He is me and I am him.
One ends somewhere between. Somewhere between, the other begins.
The images are confused, scattered. They churn and boil, twisting and distorting and shattering and reforming. I do not have the strength to think. All I can do is watch. If I had skin, it would be clammy. If I had bones, they would shake. If I had a body, I would shiver.
Human life as fever dream.
Glass shatters. A man screams.
The sound of steel rending flesh.
The cry of a newborn.
The feel of a stone in hand. Craggy, porous. It scrapes my palm.
A city. A city.
A different city, but the same city.
Hot blood on the face. Ice in my throat.
Fire.
Fire.
Fire.
Fire in my veins. A desolate hellscape of flame and death, presided over by a
by a
by a
void that cannot be encompassed in words.
The beautiful desert. The coolness of night air. Burning in my blood.
Lament. Lament for what was taken.
The guilt in my veins.
Lament.
A middle aged man I do not know, cradling my hand and smiling. You're alive.
Lament. Someone's alive.
I am death. I will never die. I died in the fire ten years before. I will die with
a rope around my throat
the swords of my friends
my head held high because I am
I am
I am?
Lament, for you are.
Who am I?
Lament.
Who is he?
Lament for what you stole. Lament for what was stolen from you.
Who are we?
Why does it hurt?
An enemy. He stands before me.
Bare thy neck.
A lover's smile. A friend's tears.
Bare thy neck.
The throngs of innocents. Bare thy neck to save the many.
Honest work.
Lament.
Years pass.
Years pass.
Years pass.
The work doesn't end.
Honest work is honest work.
His will is honest work.
They call you
murderer
They call you
reaper
They call you
assassin
But honest work is honest work.
The purple haired girl smiles
and all is right with the world.
The voice of the angel.
the clarion call
He checks in now and then.
I don't know what to make of him.
An enemy?
You are a killer.
So are you.
You are marked in more ways than one, ◼◼◼◼◼.
A friend?
Two professionals. Different jobs in the same field.
Azrael is afforded less time to rest than me.
But then, he doesn't need rest.
Longing like a boulder in the chest.
Days gone by.
Not regrets. Not quite.
She looks so frail, doesn't she?
If I touched her, she'd crumble to dust.
Bare thy neck.
She is—
Glass breaks.
My best friend.
My-
A man screams.
Wake up, Shirou.
Wake, and lament.
Consciousnesses returned with all the grace and subtlety of a sledgehammer, and Shirou screamed. Or tried to, anyway. All that came out was a whimper as he thrashed, hands twisted into claws, gouging at the dirt, feet churning the grass.
"Emiya?" Rin's voice was panicked, startled, and with wild eyes cast in her direction, he saw her. She was covered in dust, and her sleeves had been torn. Blood ran from a corner of her mouth, and bruises mottled one hand, but she was alive, and she was here. Her hand fumbled for his, and his thrashing ceased; as he focused on her face, something familiar and comforting, the world around him began to come back into focus. Her eyes were wide, and though she didn't seem to be crying, clean streaks cut through the dust below her eyes.
Her hand was soft, and it was warm. It felt solid in a way his own body didn't.
His chest heaving uncontrollably, he fought to get his breathing under control, but it were as though his body had sprung a leak. He couldn't seem to get enough air.
"Emiya…" Rin whispered, and the most genuine, relieved smile he'd ever seen her wear spread across her face. "I wasn't sure you'd wake up."
His heart pounded, the adrenaline too much for his body to comfortably handle. He shook his head, dazed. The world spun madly around him in a way he didn't particularly enjoy. "Toh… saka…" The word dissolved into a coughing fit, and it felt as though his throat were tearing itself apart. Had he swallowed broken glass at some point? When he was once again under control, he spit a glob of blood into the dirt. "Where are we? What happened?"
Rin's voice shook. It was strange to hear. "Caster saved us. She said we're in her debt, but we're alive. She teleported us away from Kirei. Said he wouldn't be able to track the spell."
Someone seemed to have replaced his skull with something jagged and sharp, with rusty nails jamming into his brain. He should just go back to sleep, where it didn't hurt, where he wouldn't have to—
Lament.
—no, being awake was better, actually.
