Hello again everyone!
This chapter took a little bit longer than I had originally anticipated being released. This is mostly due to work as in the past few days have been particularly annoying with co-workers. But it is here now and will let you enjoy yourself. And again, if you have any questions regarding this story please hit me up with a comment or a PM. I respond relatively quickly as I enjoy talking to those who are interested in the story.
I would like to give a shoutout to FabledLife as he helped me understand one of the fundamental questions that I have about the fate universe. So if you ever see me in any story using the word "Prana", please call me out on it.
Also before you start reading, I have two announcements to make. First, if you have not read my new story, A Sword in the World of Ambrosia, please try it out, all the details are in the story itself but if you like it let me know. I mentioned in the AN of that story that I would be putting a poll out to see which story, FIMB or Ambrosia, would you guys like me to focus on. In my profile, I have added the link to a google sheet where you can cast your vote. What you guys say really matters to me so have at it!
My other announcement is that I will be writing a story that will be Fate x Azur Lane. You guys kinda know how I like to write now, and I love super deep characters like Shirou. Put him into a world that is pretty interesting and BAM, an interesting story. I only recently starting even thinking about this from the lastest JP release on FGO. If they can make the Voyager Prob a servant, I am pretty sure ship girls are totally fine. My only problem is that I am missing a part of the fleet that I want to pair Shirou with. I currently have Yukikaze, Admiral Graf Spee, Enterprise, and Jean Bart. Two were my personal decision as I am a bit bias, and another two, I asked my brother to decide as he helps me edit and make my stories sound better. I need another vanguard and another main fleet ship. So I have made another google sheet to see if you guys would help me decide. I am a huge Azur Lane fan and player and I really want to see what my mind can cook up with Shirou being thrown into the mix. What you guys decide is up to you.
And again, thanks for reading, and if you like the story, leave a follow and comment. I like all the motivation to make myself a better writer and to make better stories.
And of course happy reading!
Chapter 1: Curse the E rank luck
Shirou laid on the cold ground, shirt and pants both with massive holes in them. He could once wince and try to stay quiet while new organic material slowly filled in where the holes in his body were present.
"Ugh, this is in the way," Rin said, next to Shirou, as she was focusing intently on the wounds that Shirou's body currently supported. With a motion, she tore off the remains of the torn fabric off of Shirou's chest to get a better understanding of what and where she needed to heal to make sure that Shirou would be fine.
Shirou could hardly complain at his current situation, most of it was his fault, to begin with. Challenging a dead apostle ancestor to combat was what some, if not most people, would call suicide. The aching pain of all the former holes in his body still present in his mind as he could feel another one slowly close up as Rin sighed in exhaustion, before pulling out another gem and proceeding onto the other 7 holes that were still present in his abdomen, arms, and legs. Shirou wisely decided to stay quiet until he was inevitably questioned. Not long after Rin had finished the 7th hole and finally looked over at his face.
"Well, I hope you have learned from this, you idiot. Never have I had to use that many healing spells at once, and hopefully, that will be the last time as well. Jeez, my body feels like it is on fire. I know how much you want to keep me and Saber safe, but we can handle ourselves, you know. Those 8 years have not been for nothing after all." She said giving her male lover the best stink eye that she could muster without wincing. Shirou could only close his eyes in apology.
"I know, and I trust you two more than I can express in words. But that thing, that man, back there, he was targeting you and Saber both. He had some of his attention on me, but overall he wanted to prove to me that his ideology was correct, and taking you two away from me was the one thing I could not and would not stand." He said before trying to push his abdomen up, before wincing in pain and flopping back down onto the cold and rather firm ground. When this happened, he noticed that the tingling in his circuits wasn't from the pain anymore. That when he realized that the mana fluctuation in the air was much, much higher than normal. Something that normally could not happen.
"Rin, where are we? The mana here feels…raw, untamed, primordial. Like nothing I have ever experienced before. If not for the fact that my circuits cannot handle a load of mana like this, I would basically be able to fire off any number of swords before I ran out of mana." Shirou commented in equal parts shock and astonishment in what he was saying. Rin could only sigh and look guilty before looking Shirou dead in the eye with more than a little bit of anger.
"Unfortunately, you did something stupid that almost got you killed. And before you say that Avalon would have kept you safe, it was unable to work efficiently due to something the apostle did to the branches that had pierced you. I made some guesses, but I think Avalon was working overtime trying to make sure that none of the blood that had been coated on the branches would have any negative effect on your body. You know how powerful of a catalyst blood is and something like an apostle ancestor will really screw you up if you get infected with the blood." Rin said exasperatingly while rubbing her forehead and trying to ward off a migraine. "Anyway, since you almost died Alaya was about to claim your soul. Well me being super possessive of you and Saber, I did the reasonable thing and forced the Kaleidoscope open before, with a little help from Zelretch, moving the three of us to a new world where the spirit of humanity has very little influence and would not try to take you away at first sight of you. That is about it, to be honest, now we are just waiting for my circuits to cool down so I can finish healing you, as well as for Saber to finish transferring her soul from the throne of heroes to this world." Rin said nonchalantly, before noticing Shirou's look of incredulousness.
"Saber is what?! And how the hell did she get approval from Ayala to just straight up leave the throne of heroes? She is one of the most important people recorded in the throne for a reason, almost all have heard her name before or at least her legend. Why would Ayala give up someone so valuable?" Shirou said, trying to make sense of what was going on.
"To be honest, I don't know, and I don't care," Rin said with a shrug of her shoulders wincing while doing so, "Before we left for the portal to this world, Zelretch mentioned that he negotiated with Ayala to let Saber go, so whatever he did must have gotten on her good side. I was going to question him, but he just popped out of existence before I could say anything."
"Well, how long do you think it will take for her to come back into existence?"
"Considering how fast she said the process was happening and how long we have been here in this world, I can't imagine she will not be more than another hour or so," Rin stated factually.
"Well that's fine, hopefully Avalon will kick in soon so I can move around again since the only other way to heal is currently trying to cool down." Shirou could only say with a small smirk.
"Yeah something is going to get kicked in soon if you don't shut your mouth," Rin said with a kind of smile that you would rather not be on the bad side of, "Besides, I would not be able to kiss my stupid hero if he keeps running his mouth off." She finished while slowly making her way over to Shirou's side to claim Shirou as hers once again.
Before she could do anything like that though, an ominous presence suddenly filled the area, causing both Shirou and Rin to freeze up automatically. From Rin's point of view, it felt as if the corrupted greater grail had suddenly manifested itself in front of her again causing her to choke on the air around her.
From Shirou's point of view, he was suddenly back in the middle of the fire. All of the dread, anger, and hate present as he could only attempt to raise his head at what could cause such a feeling of hopelessness that was resonating with his soul.
