world. That should be enough of a message, Shirou thought. He willed the spear to disappear and saw it vanish into motes of blue light.

Verifying that the fence gate wasn't cursed or tampered with, he opened it and stepped into the property. Keeping his distance from the door, he casted a bounded field that would keep any noise or magecraft from leaking out and he waited until, from the edge of his vision, he could see movement and the glint of an eye from the corner of a window on the front side of the house.

Suddenly, the bark of the trees adjacent to him reached out, roots and branches slithering through the air towards him at a quick pace. Opening the palm of his hands, he projected a pair of Black Keys, the favored conceptual weapons of Church Executors. The drain on his prana to project Noble Phantasms weren't completely terrible, especially after his realization of where those weapons came from, but the longer he could keep his abilities hidden from the world and particularly from the Mage's Association, the more he would be able to do. He reinforced his limbs and cut the surging roots and branches into pieces, turning his attention back to the front of the house.

There, he saw a woman who looked to be wearing a yellow hazmat suit, though the helmet portion that should have covered her head was missing, allowing him to see her face. She had black hair styled like a pixie cut with bangs framing the sides of her face and she looked Asian, probably Japanese. The woman glared at him, her pupils a dark soil brown, and she spoke up.

"What would a Church Executor want with me?" the woman asked, her eyes steadily shifting at and around Shirou.

"Stop whatever you've been doing here," Shirou said, not bothering to correct the woman's assumption of him as he estimated the distance between the two of them being around fifty meters. From the way she attacked him, she was probably a magus who stayed back while casting magecraft from a distance, but she might be proficient in close-quarter combat like Rin or Luvia, though he supposed the skill of those two were more of an exception than a trend. "All of those people that you've taken, they all have lives of their own that they have yet to live, and I'm not leaving until I've saved them."

The woman opened her mouth, but then gritted her teeth before saying, "Then I suppose we have nothing to talk about."

"Not unless you're willing to sign a Geis that is," Shirou replied, readying his stance while gripping the Black Keys.

"Aestus!" the woman chanted, waving her hands towards him. This again, Shirou thought as he spied the tree roots and branches surging towards him once more, though in a much greater number than the previous attempt.

He jumped back a couple meters with his reinforced legs, cutting down the trees that approached from his front as he did so. He turned his attention back towards the woman, flicking his hands to throw his Black Keys at her. He pretended to reach into his overcoat and projected more Black Keys, throwing them at her shadows with greater strength so that each projectile would reach the woman at around the same time.

"Fortis!" the woman chanted as she raised her hands in an upward motion. "Aestus! Ductilis!"

He could see a bit of a sag in the woman's posture as she finished her incantations and in front of the woman, a thick wall of large roots rose through the ground that the Black Keys embedded themselves into. Does she have trees underground that she's manipulating or are those just extensions of the trees to the side? Those roots then moved towards him. A magus operating this long wouldn't keep doing something they knew wouldn't work, he thought, chancing a glance behind him while the roots were moving towards him only to see the wooden fence behind him thin out into barbs which raced through the air at him as well.

He bent his knees and then jumped high into the air, seeing both the roots and the barbs following him upwards. He chucked the Black Keys in his hands at them before reaching into his overcoat to project more, slicing through the remaining projectiles arcing towards him. Some slipped by, glancing on the edges of his right arm and leg but not doing any significant damage he could notice.

"Terra rigida et stabilis, illos in uigiliis tuis opprime..." the woman recited as he started to fall back towards the Earth. "Terrae gravis!"

Shirou could see the ground shift at where he was about to land and from it, two massive slabs of earth rose up and arced towards each other to complete a semicircle while looking to crush him in the process. He didn't want to show his ace too early in the fight, but so be it. He willed the Black Keys in his hands to vanish and reached out into his inner world, seeking a weapon that would smash anything the obstacles threatening to obstruct him.

He held his right hand out and called out its name, "Iron Hammer Snake Smash, Næġling!"

In his hand, Beowulf's sword materialized, although it would be more akin to a club than a sword. Purple with a large hilt but a small guard, the weapon lacked any sharp edge to cut with, but what it lacked in cutting power, it made up with its destructive capability. Holding the weapon with both hands, he swung the weapon in an arcing motion, smashing directly through the slabs of earth that sought to crush him.

He landed on the ground on both feet, knees bending slightly to support his landing. The weapon in his hand looked a bit worse for wear, though that was more due to the weapon's famed lack of durability rather than his projection itself being shoddy. In any case, it didn't matter when he could project it again at its peak durability. Willing the sword to disappear, he looked back at the woman whose raised eyebrows and agape mouth didn't exude any confidence.

