Death, destruction, loss. Those three words closely associated with the tragedy that changed his very life. He could still recall the events vividly, the fire that burned everything in its path.

He walked past the burning ruins of what was once great architecture leaving a clear view of the fire's destruction and trail of death it left in its wake. It left no exceptions and simply burned anything and everything that was in its path. Yet among the burning ruins caused by the fire he walked aimlessly, even as it sought to end his life.

But he refused to die and with each step he would survive if only for a second longer. So he walked. He walked as far as he could and survived for as long as he could, but with each step something was discarded, something important. How long had time flown by? Seconds? Minutes? Hours?

By the time he realized it he had long since collapsed. The flames around him grew hotter by the second, the rubble that began to cover his body acted as false shackles that tied him down. He already knew that he was going to die; he knew it as soon as he had stopped walking.

Even as he laid in the rubble knowing that he was going to die there was still something in him that still continued to struggle, that still wanted to live but he made no move to act out on it. The feeling of heaviness that once threatened to crush him grew noticeably lighter, the moonlit sky above him was more clearly seen and in one last act using what little energy he had left he reached out for it as if it was a silent prayer. It was answered and he saw his savior: a man clad entirely in black, Emiya Kiritsugu.

"Thank you." His hands firmly grasped Shirou's own hand desperately as if he would die if he let go, but despite it all the man was happy even in this fiery hell. When his eyes went to look into the man's eyes what he saw were not the tear-stained eyes of his savior but a pair of yellow eyes with crossed shaped pupils. No, this wasn't him, he knew it wasn't him. This was someone else's.

As he stared his vision slowly began to fade away, no, his vision wasn't fading away; it was being consumed by darkness.

But even then, as darkness consumed his vision the eyes never seemed to go away, as if they were being burned into his mind.


Shirou's eyes shot open as he jumped off of the ground he once lay on while attempting to trace Kanshou and Bakuya, but nothing came, his swords or an enemy. He toppled over onto the ground as his hands held himself up as he finally allowed himself to deeply pant for breath.

Still, even while being unable to trace Kanshou and Bakuya and being in such a bad condition he looked around cautiously. There it was again, those eyes. Questions swirled in his mind, why was he seeing them? Why did it provoke such a reaction from him? Why was he recalling the fire? What did it mean?

He knew he wouldn't be getting any answers to his questions, especially if he continued to idle here any longer doing nothing.

He needed a plan, a goal of sorts for now. But why was he here again? Focus! He abruptly stood up almost toppling over once more in an attempt to refocus himself. Shirou slowly took in a breath of air and slowly exhaled once he managed to keep himself upright. He needed to calm down right now, get his bearings back together.

I remember waking up in an unfamiliar room laying on a bed. I was constricted by something, bloodied bandages, my blood. Then someone came in, Barbara was her name I think, and she was carrying new bandages and a pair of clothes. I don't remember seeing anyone else in the room, was she taking care of me? Then I... I... I attacked her...

Realization dawned on him, realization of why he even woke up on the middle of the road. He would never do something like that though! But no matter how he tried to refute this he reached the same conclusion each time. There was no way though that he would attack someone without reason, especially someone who went out of their way to take care of him.

There had to be some sort of misunderstanding, right? But no matter how much he tried to justify his actions the fact still remained that he attempted to take an innocent person's life, no matter the chaotic state he may have been in at the time or the right state of mind.

He remembered running out of a city with large stone walls and a bridge, in an attempt to run away and escape, it was something rather foreign to him. Running away, when confronted with a problem he would run at it headfirst, or at least that was what the others said. Even if he was near dead he would refuse to run away and confront the problem, said problem often being an enemy no matter how stupid of an idea it may have been.

But to think that he would be returning to the place that he just ran away from, there had to be some sort of irony hidden in there.

Finding that would be a good start as any and he wasn't willing to wait out here doing nothing. Looking around to find the city he had ran out of, he blankly stared at its small and distant form. A second had passed than five before he looked down to confirm his suspicion and yes, there was a path or at least the remnants of a path but more importantly it was the path that he had followed as he ran away before losing consciousness. Or at least he hoped it was.

