Note: In honor of this chapter, my partner and I made mapo tofu last week. It was really good. Kirei bad, but he's right on this one.

The plate of food the weird little man slid before Abaddon radiated such an aura of white hot spiciness that space itself seemed to bend around it. Lancer's nose burned just from sheer proximity, something that he had never really considered was possible. What sat before his Master was not anything so peaceful as food — it was a weapon. It was clearly something that the owner of the restaurant had deployed in order to kill the guy who looked like that bastard priest. What sort of person would eat such a thing? What sort of person would willingly subject themselves to such horrors, even if it were the last available food on the whole planet?

Abaddon dipped his spoon into the mapo tofu and ate a big bite without any hesitation.

Lancer and Medb watched with bated breath.

Abaddon closed those unnerving blue eyes, chewed thoughtfully, and swallowed. Silence descended upon the table. Nobody moved.

The restaurant itself was almost empty — the place was a dingy hole in the wall, barely on the right side of clean. There had been a sign out front, proclaiming the place's name, and the fastenings on one of the characters had come partially undone, letting it dangle limply. Lancer hadn't bothered to remember what it was called. It was badly lit, without a single window to remind a person that the outside world existed, and the flickering lights made a poor substitute for the sun. The chairs were old, and the tables were older; the booth they were sitting in looked like it hadn't been maintained much more recently than the theater had. Lancer had eaten in less appealing places, but those had mostly been literal dungeons that he'd been unceremoniously tossed into. He couldn't fathom what would draw a person to such a place, but Abaddon had insisted that this establishment had meant a great deal to Kirei, and so, wanted it to be the first human food he would ever be allowed to eat.

It was much too early to be serving mapo tofu, even in a place as fundamentally wrong as this, but the owner had made a big show of how "Father Kirei-sama," his most loyal customer, was always welcome, no matter the time of day, and had led them to the cleanest booth in the place. (That was a little like picking out the cleanest stall in a full stable to Lancer, but he tried to appreciate the effort.) He hadn't even taken Abaddon's order, but he had asked whether his "distinguished guests" would like anything as well. Medb had demanded only a bottle of sake all to herself, and Lancer had ended up with the saddest, limpest, greasiest plate of dumplings he had ever had the misfortune of imagining.

He had killed people for lesser insults than that dish. Medb had seemed discontent with her alcohol, but she was still putting on a show to impress upon Abaddon how innocent and lovable she was, so she wasn't currently trying to burn the place to the ground or crucify the owner with his own ribs. Lancer wondered how long the honeymoon period would last before she got impatient. It didn't usually take very long, and he was pretty curious to see how that particular trainwreck would go down. He hoped it would end with Medb dead, but he was having trouble getting enough of a read on Abaddon to calculate the odds of that happening.

A bead of sweat formed on Abaddon's forehead, and he sighed cryptically. "So this is what I have been missing," he murmured reverently. "Mortal ingenuity truly is incredible." He took another bite, the hateful sauce dripping off of his spoon.

Lancer leaned back into the booth's awful cushion, frowning. "Well, if you think that's good, wait until you try something that's actually, you know, food."

Medb shot Lancer a narrow-eyed look of scorn that he was pretty sure Abaddon wouldn't see, and she rested her luxurious head on his massive bicep. "I'm so glad you like it," she said sweetly. This was absolutely ridiculous. She looked like a child next to him. Lancer actually felt embarrassed for her.

Lancer's master opened his eyes, and smiled down at the top of Medb's head. "Do you want some?" he asked warmly.

The spasmodic look of horror that passed over Medb's face was fleeting, surprising, and oh-so-satisfying. "Oh, thank you," she said smoothly, "but I just couldn't, Abaddon, darling. This is your experience, after all. I wouldn't want to take that from you." She took a swig of sake to recompose herself, like it was ale.

Abaddon actually looked deeply disappointed, as though he were offering her manna from heaven itself and not just… raw pain concentrated and condensed into some tofu and some pork and some bean sauce from hell. "I see," he said, and took another bite. Sweat ran down his face, and his cheeks had taken on a slight red tinge. "It really is delicious."