His vision continued to clear, and his surroundings resolved themselves into a park. Not the park, the one where
he burned
the last War had ended, but one of the many smaller ones dotting the city like tiny gardens of peace. Snow was lightly falling, and had begun to accumulate everywhere but a circle about five yards across, with him directly in the center. Now that he'd noticed it, he could feel the quiet buzz of the spell Rin was maintaining over the two of them, keeping them dry. "Archer…? Did you get him out?"
Rin made a sound somewhere between a snort and a sniffle. "Yeah, no thanks to Caster." She held up the back of her hand; more of her Command Seal was a dull red than it had been before the fight. "Only one left, but he's alive. He woke up about fifteen minutes ago, and he's keeping an eye in spirit form right now."
"Fifteen…" Shirou groaned, rubbing his head with a hand that felt like jelly. "How long have I been out?"
"About an hour," Rin said. Some of the strength was beginning to come back into her voice. It was reassuring; Rin on the verge of tears was not a Rin that felt natural to hear.
He looked down at the small splat of blood on the ground. "Shouldn't I be in a hospital?" he asked before his brain could catch up to what his mouth was saying.
Rin looked at him like he'd just eaten a fly, and for a moment, everything was normal again. "That'd be an awful idea for about a hundred reasons, Emiya, but if you need a reason, when a person gets hit with the kind of magical backlash you did, the less you move them, the better."
He opened his mouth to speak.
"And I'm not carrying you home again," she grumbled. "Once was enough. Any more and I'll have to start charging you. I'm not a taxi."
Shirou smiled painfully. "Did I ever thank you for that?"
Rin sighed. "I don't remember. It feels like years ago. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss when Berserker was the scariest thing we had to deal with."
"Well, thank you," Shirou said. "Not just for that. For everything. I'd probably be dead if it wasn't for you."
With an uncomfortable shift, Rin looked away. "Well, you saved my life first. Sort of. And then you were just so pathetic that it wouldn't have been right to leave you be. What kind of protector of the city would I be if I didn't repay that debt?"
Shirou smiled at her, then let his head roll back to gaze up at the sky. The snow danced on the breeze, sliding off the small dome of magic Rin had built for them. It felt a little like being in some kind of strange reverse-snow globe. It was beautiful.
They sat in silence. Shirou couldn't feel the cold. That was either a really bad thing, or Rin was also warming them both while they rested.
A question gnawed at Shirou's gut. He didn't want to break the silence, but he could finally wait no longer. "What about Assassin?"
Rin sighed. "Caster said he vanished at the same time we did, but also that she had nothing to do with it, so I don't know what that actually means. You're still a Master, so I'm guessing he didn't poof because he died. If I had to guess? He's wandering around in spirit form looking for us. Or… you know. Whatever."
An image sprang unbidden to Shirou's mind of Assassin going door to door with Lost Master posters, and he snorted. Rin gave him a strange look, but didn't question him. "He'll find us," he said, still smiling. "Even if he has to meet us back at the house, he'll find us."
"If he wants to find us after that," Rin said cryptically.
They lapsed into silence again. A car passed in the distance. A crumpled newspaper tumbled awkwardly by. The snow was falling harder, now, the flakes fat and heavy.
This time, she was the one to break the silence. "You're hurt, Shirou." She sounded distant. A touch clinical.
"Hurt?" he frowned. "I mean, yeah, I ache all over, but—"
"Not physically. Not any more than you were after Berserker, anyway, and you were up and moving and everything fine then. You were really busted up, but… ultimately, you were fine." Rin chewed on her lip, looking off into the distance. "I don't know what I feel, but I feel it. It's your…" She seemed to fumble for words. "Energy, I guess. Your mana. It's wrong."
Shirou smiled weakly. "We knew that, right? The whole... switch thing."
Rin shook her head. "That was just your body being stuck as a partial conduit. This is… new. I only noticed it after Caster was gone, but I don't know when it changed. I don't think she did it to you."
"Wrong? New?" Shirou's smile became a frown. "You're not describing it very well."