Searching his memories for an answer to his current predicament he remembered just before his body shut down on itself was that he had ran away, that much was already obvious, but the question now was where he had run off to and how much time had passed.

Even as he tried to remember what had happened, everything was a disorganized mesh of colors, something that he chalked up to the worst migraine he ever had while running away. But nothing explained the fact that he got so far in such little time, he was fast sure, but he wasn't that fast to travel this large of a distance.

But if he recalled one particular magecraft, reinforcement, everything started to make sense. He would often use it on his traced weapons and even less often on his entire body considering the difficulty. It would also explain the problem of why his body was so strained, or more specifically his circuits. So, had he unintentionally reinforced his entire body while only trying to reinforce his legs?

There was no way of telling, but if he wanted to go back to the city the answer seemed simple enough, just follow the path back. He might even be able to turn himself in to the local authorities to make amends for his accidental attack or even meet people while following the road and then... he wasn't exactly sure what else he would do.

With a plan he began to follow it the beaten down path he even noticed what resembled a decaying amphitheater during his trek, but he chose to ignore it in favor of his current 'task' since there were no signs of anyone.

Despite it all, he let out a defeated sigh, was his luck truly that bad? Nothing was working towards his favor but rather actively against it.

Unfortunately, something had to answer him and prove his point, "Ya, biadam! Mimi zido ye!" The tone of the persons voice was anything but peaceful as they aggressively shouted at something and from a distance, he could even hear the footsteps of multiple people quickly approaching him.

"Please...! Can't we settle this peacefully!?" A feminine voice called out.

"Ika kuzi! Mi movo muhe!"

"I'm sorry, but I don't understand! Kyaa!" The only voice that he could understand cried out in distress.

Realizing that whoever this person is was under attack, he quickly ran towards where he had heard the voices, but he was quickly greeted not with the sight of multiple armed people but the sight of a familiar blonde person emerging from the bushes, Barbara if he recalled, who didn't seem to be stopping as they unceremoniously crashed into each other as she took him down with her.

"A-Ah!" Despite the fact that she was now basically straddling him, her eyes widened in recognition, "It's you!" As tired as she looked the smile that found its way onto her face was still bright enough to the point it could've been contagious. Or it would have been if she was still smiling.

Her mind had quickly caught up to what she was sitting on and recognized just how dangerous this position was and quickly leaped off of him, her face heating up to the point that it was starting to match his hair color.

Impressively, she managed to ignore it with a slight cough as she looked at him once more. Her smile returned only just to disappear just as quickly, "Do you know how long I've been searching for you? I've probably checked all of Mondstadt by now!" She didn't, but it felt like she had with how finding the deceptively elusive the man was much harder than expected.

"Uh... sorry...?" No, wait, apologizing wasn't important right now. How could he forget the reason he came here anyways?

"Yaya!" Jumping from the bushes he quickly realized the fact that this person carried a weapon. A swing, a strike, and death.

Or at least that would have been the sequence of what would have happened.

His mind reacted quicker than he could even think. Shirou pulled Barbara aside quickly dodging the weapon before retaliating with a swift kick sending the man back from where he came.

Shirou's demeanor had quickly shifted, he stared with hardened eye at the weapon that fell out of the unknown man's grasp. It was a club, a wooden club to be more exact. But still, if Berserker could turn what was a giant slab of stone into to the most dangerous weapon there was then the same could be said with this. Only, he didn't see it. He didn't even feel it.

He could feel as his body automatically traced the weapon and its history as well and it told him everything he needed to know about the thing standing in front of him, of the Hilichurl.

Now that he finally had a chance to properly look at the attacker, he was left confused. It had black skin and the body structure of a human male though it was dressed much more primitively than a regular modern-day person. It also had a mane of fur that covered its head and a white mask that covered its face. The most nonhuman of its features were what he assumed to be its long ears that were visible out the top of its mane.

Nothing about him screamed dangerous the way Berserker had, he was even futilely attempting to get his head unstuck from the bushes as he screamed in frustration. In any another situation he might have even felt pity.

