[EMIYA SHIROU]

[THE GAMER] [LV 47 - 19.000/46.000]

[HP: 4700[MP: 35[MC: 27[ST: 920[SP: 6] [STR: 50[DEX: 50[INT: 50[WIS: 50[CHR: 102]

[ATK: 100] [DEF:100]
Rangiku was starting to get worried. The previous day, Shirou and the other Magus had gone exploring one of the side caves and they did not come back yet.
It was obvious that something had happened, otherwise Shirou would have sent back word of his whereabouts.
Now, Rangiku wouldn't worry overly much about his well being in ordinary circumstances, but his survival directly impacted her own as long as they were on this island.
She wasn't the only one who was getting worried either. The islanders that Shirou had rescued were starting to get fidgety as well, as their food supply started to dwindle. They weren't at risk of starvation yet, but neither did they have so much of it stockpiled that it would last them more than a day.
Worst case scenario, they would have to go hunting for themselves, and that wasn't an activity any of them was looking forward to.
Rangiku was far from being defenseless, but this land was ripe with dangers and she was only one person.
The other women knew the lay of the land better than she did, but they were otherwise dead weight.
Worse yet, Rangiku couldn't really abandon them
She was lazy, greedy and manipulative at the best of times, but she wasn't heartless. Of course, she wasn't willing to die for them, so if the worst came to pass, she could still ditch them, but by then the situation would already gotten worse than it already was.
Hence, much to her frustration, she was caught hoping that he'd return safe and sound, which only increased how annoyed with him she was.
She had built her life on the paradigm that it was the men who clung on her, not the other way around. Rationally she knew she couldn't blame him for it.
Naturally, the heart and the mind often spoke two separate languages and this time was no exception.

So she waited next to the corridor where they had disappeared. Minutes stretched into hours and another day loomed to an end with no sign of the two missing Magi.
[br]

[EMIYA SHIROU] [THE GAMER]

[LV 47 - 19.000/46.000] [HP: 4700[MP: 35[MC: 27[ST: 920[SP: 6]

[STR: 50[DEX: 50[INT: 50[WIS: 50[CHR: 102] [ATK: 100] [DEF:100]

Deep underground, buried under god only know how many tons of rubble, Emiya Shirou struggled to free himself.
Although he was nigh unkillable so long as he had stamina to burn, he was far from invincible, or all powerful, as compounded by his current circumstances.
Trying to get himself out with brute force only served to make the situation worse, and he was now resorting to slowly remove the rubble piece by piece, but there was a lot of it.
In a way, he had been quite fortunate that he had been buried near the edge, because if he was somewhere near the middle of the collapse there would be no way for him to get out, with or without a Body of Blades.
Doing things in almost total darkness wasn't speeding up the process either, but Shirou didn't have any source of light and even if he had it, he wouldn't use it.
Ibaraki-Doji was still around there somewhere. Too far away for him to pick up with his supernatural detection, but not so much that she wouldn't see a light turn on.
Of course, he realized how damn stupid he was only half a hour after he had been sifting through loose pieces of rock.
"I'm such an idiot! Inventory!"
He called out the window, took ahold of the pile and willed it to transfer inside his pocket dimension. Helped by gravity, the mountain of rubble crumbled inwardly, disappearing in a matter of moments and Shirou found himself suddenly free.
Cussing didn't really come naturally to him, otherwise he might have had a vast choice of words to call himself by. So much time wasted, when he could have freed himself right away. He really wanted to bash himself over the head, but his body was already mangled enough as it was.

'I need to find Velvet,' he told himself, steering his thoughts away from his own sheer idiocy.

[Supernatural Presence Detected]
'Of course,' he deadpanned inwardly. 'It would have been too easy otherwise, wouldn't it? Wouldn't it?'
At least now he could tell her position and therefore do the reasonable thing and move in the opposite direction.

[Supernatural Presence Detected] [Supernatural Presence Detected] [Supernatural Presence Detected] [Supernatural Presence Detected] [Supernatural Presence Detected] [Supernatural Presence Detected] [Supernatural Presence Detected]

Or maybe not. Maybe they had just jumped out of the pan and into the fire. What other creatures dwelled in these god-forsaken depths?
[br]
Waver followed along the shore, simply because that was the only landmark available. Volumen was tightly wrapped around his body, under his clothes, with barely a few tendrils reaching out in all directions as an advanced warning system.
His Mana was running short and his body was hurting all over.
To the best of his knowledge he had not suffered any physical trauma, therefore the only explanation he had was that he had overdosed on the potion that allowed him through the rejection area created by the shard of the sword.
That effect was gone now, but the potion was still running through his veins. Worse yet, the effect would last longer now that it wasn't counterbalanced by the aura of the swords and it was too late now to concoct an antidote. It would not act rapidly enough. Therefore, he could only walk it off and hope that he would not suddenly, spontaneously explode or something.
Still, the shortness of breath that started to crop up after a while didn't bode well. Soon enough, his control over Volumen Hydrargyrum began to slip and he was forced to deactivate it.
He knew for certain that things were beyond his control entirely when his vision began to blur.
'Damn it. Am I going to die like this, to my own Magecraft, no less?'