For a second, he thought she was going to slap him. "That's because it's subtle, dumbass. I can barely feel it. If I knew what it was, I'd tell you." She grimaced. "Magical energy is colorless. It doesn't have any kind of inherent… anything until we add intent to it, but a drop of color is all it takes to tint it. When I look at you, when I see the magic that flows through you, it feels a little like—" She stopped herself, her dirty, streaked face going a little pale. "No, I don't know what I'm saying. I'm tired, Emiya. I'm probably seeing things that aren't there."
"I trust you," he said earnestly. "We'll figure it out. We always do, right?"
She didn't reply.
"Rin?" he said.
She blinked at him.
Shirou raised one hand. Fully extended, the tips of his fingers passed through her spell, and where his fingers were exposed, he could feel the bitter cold, the gentle wind that could so easily turn cruel, the drip of icy water. "What are we going to do?"
Rin didn't respond.
"We fight, obviously," Shirou said, and he sounded distant, even to himself. "But… what do we do?"
The sound of a slow exhalation to his side. "I think the first thing we do is go home. Sakura's still home alone, and we should make sure she's safe."
A wry smile tugged at his lips. She was a better person than she pretended to be. "Yeah. She's probably worried sick. She needs to know we're okay."
"Are we okay?" Rin didn't sound like herself. She sounded tentative in a way he wasn't sure he'd ever heard her before. "That was our chance. Our one chance. We had surprise. He was at his weakest. And we blew it. He's only going to get stronger from here."
"We can't change what's already happened," Shirou said, much more firmly than he actually felt. "Yeah, that didn't go as well as it could have, but…" His head was still swimming uncomfortably, and that made it hard to order his thoughts. "We know more than we did before. We know it's Kirei, not Zouken. We know who the angel is, a little bit, and it sounded like Assassin knew him, so we might be able to find out more next time we talk. We know he's got Lancer and Rider as allies, and we know how strong he is. I'm not sure how the church blew up, but that was his sanctuary, and it's gone. If Kirei had a workshop or something, he doesn't anymore."
Rin continued staring out into the middle distance. "Is that enough?"
"It will be," Shirou said. "You're brilliant, Rin. Sakura is too, and Assassin. I'm not sure about Archer but… Archer and Assassin are powerful. You're an amazing mage. And it's not just us. Now we know Caster and Saber are Abaddon's enemies, too. They're not our friends, but they want the same thing as us right now. I don't know about Illya and Berserker, but I don't think they'd want anything to do with him either."
"Illyasviel is a loner," Rin said distractedly. "She won't want anything to do with him. She'll probably see him as an insult to her family and to the Grail War system. But you can't forget those runes on the Summoning Circle. I know it means nothing to you, but they were Einzbern magic. She could be involved."
He tried to imagine Kirei— no, Abaddon — and Illya standing side by side. It wasn't something he could picture. Not in any kind of way that felt like truth. "I don't think so," he said. "I think she'll be his enemy too, when he knows about him."
Shirou had never heard someone snort hopelessly before, but Rin managed it. "You seem real sure about that."
"Well," he replied with forced brightness, "if nothing else, Illya really hated Rider. They probably wouldn't work together, no matter what."
Rin gave him a withering look, but broke down into a tired sigh. "You might be right." She glanced down, her fingers interlacing.
Shirou pushed himself up to a sitting position. A spike of pain rammed through his head at the sudden change in verticality, but he smiled through it. He hoped it didn't look like a grimace. "We should get moving. She's waiting for us." He held out a hand. "Both of us."
Rin closed her eyes, and for a moment, she looked as though she were about to burst into tears. Then the moment passed, and when she opened them, determination burned within. "We'll figure this out," she said, grasping his hand in an iron grip, and Shirou wondered whether her hope was real, or if she just couldn't let herself look weak anymore.
If Artoria's Master was an enigma, Caster's Master was an open book, and every single page was blank.
His name was Souichirou Kuzuki, and he taught at a local school. That much, she had been able to glean from conversations as the two of them passed her on the stairs, but beyond that, there didn't seem to be anything to the man. At first, Artoria had thought that he was Caster's puppet, the way Caster clearly wanted her to be, but the genuine love and affection she saw in Caster's eyes whenever they were together seemed to run contrary to that. He never spoke first; he only ever seemed to speak when spoken to. At times, he seemed more a mannequin than a man, and he'd never taken the slightest interest in anything that she'd been able to see.
