You may have noticed that the fic's title is now slightly different. And Hell Followed With Them is now the official title. Maybe that doesn't seem like anything to make a big deal about, but that subtle difference makes a world of difference to me, and to the meaning of this story that I am crafting.

There was a moment, writing chapter 27 (yes, I've written that far ahead), where this fic finally thematically clicked for me. All at once, I could see how the things I had been building up tied together, and really formed the soul of what I'm writing. It's not that I'm retroactively applying meaning, it's more like my eyes were opened to what I had already been creating. That sounds super pretentious, but I AM an English major. c:

Hopefully, the reasons for the change will become apparent in time. Fanfiction or not, if I spend this much time and emotional energy creating something, I want to it to be meaningful. I don't know if this fic is meaningful or just pretentious, but if it means something to me, maybe it'll mean something to someone else. It really does mean a lot to me.

EDIT: Also, I've just been reminded that it's still Ramadan, and I know I've got readers who observe. There's a bunch of food talk in this chapter, if that's something you'd like to avoid during your fasting. I'm sorry that this warning didn't go up when the chapter did.

Cooking was meditative for Sakura. All she had to focus on was the slow, methodical chop, chop, chop as she sliced vegetables, the pleasant, comforting scents of onion and ginger wafting through the air. None of her worries, none of her guilt, none of her pain. Just losing herself in the process of creation. The normalcy of it all.

Chop, chop, chop.

It had taken some coaxing to get her out of the library, and she still wasn't sure she shouldn't just go back there to hide. Rin still hadn't come downstairs, and she didn't feel confident about how that particular reunion would go. Her mind touched on the memory of confrontation and recoiled, a finger on a hot stove. It was easier to wallow in miseries she understood than it was to lose herself in that morass. To think about what her brother would do to her when he got his hands on her again, or what Grandfather was planning for Senpai, or how badly she'd handled… well, anything today. It was a dark hole she knew very well, and she was comfortable in it.

Chop, chop, chop.

But, now that she had come out, going back would have felt like admitting defeat. She already looked like such a weak person to Senpai. She didn't want to make it worse. So she didn't run, and she didn't let Senpai know that being back in the Tohsaka mansion was like enveloped by a ghost. She wasn't sure what the feelings were that stirred inside her every time a familiar angle or an old piece of furniture she'd lounged in when she was very small caught her gaze, but they were powerful. An emptiness, perhaps, but a different flavor than she was used to. Loss? She'd had a home that hadn't hated her, once. Resentment? One of them still enjoyed the luxury of living in a house without the worm pit, and it wasn't her. Maybe none of them, or else all of them. So much was the same.

She halfway wondered if Tohsaka-Senpai ever moved anything in the house.

It really didn't seem that way.

Chop, chop, chop.

She wasn't doing most of the work tonight; she'd tried to, but Senpai had said something about how he'd made a commitment, and he wasn't going to push the work onto her. It was sweet. That was just the way Senpai thought; he had a one track mind, but that one track was always focused on doing the right thing. She'd never known him to be anything else. Something sizzled behind her, and she glanced back to see Senpai drop a handful of chopped chicken into hot oil, tossing them a little with a hand on the wok's handle as he did. While she'd been chipping away at the veggies, he'd also gotten a pot of rice started, thrown together the sauce and set it simmering, and even scraped together some miso soup.

It was pretty hypnotic, watching him work, his dirty clothes semi-covered by a white apron that was clearly sized for Rin, not him. He was so focused, with his brow furrowed and his mouth a hard line. She remembered a time when she'd thought that look had meant he was angry with her, but he'd always been so confused when she'd tried to fix whatever she thought she'd done. The idea still seemed foreign to her, sometimes. She didn't see that look as much anymore; it wasn't often that he cooked a big meal in front of her without splitting the work evenly.

The sizzling reached a fever pitch; it had gotten hot in the kitchen, so Senpai had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows. She was struck by how well-defined his muscles were; he was so gentle that it was easy to forget how strong he was. He trained a lot.

