There was just something about the atmosphere that was rather suffocating in a sense. It differed from when Nanoha had been with Shirou and Rin, and even Zelretch.

Yes. She just thought of it.

It reminded her of cold professionalism, kind of like some of the other uptight units employed by the TSAB to patrol more unruly worlds. It was the kind of air where one's gaze would be stuck to their feet afraid of doing something wrong or acting out of line. A stifling feeling would spread, and one couldn't help but grow antsy in the awkward silence.

Nanoha shook her head, glancing at the two exceptional humans- or magi she supposed, flanking her and Shirou on either side. They were just a step or two ahead of them, Nanoha and Shirou around a shoulder's length away from each other.

"So ugh, what's going on?" Nanoha tried sidling up to Shirou and whispering in his ear.

Shirou himself was acting rather stiff when the brows of the two other magi acting as escorts creased. To them, it almost seemed like Nanoha was ignorant, and what magi in the Clock Tower would be ignorant to even standard procedures?

She acted more like she was sight-seeing than as a magus here in the association for research.

Shirou gestured to Nanoha with his eyes.

She got the cue.

"Right." She muttered. "Forget I asked."

It was only when their escorts dropped their suspicions that Shirou quietly mouthed his advice.

"Now probably isn't the time to be talking," he said, while inwardly counting down the moment Rin would realize they were no longer in her room.

The only reason Nanoha was tagging along was because she was assumed to be one of his field operatives. The Clock Tower wasn't exactly an inclusive organization. Members were generally registered, and Rin had been Shirou's ticket for membership. Nanoha had no such backing, and Shirou couldn't risk suspicion. The less antagonized Nanoha was, the greater the chances he hoped she could persuade herself and her superiors against interrupting the moonlit world's status quo.

"We have arrived."

The monotone voice of one of the escorts jerked Shirou out of his considerations and made him aware that they'd just arrived in front of two large hardwood doors at the end of a hall. Each escort assumed a place on either side of a door knob, twisted it, and then opened the doors.

"Only Emiya is requested from here."

Both escorts made a small gesture for Shirou to enter, but he wasn't quite intent on doing that quite yet. Quickly shifting his attention towards Nanoha, he warned her as best as he could.

"Keep still, and wait till I get back."

She made a face, as if she was rather doubtful of the situation, but Shirou couldn't exactly reassure her when he himself wasn't exactly reassured. Still, he at least managed to get a stiff nod from her, and that was enough for him to stop dallying.

The patience of the escorts wouldn't last for much longer.

Shirou took in a breath, and stepped into the room, just able to perceive Nanoha huffing before she found a wall to lean her back on.

Good. At least she wasn't trying to make small talk.

Clearing his mind, Shirou focused on what was ahead of him while the escorts closed the doors behind him.

A woman stood with her back facing him, the almost frosty disposition of her demeanor belying a self-confidence few if any could rival in the Mage Association. She stood a full head shorter than Shirou, and wore her hair tied into a ponytail on one side of her head. A pair of baggy maroon trousers were worn beneath shin-high riding boots, while a simple white blouse secured by a red ribbon was worn on her top. Absently held in her hands clasped behind her back was a riding crop that Shirou was sure wasn't meant for mere horseriding.

Her name was Lorelei Barthomeloi, the Queen of the Clock Tower.

The only sign Lorelei made to acknowledge Shirou's entrance was the ever so subtle shift in the air.

"I suppose I should start with a commendation for your latest achievement, but I won't when the only thing I'm truly grateful for are the leads your actions have caused," she said, still yet to face him.

Ah?

For a second, relief flooded through Shirou's system. So, he really wasn't here to get killed. Admittedly, his blood had run cold assuming that his 'actions' to silence the general populace about magecraft had been discovered, but he'd done his best to be thorough. Besides, his associate Allen was apparently good at this sort of thing. Smuggling experience maybe? Shirou had never asked, as their interests had aligned during missions.

It was better to leave it to an expert than muddle naively through the field.

"Leads?" Shirou probed, staring Lorelei in the eyes when she finally turned to look at him. For a second, her features shifted at his actions, before it was as if there was no reaction whatsoever.

She hummed, raising a brow before the semblance of a quirked tug of her lips nearly transformed into a smile. How rare, she mused before killing her features before they could become anything else but stern.

"A coincidental chain of events surely." Lorelei easily dismissed the probe, but reconsidered and decided to indulge a fraction of Shirou's curiosity. "Your latest purge of a Dead Apostle's ghouls correlates with one of the Ancestors I'm pursuing. I've narrowed down the enemy's location to Pennsylvania, Slovakia, and Transylvania, but I couldn't determine which of those three zones to attack. A mistake here would provide ample time for the target to flee. Worse, I have no expectation for anyone other than myself to hold the enemy down in an attack on all three zones, which means my hands were tied."