"Is it really a new experience if you're still Kirei?" Lancer asked idly. He poked at one of the dumplings, and the tip of his finger came away glistening with thick grease. More like slime, honestly. "I mean, Kirei ate here all the time, from how that weird little dude was acting."

Setting his spoon onto the rim of the plate, Abaddon undid the top button of his shirt. Heat was radiating off of the man.

The trio had stopped on the way to get him some clothes that weren't all torn up and burned and bloody, so he was wearing jeans and a black-and-white button up shirt, with bandages wrapped around his inhuman arm. It was a very disconcerting look. Medb had paid for it with some money she claimed was burning a hole in her pocket, but Lancer suspected that when she'd disappeared for a few minutes immediately after leaving the theater, she had gone back to rifle through Zouken's smoldering robes for spending cash. They'd picked up some casual clothes for Lancer and Medb, too; he was wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt that he had to say was rather dashing, and Medb had taken a liking to a pink t-shirt with the words YOUR BOYFRIEND WANTS THIS emblazoned across her chest in English. She was also wearing booty shorts that had the kanji for Queen plastered on her ass.

Looking at her made Lancer want to shake his head. Some people just had no sense of fashion.

"In a sense, you are correct," Abaddon said slowly, considering his words carefully. "I have memories of eating many things. But memory is not the same as experience. What Kirei remembers — or what Azrael remembers, for that matter — is faded. The memories are mine, and yet, someone else's. The ones I make now, as me, are more vibrant." He picked up his spoon again and started eating. He wasn't exactly rushing, but the tofu was disappearing remarkably quickly, considering what it was made of.

"Right," Lancer said. "I think that makes sense. I've only ever been me, but I guess I wouldn't see some other guys' memories the same as mine."

"It sounds like a terrible burden," Medb sighed dramatically. Lancer gave her a flat look, and she smiled innocently back at him.

"I'm still working that part out," Abaddon said softly.

After that, he ate in silence until the bowl was empty, so Lancer took the time to think. To consider.

What were they doing here?

Eating breakfast, sort of. But that wasn't really the question he was asking himself. What was the point of all this? Why was he humoring this… abomination? There was no better word for whatever this amalgam was than that. Lancer wasn't intimately familiar with the rules of magic, and his understanding of the systems involved in the Grail War itself was fairly limited, but every fiber of his being whispered that the existence that sat before him was a violation of everything that should be. And he liked him. Despite everything, he liked Abaddon.

Why did Abaddon have power over him?

He didn't know, and he didn't like it. If it wasn't a command seal, though, then it might not be a limited quantity thing — as big a show as Abaddon had made of treating him as an equal, you could never be equals so long as one guy held that much power over the other. Which brought him to his final, most important question.

Did he like Abaddon because he was better than Kirei? Or did he like Abaddon because he was being compelled to in some way?

He didn't know that either. He wanted to say that he didn't feel compelled, that Abaddon just had a kind of helpless innocence and magnetic personality that drew people to him, but… did that mean that was all it was? Or was it something more insidious? He forced himself to confront that possibility. Right now, what does that mean? Not a whole lot, at the moment. There wasn't anything he could do about it if Abaddon didn't let him. Anger prickled in his chest, but he reminded himself that he was getting ahead of himself. He was getting in his own head. There was no reason to think that any such thing was happening.

"So, bossman," Lancer said as Abaddon took his final bite, "there's something we've been avoiding."

The Pseudoservant sighed, gently pressing his napkin to his lips. "The Holy Grail." His voice was heavy.

"Specifically, the war part," Lancer replied. "Kirei was a Master, even though he lost his spells along with…" He glanced down at the one chitinous arm meaningfully. "His hand. What actually happened to his hand?"

Medb shrugged. "I didn't do anything with it. The old man said get the priest, not the arm. Should still be at the church."