When they cooked together, it was at a much more relaxed pace. Four hands could do more than two. It was almost nostalgic watching him pass through the kitchen like a whirlwind, chaotic and lightning-quick and yet somehow leaving everything cleaner than he'd found it. She'd often said that he could be the best in the world if he put his mind to it, and though he'd often laughed it off, she'd never really been joking. It came naturally to him in a way that little ever had for her. Archery, maybe. She admired that. She was a better cook than she had ever been before, and she tried very hard to take pride in that. Sometimes that worked, but usually it felt like her rapid improvement said more about his infectious enthusiasm and ability to teach than it did about her. And sometimes it just made her feel selfish, when she thought about how nice it would be to surpass him someday.

Not right now, though. Now was…

Now, she couldn't take her eyes off of him.

Now, she felt more at peace than she had in a long time.

He was in his own little world, until he turned around to get the veggies from her. He paused, looking at her, perplexed. Then, of all things, his cheeks went a little red, and he held out his hand. "Got it ready?"

What kind of face was I making? she wondered. Was I staring that bad…? Heat touched her own cheeks, and she nodded a little too fervently as that sense of calm vanished as if it had never been there at all. "Yes! I'm all ready for you!" She shoved the big bowl of greens at him with jerky motions (a mushroom leapt from the bowl and hit the floor with a sad whap) and turned away, pretending to busy herself picking little bits of vegetable off the cutting board.

She could feel his eyes burning into the back of her neck, and she wanted to curl up into herself and disappear. What was wrong with her? Everything she had felt over the course of the day had seemed strangely magnified, as if there were a chorus of Sakuras in her head, all feeling the same thing. When she chanced a glance behind her, though, he wasn't looking at her at all. His back was to her, and he was cheerfully tossing the stir-fry. He was humming.

You're being stupid again, Sakura. Just be normal again. You can do that, right? With his sweet voice in her ears, she thought that maybe she could. Her smile returned, hesitant and embarrassed. Turning away again, she picked up the cutting board and took it to the sink. Under her breath, so quietly that even she could only hear it over the hiss of the wok and the sound of water through the vibrations in her throat, she started humming along with him.

They were all sitting at the dining table, and it was maybe the most awkward dinner Shirou had been a part of. He'd once eaten dinner at an all-night diner with Fuji-nee after she'd been dumped by a longtime boyfriend at a kendo tournament she'd lost in the finals, so that particular bar was already set pretty high.

Rin sat at the head of the table. Archer sat to her right. Three seats down from him sat Sakura, and Shirou had placed himself across from her. None of them were speaking. Sakura rolled a little ball of rice back and forth in her bowl with her chopsticks. Archer looked disinterested. Rin was examining her food as if there was poison hidden somewhere in it. Rin had yet to acknowledge Sakura, and Sakura looked as though she expected Rin to pull out a gun the moment Sakura did anything wrong.

He complained a lot about how dinner with Fuji-nee would often get rowdy and out of hand, but this made him miss her antics more than he'd ever thought he would. What this table needed was for someone to discover red pepper in their rice, just to liven it up a little. "Sakura," he said into the silence.

Her head whipped up, wide eyed as if he'd just fired a cannon into the air. "Ah, yes?"

"How did I do on the chicken? It's not too dry, is it?" He smiled encouragingly. "It's a different stove than I'm used to, so I'm worried it might be a little overdone."

She blinked at him, went red, and hurriedly stabbed her chopsticks into her bowl to retrieve a piece of meat. Once it was in her mouth, she chewed thoughtfully. "No, Senpai, I think you did good!"

With that, the tension dissipated just a hair. Not much, but just enough so that everyone could start eating. He watched Rin out of the corner of his eye. Every bite was the same; she'd taste it, a hint of joy would touch her eyes, and then her face would darken as she got mad about liking it so much. Over and over. He couldn't help but laugh, and she shot him a glare that would have peeled paint off a wall.