Which made it so weird that he was currently standing on one of her steps, gazing down at the town, just behind her. "Do you hate her?" His voice was as bland and uninflected as always. Mashed potatoes without salt or butter or garlic. Artoria didn't get the sense that he cared much one way or the other whether she did. There was a strange kind of safety in that.
Artoria set her jaw stubbornly. "She hasn't really given me a lot of reason not to."
Kuzuki didn't respond, his curiosity apparently sated. But still, he didn't move.
The wind blew softly. Flakes of snow danced in the cold air, the way they always had. Artoria's breath steamed out before her, and though she would not be hurt by this cold, she was overtaken by a sudden, desperate longing for home and hearth. And if not that, then she'd settle for better company. "Do you want something, Kuzuki, or are you just going to stand there and stare at me? It's kind of creeping me out."
"When the time comes, Artoria Pendragon, are you willing to die for her?" His tone was no different than it had been a moment before; to him, it sounded as if each question was of equal importance. Maybe they were.
No was the easy answer. The one she wanted to give. That every fiber of her being ached to give. She hated Caster. She hated this war. She wanted no part of it to begin with, and she certainly didn't want to die for her loathsome Master. No matter how it happened, it would be a stupid, useless death. The punchline to the joke that was her summoning.
But…
When she'd told that boy on the stairs that duty was something you followed no matter how you felt about it, she'd meant it on a fundamental level. Even as young as she was, she'd spent a great deal of time amongst knights of the realm; though no man was perfect, there was often a clear dividing line between the Good Knights and the Bad Knights. The good ones followed their code through to the bitter end. The bad ones lived for themselves above all. They couldn't see that there was anything greater to the world than themselves.
She wouldn't be like them.
She couldn't be.
She had to look no further than her own Master to see the kind of person you became when you lived only for yourself.
Kuzuki waited patiently for an answer. He seemed like the kind of man who could outlast steel.
"A knight's duty is to her lord," she said, and she could hear the tension in her own voice, even as she said it. The words tasted like her own blood. "If I am given no other choice, I will."
"Interesting," was Kuzuki's only response.
"Interesting?"
"I had anticipated the answer, but I had not expected to believe you."
Artoria's face twisted into a wry expression that wasn't quite anger. "Do I strike you as a liar?"
"You struck me as a child," Kuzuki said simply. "You may have gathered that I work in a school, these days. Most children do not possess the sort of willpower it would take to die for something so ephemeral as an ideal. Especially one that runs so counter to one's own desires."
"I had to grow up fast," she muttered darkly. "I never had things as easy as you seem to think."
Kuzuki didn't immediately reply. "You never did have much of a childhood. The Wart, was it?"
Anger flared behind her chest, hot and bright, and she whirled, Caliburn in hand. The tip came to a halt inches from Kuzuki's breast, and it did not waver. "You do not get to call me that," she said, and she could hear the dangerous buzz in her own voice. "You presume too much."
The stony face before her did not soften — she did not think it capable of softening — but its eyes closed, the corner of one lip quirking in something that was almost a smile. "My apologies," he said. "I did not intend to offend." He didn't fear her, and she knew that, but the reminder that he would not even flinch for her cut deep in a way she wasn't sure he'd even considered.
Her eyes narrowed, she lowered the sword, trying to ignore the pang of insecurity that accompanied the gesture. "Just don't do it again."
Like a hot knife through butter, Caster's voice rang out from behind Artoria, cutting through the (fairly one-sided) argument. "Artoria. Souichirou. To me." Kuzuki didn't move, save for his eyes. Artoria turned sheepishly, Caliburn's tip resting sadly on the ground.
Artoria's Master was a pale woman, but the person who stood before her now was ashen. Nothing on the visible parts of her face indicated any distress, but the greyish pall to her skin told a different story. For one brief, ludicrous moment, Artoria wondered if Caster was dying. Her robes flowed around her like water, billowing in the breeze the way they always did, but there was something about the posture of the woman underneath that spoke of stiffness and anxiety. When she spoke, her voice was as strong as it ever was. "I saved Archer and Assassin's Masters from our enemy. Their debt will prove useful in the days to come."