"I come into this, where?" Shirou inquired.

Lorelei closed her mouth and just stared at Shirou for a hard moment. His gaze remained unwavering, unperturbed even. She scrutinized him harder, searching for deceit but only finding either blind ignorance or an indomitable courage.

For now, it was a pass.

"Those ghouls you purged belonged to an Apostle affiliated to my target. Their deaths led to a reaction in Transylvania," Lorelei continued, idly thumbing the handle of her riding crop. "She wouldn't be so careless, but it can be said that a capable figure's undoing is not himself, but the incompetence of those around."

"Right," Shirou said more as an answer than an understanding.

Who was Lorelei? Of course she spotted the difference, but was actually more amused that someone would be so taciturn with her.

Lorelei snorted. "Needless to say, if an affiliate is there, the leader should be close by. Or baring that, a new lead to follow after."

Lorelei cleared her throat and began walking away from the window she was standing next to, and then towards her deck. From there, she pulled open a rolling drawer and picked up an emblem she then absently tossed Shirou's way.

Raising his right hand, Shirou caught it and did a quick inspection.

The symbol of House Barthomeloi was engraved in runic print along the metal.

"Despite not intending to, you've earned your commendation," Lorelei reiterated while reclosing the drawer and crossing her arms. Using her wrist, she pointed at Shirou with her riding crop. "I grant you explicit permission to partake in this coming hunt."

Silence.

Based on Lorelei's expression, she didn't even think to consider if Shirou would refuse. Granted, few if any refuse an invitation from Lorelei.

Besides, Shirou could read between the lines. Lorelei wouldn't stoop herself to threaten, let alone invite just anyone for a hunt with her and her operatives even if it was under commendation. This alone was telling. There was another purpose in recruiting him, only that he was far too below Lorelei's hierarchical station to deserve an elaboration.

"When do we depart?" Was Shirou's careful choice of words.

Approval flickered in Lorelei's eyes. She could tell that Shirou wasn't the analytical or intellectual type, but instead, his instincts were spot on.

"Head to the Evocation Division's department building as soon as you leave my office. Preparations for departure are already concluded. I will be there shortly. Dismissed."

Nodding his head, Shirou quietly made his way out, too caught up in how he was going to deal with Nanoha to catch that his sudden dismissal was somewhat abnormal.

In truth, Lorelei wasn't finished questioning Shirou, but she was no longer in the mood due to certain interlopers. She'd sensed it the moment an unwelcome guest had arrived.

"You insufferable old man," Lorelei seethed through clenched teeth. "If you have something to say, you should say it now instead of hiding in the shadows."

A blue butterfly flapped into the room and landed a few feet away from Lorelei. A single blink of an eye later, and Zelretch appeared with a bemused chuckle.

"Temperamental as always," he scoffed to which Lorelei mirrored the gesture.

"Only to a select few," she huffed before narrowing her eyes. "And you certainly make that list."

Oh, scathing. The little girl of the past had certainly entered her rebellious phase.

Zelretch merely shrugged. He'd heard it all before within and between parallel dimensions, and he simply had an answer to everything.

"You mean the ones who have the audacity to honestly express themselves in your presence? Or did you mean the list of those who qualify in your prejudice against Dead Apostles?"

Lorelei did not deign the response with an answer even if it so happened that Zelretch was uniquely qualified for both, choosing to wait for Zelretch to get to the point. The Wizard Marshal was eccentric, but he too was an indispensable member of the Association.

"Interesting man, wasn't he?" Zelretch ventured, taking a seat on Lorelei's desk as if it was his.

How an old man could act so frivolous so far out of his prime was beyond Lorelei.

"Are you referring to Emiya?" Lorelei scowled but still answered.

Zelretch looked her dead in the face.

"Who else but him could stare you in the eyes despite that terrible resting bitch face of yours I suggested you fix?"

'...Every day the line draws thinner, Lorelei. Yet now is still not the time.'

Lorelei sighed. Indeed, she had been rather impressed that someone she supposed was on the level of a puppy would be able to maintain his composure in front of her and look her in the eyes, but she digressed.

"He has steel." She admitted with more approval in her tone than she had intended. The quirking of Zelretch's brows as he caught her slip irked her to no end. "I'll give him that, but he has a ways to go if he thinks he's qualified for my personal operatives."

Zelretch didn't think that was part of Shirou's goals to begin with, but he tactfully didn't share his input. Lorelei had an expectant expression on her face, as if she'd just discovered a new asset to invest in. Besides, that would be shooting himself in the foot.