She gritted her teeth before suddenly chanting, "Fortis praesidium!" which caused her to be encapsulated in a semi-sphere of earth.

Shirou projected his bow, a sleek curved black bow that he designed himself that he thought struck a close similarity with Archer's bow from the Fifth Grail War. He then held out his right hand where a drill-like magic sword belonging to Fergus mac Róich projected itself, though his projection was smaller than the original weapon. He supposed the cat was out of the bag with his abilities, so he was going to use his arsenal wherever he could.

He altered the drill into an arrow shape and slung the arrow on his bow, quickly going through the steps of Kyūdō. He aimed at where he thought his opponent would be inside the dome, though he aimed a bit to the side to avoid any vitals.

"Caldabog!" he called out, releasing his hand and watching the sword sail through the hair into the earthen barrier which caused a ripple of earth and dust to explode out. He stood at a distance, willing his bow to disappear while looking at the dust wafting in the air slowly disperse, allowing him to see into the hole that he had made.

As the moonlight from the full moon behind him shone into the dome in bits at a time, he could make out the woman inside. He raised an eyebrow as he saw Caldabog in the dome… roughly a foot horizontally from his opponent as if she had just stepped aside to dodge it. On the ground next to the woman, he could see an open empty glass vial.

His opponents eyes shone against the moonlight, and he could make out a previously absent bright ring of red around her iris accentuating her red-tinted pupils. The woman's veins were bulging and she bored her eyes towards him with an aggressive ferocity. A Dead Apostle? Shirou questioned.

The woman raised her left hand towards him while angling her body to the side and, without any incantation, dozens of roots emerged from the ground that raced towards him like a predator chasing its prey. These roots were black instead of the characteristic dark brown ones that he had been previously dealing with and he smelled a sickly sweet scent emanating from them.

He jumped back, projecting a pair of Black Keys in each hand and slashed towards the roots that dripped what looked to be blood at its tips. He cut through the tree but his Black Keys became embedded into the wood before he could fully slice through everything in the arc of his slash. As he saw the roots curl around the Black Keys, he let them go and saw cracks enveloping them before the projections vanished into motes of blue light.

I definitely can't let myself get touched by those roots, Shirou thought. He opened the palms of his hands to trace his favored pair of married black and white swords: Kanshou and Bakuya. As he projected them, he felt an odd sensation, as if something was blocking his access to the area's mana in the atmosphere. However, as the large majority of his reserves drew from his Od, it only felt like a slight disturbance in the use of his magecraft.

He slashed through the remaining roots surging through him with the pair of Noble Phantasms, glancing back at his opponent who stood there as if she was basking in the light of the moon.

Suddenly, he felt pain in his chest and coughed into the sleeve of his overcoat to see a bit of dark red on his sleeve. Are the roots releasing a poisonous gas? Shirou thought. He looked back at the woman but she looked unaffected by anything. Quickly tracing a Mystic Code he had acquired during his time at the Clock Tower that resembled a flamberge, he channeled his prana into it, causing the sword to ignite. He jumped back, projecting his bow while firing the sword towards the unaffected looking woman and the roots around her.

The sword sailed through the air, igniting the space around it and hopefully ridding the area of the gas at least temporarily. The woman waved her hand, moving large black roots in front of her from the ground which the sword soon embedded itself into.

The roots moved out of the way and Shirou had an opportunity to look at the woman's face once more, noticing just how dry her lips looked and how bloodshot her eyes looked. She growled and leapt towards him while waving one of her hands up. He heard the ground shift behind him and a quick glance revealed a wall of black roots having erupted from the ground that arced towards him.

Chancing an encounter with the woman instead of the roots, he reinforced himself and leapt towards the woman. He had wanted to pressure the woman enough to make her accept a Geis, but as he heard a guttural cry from the woman, he didn't think he could help her.

He lifted his arms up, slashing Bakuya at the woman while leaving an opening to his side. The woman shifted her body in the middle of her movement at a supernatural speed to avoid the sword, aiming at his exposed left hip with her hand in a stabbing motion. Blocking with Kanshou, he cleaved the sword at the woman's exposed right shoulder with Bakuya and then pulled it out once it sunk into her shoulder. He turned his body, using the motion to slash at the woman's left hip with Kanshou and embedded the sword into her.

Though she should have been dead by now, the woman attempted to leap away from him. However, her body got caught by his grip of Kanshou stuck in her hip. Desperately, she lunged her head towards him and opened her mouth as if she was about to take a chunk out of him, but he stabbed Bakuya into the center of her body and watched as she went limp. It's over, he thought as he withdrew his swords from the woman's body and saw it flop onto the ground below.