Artoria thought back to the pair; the girl in red and the boy in blue. Good people. People she might have come to like, in another life. The boy had been more than a little condescending, if well-meaning, and he had humiliated her. The girl had been the real threat between the two of them, judging by her skill at magic, but she would have been easy prey for Caster if she'd been giving her all. "More flies tangled up in your web," she muttered.
Caster did not rise to the bait. She did not even incline her head to meet Artoria's gaze; rather, she seemed to gaze at a point directly between Kuzuki and Artoria herself. "I met our enemy," she said instead. "The eighth piece."
Kuzuki made a humming sound deep in his chest; one of thought and acknowledgement. "And what did you learn?"
"He is a Divine Spirit, clad in the flesh of the Overseer." Her voice was level, but Artoria could not help a gasp.
"A Divine—"
Caster held up one hand, the black glove clean and unmarried. "He is powerful, yes. Stronger than me. Stronger than any one participant in this war. Had I tried to fight him there, I would have been cut down."
Artoria's mouth fell open. Such an open admission of weakness… It wasn't like her Master. Kuzuki, on the other hand, only nodded. "I assume you are not unprepared for this eventuality," he said.
Caster nodded. "Rather than fight him, I took from him his prey. I do not think he will let this insult pass. He will retaliate. I am planning for him to do so." Her head moved, her gaze focused on the temple above. "Our stronghold is guarded, but the time for subtlety has passed."
"Your plan?" Kuzuki asked.
Caster smiled, the edge of casual cruelty returning to her expression. There was something uncomfortably comforting about it. "When he comes for us, he will not find a temple, ripe for the plundering. He will find a fortress the likes of which the world has not seen since the fall of Troy." With a swirl of fabric, she swept confidently up the stairs, passing Artoria without a second glance. "Come with me. Both of you. We have much to prepare."
This was bullshit.
"This is bullshit," Lancer muttered. The side of his face burned. A jagged cut ran down the length of his face, scabbed over as though it had been inflicted days before rather than hours. On a normal human being, it would have left a twisted scar that would mark him for the rest of his life; on a Servant, it would probably be gone this time tomorrow.
That was a little disappointing, to be honest. He was proud of his battle scars, and this special Servant's body had retained none of them. By the time he'd finally died, he'd had more scar tissue than unbroken skin; the sign of a life well lived and battles well fought. Now he looked like a baby-faced boy who had never tasted battle before. It was embarrassing.
Not that he was proud of that injury. It hadn't come from glorious combat. Not really, despite the fact that he'd been fighting that crimson bastard when it had happened. No, this one he'd gotten when their glorious leader had fucked up his mana and blown the church straight to Hell while Lancer had been standing next to it. They'd originally gone back to the church to try to rest and recover, but that hadn't lasted very long before said church had been reduced to a smoking crater, so they'd had to go with plan B.
Medb blinked at him, her wide eyes dark, stormclouds covering the bubbly mask she usually wore. "I'm surprised to hear you say that, Cu," she said, and for one of the first times maybe ever, she sounded like she was speaking to him as a person and not a plaything. It wouldn't last; when she remembered the big ugly bruise across one side of her face could conceivably be blamed upon him and his refusal to work with her, she'd go right back to the condescension and manipulation. "I thought you liked Abaddon. Better than that shitty priest, right?" The events of the last hour had shaken them both, though neither was willing to admit it to the other.
Plan B was a shitty motel. Abaddon, muttering to himself about some bullshit, of which Lancer could only catch about one word in three. His train of thought had sounded like it was running in circles by the time they had arrived and he had retreated, alone, into one of the rooms. He needed rest, he'd kept saying. He needed to think. Whatever that meant.
"They're coming for us," Abaddon had whispered, standing in the doorway of the motel room they had rented with the last of Medb's pocket change. "They won't stop until we're dead." His voice was quiet, but it shook subtly — with fear or anticipation, Lancer couldn't tell.
"So we're fighting?" Medb had asked, anger still buzzing in her throat like an angry trapped wasp.
"I need to think," Abaddon had said, and closed the door, shutting them out.
Lancer had remained silent.
The fluorescent lights hummed overhead, a creaky old fan turning lazily a few feet away. No one else but the two of them sat in this musty old excuse for a public sitting room. A slight draft tickled his hair, but he was too preoccupied to take any pleasure in the simple sensation.