That's what others do. Certainly not him.

"In that case, am I to take it that you neither approve nor disapprove of him?"

Lorelei paused, feeling like she was walking into some sort of verbal trap. Then again, it wasn't as if it was a difficult answer.

"That's based on usefulness, isn't it?" She waited for the catch, but Zelretch just kept smiling at her like a grandfather to a naive grandchild. She shuddered at the image. "He's proved useful, but it means little if he proves incapable."

"Oh, you'd be surprised." Zleretch leaned towards Lorelei and steepled his fingers together in a beckoning gesture. "In fact, I recommend scrutinizing the nature of his craft. It's quite in line with your kind of work and hobbies."

Lorelei finally narrowed her eyes, patience running thin.

"What are you really playing at Marshal?"

"You should have heard of my recent actions?"

Recalling the latest events in the association regarding Zelretch, there was only one.

"Ah yes, the Tohsaka?" Lorelei mouthed. "What of it?"

Zelretch began to put things into motion.

"Have you ever considered apprenticing?"

Lorelei and her operatives moved with alarming efficiency the moment they stepped foot out of the evocation department's transport circle and into the lands of Transylvania.

Shirou and Nanoha were included along with the group, but the level of interaction was more like strangers than comrades. Then again, it could have just been Shirou, but he was sure that there was something different in the way Lorelei had been regarding him from the time he'd talked with her in her office, and now in the present. Her eyes were sharper, more scrutinizing of any faults, yet increasingly contemplative.

Regardless, that didn't mean in any way that her intentions of hunting down her target were detracted.

They deployed immediately with Lorelei taking the lead, effortlessly carried forward but what looked like mighty gusts of wind. As for those directly part of her hunting team, they each employed their own means of keeping up. Some floated on broomsticks, others augmenting themselves with Runes.

Shirou used Reinforcement, while Nanoha tactfully used Raising Heart's floating features to carry her along. In the eyes of others, the weapon appeared to be a mystic code of somesort, so not many questions were asked.

That could all change if Nanoha deployed it for combat.

Thankfully, Nanoha, bless her, had kept oddly silent throughout the entire duration of events. Shirou found it immensely helpful to let him think of a solution to this scenario in peace, but in truth, Nanoha was just too busy observing, documenting, and communicating information with Fate.

Nanoha inwardly complained, but Fate insisted that the directives had been altered to include creating a report about the capabilities of her world's magic society. Considering how off putting Lorelei and her hunting team felt, Nanoha didn't even try to strike up a conversation with them.

Shirou was Nanoha's only liaison, and he looked just as troubled as Nanoha assumed he was ever since they'd left Rin's dorm room.

Presently, the entire group had been traveling through thick forest on route to what appeared to be a castle in the middle of the woods. It was large and walled off with old-century wooden palisades.

Looking at it now, Nanoha still had trouble wrapping her mind around how she could have been so ignorant of her own world's magical capabilities. To begin with, perhaps she should have questioned it further that she, of all the humans in her world, was the only exceptional human who could magic?

Based on numbers alone, the plausibility was never low, and now it was being rubbed in her face.

"Careful," Shirou spoke up from beside Nanoha as the group reached the vicinity of the castle. "Things are going to change from here."

Nanoha raised a brow, noticing when Shirou's eyes lingered on specifically placed symbols etched into the wood of nearby trees that marked a certain boundary. In the end, it didn't matter if Nanoha caught Shirou's actions or not because she felt it.

For a second, the air seemed to ripple and vibrate before she passed through an almost viscous-like film.

"Bounded Field," Shirou said, urging Nanoha to wipe the surprise off of her face. They didn't need to draw any untoward suspicions.

"What's that?" Nanoha mouthed quietly.

"A mystic boundary line that separates the reality of the inside from the outside," Shirou said, not having time to go into the specifics. That was Rin's thing. "Some are equipped with simple detection spells, but others can employ far more lethal means. This further out from the castle means it's likely the former rather than the latter. The owner is most assuredly aware of our presence now."

Nanoha tightened her grip on Raising Heart, but Shirou shook his head.

"Lorelei," was all he said.

As if that was the answer to all questions!

Nanoha had no context here, but the sudden spike of magic in the air was certainly felt. Her eyes dilated while watching several bats and birds, something Rin would have attributed to familiars, urgently take to the air.

Magic or not, Nanoha could interpret what she could see.

"They're afraid," she muttered. "Terrified even."

Up ahead, Lorelei merely sneered and continued forward. Once she'd locked onto her prey, her jaws would never release until the prey's final breath.

"They were caught off guard by Lorelei's arrival," Shirou pointed out, watching the area on the outer reaches of the bounded field be abandoned.