Even Sakura smiled a little, though she tried to hide it. She was sweet as honey, but she could hit you with a pretty decent playful jab if she was in a good mood and you weren't paying attention. He wasn't too surprised.

And just when things were almost normal, for the first time since he'd left for the supermarket, Assassin's baritone filled his ears. "Contractor." Rin and Archer were unfazed, but Sakura jerked into a ramrod-straight posture with an eep, eyes darting nervously back and forth. "Might I have a word with thee, away from other ears?" It was a question, but it really didn't sound like one.

Indignation flooded him. He'd almost forgotten about his traitor of a Servant. "Hold on, now you want to talk?" Shirou frowned. "You ran off on me. Where did you go?"

"I have an important matter to discuss with thee." He spoke as if Shirou hadn't protested at all.

"I got attacked. Aren't you supposed to be looking out for me?"

"Art thou still drawing breath?"

Shirou grimaced.

"Then I shall await thee in the basement."

Rin cackled, and he shot her a dirty look. Sakura was shaking a little, but she was also trying very hard to look like she was eating normally, so he didn't press her.

"You heard the man," Archer said lazily. "Run on home, kid. You're out past curfew."

"Don't you have a fight to go lose somewhere?" he shot back.

"You'd be dead if it wasn't for me." He didn't seem particularly bothered, or even interested. "What did you do against Berserker, again? Fall down at him?"

"I stopped Assassin from cutting your head off," Shirou growled. "That's something I did."

"By falling down at him, yes." Archer took a condescending bite of chicken. "And you overcooked this."

"No, you didn't," Sakura mumbled in a small voice. Rin and Archer both turned their gazes on her like the impassive judgement of angry gods, and she shrank into her seat.

With a grimace, Shirou swiped his bowl off the table. "I'm going to go talk to Assassin." He gestured violently at Rin and Archer with his chopsticks. "Get along with Sakura while I'm gone. No bullying her."

Sakura went red with… something. Probably shame. She shook her head. "Don't worry about me, Senpai. I'll be okay." She still seemed a little on edge, and Shirou didn't really want to leave her alone, but… Assassin was very persuasive.

He left them to their silent meal and stomped down the stairs, chewing furiously. The basement, like apparently every other room in the house, was expansive, though the others had not been so cluttered. "What?"

"Sakura Matou."

Oh, not this crap again. Shirou threw up his hands in irritation. "What about her?"

"Has she truly earned thy trust?"

"I'm getting really sick of having this conversation, Assassin," he said, taking a seat on the bottom step. He put some steel in his voice. "I'm not going to budge on this."

"Then there is something that I must tell thee."

Shirou stuffed some rice into his mouth, glowering at the empty air. "And what's that? I already had this fight once. She's not a Master anymore."

"I speak not of the Grail War. Darkness and shadow gather around her. Clothe her and crown her. It emanates from her, like blood from a fresh corpse. Canst thou not smell the rot?"

The food soured in his stomach, turning to lead, and he set the bowl down beside himself. That… was very different from whatever Rin's problem had been. "What does that mean, Assassin? What darkness? What rot?"

"If I knew, I would tell thee," Assassin rumbled. "It is not a rot of the flesh. I do not know what it portends."

"Don't know a lot, do you?" Shirou asked, but he knew it was because he was suddenly afraid. Sakura being a Master was something he understood. What did that make this? It doesn't matter. It doesn't change the fact that I'm going to protect her. "So, what? You want me to kill her, too?"

"I do not believe you capable of making such a decision," Assassin said, but he didn't sound like he was insulting Shirou. He wasn't sure what to make of that. "I merely advise thee caution. The blight on her soul may amount to nothing, though leaving one's fate to chance has never been the wise man's best course of action. If thou art determined to protect her, then thou must consider the risks. Do not let this wound fester."