With great effort, Shirou slowly began to see who or what was causing such a deathly aura to permeate into the air around both himself and Rin. What he saw was a man a little shorter than his own height, with messy black hair and a very clean black suit with a white tie that stood out like a sore thumb from the back-alley way that they were presently located.
That was not what really got Shirou's attention though. The eyes of the man that was looking at them had blood-red eyes that were slit could easily give away the man's nature. Shirou could only look at them for a few seconds before forcing himself to turn his head away from the eerie eyes that promised dread. He had turned to Rin to see what her reaction was like before duly noting that she had been suffering under the same effects that he had been as well as the exhaustion from overworking her circuits, resulting in a lot of awkward movements as she attempted to move her gaze away from the mysterious yet dangerous man in front of them.
"I must say," said the man in front of them, "I have never, in all of my years of living, seen anyone do anything like what you, young lady, have just done. Healing a mortally wounded man by using only the innate power of the world and a shiny rock with refined energy inside of it, color me impressed. But that makes even more interested in you two though. I could have sworn that did not feel any other humans in the general vicinity before a large shockwave of energy was released and all of a sudden, two new humans who happen to present while one was attempting to heal all of the damage that the other one had taken." The man said with a calm face at first, before the look in his eyes turned into fanatical interest.
"W-what the hell are you?" Rin could only ask as she needed answers and fast. Shirou could hardly move and she needed to make sure that he stayed safe. After all, wasn't he just the one who saved her life not too long ago? She turned to Shirou and motioned to the man, "I don't need this guy's nose to tell that something really sinister is up with you, bub. And stop giving us creepy eyes, it feels like we're being stalked."
"Don't worry about what I am, you should be more concerned about what you will be soon. It is not every day that I see such power flowing through humans, but when I do, I can't help but add them to the ranks of my slaves." The man spoke with a sneer in his voice, causing Rin's temper to flare, with Shirou at ground zero.
"Yeah whatever you say, jackass. Don't even try to touch us, or else you will regret it severely, that I can promise you with certainty." Rin growled at the man as she started to charge the magic crest in her left forearm, even with all the pain. Rin was really pissed off with this guy, just claiming herself and Shirou as nothing more than slaves. On the other hand, Rin was exhausted currently and was pushing herself to the absolute limit as her magic circuits slowly began to reach the temperature that they had just cooled down from, causing quite a bit of pain and uncomfortably.
While the dialogue between the strange man and his lover had started, Shirou was also pushing himself beyond his body's current limit. His circuits ached, the bones and muscles in his body still not completely settled from the healing that Rin had performed, blood roared in his ear as he slowly attempted to get up off his place on the ground, all while his body was screaming to stop.
What the pair didn't expect was a tentacle-like appendage to suddenly appear on the man's and make a quick swipe towards Rin.
Despite his body's protest, Shirou quickly traced a sword to his hand and launched himself in front of Rin to block the extra limb that was sprouting from the man's back. Shirou could only grunt in pain as the limb was much tougher than he had originally considered and was quickly knocked to the side as he could barely stand up at this point.
"What the hell?! Shirou!" Rin shouted as she looked over at Shirou for a quick second as she could hardly keep up with what was going on anymore. As she turned back to the dead man walking, she suddenly felt a warm sensation on her left arm and raised her right hand to see what it was.
She could only come to one conclusion as the smirk on the man's face seemed to only grow as came to terms with what had happened. Before any foul remarks could come out of her mouth, she felt the single most painful experience in her life suddenly hit her. She could not speak, scream, or really do anything rather fall to her knees before hitting the ground face-first while passing out and twitching erratically in her sleep as if she was having horrible nightmares while blood was steadily flowing down her arm. She only took one last glance at Shirou on her way down and could see the horror and fearfulness in his eyes with an outstretched hand before everything went black.
WMWMWM
Shirou could only stare in horror as his girlfriend, lover, companion, whatever you wanted to call her, was struck down right in front of him. He did not know what the man in front of him had actually done. There were no visible marks on Rin besides the one cut that nicked her arm. But that only solidified the option that the man had coated the weird limb that had sprung out of his back with something that caused Rin to shut down rather quickly. But as he saw the tears in her eyes as she fell to the ground, Shirou finally came back to reality. And he snapped.
He didn't care about his body anymore, he was a sword, and a sword only had one job, no matter how damaged he may be.
To be used.
He locked eyes with the man in the suit in front of him, before reinforcing himself beyond any safe level that he would normally attempt. But…
"I am the Bone of My Sword…," Shirou declared in front of the man as the unfamiliar emotion of rage washed over him like a great flood. The man only could stare as he could feel the change of power in the air and eagerly awaited what the man named "Shirou" could accomplish now that his partner was dealt with. The air turned cold and pulsing with power with every word that left Shirou's mouth. Almost as if he was reciting a prayer to a god. The man in a suit watched in anticipation of what might happen next with an exhilarated smile on his face.
"Steel is My Body, and Fire is My Blood!" Shirou shouted in front of the man as he felt the swords from within his soul slowly start to form underneath the skin allowing himself to reinforce himself even further. Upon doing this, the swords began to creak and scrape against each other causing harsh noises to ring out to the outside world.
The man in the suit could only give a questioning look as to what the sound was but quickly found out as the red-headed man was next to him, faster than humanly possible from what he knew, and about to cleave his face into two with another one of those swords that he created. He could see the lines of steel that were formed underneath from the skin that had been torn from the edges and lines of blades that were slowly beginning to stick out that made the man in the suit question whether the man in front him was made of steel or if he was even human at all. Ironic really.
That wasn't the end of the surprise though. Even though the man was able to make out the movements of the sword-wielding warrior in front of him while he approached. He suddenly felt a weightlessness throughout his body and quickly inspected himself to see what it was that he had felt. Upon looking down he could only see the bottom half of his body, spine severed all the way through, as if the man had taken a meat cleaver to his body. He was momentarily stunned at the quickness at which the man had swung his sword. He could see the huge potential in this one as well, and immediately redoubled his efforts to make this man into his slave as well.
Forcing his body to instantly regenerate, he watched as his old body disintegrated as well as the look of surprise on the man's face as he stood up and gave him a smug look.
"Well you have managed to impress me as well, and with as much potential as yours, I can see you becoming quite the wonderful subordinate in the future as well.
Allowing himself to calm down, Shirou once again ready his blade to the unknown entity in front of him. He needed to finish this quickly so that he could get Rin away and see if he could figure out what caused her to pass out.
But before he could even take one step towards the evil in front of him, his body finally broke down. After a dead apostle ancestor fight to the death, teleporting to other dimensions, and creepy men in suits attempting to make himself and his girlfriend into "slaves", Shirou was having a really bad day. And it only got worse.