Two more hilichurls emerged from the bushes but unlike their companion who only wielded a club these two also had shields and not too far and just out of sight, he could see a single hilichurl hiding from their sight. A total of four enemies meaning four different enemies he had to keep an eye on, nothing new.

The human-like creatures observed him warily as they removed their comrade from the bushes. He and Barbara did the same as his hands grasped an invisible hilt. These creatures obviously had intelligence which was shown with their use of language and shown even further with their weapons. If a fight could be avoided, then he would take that chance.

No one spoke and remained stock still, he turned around his head just enough to see Barbara and saw that she was safely behind him and barely out of sight behind his larger frame. With a slow but noticeably movement, he took one step backwards.

And an arrow was released.

To the eye of any other besides his own, it looked like he was swinging with nothing. But to him he could already envision himself swinging Bakuya and traced the weapon midswing, easily cutting the normal wooden arrow in half as it harmlessly flew by. It was to be expected, what he wielded were noble phantasms, though fakes they may be.

At the display of prowess, the enemies before him couldn't help but hesitate. Unknown to them but he was inwardly sighing in relief, he wasn't sure if it was possible to trace the blade due to the failure of his last attempt, but he was glad that the ever-faithful blade appeared in his hand without a problem.

But what would Bakuya be without Kanshou?

Kanshou soon appeared in his other hand as he brought them up, ready to attack but still unmoving. It was a wordless question, will you surrender?

They looked at each other as they quietly talked and came to a conclusion, they would not. Charging at him with clubs raised they let out a battle-cry.

Shirou in turn narrowed his eyes as he easily dodged underneath the first one to reach him and with a swift but deadly kick, he flew a noticeable distance away. Just barely out his vision he saw another club flying towards his head and he deftly deflected it with one sword before driving the other one straight through his chest and just as quickly removing it.

Shirou could hear a loud cry behind him and before he could turn around, he heard the sound of an explosion. Water had suddenly converged on the hilichurl from thin air before exploding with a large shower of water. A Magus?

The book that was held in Barbara's hand and the water that most likely came from her would suggest that it was.

More questions for later. He mused to himself before focusing on the two archers that had yet to do anything. He could tell that their crossbows were loaded but they made no move to aim it and much less shoot it at them. In fact, it looked like they were running away.

"Watch out for the mitachurl!"

Mitachurl? Confused on what a mitachurl even was he found himself momentarily distracted before quickly raising his swords to block an incoming blow. It was large, that much he could tell and it had slammed right into him. He tried meeting the blow head on as he skidded back but with a quick swing that broke his guard, he was sent flying.

Barbara on the other hand had just barely jumped out of the way. By now it was right in front of her but had completely ignored her as if she hadn't even existed. With a meaty thud, the hilichurl it held in its hands fell to the ground right next to her, it was dead, most likely killed by the mitachurl.

That explained where the archer went, Shirou thought grimly.

He registered the pain that assailed his body and he felt the rough outside of the tree as his back collided into it. The blurry outline of whatever had attacked him slowly revealed itself to show the being before him and its roar of rage. It stood at least twice his height and looked incredibly similar to those hilichurls and what had struck him turned out to be a shield also twice his height. But something about it was off, something familiar, painfully so. The red tattoos, or what he assumed were tattoos, glowed an eerie bright red, a red just as bright as the veins he would occasionally see glowing.

Uncaring of whatever condition he may have been in, the mitachurl wasted no time in charging at him with its massive shield covering his entire form.

Rolling out of the way, the shield unforgivingly slammed into the tree, and he could already see that the tree was now forced sideways. Not wanting to be any closer than he needed to be picked himself off of the ground and tried jumping back a distance.

Despite the lack of success from the mitachurl, it still continued on and went to intercept him midjump. Bringing its grip to the bottom of the shield it ruthlessly spun around with the shield, intent on smacking him out of the air but barely missing and slammed once more into the tree, removing it from the ground even further than before.

That was too close for comfort. Besides the pain in his back, he could hear the beating of his heart as it thumped loudly as he landed near Barbara. "What is that?" He couldn't help but ask her as he stared at it.