Nothing but cut it off. "Anyway, you should still be a Master, just like I'm still a Servant. I don't think the Holy Grail War is the kind of thing you get to opt out of. Not to mention the fact that Rider's Master is still out there somewhere."

"He's not a problem," Medb said sweetly. "He's very obedient."

"I have spent an eternity killing," Abaddon said. "I do not wish to return to that kind of lifestyle so soon. I have no wish to grant, no more than Kirei did. Do you know the true nature of the Grail, Cu Chulainn?" His piercing eyes shifted to the woman at his side. "Do you, Medb?"

"True nature?" Lancer asked.

"It's an omnipotent wish granter," Medb said offhandedly. "What else is there to care about?"

Abaddon smiled sadly. "Does the name Angra Mainyu mean anything to either of you?"

Lancer shook his head. Medb didn't react.

"Long ago." Absently, he picked the spoon back up, and drew small circles in the remaining sauce. "All the evil in the world, condensed into a single person. There was a time when that was possible. The world was small, once. Infinity was not so infinite." He looked troubled. No, not just troubled — lost. "The being known as Angra Mainyu dwells within the Greater Grail. Hateful. Cruel. Murderous, on a scale that I alone in this room can comprehend. He is… a kindred spirit, in a sense, waiting to be born. Releasing him would doom this world."

"How do you know all that?" Lancer asked suspiciously. "I haven't heard any of this."

"I have," Medb said. Lancer gave her a questioning look, and she blinked back at him. "What? That shitty old dude was obsessed with him. I don't know why, but he mentioned him by name a few times. I didn't really listen though, because I didn't care about his wish."

"I am grateful to exist," Abbadon murmured, as though Lancer and Medb had not spoken. "but I do not like the position that I find myself in. Azrael has no wish. Kirei has no wish but to understand himself through mass destruction. What good would come of fighting the Holy Grail War, when to participate would be to unleash such a thing?"

Lancer didn't exactly know what to say to that; all this felt pretty over his head, and he felt that suspicious pull to just nod and agree with whatever his Master said that might just be in his own head. "But not wanting to doesn't change anything," he said, mainly to be contrary to that feeling. "You're still involved."

"It's a question for another time," Abaddon said firmly. "I haven't decided what I want. I am not… used to such things."

Irritation flared in Lancer's chest. "You're just going to put this off?" He accused. "So you don't want anything. What if someone else gets it?" He pointed at Medb, who blinked at him. "What if someone like her gets it?"

"You don't care about what happens to this world any more than I do," Medb said lazily. "You just want to use your lance in a world without consequences."

He could feel his face twisting. The truth was, she was right, though he objected to the phrasing on principle. He had no wish for the Grail himself; he had no grander purpose than to enjoy the thrill of the fight. That was what he wanted. For Abaddon to just abandon it-

"I know that I cannot simply bury my head in the sand," Lancer's Master said into the tense silence. "I have existed for barely more than half a day, and already, I value my own existence too much to accept the consequences of that. However I also have some… insight into who I am. The minds I am made up of. The part of me that is Kirei is desperate for it, and I do not trust myself with such temptation. That is why I cannot rush into a decision. I must truly consider what the right thing to do is."

Looking vaguely unimpressed, Medb finished her bottle of sake; Lancer had not yet mustered up the courage to touch his own food. Medb reached across the table, grabbed one of the slippery little bastards, and popped it into her mouth. The color instantly drained from her face, and she spat it back out onto the floor. It hit with a sad, wet slap and stuck.

Lancer looked down at it incredulously.

"You feel that, right?" Archer asked, staring up at the creepiest abandoned building that Rin had ever seen in her entire life. His hands flexed, as though longing for the comfort of his weapons.

It wasn't outwardly any more unsettling than any of the hundred run down, dilapidated buildings that she'd ever been around. It just looked kind of sad, and old, and badly maintained, with gaping holes where window glass once was, and peeling paint, and green growing where it shouldn't. No, what so unsettled Rin was the oppressive aura of death and disease that weighed down every inch of her physical form. Not disease, so much as… rot. There was no smell, but she wanted to cover her nose anyway.