Despite their ferocity before, he didn't see any movements from the trees and the roots that previously came from the ground stayed inert. He walked away from the woman's body towards the house while gripping his swords, hoping that he would be able to save somebody tonight.

Shirou walked down the stairs, watching the traditional wooden style of the house give way to a more robust concrete basement. Magi like that woman usually didn't invest in any protections within their workshop if they relied heavily on bounded fields to conceal themselves, but he kept a wary eye out just in case. The deep stench of blood grew more stronger as he descended and he quickened his pace down.

Once in the basement, the first thing that stood out was a large, yet young, black tree whose branches and roots stretched across the walls. He also saw them embedded into the ceiling, as if they were arcing up through the ceiling towards the ground above which provided an answer to his earlier question during the battle.

He didn't feel ill, but he kept the gas mask he found on the upper floor of the building which he had stored in his overcoat in mind. He bent near the base of the tree to inspect it and his face shifted into a grimace. There, he spied skeletal remains wrapped around the wood. A small skull, a large femur, and various ribs decorated the plant. He also found several bones that looked as if they had just recently found themselves there. Too late, Shirou thought, his already grim expression worsening.

Glancing around the room, past the bookshelves and the desk, he saw a door next to the tree. His adrenaline pumped as he hurried his way towards it.

Edward Pawlak sniffled as he gripped the bar of his makeshift prison with one hand. His free hand massaged the area over his shirt, touching his rumbling stomach which had been growling for the past hour. This has been the longest since I've eaten anything, he thought.

He had just been standing outside yesterday night. His mom had called him back inside, but he stayed near the front of the house while he looked up into the night sky. Lights of all sizes dotted the horizon as far as he could see, yet no matter how big or small they were, they all shone with such a blinding brilliance. He thought he'd never get tired of seeing the sight as he reached his hands out towards them.

The last thing that he had remembered was a pale Asian woman with black hair approaching him, her brown eyes highlighted by the light of the moon and the stars shining down on her. He had never seen her before, but the way her eyes creased in worry reminded him of someone who was very lonely, so he didn't fret as she approached. The woman had gotten to him and smiled. As he was about to ask her who she was, she waved her hand in front of him. Then the next thing he knew, he was in the dark room that he still found himself in the present moment.

Reaching his hands out, Edward felt wood and dirt, as if somebody had shaped the roots and the ground into a prison for just him. Though he had enough room to stand, the prison in front of him wouldn't budge even when he rammed into it.

Even if nothing bad had happened to him yet besides not eating, he could smell something very sickly and deep. It was the same smell he experienced when he had scraped his knee when learning how to ride his bike for the first time, except multiplied fivefold.

When his parents thought he was asleep in his room, he could make out their conversations in the kitchen about how dangerous it was recently at night. It hadn't directly affected him so he didn't think anything of it, but recalling how he heard that none of the people who disappeared ever returned, he had screamed his heart out. Nobody had answered his calls though and he had passed his time sitting in the warm darkness of his prison. Mom and dad are probably worried.

His hopes got raised as he heard noise that wasn't from himself about twenty minutes ago, or at least what he thought was twenty minutes; he had lost track of his count. He felt the grounds and walls shaking around him like an earthquake was occurring, but the sound had all but stopped around ten minutes ago.

Edward's head drooped and he prepared to sit back down when he saw the first light in a day creep as a day opened in front of him. There, a slightly tan-skinned adult with red hair that had streaks of white was standing with a black sword and a white sword while staring at him. The man's most accentuating feature was his face though as Edward gazed at the man's smile, made as if the man had just found a treasure he was desperately searching his entire life for. Edward felt his heart flop staring at the expression; he didn't think a star could compare to it.

As Edward briefly stepped back, the man moved forward and cut apart his prison as easily as if he was cutting warm butter. The man's swords disappeared into motes of blue light and the man walked towards him, grabbing Edward by the shoulders firmly with a bright look in his amber eyes.

"Are you okay?" the man asked with a slight accent, worry laden in his voice.

Edward opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out of his throat that was parched from his initial screaming. He strained his voice, forcing sounds that only came out as a small whisper.

"I'm… fine… just a bit hungry…. but what about everyone else…?" he asked.

The man closed his eyes and hung his head slightly low, before saying, "You were the only one I could find… but nobody here will have to worry about this again."

Without another word, the man took Edward's hand in his own and Edward could feel the leathery material of the man's fingerless glove. Edward followed the man out, stepping over the cut root and earth that was previously his prison cell, before going through a door.