Shirou looked at his hands, trying to process everything Assassin had just said. "I don't know what you mean by 'rot.' I don't know what you see." They were bruised and scabbed, rough with calluses. "But I can't live my life just… suspicious of the people I care about. That's not what trust is. Rin could kill me, but I believe she's a good person. Sakura could… I don't know. Whatever it is you think would happen. But I know her. Maybe…" The image of her kneeling outside Rin's house, pale and shaking and clawing at her own scalp came unbidden to his mind, and he grimaced as a pang of anxiety and sorrow twisted his insides. "Maybe I don't know everything she's been through. Maybe she hasn't been ready to share. Maybe I… maybe I haven't earned her trust yet. But that's not the point. There are always going to be things I don't know about people, Assassin. Everybody has-"

can't breathe choking choking pain he is boiling in his own skin and his life will have no meaning if he cannot save the people he could not save

"-some kind of shadow, don't they?"

"The world will not become a fair place because it is thy wish it were so. This corruption will spread. She will become it."

"If no one ever betrayed anyone, would trusting someone mean anything?" A quiet voice in his head that might have been Rin's, or maybe Archer's, or maybe just his own, said he was just being stubborn. It whispered that he was just raging against reality because he was too stupid to open his eyes and see his own naivete for what it was. He refused to accept that.

Assassin seemed to consider this. He hoped it wasn't because whatever he'd said was just that staggeringly stupid. "An admirable ideal," he finally conceded. "It may lead to thy death, but I believe thou wilt not compromise even then."

Shirou felt a weird rush of vindication. "Thanks?"

"If Sakura Matou falls to the darkness within her, I will take her head without hesitation," Assassin said with finality. "But until then… Thou hast demonstrated thy conviction. Until her time comes, I should like to be proven wrong."

Shirou didn't like it. Sakura's darkness… Whatever it is, it isn't her. She wouldn't hurt me. But Assassin's promise… it was probably the best he was going to get. "Fine."

"The war will continue, in any event. What is thy plan?"

His food had gotten cold, but he kept eating it anyway. At least it was still good. "My plan? Uh, well, Tohsaka is kicking us out, so I guess I'm going to take Sakura home in the morning. After that.." He shrugged, self conscious. "I don't know. I don't know if Rin will even still help me."

"The young Magus will not abandon thee."

Okay? That's a weird thing for him to be so certain of. "Anyway. Um. I was going to ask if you had any ideas."

"Fortunately, I have information that may be of some use."

Shirou blinked. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

"I do not wish to share sensitive information with Sakura Matou, and if thee knew, thou might have rushed off before thine rest was complete."

"No, I wouldn't have," he protested, but he knew he absolutely might have.

"After thy confrontation with Rider-"

"Wait, you were there for that? Why were you acting like you weren't?"

But Assassin just kept talking as if he hadn't spoken.

"-I followed her for a spell. Not long, but long enough to overhear something that may be worthwhile."

Shirou frowned, chewing thoughtfully. "How did you do that without her knowing? They should have been able to sense you, right?"

"Her master had given her a cellular device with which to stay in contact. Upon taking her leave-"

"You know what a cell phone is?"

"She placed a call to someone she only called 'old man.' While I could not draw too close without alerting her to my presence, and thus could only hear her side of the conversation, she made reference to what she called the 'worst case scenario.' She mentioned a place called Ryuudou Temple. Does this have meaning to thee?"

His frown deepened. "Ryuudou… Yeah, I know that place. My friend Issei lives there. What did she say about it?"

"Nothing of substance. She seemed to be suggesting it as a location for something, but the old man to whom she spoke did not agree. 'I can take care of them,' she said, but the old man was adamant."

"Them…" Shirou's mind raced. "You think there's a Master hiding out at the Temple?"

"I see few alternatives. Whatever they wish to accomplish, some entity or entities therein have the power to prevent them from doing so. A Master and Servant would be the simplest answer to the riddle."

"So we don't know where Rider is," he mused, "and fighting Berserker is out of the question for us right now, but we know there's someone there. Do you think we should investigate?"