She nodded, and she could feel her face going pale. "This is definitely the place. It all leads here."

"I couldn't feel Caster's magic," Shirou said slowly, and he looked as grey as he had when Assassin had been draining him dry, "but I can feel this." He shivered. "Assassin?"

"Great blasphemies were performed here," Assassin rumbled at their side. "Many souls were lost." He sounded almost angry. "What has been done here cannot be forgiven."

"Do we have to go in?" Shirou asked in the voice of someone who already knew the answer to their question, but who didn't want to admit that it was true. "Can't we learn anything from out here?"

Rin shook her head, but her stomach felt too tight to jab Shirou for the stupid question. "You can stay out here, if you want, but the rest of us are going in."

"You'll just get in the way," Archer said bluntly. "Stay out here and keep an eye out."

Shirou grit his teeth; Archer dismissing him seemed to be exactly what he needed to give himself courage, this time. "I'm coming in," he growled.

Archer snorted.

Inside the building, the mana in the air was so condensed and disturbed that tapping into it felt a little like trying to breathe liquid lead. Dust choked the air, and she had to hold the top of her red sweater over her mouth just to keep her lungs from filling with it. Rust and mold and rot was everywhere. In one corner of the lobby, a dessicated rat lay twisted in agonized death; the breeze of their passing collapsed it into nothing. Shirou's eyes were wide, his own shirt over his mouth, while Archer took everything in with cold eyes.

"This way," Assassin said from the direction of a hallway, and the three of them followed. He was right; every step down that path was harder and harder, until they stood before a set of doorways that led to the theater proper; the doors themselves were nowhere to be seen, and the hallways just outside were scorched and burned, as though everything had been bathed in flame. Everything, strangely, but for a single patch in the vague shape of a splayed human body.

"Some poor bastard got hit hard by whatever happened," Archer said dryly. "Wonder if he got hit by the door before he vaporized."

Rin punched him in the arm. "Someone probably died there, dumbass. Have a little respect."

Archer rolled his eyes and strolled into the theater. "Stick around long enough, and you'll figure out the dead don't deserve any special respect. They're just dead." Rin followed him in, and she clutched at her stomach, suddenly feeling as though she were about to vomit. Behind her, Shirou gasped, horrified, and for once, she couldn't exactly blame him.

The room was in shambles. All around the central raised stage, the floor had been scoured clean. Burn marks streaked the floor, and rubble was piled high along every wall, where the seating had apparently been pushed by some blast of force. She didn't have a great angle on the stage itself from the doorway, but there were unmistakably headless bodies that had been left to rot in various states of sitting up. And none of that could even touch the sickening, churning, boiling mana in the room. Only dark magic felt like this. Real curses and human sacrifices. Rin had never sensed anything that shook her so deeply to her very core.

"Okay," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "Let's try not to be here any longer than we have to." She took a shuddering breath; at least this room wasn't so choked with dust. "Archer, Assassin, keep eyes out for anyone showing up to crash the party." Archer turned right around and walked out, and he seemed to be trying to hide the gratitude on his face as he did so. "Shirou, come with me. Help me look around. Two pairs of eyes are better than one."

She glanced back at him, and he looked as sick as she felt. His mouth was slightly slack, his skin grey, with the look of someone trying not to vomit. "What are we looking for?" he asked, his voice shaky.

"I don't know," Rin said. "Anything strange. Out of the ordinary. Anything that doesn't belong." She forced her shaking legs forward, one foot in front of the other, until she stood beside the stage. She hauled herself up onto it, feeling like her body was weighted.

What she saw surpassed every single one of her worst expectations. Preparing for the Holy Grail War, she'd spent long, sleepless nights making lists of all the worst things that could happen, and how she could prepare to take steps toward dealing with them when they did. How to counter powerful spells. How to deal with people she cared about being used against her. The possibility that she would have to kill her own sister to win. She'd been exhaustive. She'd been as cynical as she could think to be. But this? The spellwork she saw engraved onto the stage? Something like this had never entered into her wildest speculations. This…

This was the nightmare scenario.