Condescension and disgust dripped from Archer's words like venom. "So, what, then? Not only following orders like a trained dog, but cooperating with someone you hate? What's that sound like to you?" Dull rage swelled within Lancer, sweeping everything else away, his easygoing manner gone. A question as precisely placed to do the most harm as any strike Gae Bolg had ever made. He was not—
Lancer took a deep breath, swallowed his pride, and thought a quick prayer to whatever gods might be eavesdropping. "Medb," he said, and he hoped he sounded exactly as laconic as he didn't feel.
Medb frowned, and for a brief moment, she looked like… well, like a regular girl. Not a monster. It didn't abate the disgust and hatred, but it was just enough to be disconcerting. "Yeah?"
Lancer leaned back in the creaky leather chair, staring up at the ceiling, arms crossed over his chest. He was silent for a minute. He wasn't good with words, the ideas he couldn't get out of his head were awful, and as much as he hated it, Medb was the only person he had to talk to about this shit. It was her or the wall, and at least Medb could talk back. "You're a bitch, but you know me better than anyone alive."
Medb nodded, playing along. He could see the gears turning in her head, see her consider what would the best manipulation tactic at this moment. Understanding? Condescension? She probably saw whatever she thought he was about to say as a way to get another of her hooks into him, but she feigned charisma and empathy well when she wanted to. "We have a history," she said noncommittally.
Lancer sighed, fixing his inhuman eyes on a spot where water damage had discolored the plaster tiles above his head. "Am I still me?" he asked finally, loathing with every fiber of his being the vulnerability inherent in those words.
Medb studied him, but he figured that was as much a part of the act as anything. She'd been watching him a lot since they had joined up with Abaddon, and he doubted there was anything new for her to learn at the moment. For maybe the first time ever, he felt precariously balanced on a precipice, waiting for her answer. The silence was agonizing. "You've never been good with taking orders," she said. "There wasn't a single person in the world who could have commanded you to be near me this long." She smiled sweetly. "But I would have gotten there eventually. I keep telling you, you'll be mine." Even the threat had less bite than she could usually muster.
She's right. Everything else I can justify, but… Lancer grimaced to hide the cold icicle of fear that had been thrust through his chest. Abaddon had never commanded him to stay; that would have been easy, because after that first command, it would have been obvious why he stuck around. But if all Abaddon had to do was want something for Lancer to be bound, and not to have to speak it aloud… That was something far more terrifying. An invasion that he couldn't understand or be comfortable with. A violation. "Go to hell," he said, but his heart wasn't in it.
Her smile faded, and she looked away from him. She'd always been a tiny person, but now she seemed somehow even smaller, more fragile. "You're afraid of him, aren't you?" she said quietly. Unconsciously, she reached up to touch the bruise on her cheek, lightly dragging dainty fingers across it. Two of her nails had broken. A nasty scrape ran down the length of one arm, and there was a tear in the dirty fabric of the t-shirt they had purchased only that morning that genuinely didn't look at all sexy and intentional. Her hair was dirty and knotted, her tiara nowhere to be seen.
He'd never seen her so far from put together before. Even in her most frantic moments, there had always been something commanding and otherworldly about her. Now she just looked like a girl in her twenties who had taken one too many hits to keep smiling. He didn't reply.
The lights' hum felt like an accusation.
"He's stronger than us," she said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence. "You can't disobey his commands, but if I tried to fight back, I'd be dead too. I'm not used to people being so much more powerful than me." Her voice was distant. "So this one time, if you're scared too, I won't make fun of you. You're a bastard, but you're the only one I've got to talk to too."
The fan turned, uncaring. Once a revolution, it squeaked quietly.
Twin snakes of fear and rage coiled in his chest until one could not be distinguished from the other. "So," he said, forcing that false carelessness back into his voice, "you do think he's got a spell on me."
Golden eyes flicked to him from under tangled hair, and Medb smiled sadly. "I don't think you've made a single decision of your own in all the time since he showed up. I think you can only think rebellious thoughts now because he's asleep. I— Cu?" she broke off with a surprised squeak as he stood and pushed past her.
In moments, she was out of sight. She wasn't following him.
He and Abaddon needed to talk.
Next Chapter: Why We Fight