Behind the wooden palisades were makeshift cages that left little to imagine what they were used for. Traps for animals would have been the safe answer, but the reality was different. Gaunt figures stared Shirou and Nanoha in the eyes as Lorelei and her hunting team passed right on through without hesitation.

In the end, those trapped in the cages weren't worth the effort when they would sooner or later die on their own anyway. The only reason they would have been kept far from the castle likely meant that these were failures to begin with.

Slowly, steadily, Nanoha began to noticeably slow.

Reflected in her eyes were the very things kept within those cages: people.

Old, young, children, they were all there and stuffed into those cages such that their weakly flailing arms and legs were forced out through the wooden bars like a macabre painting. Their skin was a pale gray, and there were dark shadows beneath all their eyes. Through it all, the same anguished suffering could be seen on each of their faces.

.

..

…!

…What the hell was she seeing here?!

Shirou grabbed Nanoha's wrist before she could even think of acting. She rounded on him so fast that it was possible to notice the sheer turbulence in her features. She was hyperventilating.

It was like staring into a mirror, one that had once been his own face.

Shirou shuddered, but resolved himself.

"You may not like it, or agree with it, but don't," he advised Nanoha softly.

"This is the same as that time before, isn't it?" she forced the words out behind clenched teeth. "We can help them. Save them."

Shirou shook his head. "The situation isn't the same as before."

This wasn't a case about the average person learning magic, but something more akin to magic contamination or infection. These people would turn into a Dead Apostle's ghouls, sooner rather than later, if not already. Since they were trapped and weak, they were bound for death as failures of some kind.

Nanoha wrestled out of Shirou's grasp.

"Surely we can do something."

Shirou shut his mouth. Even if he did have a method or two…

"There are too many," he shook his head.

Moreover, this wasn't even accounting for the aftermath of saving them, and them subsequently learning about magic's existence. This was even more risky as he and Nanoha were with Lorelei and her hunting squad. No security was greater than death, even memory wipes.

At the very least, death could be a release for their suffering when there was no room for Shirou to freely maneuver. He'd do so at a later date when he was alone.

Losing strength in her knees, Nanoha wobbled.

"W-Who would do such a thing?" She rasped.

"Dead Apostle." Shirou grimaced. There was a reason he often helped hunt them. "I'm sure you've heard the name enough times already."

"The thing about Vampires?" Forgive Nanoha for still being a tad skeptical considering this was her supposedly magicless home world. Now though…

"Sure, we'll go with that," Shirou began moving to keep pace with Lorelei and the rest, urging Nanoha to follow with a small gesture. "The crux of the matter is that the blood of each Dead Apostle when infected into a human, will cause them to turn into that Apostle's eyes and ears. The more the better, but the trade off comes with provoking the Mage Association's bottom line."

This was likely why the ghouls were caged so they couldn't roam into the urban centers.

The more ghouls created by a Dead Apostle, the more likely it was to be noticed under the public eye. This was even more so if the affected area were near city centers of markets.

"Just don't do anything rash, Nanoha. I'm not sure how your TSAB works, but the authority of our present 'colleagues' is above mine, let alone their leader."

At this explanation, Nanoha could grudgingly understand.

"Fine," she conceded.

The tension on Shirou's features immediately softened. He was never such a stern person to begin with.

"Thank you," he said before informing her of Lorelei's arrangements. "I've been requested by Lorelei to help scout the castle ahead. Right now, she thinks of you as just an extra, so unless you do anything to draw attention to yourself, no one should cause you any trouble." The 'because they would see no worth in you,' was left unsaid.

Nodding to convey that she understood, it was only then that Shirou tentatively distanced himself from Nanoha to participate according to Lorelei's instructions.

Making sure that Shirou had actually stopped paying attention to her, the look of 'acceptance' on her features morphed back into the stubbornness of a bull as she approached the damn inhuman cages.

Shirou's words echoed in her head, but were offset by the pained sobbing of the people in front of her.

"It hurts," they cried.

Don't do anything rash…, Shirou had said.

"Help! Please help! We're dying!"

Stiffly, Nanoha activated her coms.

'Fate…are you there?'

"Affirmative."

Nanoha sucked in a breath.

'There's no one nearby?'

She waited for her inquiry to be answered.

"Negative. The area's clear."

Nanoha then glanced in Shirou's direction, Lorelei and the others hardly paying attention to an 'extra' like herself. She balled her hands into fists and scowled.

Just because her home world had no answer didn't mean the myriad collection of worlds under the TSAB's flag were the same.

'Beam them up.'

There had to be some sort of cure.

.

.

.

Compassion was a two-way street.

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