The summoning circle drew her eye in a way that wasn't magical at all, and her heart was in her throat as she approached it. Dried blood had been the medium, she thought as she knelt beside it, trying desperately to remain analytical. Every beat of her heart choked her. Her fingers brushed the outermost line, and she licked her dry lips nervously. There was no doubt that this was a summoning circle. Parts of it were almost identical to the one she herself had drawn to summon Archer, while others…

An intricately drawn ring encircled the spell, and she thought it was a binding spell. That shouldn't be possible, if you wanted to summon something so powerful as a Servant; if any mage could replicate Command Seals with a few extra lines, the school of Familiarity would be a very different beast. But… She ran her fingers inward. "Flesh?" she murmured. "Make flesh?" She only understood some of these runes. "Maybe give flesh?" Another peculiarity. You didn't have to specify anything about a Servant's flesh to summon them; that part was implied. So some manipulation of flesh was involved, then. Binding Servants and flesh, she thought with dawning horror, but she did not allow herself to pursue that line of thought. Not yet.

A mirrored pair of sigils flanked the innermost circle, and Rin frowned. These look like Einzbern designs. But even Illyasviel wouldn't… Would she? She stared at them, trying to understand what exactly she was looking at. It's a little like the bits you add to make a Servant a Berserker, so… class modification? Modulation? Is that even possible? She wasn't sure.

One rune she did recognize. "Ruler," she whispered thoughtfully, trying to recall what she knew about the rumored Ruler class. It was supposed to be something that the Grail kept in reserve, to be summoned when it felt the War required a more neutral arbitrator. Right? She didn't know much more than that. As far as she knew, it had never actually been summoned before.

The Ruler sign is part of the sigil, though, she thought. So did they summon someone as a Ruler who shouldn't be eligible for that class? Or was this more like… tricking the Grail into summoning something else through into that slot? If they were right about this spell being Zouken's doing, then she suspected the latter. Ice water ran through her veins in place of blood.

There were other pieces she didn't recognize, and these, she could barely hazard guesses for. Something about the spirit. Something about a chain? A definition of ownership?

There's an eighth Servant, she thought, and she could hardly wrap her mind around it. Rulers are supposed to be neutral parties, but if Zouken wanted them, he'll have found a way to make them not be bound to that requirement.

Combine all that with manipulating flesh, and the bindings…

Had the crazy motherfucker summoned a Servant into himself? That was impossible. That had never been done before. But…

But she couldn't ignore these modifications. She couldn't say for sure that he hadn't, not when so much of this was over her head, despite all her studying and knowledge.

"Tohsaka," Shirou called, and her head shot up like a deer hearing the crack of a hunter's rifle. He was standing on ground level, examining something she couldn't see in his hands. Trying to get her breathing under control, she scooted over to the edge.

"Let me see," she said.

He held out something that looked like a petrified slug, intricately carved in stone, with a mouth bristling with sharp, pointed teeth. It was cold to the touch, but it did have a faint aura of power. "What do you think this is?" he asked, and to his credit, his voice sounded more steady than hers probably did.

He was uncomfortable, but he didn't know enough to know how afraid he should be.

Rin blew out a quiet breath. "It looks like some kind of talisman. I think this is a protection charm, so…" She worked through that one in her head. "A lot of people died to power this spell, right? So maybe Zouken enchanted this to mark himself as off limits to the siphon."

Shirou nodded slowly. "That makes sense."

She was shaken enough by all of this that she gave him a small smile. "Good work, Emiya. Keep that, for now. We can look at it closer later."

He blinked at her, then smiled back. "Thanks," he said simply. His straightforwardness was a little cloying, but… it helped steady her. The bastard.