The bones inside of his body were slowly starting to deteriorate, as well as his muscles began to weaken. He felt a few too many fractures in his body. If he had been fresh off of the bench with his body healed up and circuits much less fatigue than they currently are, he might have been able to fight the man in front of him to a standstill with the nearly unlimited amount of mana that seemed to be floating in the air. Unfortunately, like always, his luck had to be against him.
The man in the suit had a slight smirk on his face as he slowly walked forward towards where Shirou was withering in pain. Shirou could not do anything as the man raised a foot in front of him before spartan kicking him in the chest and sending him flying.
Shirou hit the ground rather hard right next to Rin's body and struggled to get close to her in order to make a last-ditch effort to just escape from his current situation. He tried to think of a way out of this, asking himself what Rin might do, but he could not think or do anything besides attempt to shield Rin from any further harm that may come to her by moving his body in between Rin's and the strange man.
"Wait, what?" Shirou thought to himself as he did a double-take as he saw that the huge cut over Rin's arm had closed up like it had not been there before. He could not quite believe his eyes, quickly blinked, and reconfirmed that Rin's body had healed up just fine. Shirou could only sigh in relief before the feeling of evil and hate slowly washed over him again. But it wasn't only coming from in front of him anymore. He watched in morbid fascination as his lover slowly got off the ground after losing consciousness due to the cut that she received from the strange man. Shirou was unable to see her facial expression as she stood up, as she was facing the other way.
The questions were short-lived as Shirou was speechless as his girlfriend turned around. Shirou could not utter a word in the shock that he was currently experiencing in regard to what had happened to Rin.
She still had the same raven hair that she was known for, but the tips looked like they had been bathed in blood. As Shirou's gaze slowly fell, he noticed that Rin now had a large number of gems that looked as though they were implanted in her skin all over her body. Up and down her arms and legs in different patterns and colors. They all had a faint glow to them, showing the power that was swirling in them. Shirou then moved his stare up to Rin's face where she had her eyes closed. Four gems lined under each eye that were in the shape of teardrops as well as a final teardrop-shaped gem that was barely poking out on her chin. Shirou knew Rin was beautiful, hell he made sure that she knew every day, but whatever had happened to her was trying to improve her perfectly and Shirou could honestly say that it was working. Not only that but the power that was starting to radiate off of her was slowly increasing like waves in a typhoon.
Both her beauty and power were nothing compared to when she opened her eyes.
Now, Shirou had seen some impressive mystic eyes in the past few years by working with Rin and Saber, and he always noticed that the more powerful the eyes were, the more beautiful they became. When Rin opened her eyes, Shirou could only think back to when he had finally seen Rin as more than just a "person to save", he saw her for who she truly was and could not look at her for an entire day without blushing when he realized that. He could still hear the teasing now.
But when Rin opened her eyes, he could feel the power welling up around them as she looked at him without any emotion at all.
Her eyes looked like diamonds. That is the simplest way to put it. A minute amount of light was refracted inside of her eyes and was mesmerizing to look at, although her eyes now glowed a little bit. They were the same color though, although the aquamarine glowed with a power that was not seen before. Even with her eyes changing this much now, they still had the pupils inside of them to indicate where she was currently looking. Shirou could almost see the raw energy that was being emitted from her, as she slowly looked over Shirou as if she had forgotten something.
Shirou quickly got over his feeling of admiration and attraction before focusing in on how Rin now smelled like the man who had done this in the first place. That was all before she closed her eyes once again and took a quick bow toward the man in front of her without any regard for Shirou at all.
"…" She did not say anything as the man in the suit looked quite pleased with himself as Shirou was left wondering what had happened to her. A pang of hurt suddenly hit him when Rin slowly began to walk over to the left of the man. He could only stare at Rin in both confusion and anger.
"What did you do to her?!" Shirou growled from his place on the ground where he could not move and gave the man a look of pure hate as he struggled to regain control of his body.
"And why should I tell you, after all, you will also soon be following me without any question." The man said with a smug look as he slowly began to walk toward Shirou, with Rin following behind.
"Someone of your caliber will be of great help in order to get what I want. From just comparing the feeling that the two of you give off to some of the other beings that I have working under me, you two are significantly higher. And knowing this, I can't just walk away from such perfect specimens. Unfortunately, you don't have a say in the matter." The man just smirked before slowly walking over to where Shirou was immobilized. As he reached forward towards Shirou, another sword manifested itself on his left side before being launched into the man's side.
Shirou just gave the man a withering glare as he watched the sword that he created barely cut through the skin of the man in front of him. The man only kept his smirk as he moved his hand the rest of the way to Shirou.
"I must say, you sure have a lot of fight in you," The man while slowly pulling the sword out of his side, "Hopefully that will also transfer over to the personality that will replace yours once you become my obedient servant." He finished as his hand reached out and clasped Shirou's face and created small needles to inject his blood into Shirou's body.
Shirou could only barely hold in a scream of pain as it felt like molten lava was being poured into the bloodstream. If Shirou could comprehend anything in this state, he might have said that the pain was similar to when he would create artificial circuits from his nerves, only over a long time, instead of just instantly.
With muffled grunting, Shirou was forcing himself to stay conscious through the pain, but whatever was being poured into his body was causing him to quickly lose his sense of presence around him and his vision was slowly starting to fade. He was only able to see Rin's face one last time before his vision went black.
What he noticed was how Rin seemed to be struggling with something, and that's all the information that he needed.
XxXxX
A few minutes ago…
Rin woke up with a start, before quickly looking around herself to see exactly what was happening. She would have loved any hint of where she was, but she was just surrounded by pure darkness without anything else being present.
"Ugh, where the hell am I?" She mumbled to herself while rubbing her head as it felt like she just woke up after a night of light competitive drinking with Luvia. She slowly stood up and held out her hands to search for a wall or pillar or something in this all-encompassing darkness that she was currently locked in.
"Well, well, well, it looks like the first one decided to wake up pretty early, not surprising though, minding just how much power you possess in that body of yours." A voice called out suddenly behind her.
Rin flinched a little bit but managed to hold back her voice from the surprise that came over her as she slowly turned to see the man that she and Shirou had been fighting before she got hit and passed out. It took a few seconds for the recognition to kick in though as the man now was wearing a form-fitting yukata that matched his, now longer, pitch-black hair.
"Who the hell are you?" Rin quickly asked with a glare at the man as she could feel the waves of malice and hate slowly radiating off of the thing in front of her. She held her ground though, forcing herself to not be intimidated by the ungodly entity in front of her.
"Oh, you will find out soon enough, that I can assure you. Your body is already mine, now all that is left is to make sure that your soul is thoroughly destroyed, as that will make it much easier to plant a fake personality in your body. Then, you will be the perfect slave with enough power to take care of all those annoying demon slayers." The man said with a small smirk on his face as Rin never took her glare off the man while thinking about some of the things that the man just said.