There, he covered his mouth and nose with his free hand. The smell that he thought was thick when he was in his prison was infinitely worse in this new room and he looked at the bits of white wrapped between the roots of the large tree, unsure what to make of the scene.

The man tugged at his arm, freeing him from his brief stupor, and led him up a stairwell next to the tree through a doorway. They emerged into a traditional looking Polish living room that was a far cry from the scene below yet looked too prim and neat, as if whoever was living here wasn't truly living there.

Not spending any time there, the man led Shirou through what looked to be the house's front door and he emerged into what he could only describe as a battlefield, or at least one he would only see in books or on the internet. There, he could see warped fences, cut tree roots, and earthen debris scattered throughout which were shadowed by the light of the full moon.

What stood out though was a familiar body that laid there on the ground, gashes apparent on her shoulder and hip which leaked very dark looking blood. Her veins looked bulged and her skin looked even paler than when he had last seen her, though despite her injuries he saw that her eyes were closed.

"This is the last time you'll be able to see this area. You won't be able to return here," the man said from beside him in a kind voice. "Ask any question and I'll try my best to answer it. Take your time."

Turning to look at the man, Edward asked, "What happened here?"

The man paused before asking, "Promise me you won't tell anyone else what I'll tell you?"

Edward nodded, thinking that his experience was too far-fetched for his parents to believe even if he told them anyway. The man took Edward's shoulders in his hands, crouching down slightly on one knee so that they were roughly eye level.

The man paused, as if thinking, before then asking, "Have you ever seen a story where an evil scientist does bad things to people so that they could learn something?"

Edward nodded and the man continued on. "That woman is basically that kind of person. She took people from your town and used them to learn more. I fought her to stop her and she did something to herself during our fight… I couldn't help her."

The man finished the end of his sentence while glancing at the woman with a sad expression despite his grim description of the woman's character. Edward bit his lip and looked down at the ground for a long moment, but as he looked back up, he saw that the man was continuing to look at him with the same understanding expression he had since the beginning.

After standing there for another long moment, the man stood back up to full height before asking, "Do you want to go back home?"

Edward nodded, shifting his eyes away from the body as the man took his hand once more and led him towards an open hole in the warped fence where a fence gate might have been. As they walked a couple meters from the fence, Edward looked back only to feel his mind fogging up like he hadn't gotten much sleep. He blinked again while trying to look at where he knew the house should have been, but he couldn't make out the wild scene or the house he had just been at.

"Do you know your way home from here?" the man asked, letting go of Edward's hand and taking a couple of steps away from him.

"I do," Edward answered.

The man nodded. "Then this will be goodbye," he said as he started to walk away.

Seeing his retreating figure, Edward hesitated before speaking up once more, "What will you do now?"

The man glanced back at him. "I'll continue to try to save as many people as I can."

"But… do you know where you're going to do that?" Edward questioned, feeling a bit cold without the presence of the man beside him.

The man smiled, though it looked more on the sad side. "I don't even know myself, but I'll continue to walk on."

"But… for how long? Wouldn't that get tiring?" Edward asked. He didn't understand why exactly he was asking, but his heart felt weary thinking about what the man would possibly experience.

Though he could only see the side of the man's face, he could see the man's pensive look. "Until I reach my goal. Till then, my heart will be steel."

Trying to find the words to rebuke the man, to make him stay just a brief moment longer, but failing in the process, Edward looked towards the ground. There, he spied a pendant with a brilliant red gem. It looked as if it had been dropped and then blown away by something if the dirt around its edges were an indication. He coughed, preparing to raise his voice, and yelled in a raspy voice, "You dropped this!"

The man stopped moving and walked back to him. He gently took the red pendant in his hands and fingered the gem.

"Thank you... this was a reminder of how my life was once saved," he eventually said while rubbing the left of his chest. The man turned back once more away from him. As he looked like he was about to leave though, he suddenly added, "Even with a heart of steel, I suppose I still have people in my life hot enough to melt through it. Farewell."

The man walked on and Edward stood there, watching his back vanish into the distance. He took a deep breath, swearing to never forget this day as he walked back towards his house.

Walking away, Shirou went into his overcoat and grabbed his cellphone. He opened his contacts page and dialed a black twin-tailed magus that he knew, waiting shortly until he heard the line pick up before speaking.

"Your hunch was right, there was a magus in the area operating on the local people," Shirou said.

"Of course my hunch was right," he heard Rin tease before she asked in a more serious tone, "What happened?"