"Tomorrow, at midday. If the Master has prepared defenses, they will be weakest then."

Shirou nodded. "Okay. So…" He blinked. "Guess I'm missing school tomorrow, huh?"

"Is that the greatest of thy worries at this moment in time?"

Shirou's cheeks grew warm with embarrassment. "I guess not."

"Shall I present this to your allies?"

"Um…" He thought about it for a minute, then shook his head. "Nah, Rin's… pretty pissed off at me, and if I come to her with a lead and a plan, maybe she'll mellow out a little." He shrugged, scraping the last bit of room temperature rice into his mouth. "I'm tired of being a liability."

"Then I shall leave this matter to thy discretion."

"Okay, good talk," Shirou said, standing up and dusting himself off. He turned to go up the stairs, then hesitated. A series of horrific images flashed before his eyes; Sakura, killed by magic, for stumbling into the wrong place at the wrong time. 'I will show you the meaning of duty, Contractor.' Her severed head, eyes staring lifelessly at him. But in the end, what is your duty?

"Assassin?"

He couldn't leave this alone. Assassin had said enough to let Shirou know what type of person he was, which meant that Shirou needed to ask something he very much did not want to.

"I am here."

"Say… Say you could get the Holy Grail, right now, and you could destroy it, but to do that, you'd have to kill innocent people." He closed his eyes. "If you had to kill me and Tohsaka and maybe a bunch more people, but you'd be able to save a lot more than just us. Would you do it?"

"Whilst thou still possess a Command Seal, I would be able to do no such thing."

"But would you do it?" He didn't want to hear the answer. He didn't, but he asked anyway.

"I am sworn to protect you by the Contract with which I was summoned. No harm shall come to you through my blade."

"Not me, then," he said more calmly than he felt. "But anyone else? If it was a choice between your God's will and that, would you kill innocent people for your duty?"

"Yes." The word hung in the air like a guillotine in the moments before an execution.

Cold fear wrapped around his throat, but he nodded weakly. "I guess I should hope it doesn't come to that, then."

"Indeed."

The old man was gross, but at least he knew to respect her. The first time she'd been summoned, while that pathetic girl had been too afraid to speak, he'd warmly called her "young lady". She appreciated the first attempt, and when she corrected him as to the proper way to address her ("Queen Medb," or just "Your Majesty"), he had politely complied. That was more than she could say for the boy who was only her "Master" in the most technical of terms. He'd tried to treat her the same way he treated what seemed to be every other girl in the world, so she'd had to teach him a thing or two about the way the world worked.

Now he mostly just cringed around whenever she was near, and was thus beneath her notice. She wondered if he'd be so afraid of his sister the next time they met; he'd made a big show of how much trouble she was in, but he was also a pathetic sack of shit, so he might not have the balls to do anything.

She hadn't really placed that protection order on the girl because of any attempt at solidarity or altruism. It had just seemed like the slimeball liked hurting her, so she'd taken away his favorite pastime like a mother taking away a misbehaving child's toy. That outburst in the alley, though… it had piqued her interest. It was academic, now, but maybe there was a little fire in there, somewhere. It was nice to know she'd have a fallback source of mana if he got his stupid ass killed.

The old man pressed his hands together thoughtfully, closing his weird beady little black eyes with a sigh. "I had truly hoped that it wouldn't come to this." He shifted in the easy chair in which he sat; for a second, she thought that creaking sound came from his rickety old bones, rather than the leather beneath him. "I had not planned to play my hand so soon. It would have been best to consolidate my power before the next Holy Grail War."

Medb lounged on a couch, her feet up on a coffee table that must have cost the old man a fortune. It was nothing compared to what she had once owned, though, so it deserved no more dignity than a footstool. "Why not wait?" She asked idly. "The Grail will still be here, won't it?"

"Hmm," the old man hmmed. "The Grail will, and I will, and my darling granddaughter will. But, you see, there is the problem of our mutual friend."