"Well, I know that this is my subconscious, but how the hell did this guy get in here, and what does he mean by destroying my soul? Although apparently, he has already taken control of my body, with the intention of using me to kill off some thorns in his side called the demon slayers. That must make him a demon then if he wants to get rid of the demon slayers. But that begs the question, why is he so interested in me specifically? He called me a specimen, but does that actually mean?" Rin asked herself, all without breaking eye contact with the smug bastard in front of her.
"So, what do you want with me then?" Rin said aloud for the man to hear her. The man then dropped his smirk before looking at her with a little bit of curiosity.
"Well, I must say, you and that man that you are with are quite intriguing. I have never seen powers that you two use and I am interested in adding you two to my collection in order to help me reach my goal. I have only ever seen similar arts in those of the other slaves that I have given power, but you and that man are still human, or at least you were. The man that you are with was something different. He still looks and speaks like a human but smells of iron, oil, and blood, something that normally isn't found in most humans." He said as Rin's eyes widened quickly before returning to their glare. She didn't know how he was able to pick up on Shirou's unique signature, but if he could that must have meant that his senses were rather heightened.
"Yeah well-"Rin was about to tell the "demon" in front of her exactly where he could shove that statement up before she lost all feeling in her feet as if they had been instantly numbed.
She looked down to see what was wrong, before watching a black mist slowly starting to slither up the bottom of her legs at a slow pace. This caused her to finally break her expressionless mask, as she looked down in surprise and a little bit of horror as she watched the first part of her feet slowly dissolve into the abyss around her.
"What the hell?" Rin said softly, more towards herself than the other being in the surrounding area as she watched as the black mist was slowly moving further up her legs. She also noticed that she lost all feeling of anything that the black mist touched, which she was briefly panicking, before calming down, shutting her eyes and going over all the information that she had acquired so far.
The man in the area just watched Rin for a few seconds before the air around them slowly began to be flooded with raw energy as blue lines ran up and down the girl, just like what the man was doing earlier, only with a much larger quantity in the girl. The man turned to the girl with blood-red eyes of interest, as could only watch as the energy that the girl was emitting was not only growing without a stop but was also slowly becoming visible to him. Blue arcs of raw energy started bouncing off seemingly nothing as the girl continued to release whatever power he was feeling.
What was most surprising, however, was that the decomposition of her soul was slowed even further as the energy seemed to be preventing the mist from progressing.
"I am impressed yet again. How does one stop their soul from being dissolved? I must admit that this has never happened with anyone that I have turned before." The man said giving Rin an intrigued look.
"Well dipshit…," Rin said in between labored breaths, "if this is my sub-consciousness…and you said something about souls being destroyed…then that just means I need…to make a reason for my soul to stay together. One of those reasons…is that this power of mine is directly connected to my soul…This means that by letting raw energy be released like this throughout my body…where my power is present…I can prevent my soul from being dissolved for an extended period of time…" Rin finished before solely concentrating on her task yet again. The mist had slowed but was still creeping up the side of her legs as she was still losing the feeling of whatever the mist touched.
"Unfortunately for you, it looks as though my blood is still doing its job, and eventually I will have full control of your body and your power." The man said with a haughty look.
"Oh I know, I took that into consideration when deciding my course of action," Rin said nonchalantly, through a strained breath. The man lost his confident look before just staring at Rin.
"What do you mean?" The man quickly asked, his tone telling of urgency.
"Oh, mister big bad guy doesn't have all the answers, and now you want me to tell you?" Rin said with as much a smug and self-satisfied look that she could muster under her condition.
The man gave Rin a hard stare without saying anything.
"It is easy, obviously, this my sub-consciousness. Meaning just a materialization of my inner soul on the inside of my consciousness. Usually, this would just mean that you would have won, my soul destroyed, and my body for your use, no matter how disgusting." Rin cringed at that thought before remembering what she was saying.
"You said that you are also trying to turn the man who came with me right? Well if you need to destroy someone's soul in order to make them your puppet for use, then you have already lost." Rin said after a long breath and looked up to the confused face of the man in front of her.
"You are the more powerful of the two of you from what I have seen if your current display of power is saying anything. So why do you, someone who is already resigned to her fate, trust the power of someone who is weaker than you?" The man asked, trying to understand her delusions. He had already won, right? There was nothing else that she or the man could do anymore once their souls started dissolving. But why was it…
Why was it that she could stand there while her literal soul is dissolving into nothing and still have a triumphant smirk on her face as though she had already won?
"You need to send a parallel thought process to make sure that the souls of those that you turn are mostly gone, right? Unfortunately for you, that means that you need to dive into Shirou's unconsciousness. "She said quickly, as the man's eyes were surprised by what she said.
"How did she know that I only use a fraction of my consciousness to dive into their unconsciousness? Hmm, no matter what she is saying is probably a bluff anyway. Let's continue on to the next specimen." He thought to himself.
He turned, about to leave the girl's mind. He already confirmed that her soul was dissolving, now it was time for the man that she came with. Before he could leave, however, the girl spoke up once more with a smirk on her face.
"If you are leaving to go and try to dissolve Shirou's soul, good luck. You are going to need it to survive in there." She said with one last look before her eyes glazed over fully immersing herself in her task that she has committed herself to.
The man just gave her a distasteful look and wondered how the man he was about to take control of was able to tame such a prideful woman before leaving the soul scape for his next task.
XxXxX
Muzan Kibutsuji was impressed with himself. Not had he managed to get away from the boy with the earrings and send some pawns after him, but he was able to acquire two new servants who had powers that were outside of his own understanding of the world.
He turned to the new demons that he had turned tonight. He had not decided on the names for his new demons yet, as they had yet to submit to his blood that was injected into their bodies. Another conflicting problem that was on his mind was that he knew that these two were much more powerful than the average demon, and maybe even some of the lower moons, just as humans. Now with their transformations into demons, he could feel the power beginning to radiate off of them even though they had not awoken yet. This left him in an unusual position. Depending on the personality that he implanted into their sub-consciousness, they might try to for the upper moon positions as soon as they were awakened.
While pondering this, the man's body slowly finished the transformation into a demon.
The man originally had patches of darker skin that were present on his left side, as if he was slowly growing to cover his whole body. Now the darkened skin covered most of his left side, although there were some places where the tanned skin reached out and swirled into a spiral on the side where his skin remained the normal color.
His originally copper red hair with a small patch of white in it changed as well. The white now covered up to the point where the darkened skin had stopped as if the two were connected. There was a change that intrigued the man even more though.