"It's a mitachurl," She unhelpfully told him, "I'm not sure why, but there have been more hilichurl sightings than normal and they've been even more violent than usual."

"Than usual?" He parroted back.

They watched nervously as the mitachurl roared again in rage, this time it directed its anger at the tree as it dropped its large wooden shield in favor of wrapping its bulky arms around the tree before heaving it out of the ground in what would have been an impressive feat of strength.

Hefting the large thing above his shoulders, with wide eyes Shirou recognized what it was going to do faster than Barbara could. Grabbing onto her waist he threw them both to the ground as quickly as he could. The tree soared above them as his ears picked up the sound of tearing earth, and once he looked over he saw that the tree had all but made a new hole for itself to fit in.

"This isn't normal! Mitachurls could never do something like this so easily! Everything about this day has gone wrong!" She screamed in frustration, and he felt like that last bit was directed at him too.

Still, this situation was proving too much for him in his current state, anymore and he might just collapse from exhuastion. But he was unwilling to back down, what if this mitachurl attacked someone else?

He was going to take it down, one way or another. It was too dangerous to be left alone and now may be his only chance to do so.

So, he rushed in leaving Barbara behind once more, taking this opportunity while he still could.

Thie mitachurl was caught off guard, with no weapon in its grasp it could do nothing but use its own arms. Using his own height to his advantage, he evaded the blow and counterattacked just as quickly.

If speed was his main advantage, then why not exploit that speed even more?

He swung with lethality at his opponent's legs, intent on disabling him. And it had done the job as a spray of blood came out. At the sight of it everything around him slowed down to a crawl, his mind coming to a screeching halt at the sight of it, the black sludge-like liquid and the painful familiarity of it. Saber?

"Urk!" He was pulled out of his thoughts as he registered the sudden crushing grip of the mitachurls hand around his leg as it slowly tightened even further. In an attempt to free himself he swung bakuya but before the blade could even reach the target, he was suddenly raised in the air and just as quickly slammed into the ground.

The sheer force behind it was audible to all and he could feel his bones breaking at the impact. A painful grimace was all he could do before he was swung again, this time he was more than ready as he reinforced his body. But even then, his reinforcement could just barley withstand the impact and it did little to stop the pain.

By the time it begun its third swing he had final freed himself by crippling its arm with his sword, but it was not without the consequence of sending himself flying in the process.

"Are you ok?!" By the time he had reached the ground Barbara was already rushing over towards him as she fretted over his condition, but he stopped her, refusing whatever aid she might offer so that she wouldn't be attacked while she was preoccupied with him.

"No, but I'll be fine. It'll heal on its own." She stopped in place as he said that and paled drastically as she intently eyed his chest waiting for something to happen, only for nothing to happen, at least visibly. But she steeled herself.

"Let me help, please." Whatever he saw in her eyes previously was gone, replaced by a stony face he didn't know she had.

"Fine." He reluctantly agreed, seeing that she wasn't going to give up anytime soon.

With a nod she stepped closer and lifted her hand up. Unaware of what she was trying to do, he suppressed his surprise at the sight of a ring of water surrounding him in what looked like notes. Whatever it was doing he could feel its affects as his body felt lighter, his pain subsided, and his wounds slowly healed quicker than what he could have done.

Forcing himself off of the ground, he realized that his legs weren't in as much pain as they should have been, but he still slightly trembled at the weight of his own body and the damage it had previously sustained. He watched as the mitachurl did the same thing and stood up ignoring whatever damage he might have done as if it never had happened.

"Thank you, but let me handle this, I'll make it quick." He told her as he flashed her a small smile to show his appreciation.

Neither of the two moved as they stared at each other in silence and from the corner from his eye he could see that the girl quietly standing nearby with a frown on her face. He was glad that she actually decided to let him handle this. It wasn't like he thought she was useless; she showed her capability in whatever her magecraft was. But he didn't want to see her getting hurt anymore because of him.