"Keep looking, though," she said quickly, turning back to search the rest of the stage. "We don't know what else might be around." Now that she could tear her eyes away from the circle itself, there was another oddity; a black robe, slightly singed, surrounded and half-filled by the dessicated corpses of more slugs, not unlike the carving Shirou had found. She had no idea what to make of that. Zouken was known to be a bug-user, but she had no concept of what that really meant in practice. Bugs in his pocket? Maybe. Bugs in his brain? Definitely. She just didn't have enough context to understand what she was looking at.

Upon closer examination, there was another of the charms in the pile of dead worms, this one on a leather cord, presumably to be worn around the neck. This was probably Zouken's, then, she thought. So… the other one was someone else. That's probably Shinji.

Sensing a presence at her side, she turned to look. Shirou was standing there, solemn. Standing so steady, in fact, that she realized that she was shaking. Ridiculous, she thought petulantly. I can't let him look stronger than me.

She inhaled slowly, and exhaled it even slower. Then she did that again and again, until she had once again found her composure. She almost felt grateful, though she wasn't about to say that to the dolt out loud.

"Are you okay, Tohsaka?" Shirou asked quietly. It looked like he'd jammed the talisman into one of his pants pockets, and the tonal incongruity of that was enough to make her smile a little, despite herself.

"Yeah," she said, forcing her voice to be level. "I know you can feel it, but—"

He shook his head. "You're more in tune with these kinds of things than I am," he said earnestly. "I can feel that it's really bad, but I can't imagine how it must feel for you." He glanced over at her, and concern was written across his face. "Do you need to take a break?"

She shook her head. "If I leave, I won't come back. We need to find everything we can, first." She blinked, noticing for the first time that he was holding something else. "What's that?"

He held up something that looked to be an ancient horseshoe, beaten and worn down by the steady march of time. It was dirty and crusty, with a word she couldn't read carved into it. "Horseshoe? It was over there, by the circle."

Rin frowned. "I don't know what purpose a horseshoe would serve in a summoning ritual other than a catalyst. It must have some connection to whoever Zouken summoned."

Shirou blinked. "Zouken was—"

She shook her head, and the motion made her queasy. "We'll compare notes after. Let's get this over with."

They stayed for about ten minutes; that was all Rin could take, but by then, she thought they'd gotten everything they were going to get. Aside from memorizing as much of the circle as she could, Shirou also discovered an inert familiar, too damaged to identify; it looked like someone had been spying, but that didn't tell her anything of value. They should just get out of here.

Rin stood at the theater's exit, the horrific scene behind her. She could feel Shirou's eyes on her back, but there was one thing she just couldn't leave without doing. "What happened here is monstrous," she said quietly. "I'm burning this place to the fucking ground."

Shirou was silent, and for a moment she thought he was going to protest. "Can you keep it from spreading?" he finally asked. His voice was heavy.

She nodded.

"Then burn it down," he said, and walked out, leaving her alone in the oppressive theater.

She turned slowly, etching every last detail into her mind as permanently as she could. This is what happens when you don't care about anything but results, she thought distantly. This… evil. How many people aren't going home? How many loved ones won't ever see the people they care about again? Rage chewed her insides to pieces, and she latched onto that feeling, stoking the flames within until they threatened to burst forth and consume her.

She raised one hand, the righteous flame coursing through her, dancing invisibly between her fingertips like tiny arcs of static electricity. Her eyes fastened on the stage, the gun in which the killing spells had been loaded like bullets. Her vision wavered, sharp edges blurring and dancing like the distorted haze of heat over a bonfire.

"Burn," she whispered, and snapped her fingers.

They stood before the towering inferno, heat baking their fronts. It had spread quickly, but Rin had a hand out, invisible barriers keeping the buildings all around the conflagration from catching. It had spread supernaturally quickly, and it would end rapidly; the building would be a heap of blasted, broken wood and metal and melted glass before the first responders even arrived. Such a place needed to be destroyed. That was a stain that would never have been removed; left to fester, it would have become the kind of curse that caused real damage to people who stayed exposed to it for too long. Rin thought of it as cauterization, because that's all it was. The city might be able to heal if the infection was burned out.

They stood in silence, watching the fingers of flame lick the sky, as if ever grasping for something just out of reach.