As soon as the progression of the tanned skin stopped progressing on his body, a small black mark showed up in the middle of his chest between the tan and white sides. Muzan couldn't help but feel uneased by the mark. It looked like an arrowhead or something of that nature with a rounded top and a pointed end. He did not have an idea of it could be but eyed it wearily as the mark slowly started to change to have a design with interlocking lines that went to the pointed end of the mark. Even with this change, the design was so vague, he had no idea of what it could be, although he could feel a strange power being emitted from it.
He was rather impressed with how these two new slaves had turned out. With powers that were unknown to him, combined with the special abilities that his blood naturally gave to those that followed him, they would be some of his most powerful creations yet. With these two he may actually be able to complete his final goal. He knew for a fact that these two would easily be in the ranks of the upper moons as soon as they were able to compete for the spots in the elite force. He was so sure that he decided to mark them early as members of the feared group.
With his control over the bodies of the two, he forced them to open their eyes as he had to the girl earlier when the man was still conscious. He still had an interest in the girl's eyes as they radiated beauty and power that he had never felt before. What really interested him was if the man also had eyes of power. Unfortunately, no power seemed to flow from them. Although he made the quick observation that the left one was now a steely gray, while the right one kept the golden brown from before his body started changing.
He then used his control over their bodies to shape their pupils into shapes that they would know by. He first turned over to the woman, her face still one of struggling for her own free will, which looked a little weird with eyes that were wide open. He thought about what he should mark them with for a moment before developing a smirk of his own. He slowly raised his hand and used the blood in her to take control.
He watched in sick fascination as the pupils of the two slowly started to transform. After a small amount of time, the pupils finished changing. Looking at the finished product, Muzan felt like it fit rather well. Rin's eyes now read "Full Moon" in the bright blue eyes, which only made the girl even more intimidating to look at. Muzan relaxed control over the girl and when he did, she closed her eyes and stopped the power from flowing from them, although the grimace of pain was still evident on her face.
He then looked over to the man, before once again forcing himself to control his body. After repeating the same process and waiting for a short time later, Shirou's pupils also changed into what Muzan wanted. Shirou's eyes now read "New Moon", which made his eyes stand out even more, especially with the addition of the steely grey eye.
Muzan looked at his work with self-admiration before a thought crossed his mind. He knew that the girl was taking so long to fully submit due to the power that was actively emitting to slow the dissolution of her soul. Why was the man taking so long to submit to his power? He was about to transfer another part of his consciousness to see what could be taking so long before the girl's last words rang through his mind again. Why was she so confident in the man who showed that he was capable with swords, but not much else? After thinking about it for a few seconds he discarded the thought and looked inside the soul of the main to see what the holdup could be.
While Muzan was looking into Shirou's soul, he, unfortunately, did not feel the same influx of energy from when the two humans first came into existence starting to ramp up again.
XxXxX
When Shirou woke up, he was surrounded by swords. All types of swords. Large, small, tall, wide, demonic, holy, destructive, protective. Any sword that you could imagine was present. All at his beck and call at any time.
It had been a long time since Shirou had been present in his own mental landscape. He could feel the power that radiated here unlike when he would just comb his mind for the right sword. Each sword was present, not needing to be traced. Only to be deployed and drawn to do their own job. He was just as surprised as the first time that he opened his reality marble. The only problem was this place was warping.
Due to his change in mentality over the past 5 years, Shirou could see in some areas of his mental landscape where the horizon had become distorted almost if the landscape itself was trying to converge in on itself. He could not tell what would happen to his reality marble if he tried to open again. Unlike Archer, he had others that he relied on, that he could count on to watch his back, that he loved enough to give every ounce of his being to.
If Rin and Saber were the ones to cause a change in his reality marble, then so be it. He was willing to do anything for those two as long as they were happy. He knew that they loved him as well and trusted him to be the one to hold everyone together even when they were mad at each other.
But a change in his reality marble wasn't his biggest problem right now. No, something had harmed Rin and transformed her into something that was different than a human. He couldn't fathom the pain that ran through him when she wouldn't respond to her own name when he was calling out to her. She looked like she was in a trance. Especially in his last moment when he was still conscious. He saw the look of pain and struggle on her face. That only showed that she was still fighting. And if she was still fighting, then Shirou wouldn't be able to stop either, not until there was nothing left of his soul and body.
Now he just needed to find a way out of his mental landscape. When he invoked his reality marble the first time, the world closed itself once he ran out of reserves. Unfortunately, this time he had not been the one to invoke this space, so finding out how to escape was the first road to figuring out how to get Rin back.
The moment he finished his thought he felt something appear behind him. It was the same presence as earlier but felt relatively weaker compared to the feeling of absolute dread that he reacted to earlier in the night.
"Rin's not completely under your control yet, or not completely anyway. She is too strong and has a will that nobody can crack. I know that you will have to destroy her completely before she will ever meet any of your demands." Shirou said while turning to face his newest adversary.
"Don't worry, if you destroy her down to nothing but a husk of her former self she will be pretty cooperative." The thing in front of him said with a nasty smirk.
Shirou instantly had Kanshou and Bakuya in his hands as this was his own mental landscape and threw them at the mysterious figure in front of him.
Shirou wasn't too surprised when the swords passed right through him like he wasn't even there. He started walking over to the thing and picked up the sword that was closest to the man and swung it at his neck before receiving the exact same result as before.
"You are going to have to try a bit harder than that to defeat me and get your lover back. But I must admit this is quite the mental landscape. What is it with you and swords?" The thing in front of him said with unhidden animosity as another volley of swords passed through the man with no reaction.
Shirou was about to keep trying everything that he had in his soul when he suddenly lost all feeling in his feet. He looked down to see what was wrong, only to see that his feet and legs were slowly being consumed by wispy darkness that seemed almost sentient.
"Huh, that's…new," Shirou said more to himself than the thing that was in front of him. He watched as the darkness made its way up to his legs like molasses. It was weird to see something actively consuming your body and losing all feeling from the said part as you could actually see it happening.
"Yes, I would expect it is. You should just give up now as no one has ever escaped with their soul completely intact when consumed when my power has begun to manifest within someone's soul." The thing said as his eyes told him that he was waiting for the moment that Shirou would despair and started begging him for mercy. Instead, a look of brief shock was present when he only looked up with more steel in his eyes, even when parts of his soul were being dissolved right in front of him.
"Unfortunately, I do not have the time to entertain you. I have someone important for me to save and I sure as hell won't let you get away if I find a single hair out of place on her. Now it is time for you to leave as this is MY domain and MY soul. If you think you can just waltz in here, claim to have corrupted my lover, and get away with it, you have another thing coming!" Shirou exclaimed while slowly building up magic power through his body and soul. The feeling of power quickly swelled as the blades in his soul reacted to his show of power and commitment to his lover. The entire mental landscape was reverberating with calls that Shirou had put out in order to leave this space and return to the real world.