"Assassin?" Medb shrugged, picking at the stitches on a throw pillow. Real shoddy workmanship, if you asked her. "You say he's scary and all, but you could take or leave this war. It doesn't matter to you."

The old man laughed like a snake on slimy, dead leaves. "Once is never, twice is always."

Medb looked at him askance. "Is that supposed to mean something?" Sometimes the old man just said cryptic shit without bothering to explain himself. It was his worst quality. (Most of his qualities were bad.)

"When something happens once, it is an anomaly," he lectured. "Anything can happen once, after all. If a man is hit by a car, one does not extrapolate that he will be struck again in the future. Mistakes and accidents are a reality for anyone." He cleared his throat. "But twice… If a man is struck, recovers, then walks back into the street to be hit again… What does that say about him?"

"He's an idiot?" she guessed, growing bored.

"That is one possibility, yes. Or perhaps he wishes for death, or perhaps he enjoys the thrill. The reason doesn't matter. If he survives this second anomaly, do you then trust this man anywhere near a busy street?"

She shifted her feet, leaving a scuff on the table. "Are you trying to say the universe is suicidal?"

The old man laughed again. "Nothing so grandiose. This Assassin appearing once was a strange twist of fate. Something that could not have been predicted, but not an omen of the future. However… Now that he's appeared in two successive Holy Grail Wars..." he said solemnly, "how much of your innumerable fortune, Queen Medb, would you wager that he does not appear for a third? Would you wager your continued existence? Would you gamble the total annihilation of your soul on such a fact? If there was even the slightest hint of a possibility that you could be utterly unmade, is that a risk you would ever take?"

She frowned. "I guess I wouldn't, no."

The old man nodded, looking pleased. "And that is why I have spent the last ten years preparing for the worst case scenario. I have tried to explain the principle to my grandson on numerous occasions, and he has never been able to wrap his mind around it."

Medb snorted. The pillow's seams started to unravel, and she pulled at the threads. "I'm shocked."

He chuckled. "Indeed." Not even the idiot's family liked him.

The pillow made a satisfying noise as it broke apart in her hands. "So what do you need for the ritual? Because if we're doing it, it has to be soon. If there Servants have started returning to the Grail, it could fuck things up."

"We will need three things," the old man sighed as he leaned back with another creak. "First: a location of some power. I have spent many lifetimes in this city, and I have done my research. I believe that of the ley lines we have discussed, the one that is most viable is the abandoned theater. There is lingering power there, from the last War. That is where the last Grail manifested before it was moved, after all."

Medb nodded, then tossed the mangled pillow aside. "Alright."

He held up a second finger. "Power. The ritual will require a tremendous amount of magical energy to perform. This will likely not be a problem; there are a lot of people in that area, and we will be able to afford a little collateral damage. Even that might not be enough, but you remember the magical instabilities that I spoke of, yes?"

"Of course," she said haughtily. "The flow of mana in the world has been disturbed, and its epicenter is here in Fuyuki."

"A symptom of something greater. The rules are not what they should be," the old man whispered. "The impossible is within our grasp."

It didn't really make much sense to her, but she nodded again. "And the third?"

"The third…" He smiled warmly, the way a doting grandfather might gaze upon his beloved granddaughter. "The third is the piece that I will require your help securing, if you are willing to lower yourself for one such as I."

Medb waved a casually dismissive hand. "I wouldn't be doing it for you. If you win the War, I win the War. But you know that already."

"Of course, of course." The old man's expression didn't change. "The final piece I require. Within the only western church within the Fuyuki City limits, there is a priest by the name of Kirei Kotomine. You can hurt him as badly as you like, but I need him alive." The old man lowered his head respectfully. "Tomorrow night, bring me the priest, my Queen, and our victory will be assured. Bring me the priest, and I will ensure that all of your wishes will be granted."

Love you all. Thanks for your continued readership and comments and support! c:

Next chapter: Groundwork