Rin felt hollow.

"The authorities will soon arrive," Assassin said. "We should not be here when they do."

"I agree," Archer said idly. "Your barriers will hold long enough for this to fizzle out."

A strange part of Rin wanted to stay and watch. To verify that the beast was well and truly dead, though there was no beast to kill. To see the wound purified, then. Reluctantly, though, she nodded, tying off her spellwork and lowering her hand. "Alright. We can talk while we walk. I think I have a trail to follow."

"You do?" Shirou asked. "What kind of trail?"

The dumbass was probably picturing her sniffing around like a bloodhound or something. "That kind of magical disruption always leaves a residue, and I'm attuned to it now." She pointed in an otherwise arbitrary direction. "They went that way. Let's see what we can find."

As they walked the winding, meandering path, Rin filled the others in on the evidence they'd found, and the dots she'd managed to connect. It didn't take as long to go through it as as she'd expected; most of what they'd gathered all led to the same inevitable conclusion. "To summarize, basically, I think this… this stupid motherfucker, had the bright idea to summon an eighth Servant into himself. Zouken might be running around as a Pseudoservant right now. I don't know who he's fused himself with, but it had to be someone powerful for the residue to be that strong."

"And that's bad," Shirou said helpfully.

Rin rolled her eyes. "Yes, Shirou, that's bad."

"Allow me to see this catalyst," Assassin said, materializing right there in the street. The area had been decimated, so it wasn't exactly bustling, but it was also far from the kind of subtle behavior she'd expect from an Assassin. She held out the horseshoe, and he took it gingerly. He even clanked as he walked. That was ridiculous. He held it up to his eyelights, turning the rough metal this way and that. "The word engraved upon it. Do thou recognize it?"

Rin and Shirou both shook their heads.

"It is written in the tongue of the old Hebrews, ancient even when I donned the mask." He paused, as if thinking, but Rin didn't know how much brain was behind that skull. He barely seemed like a person most of the time. "Gehenna." He tilted his head curiously, the blue flames narrowing into something approximating slits. There was hardly a face to read, but Rin could feel the recognition pouring off of the skull.

"Is that a person?" Shirou asked. "Gehenna? I don't think I've heard of him before."

"Not a person. A place." There was a note of something Rin couldn't identify in the armored giant's voice. "They called it the burning place. A valley in old Israel. A place of flame and death, where the souls of the wicked were gathered."

"Wait a minute," Rin said, shaking her head, trying to process the strange words that he was saying to her. "Hell? Are you talking about Hell?"

"A more complicated answer than thou might expect, Rin Tohsaka." He held the horseshoe back out to her, and as she took it, he faded away. Beside her, Shirou seemed to relax, as the burden of supporting him lightened. "Many of Allah's most trusted messengers and servants were tempered in those flames of perdition. Thou say that thou believe him to have fused with a Divine Spirit. I believe the name carved into this catalyst bears this out."

Shirou looked confused. "Are you saying… Sakura's grandfather summoned an angel?"

Not only a Divine Spirit. An Angel. Rin knew very little about those beings. Their existence was hotly debated, even among the highest echelons of magecraft. One thing was for sure, though — if angels did exist, they were not the white-robed, haloed cherubs most people thought of when they heard the words. "Is that even possible?" she whispered. Dark fear coiled its way through Rin's belly once again, and what Archer said next was gasoline on the fire.

"I think we should tell them," Archer, who had been so quiet up until now, said suddenly. "They're running blind. They need to know."

Rin didn't know what was happening here, but her Servant was clearly more clued in than his smug aura seemed to allow. If she hadn't already been afraid, she would have been now.

"Thou art correct, Archer. There can be no doubt that this is related," Assassin said heavily. "Contractor. Rin Tohsaka. There is a matter of grave importance we must discuss."

Note: Thank y'all so much for everything. I've been really struggling with writing for months, but in the last couple weeks, I think it's starting to come back. I've been having some really cool ideas that I'm very excited to get to write about.

Next chapter: Penumbra