"...I had to kill her," Shirou said grimly. He paused for a second before continuing. "You should come to the village as soon as you can. I left a bounded field to hide the workshop, but it shouldn't be hidden for too long. The magus' research was in there and it should be pretty dangerous, at least if her turning into a pseudo-Dead Apostle during our fight was any indication."

"-A what?" Rin asked, surprised. "Nevermind, I'll make my way there the next chance I get. You just always have to get into these kinds of situations, especially when I'm not there to support your third-rate butt."

"It's not like I get into these situations knowing how they'd be beforehand," Shirou joked back. "I have to do this, though."

"You can't forget about her huh?" he heard Rin ask after a moment.

"...Yeah."

"Well, I don't think I'll forget about the war either, but please don't try to put yourself into too much danger next time, okay?" Rin asked worriedly. "We should visit Japan sometime. I know you've been calling but Sakura and Taiga would want to see you once in a while, you know."

Shirou felt his vision darken, and he rubbed his eyes with his freehand.

"Shirou?" he heard Rin ask after he didn't answer after a moment.

"Ah, sorry, I think I'm just a bit tired at the moment," Shirou explained. "Anyway I'll see you s-"

As he was about to finish his sentence, he blinked once more and heard three sudden beeps from his cellphone which indicated the end of a call. Opening his eyes, he quickly blinked his eyes a couple times as his vision was filled with sunlight. In front of him, he saw a large elaborate water fountain and he looked around with a wary gaze. He was at what looked to be a city park, with a large green lawn in front of him while well-kept flower gardens were dispersed around. More importantly, he spied what looked to be Phantasmal Species- Demi-Humans to be more specific- around him who had animal and human characteristics. He paled as he thought about the implications of those Demi-Humans walking around naturally like it was just another day to them.

Had he just been transported to another world?

AUTHOR NOTES:

Well uh, this is a very over-complicated first chapter. I didn't think I'd actually write this much, but this intro chapter was mainly to establish certain criteria before the whole isekai-ing happened.

1. How does Shirou operate/what are his abilities?

He's basically at/slightly below Archer's level and can do the majority of what Archer can do. I know having Shirou learn about his Reality Marble shouldn't be happening with the timeline I've made (10 years after the Fifth Holy Grail War), as Shirou should discover his Reality Marble in ten years and be able to actually use it after another ten years. However, I wanted Shirou to be on the more younger side without using UBW Shirou as the Fate Route is my favorite route.

2. How does Shirou think?

This chapter was written with the Last Episode in the Realta Nua ending of the VN in mind and draws more specifically from that one-shot manga adaptation of it (which is also where I got Shirou's design in this fanfic.) Shirou's going to be committed to his ideal like he would be post-Fate route, but in this fanfic, he understands that there are some people he just cannot save and he isn't shouldering his life's burden alone (though it's not he's sharing that burden very evenly).

As I just said, the plan of this chapter was heavily inspired by the Last Episode manga adaptation and I wanted to include a similar conversation between a boy and Shirou from that manga, though the contents of the conversation would be altered and the boy would be saved by Shirou instead of just finding him. That's also why Shirou just suddenly loses his pendant too. I wanted to make a contrast between the more machine Shirou of the Last Episode and this one. I also wanted Shirou to beat up a Dead Apostle, but I wanted the event to wrap up on a slightly positive note which wouldn't be possible if Mukuro was a Dead Apostle the whole time and just turned a large fraction of the town into The Dead which is why she semi-transformed into a Dead Apostle during the fight.

My knowledge about Fate comes from the wiki, the DEEN anime, the Heaven's Feels movies, and the ton of Fate fanfic I've read. I'm planning on reading the actual VN to get a better understanding about Shirou and the Nasuverse though. Speaking about that, I did play through Arc's route in Tsukihime and thought the inclusion of the Forest of Einnashe was a nice way to make a cameo to it and bs explain Mukuro's abilities/transformation (but I suppose I did wrap up the fight quickly because I realized just how long the chapter was getting).

I realize that the way I isekai-ed Shirou was similar to Subaru which probably shouldn't be the case since Subaru is favored by the witch and Shirou obviously isn't. However, I didn't want any Zelretch shenanigans to happen and, because I didn't use UBW Shirou, I couldn't use that "getting sucked into the Holy Grail blackhole thing spits Shirou out into another world" thing. Hopefully it's okay with the way it is.

Feel free to comment on anything that I've gotten wrong or anything I should touch up/remove, I know this chapter was a bit too long and drawn out. Anyway. time to get into the Re:Zero portion of this fic!