He tensed up once more as the mitachurl pulled one of its arms back before slamming it into the earth beneath him, unsure of what the mitachurl was going to do he cautiously watched as it ripped something out of the ground and slammed its hands together as if to do something. And it was as the same large wooden shield from before had appeared. He narrowed his eyes at the sight.

He had one more trump card he could possibly use in his current condititon. But he wasn't sure if it would work. It was a gamble, but he planted one foot forward.

"Spirit and technique, flawless and firm." Tracing Kanshou and Bakuya for the umpteenth time he threw them both directly at the shield damaging it in the process and allowing his blades to then fly past it in preparation for his next attack.

In a wild gamble he used his entire weight as he jumped at the shield in hopes of exposing the mitachurl for his attack and then quickly flipping backwards landing safely on the ground. "Our strength rips the mountains." His dangerous gamble had paid off, so he quickly traced a second pair of swords and using Kanshou to strike at the mitachurl as soon as Bakuya had returned to strike at the mitachurls exposed back.

"Our swords split the water." He could already see the thrown Kanshou quickly returning right after Bakuya had as it followed up with another strike at the mitachurls back. He made sure to quickly follow up with another attack from Bakuya giving the mitachurl little to no time to retaliate.

He could already feel his body faltering and he knew if he let up for even a moment then he would be attacked, No, not yet...! Even more! "Our names reach the imperial Villa." Putting everything he had into reinforcing the married blades, they quickly transformed into longswords. The mitachurl continued on and after a full second had passed, it begun to bring its shield downwards ignoring whatever damage he had done yet again. He swung both swords simultaneously at the shield as it easily cleaved through it and reached the exposed body behind it.

The mitachurl gave a pained howl refusing to go down, the mitachurls tolerance for pain was already exceeding what he had initially expected but it seemed that the mitachurl was beginning to reach its limit, all it would need was one final push, "The two of us cannot hold the heavens together." The Push had become a shove as he used whatever magical energy he had left to spare and overloaded the reinforced swords to the point that they had become broken phantasms and threw them directly at the mitachurl.

The result in turning Kanshou and Bakuya into broken phantasms? An explosion of at least a rank higher than what Kanshou and Bakuya would have originally been as he watched as the two explosions engulf the mitachurls form completely.

By now, more of those hilichurl had arrived from all the noise they were making. It took everything he had just to make sure he was standing up and even more to make sure he stood stock still. Were they attracted here from the noise? Was he going to have to fend them off as well?

His worries though were unneeded as he watched the hilichurls run off in a panic.


The man unexpectedly fell face first into the ground. Was he dead? No! He couldn't be! She refused to believe in such a notion and made her way over to him as quickly as she could.

She was worried, that much was obvious, but not for herself. As strange as it may sound, that worry only increased as the strange mitachurl had appeared from nowhere. Its appearance was sudden and everything about it screamed abnormal. It attacked with a ferocity she hadn't seen before, like it was a wild animal rather than the intelligent species the hilichurls were, though they were still rather barbaric.

She rid those thoughts from her mind, that wasn't important right now. With a quick check she confirmed that he wasn't dead much to her relief, just unconscious.

The next step would be to take care of him, but her mind argued that doing so here would be dangerous and she was inclined to agree. Unfortunately, the only other she had was by a large tree which was large enough to hide their forms.

The state he was in right now required a certain amount of care and she couldn't just lift him up so with a mental apology she dragged him across the ground and behind the fairly large tree. If she could, she would have taken him to the cathedral, or any other place that wasn't outside. But she had to work with what she had.

Gently setting him onto the ground she expected her body to move on autopilot, to the do the same motions she was so familiar with.

But she didn't do anything, she only quietly watched his form as she sat near him. No matter how much she wanted to remove it from her mind, it was always there in the back of her mind.

The events would constantly play out in her mind when she first met and healed him. She was only trying to help him, so why? Why did that happen? Was it her fault?

He didn't answer, the only response she did get from him was slow a slow rhythmic breathing.

Letting out a calming sigh she finally began the process of healing him. A ring of water and notes surrounded him as it slowly began to heal him as agonizingly slow seconds ticked by. And as each second ticked by she imagined those blades emerging again, but nothing happened.