"Ha, no matter what you do, there is nothing that you will be able to escape from my grasp just give up and surrender to me…" The thing slowly trailed off as he noticed that something was wrong. He looked over at Shirou and saw that his power of corruption was coming to a halt and landing on the mid-thighs of Shirou.
"What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO?!" The thing yelled with intense fury. He had no idea what was going on. He had never seen anyone able to prevent the deterioration of their soul before and could not imagine what was the cause. His power caused a fundamental breakdown of the memories of the soul and would allow him to plant a pseudo-personality to allow for almost complete control of those that he had turned into demons. Shirou looked as if he was struggling to prevent the corruption by constantly channeling his od throughout his soul, very similar to what the girl had done earlier without the massive amount of energy that she possessed. The thing took a relaxing sigh as he realized that Shirou could not keep this up forever. What he did not expect was a bright golden light to start showing brightly from the peak of the largest hill in the mental landscape.
It looked to be almost impossible to stare at, there was a comforting warmth that seemed to come with intensity of the light that was being radiated throughout the mental world.
The thing was confused by what was happening as Shirou also began to start glowing a golden light as well. With this new radiance, the remaining black corruption was quickly destroyed as the light seemed to consume whatever darkness that the thing tried to use to consume the soul of Emiya Shirou.
"What is that light?!" The thing said through gritted teeth and anger and he could not believe what was happening. Nothing like this had ever happened before. That was as far as his thoughts got as Shirou looked at him with golden eyes that seemed to be flickering to steel gray and back to the intense gold.
"That is the light that encompasses all the hopes and dreams of humanity, showing the way through the darkness and reaching the place where everyone can be saved and have carefree lives. No hardship, no pain, no need to guess if you will survive till tomorrow. That is what Avalon, The Ever-Distant Utopia, represents. This light is the ultimate device for preventing pain and will allow for the user to recover from almost fatal wounds like a miracle. The only problem is that only certain people can access this powerful relic. One who was the original owner of Avalon, and one who has had it inside of him since he was a boy. Which one do you think I am?" Shirou said while tracing a copy of Avalon into his left hand. He finally managed to put enough power into Avalon to reverse the process that was destroying his soul. What confused Shirou was how easily it happened though; it should have taken longer for Avalon to heal the damage that the darkness had done to his soul.
This is why Shirou had more than a little bit of a hunch that Saber had finally come out of the wormhole. He could not get Avalon to react this much no matter how much power he pushed into it. With Artoria sending her own unique od to Avalon, she caused it to go into overdrive and release the full power of the strongest defensive noble phantasm in existence. From what he heard from Saber, Avalon didn't prevent damage but just healed everything back so fast that you would not ever have to fight with any wounds. The only way to defeat Saber with Avalon would be to wear her out and with both Rin and Shirou acting as her mana source, there was no way that would ever happen anytime soon.
With the boost from the truly unlocked Avalon, he was feeling on top of the world, as if he could do anything.
With that quick thought, he had a new idea to get out of this world. While the thing in front of him was still in awe of the glowing light where the original Avalon stood on the hill of swords, he threw his traced copy at the distracted abomination. The thing only noticed at the last second as the copy cut cleanly through his torso, allowing a huge amount of black sludge to be released from his body as he screamed bloody murder at Shirou as the rest of his body slowly disappeared. At the same time, the light of Avalon began to dim as Shirou could see his mental landscape begin to close in on itself to show that he was beginning to wake up as well.
"I will see you when I get out, Saber…" Shirou said with longing as the mental landscape began to fracture in every direction before finally collapsing as everything went dark.
#$()$#
Saber was feeling weird.
She had experienced a lot of things in her life as King of Camelot. The pride in her own kingdom of having stood tall through thick and thin without ever being brought to its knees, the round table and those that she could have called friends and trusted retainers, as well as the horrific betrayal of both her son(?) and one of her closest knights. She quickly switched her thinking to the new memories that had slowly been developing ever since she had been cut from the throne of heroes. Different outcomes of her life if she had made different decisions were present and constantly swirling around in her head as she tried to make sense of what she was looking at.
Having a multitude of memories from different lives of herself of all people was currently causing a rather large headache to build up, and not just from the fact that apparently, she is some kind of mech pilot in a different life. And that wasn't even the weirdest one. She didn't even want to think about the lion fursuit. There were two that impacted her the most. The first being the decision where she gave up Excalibur, the symbol of the might of humanity and its ability to defeat practically any enemy, as long as they were against what humanity stood for. Due to the lack of Avalon that prevented her from growing in the first place, she could tell that she actually reached full maturity instead of being perpetually inside of a 15-year-old body. She could not tell what she looked like though as her memories were all in a first-person view, making it difficult to see how she matured over time. Taking up her holy lance, Rhongominyad, as her main weapon instead of Excalibur, she allowed for the prosperity of her Kingdom, before stepping down as King as she had slowly aged and was unable to take the battlefield anymore. Saber was unable to see who she passed the kingship down to, much to her secret relief, before the memory of that certain timeline slowly faded away back into the depths of her mind.
The other memory that significantly impacted her was if she had succeeded in culling Mordred's rebellion and sentenced those responsible to death. She had grown cold, heartless, uncaring of those that she originally vowed to protect when she first took hold of the sword in the stone. She was strong, yes, but she was feared. Never listening to the people that lived in her kingdom, she caused a great amount of pain and sorrow to everyone who stood in her wake. Excalibur being corrupted as a result into something darker and sinister. Something that should stay deep within her own mind. Maybe one day she would consult with her lovers over something like this but currently, she did not want to put any unnecessary strain on them. Yes, Camelot had lasted for a millennium, and by conquering half of the world before eventually stepping down as king. Saber could not believe the thought process of her other-selves. She had committed everything to her kingdom, and yet she would still turn her back on them when they needed help the most? No, she could not accept that type of thinking and quickly removed it as well from her mind, hopefully never to resurface.
Although these weren't the only memories that were constantly being bombarded into her mind, there were the ones that impacted her the most in the most unsettling way possible. During this time that she was processing all the new information that was coming from what she assumed to be the throne of heroes, she had begun to feel something change with her bond between her lovers.
Up until now, she had been able to feel the bond between both Rin and Shirou with relative ease, but in the last few minutes, she could feel it stretching and trying to sever, something that she refused to believe was actually happening. She had known Rin and Shirou for 8 years now and had gone through both heaven and hell. She watched them both mature from the naïve kids that she was tasked with protecting in the Holy Grail War to mature adults that she was proud to call her companions and her lovers. This was why if something was trying to break the bonds between the ones that she decided to live her second chance at life for, she would do everything in her power to prevent such a thing from happening.
She had been in this wormhole for almost 30 minutes constantly organizing her own thoughts as more and more memories kept coming in. She couldn't keep this up any longer. Between the boredom of just sitting around in a multicolored passage to another world and feeling like her head would explode at any minute from the vast amount of information that was being absorbed into her own existence as well as the strain in the bond between her lovers, she needed to get out of here. Hopefully, this was enough time for her spirit origin to allow transfer to another reality. She didn't have time to wait for anything else as the strain on the bond tightened even more, which sent Saber into high alert and immediately resumed passing along the tunnel before feeling the power of the kaleidoscope open once again and create the exit portal for the wormhole that she had spent way too much time in.
When she popped out of the portal, she needed a second to regain her bearings. Not being under the effect of gravity had disoriented her a little bit, but she was quickly back on her feet with the shake of her head. She took in the area around her, trying to figure out where exactly she was and where Shirou and Rin were. It didn't take her long as she could feel their presence through their bond only about a hundred meters away. She could still feel the bond between the two, but it had weakened even further from when she decided to come out of the wormhole. With a sense of urgency, she ran as fast as her legs could carry her without destroying any of the surrounding architecture that was present in where she entered this world. After a few seconds of moving through back alleyways and corridors of buildings, she finally managed to make out not two but three figures in the darkness as she was certain two of the figures were her companions.
"Shirou, Rin…I am so glad to see you…" She said with a sigh of relief as she began to walk closer and after a few seconds was immediately put on high alert. Neither Rin nor Shirou were ones to let greetings go unnoticed, no matter how busy they were. That was the first flag that sprang into her head as she continued to move closer to where the three figures stood with her hand in position to summon her sword in the case of violence.
The second flag was much more obvious as she moved closer to the three figures that she could not make out yet. A sense of dread and death that she could only equate to the corrupt, manifested grail from the Fifth Holy Grail War. Such a raw amount of evil was being emitted from the three figures that Saber questioned if they were actually Rin and Shirou. This thought was quickly shot down as she could feel that they were in front of her, what she could not figure out was why such a dreaded presence radiated off of them in waves which had never been seen before.
As she slowly crept forward to see if she could make out Rin and Shirou from the other entity that seemed to have no intention of leaving anytime soon as no one had moved an inch from when she had first arrived.
She finally made out the figures, and feelings of surprise, rage, and sorrow all showed themselves in an instant. She almost activated mana burst by accident by the impact of what she saw.
What she saw was a man in the middle of both Rin and Shirou who had two appendages sprouting from his back and was piercing through both of the abdomens of her lovers with the needle-like tip of the extra limb. It was grotesque and horrifying to say the least, as it looked as though the man was pumping something into both of her lovers through the appendages.
Rin and Shirou had not moved that much since she arrived. She could see some relatively minor cosmetic changes in Rin once she got close enough to make out the details of why they felt like they took a dip in some grail-cursed sludge. Rin looked as though she had implanted a decent amount of her gems into her body as Saber could see the way that they gleamed off of the tiny amount of light that showed in the dark alleyway. There was also the fact observation that the tips of her hair had turned into a crimson red that was similar to shirts that she liked to wear. Other than that, there were no other obvious changes that she could see from here.
Shirou was a different story altogether. It looked as if someone had taken the left part of Archer and the right part of Shirou and stuck them together. Although the two different parts were not completely even on one side or the other, there were different swirling patterns of tanned skin that was on the fair skin side. Shirou's hair was no exception in this case as it had the same treatment as the rest of his body. What intrigued her was the small black shape that rested in the middle of his chest, intersected by the boundary between each part of his body. She could not make it out from here but the shape itself was relatively similar and she had a pretty good assumption of what it could be.
Both of them looked like they were locked in a comatose state. The thing that was in between them also had its eyes closed in concentration as Saber slowly inched her way closer to where her companions were dormant. She could feel that both of them were still alive, although Rin seemed to be fading rather rapidly from what she could tell from the Master-Servant bond that they shared. What exactly was happening to Rin and Shirou, Saber could not say, but what she did know was that the thing in front of her was the one that most likely caused pain and harm to the two most important people in her life, and that was something that she could not forgive.
As she summoned her sword to her hands under the mist to hide the true identity of the sword, she prepared to come down on the thing in front of her swiftly and make off with Rin and Shirou to make sure that they were ok and nothing was wrong with them.
Before she could make her swing downward, she noticed that Shirou had started to glow. But she knew. It wasn't Shirou. It was the relic of ancient times that was constantly protecting him from any harm and making sure that he would always be able to keep fighting for those that he cared for. It was the most powerful relic that she was gifted from the Faes in order to uphold the dream of humanity and its limitless potential. Only she could use it, or so she thought so anyway. 8 years ago, she was absolutely gobsmacked to find out that not only her sheath was found once again but it was in the body of some 17-year-old boy who had the dreams of becoming a hero of justice. What that boy would turn out to be still caused Saber to shake her head and laugh at how someone's fate could change by just one coincidental meeting.
She pushed that thought into the back of her mind as she watched as the small black mark in Shirou's chest begin to glow as well, only now Saber realized it was a marking of Avalon with all the detail being highlighted as it now contrasted his own skin and the darkness that the light was piercing through. When she saw it beginning to glow she supplied her own energy that would allow Avalon to unlock its own potential as the most powerful defensive noble phantasm in existence. She paused from supplying her own energy for only a moment as she watched as Shirou woke up with a start, taking in a large breath of air as if he hadn't been able to breathe as he shook his head to force himself out of his tiredness.
"Saber?!" Shirou said with a surprise as he stared at her with a look of gratefulness before he had a look of urgency and could feel the thing next to him starting to stir after recovering from the defeat inside of Shirou's mental landscape.
"Free Rin and knock that thing away as far as you can launch him!" Shirou shouted as he observed the situation and attempted to stand on his own. Saber had moved to help him up, but with a stern look quickly decided against it.
"Don't worry about me, I just need a few seconds. But we need to put as much distance as we can between that thing and Rin before he wakes up." Shirou explained quickly as he took a knee as he attempted to stand up once again.
"Alright, Shirou but please take care of yourself." She said as she finally was able to look into his eyes and was a little unnerved with the new writing that seemed to be carved into his pupils. She then swiftly cut the appendage that was connected to Rin before stepping up to the "thing", as Shirou described it, and using the flat side of her blade, she smashed her sword into the center mass of the creature in front of her and forcing it to be knocked backward and to crash into the end of the alleyway around 50 meters away. Saber then turned back to Rin as she could hardly feel the contract between them anymore. She ran over to her to see what was wrong but there were no external injuries that were present on her body. Further looking into her body, she could feel a strong power being emitted that saber was curious about.