"Yaya!" She felt herself panic even more, her heartbeat spiking as recalled the infamous word hilichurls would often say when seeing a human, but as she peaked over the bush she noticed that they weren't as close as she thought. They were still a distance away, but she could tell that they were searching for something or someone, as they poked and prodded everywhere.

Barbara prayed to Barbatos that they weren't looking for them, but she doubted that they weren't. It was reasonable to say that someone would want to investigate something when two loud explosions suddenly erupted from nowhere. When could swords explode anyway?

Intent on avoiding them she remembered what sparse knowledge she had on a subject she categorized as 'wilderness survival tips,' and one of the most important tips she remembered was to figure out where you were and even what to expect. That was easy enough as she knew Starsnatch cliff when she saw it, especially since she would always see it when exiting the cathedral, and that was where they were.

What made this situation worse though was that she wasn't trying to survive in the wild but avoid the hilichurls that were actively searching for them and Barbara wasn't willing to find out if they really were searching for them and what would happen.

There were only three options that she could think of in the current situation, but two out of three of them were much more dangerous and risky. She could go back down the cliff but looking in that direction she could see open space and a multitude of hilichurls all armed. The other one was

With a silent prayer to Barbatos her decision was made as she carefully began to heft up the unconscious man off of the ground as best as she could and began to drag him up starsnatch cliff, grateful that the cliff was wide enough that they could go around any hilichurl.

The other option was to drop down into the Thousand Winds Temple, but she could recall rumors of multiple explosions going off in that specific area and that there was a possibility of a ruin guard there.

Looking back at the unconscious man she hoped that the hydro ring that surrounded him was still present and healing him but the ring was no where to be found. She sorely wished that she could've healed him more but with the hilichurls drawing closer she had to forego the idea of safety in favor of survival.

It wasn't often, in fact she could count on a single hand how many times it happened, but the harrowing tales she heard from adventurers who laid in a bed while she healed them devastated her. They shared how they would do everything they could to survive another day and the details of those stories all but reminded her of this exact scenario she found herself in.

Her hope dwindled as she questioned herself, could she do it? Could she survive? She wasn't an adventurer like those people, and she wasn't as experienced as them, so it was impossible without sacrificing something, right? Recalling one specific story she remembered, she recalled a group of three adventurers who all enjoyed what they did, thrill seekers. One day though when they returned back to Mondstadt as usual only one of them was seen, his friends gone. Two had to die for one to survive, and he was never the same man he once was. Or so the story went.

Unlike the other stories she heard no one really knew if this one was real, in fact, she only heard it by chance. It was treated like a bedtime story parents would tell their children to dissuade them from being an adventurer or to the especially naughty ones to teach them a lesson, though it was rather extreme.

She stared harder at the unconscious man, would one of them have to die for the other to live, like in the story? Barbara, no! She stopped those thoughts, she wouldn't let that happen. None of them needed to die and like her he must have had something he wanted to return to. She didn't know what that could be, but she knew why she wanted to return. She wanted to return back to the people of Mondstadt, to continue to make them happy so they could smile and to see the big sister she looked up to another day once more.

She defiantly stood up refusing to let her thoughts get the best of her. With the hilichurls still distracted further down the cliff she lifted the man as best as she could and once they finally looked away she went out of hiding and made a mad dash up to the peak of the cliff. If she stopped she knew she would be found immediately and the hilichurls would quickly catch up to her.

It was just another reason why Barbara didn't want to be seen by them and she used that to push herself forward even more. Quickly ascending the cliff she drew closer with each step Barbara made until she finally reached the top, which had looked a lot bigger when she was further down.

Standing near the edge but being careful not to plummet down she could already see the drop which is more than high enough to kill someone and behind her were hilichurls. Hilichurls which, true to her suspicions, were combing the area in search of something and they were doing so in a remarkable speed due to their large group. Hastily looking around Barbara spotted a large enough ledge which could hide the both of them and she quickly used that ledge to hide from the hilichurls as best as she could.