While Saber was making sure that Rin was ok, Shirou had finally managed to stand up and was slowly dragging his body over to where the others were. While he was doing this, he also held his hand over his chest and was concentrating on reaching deep into his soul. He had only done this a few times in the past and each time had been just uncomfortable as the last. He focused on the past, on the fire itself, how devastating it had been. How much it had made him into who he was today. Then he focused on "that" smile. The smile from his father told him that it was ok to help people. The smile that made him want to save people as well so he could one day smile like that.
Shirou could only look at the memory with a content expression as he knew that this was the moment that would have decided his entire existence. But now, he has those that he cherishes above anyone else. He has people that he will do anything for, even if that means being unable to help others. He will still work his utmost to save everyone, but with companions that he can no longer live without, he must be willing to stand by his decision to prioritize them over anyone else. He was torn but knew that this path was one decided by his heart and with this confirmation, he could feel something stirring within his soul.
Shirou, with his hand held against his chest, began to move outward and with the movement, particles of light started to converge and form a gold and blue sheath that represented the future of humanity. Avalon was slowly being pulled out of Shirou's chest as he was forcing it to take a physical form again in order to save one of the ones that he loves.
Once he reached the spot where Saber was kneeling with Rin's chest propped up in her arms, Shirou had managed to take the entirety of Avalon out of himself while breathing rather haggardly. He felt like he was missing something inside of his soul. Something that defined his entire existence and meaning for managing to survive in the fire. He could live with that feeling for now as Rin needed Avalon much more than he did right now if she was still experiencing the same thing that he had earlier.
As he lowered Avalon so that the end was pressed into the middle of Rin's chest, the sacred relic began to glow and start to disperse once again. He had never conceptualized Avalon inside of anyone else before, so he had no idea if whatever he was doing was correct. Although Rin had slowly begun to show more facial expressions than she had earlier; her brows furrowed in discomfort as Avalon finished being absorbed into her body. After Shirou finished and made sure that Rin had started to look a little better after the process was complete. He immediately fell to the ground in exhaustion and what could be described as hunger.
He had never felt anything like this type of hunger before. If he felt like his body was begging for food, but not the conventional kind. He had always associated eating with kind memories and times where he could relax and not have to worry about what else was going on. This hunger made his body feel the need to hunt, to track down his prey and bring it down and feast on it. He shook aside the feeling as he noticed signs of Rin starting to wake up.
Saber watched Shirou as he collapsed to the ground panting and trying to stabilize himself as quickly as possible. Shirou seemed to be having trouble as he looked to be in deep thought as she noticed that Rin had begun to move slightly, and her breathing had quickly gotten better as her sheath seemed to be doing its job well in restoring whatever the thing had done to her. As soon as Rin's breath hitched, she woke up with a start and was breathing heavily looking around to see where she was. When she noticed that Saber was holding her in her arms with Shirou right next to where she was laying, she could not help but tear up a little.
When the dark mist was consuming her, it had started to show her visions where she had screwed up and caused the injury or death of one of her lovers. At first, she knew that this was just some way to get inside her head and break down so that she would be easier to take over, the thing that she talked to seemed to find joy in that. But after a while, she slowly started seeing them more vividly and almost as if she was feeling all the raw emotions and physical pain that the vision was making her see.
By the time the black mist had reached her neck, she couldn't tell where she was anymore and just wanted to be back in the arms of the two most important people in the world to her. That was the one thought that kept her going as the black mist consumed her chin and mouth causing even more panic as the intrusive thoughts kept coming back stronger and stronger. The mist was about to cover her eyes when she saw it.
A light, a faint one, but it was definitely there. As it drew closer, she could feel the warmth on the rest of her face as she finally knew what she was looking at. How could she not? She could feel the resoluteness, dauntless, and unbendable will that was found in the overflowing torrent that was Saber's natural mana that she produced, as well as the caring, passionate, and unyielding force that was Shirou's od that was present in the light.
As the light got closer, she could feel the dark mist surrounding her start to dissipate into nothing. She could soon see her shoulders and torso again as the warmth of the light seemed to have the passion of her lovers imbued into it. Not long after that, she could see the form of Avalon upon her as it practically burned away the rest of darkness. She reached up to grab before pulling into her newly formed chest and embracing Avalon as she could not contain the thankfulness that wanted to show her lovers but the symbol that they had both come to be known by was a pretty good replacement. As she began to shed tears onto the omnipotent sheath, it began to envelop her in an even brighter light before the world around her started to crack as the floor began to shatter before fracturing.
Rin woke up and took a hoarse breath as it felt like she could not breathe. She opened her eyes to see a pair of emerald green orbs looking into hers with a huge amount of relief and love. Her own eyes held tears in them as she reached up and began to hold onto Saber as all her worries and troubles seemed to melt away in an instant.
"Saber…," Rin said softly through a quiet voice, "I was so scared. Everything was beginning to go dark. I could only see images of you and Shirou being taken from me, and I could not do anything about it. The two things that are irreplaceable to me and I couldn't do a damn thing about it. Are you sure that it is really you, I don't think I can take anymore?" Rin said through sobs as she could not contain the negative emotions that she felt anymore, and they started to pour-over. Saber had only seen Rin like this a few times in the past. When she had seen the full extent of both Shirou, and her own memories were a good example. But when she had been degraded down in the clocktower to being just an "oriental mage" and saying that her family was a failure that she should have died out just like her family had in the Fourth Holy Grail War, her emotions had gotten the better of her.
Rin was a very prideful person and was able to take a lot of blows to that pride before she broke down, but when she did, she did it out of the view of everyone besides her beloveds. She would make sure that only they would see her like that, and they would make sure to show her just how much she was loved. When the night had passed and she had gotten all of those bad thoughts out of her mind, she came back stronger than ever, not to mention with a need for a little bit of vengeance. After one of Rin's breakdowns, Shirou and Saber could only stand back and watched with awe as she brought down every person who tried to mess with her, with interest. She made quite a name of herself in the clock tower and was well on her way of climbing up the tower's hierarchy. Zelretch had laughed his ass off one time when Rin had tapped into the power of the Kaleidoscope enough to send some poor chap's life research into a portal to another reality and vouched for her when she inevitable got in trouble saying, "It was the best thing that he had seen in the past few days."
"Don't worry, Rin we are here now, it's ok." Saber said as she was rubbing Rin's back as Shirou managed to force himself up and hug the other side of Rin while she calmed down. For a moment everything seemed fine as the trio were truly back together after only being separated for only an hour which had felt like an eternity.
The little moment in time that they had to themselves ended quickly as they could hear the rubble beginning to shift as the thing slowly rose to his feet again before staring with eyes of hate and malice in Shirou's direction.
"I don't know where you came from," the thing said in Saber's direction, "But those are my slaves and I will be reclaiming my property, no matter what you do." The thing said as the miasma around him thickened even further.
This is the moment that the trio knew that this would not quite be over yet.