With nowhere else to go she, silently waited with bated breath. She could already hear the multiple hilichurls as they drew closer and closer to them.

Just why did she choose this option? There was nowhere left to go!

Barbara let out a gasp as she heard a groan but looking at the source of the sound, she saw a mop of auburn hair, so she calmed herself down.

He made a noise once more, "You're awake." Barbara stated the obvious and smiled at him lacking its usual shine.

Tensing up again, Barbara heard the sounds that the hilichurls were making in search of them grew closer and closer. She didn't know what possessed her but she held onto him even harder than before and due to the position the both of them were in he was now being pushed against her chest. She flushed red and ignored it as best as she could considering the situation they were in.

Please. Please don't find us. Barbara thought as she held her breath as if it would help her be undetected from the hilichurl standing right above her. She was already panicking as she wondered how the hilichurls were this close, till she remembered it was nothing but open space.

"Ya?" A hilichurl slowly brought its wooden weapon forward and towards them cautiously, unaware that they were actually there. She stared as the wooden weapon slowly around her as it poked and prodded at the ground until it was finally being brought towards her.

Her heart was rapidly beating to the point she was audibly hearing it as time slowed down to a crawl, she hadn't expected this, she hadn't planned for something like this to happen, Barbara didn't know what to do.

The wooden club was suddenly pulled back and away from her view. She almost let out a sigh of relief as the worst was avoided.

"Yaya!" Only for a loud call to be made alerting all the hilichurls and the wooden weapon from earlier was now raised up high and being preemptively swung at her. She flinched at the unexpectedly fast action and with nowhere to go she closed her eyes tight.

During the few seconds she felt her unintentionally tight grip on the man being forcefully broken, "Ahhhhh!" And heard a scream immediately after as it grew quieter like it was moving further and further away from her until it finally stopped.

And she opened her eyes again to see the hilichurl now gone and injured man in the hilichurls place, sparing a brief glance over the side of the cliff, "Can you stand up?" He asked as his hands seemed to be gripping nothing but air as he stared ahead of him cautiously.

"Y-Yes, I can." Barbara's voice unexpectedly failed her but she stood up nonetheless and found out what he was staring at.

There were only hilichurls, a large group of hilichurls that outnumbered her previous encounter with them by such a large margin that it was even outrageous; and they were all slowly approaching them with careful steps and readied weapons. With each step the hilichurls took forward they took one back maintaining the distance between them as the two of them found themselves surrounded.

"We're going to jump."

Barbara swung her head towards him fast enough to give herself whiplash and she was already going to protest the notion but a hilichurl further behind the others pointed its crossbow and fired a bolt.

With deft movement Shirou threw both him and Barbara off of the ledge before she could even voice her complaint. It was arguably the safest option he could think of as a barrage of bolts flew past them and into the water below. A panicked yelp assaulted his ears as Barbara was all but certain a drop from this height could very well kill them, but she found herself being quickly held before their bodies both impacted the water.

The fall was quick, fearful, and by no means graceful but they both survived as Barbara immediately swam up breaching the surface of the water and greedily took deep breaths of air. From the corner of her eye she could see that the bolts fired earlier had harmlessly impacted the water near her.

Looking up at the point that they had jumped from, or thrown off of in her case, were the same hilichurls only this time they looked like they didn't want to pursue them. It was hard to tell though due to how big the distance was and how small they looked.

Not long after Shirou emerged from the water taking much deeper breaths than Barbara had but he for the most part was fine.

"Hey, Barbara, right? There's a shore there I think we can make it." She followed his gaze and true to his word there was a shore thankfully not too far away, if it were any further, she doubted that she could even reach it due to how exhausted she suddenly was. Furrowing her brows, she wondered when she ever told her his name.


"Finished" On: October 17, 2022

Been a, uh, a while huh? Anyways I don't think the time and quality are proportionate since it does seem a bit scuffed to me, ok, its very scuffed. Could be that my expectations were too high, but I guess it happens when you run headfirst into a writing block, multiple times in fact. That and spending too much time researching what to do, god, can't believe that was something I would ever do willingly!