That was a risk that any Magus intrinsically accepted, but it didn't make swallowing the bitter pill any better when the moment came.
Still, he pulled himself away from the shore and towards the inland. That wasn't necessarily safer, but if he was going to pass out, as he was certain he would any moment now, he'd rather not be near that black pool that concealed who knew what danger.
He got a few hundred meters and then he collapsed to the ground, clutching his chest in pain.
'I'm sorry, my King. This is as far as I'll go.'
His head hit the ground and he blacked out.
[br]
Shirou was crouching in the darkness, behind a few rocks big enough to conceal him. Fortunately, he was still wearing the necklace that lowered his CHR by fifty points, thus making him able to at least not broadcast his presence.
Several times a prompt showed up, warning him that some entity was moving not too far from his position. He couldn't see what it was, but he strained his ears and he figured they were some kind of bipedal creatures. He assumed they weren't weak, because nothing on this island had been, but he had no way of finding out without laying his eyes on them and actually gauging their level.
At first he planned to wait and see if they would leave, but the coming and going of the prompts suggested that they were roaming the area apparently at random. Unfortunately, while in Die Hard mode time was a high value commodity and therefore he couldn't hide there much longer.
It was time to move out and take his chance.
Peeking out from his hidey hole, Shirou saw a few figures moving about, but the light wasn't enough to see them clearly and thus read what they were and their level. Now, if they lived down there, chances was that their senses were more attuned to the place than Shirou's, therefore, trying to sneak around them probably wouldn't go well.
To the best of his knowledge, rushing them was the better option, but without knowing how many there were, he could easily get overwhelmed. Actually, in circumstances like these every plan could turn out to be a bad plan.
If it came down to that, he might as well go down fighting.

But before he could follow through with that thought, the creatures that were all around him started to run all in the same direction. Shirou quickly hid again and watched. One creature passed close enough to his hiding spot that he was able to see it well enough to read its stats.

[Higher Fishman] [Lv 75]

It was the same species of creatures that Shirou hunted over at Fuyuki's harbor, except twice as big and clearly more powerful. And just like before, there were lots of them all around him, judging by the stampeding he could hear going on. Just what could have-
"RAAAH! GET OFF ME, YOU FILTHY THINGS!"
Ibaraki-Doji happened, apparently. She must have come across them and got their attention. Shirou had no doubt that she was much stronger than any of the Fishmen, but there were sure to be a lot of them.
That worked in his favor, as long as they kept each other occupied, he could make his escape. He immediately got out of hiding spot and ran in the opposite direction to where the battle was going on, light on his feet as to not catch the attention of any stragglers that might have lingered behind.
[br]
Morning sucked, even for the likes of Ibaraki-Doji. Waking up to humans scurrying around in her house was already bad enough.
To make things worse, they collapsed her home with her inside and plummeted her down to the abyss below. It goes without saying that she was not having a good time, and that was before a bunch of vermins like these fish things started to jump on her all together.
They were weak, weaker than even the human kid, but there were so many of them, that even if she could kill one with ease, three more took its spot. Now, if her stomach wasn't so damn empty, that wouldn't have been a problem, but the hunger was getting to her. She hadn't eaten anything for centuries and this amount of physical exertion was slowly making it unbearable.
From the start, an Oni was a creature that brought ruin, to the humans but eventually to themselves as well. Still, if she were to die killed by these animals, that would really sting her pride. However, after she had killed them by the hundreds and they still didn't show any sign of letting go she knew that she was not getting out of there.
That's when they started to overwhelm her. Before, she tore through them without getting so much as a scratch on her, but when she was pushed on the backfoot, they started landing blows on her. The physiognomy of an Oni wasn't the same as a human's. It took more than

being skewered by spears a few times to bring down the likes of her, but it was the sign of her inevitable demise.
Or so she thought, right until the human kid came flying down of nowhere and hacked through the Fishmen that surrounded her.
"... what?" she asked in disbelief, stopping for a moment. His coming to her rescue didn't make any sense. If anything, he should have taken advantage of the commotion she had caused to make his escape.
So why did he come for her? What could have possessed a human to come to her rescue?
[br]
Shirou would have really liked to run away. Ibaraki-Doji had provided the perfect distraction for him, but unfortunately, things hadn't played out quite like he wanted them. He escaped in the opposite direction to where she was fighting, simply because that was the best choice at the time.
As luck would have it, however, he ran straight into a group of fifty Fishmen coming the other way in reinforcement of their brethren that were fighting Ibaraki. Unfortunately, they saw him before he did and before they arrived within the range of his Supernatural Detection.
He made the split second decision to turn back and join Ibaraki. It was an incredibly hazardous bet, but he decided that he would have a higher chance of hiding from a single Oni than hundreds of Fishmen.
Since there was no love lost between Ibaraki and these other creatures, Shirou thought wise to follow the philosophy that the "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."
He was fully aware that if she didn't kill him on the spot, the truce would only last until either they or the Fishmen were dead, but beggars couldn't be choosers anyway.
He made a hasty retreat in her direction, and just in time too because judging by her appearance, she wasn't too far from biting the dust. He leapt over the group of Fishmen that surrounded her and cut down those that were closer to her, creating a temporary reprieve if only because his sudden arrival had stupefied the scaly monsters.
Ibaraki too was gaping at him.
"... what?" she asked.
"What the hell are you looking around for? Do you want to die?" he shouted.
That snapped Ibaraki out of her stupor and she bristled.

"Insolent human," she growled, but she resumed tearing down Fishmen all the same.
Although it didn't seem like it, the situation had temporarily improved for the both of them. For one thing, having each other's back meant that they weren't exposed to attacks from behind, and even if Shirou had brought more Fishmen along with him, only so many could attack at the same time.
Of course, that just turned the battle from completely hopeless to slightly less so. Shirou's stamina was dangerously low. The ongoing battle didn't allow him to stop and eat anything. Furthermore…
"Uuuurghh!" groaned Ibaraki.
"What? What's wrong?" he asked without turning.
"I'm hungry! I haven't eaten anything in centuries."
Ah, heck. They were both running on fumes now and there was no way around that except tackling the issue directly. He was really lucky that he had opted to come here.
"I'll cover you, you take a break!"
"Are you stupid, human? I'm not tired. I'm hungry."
"I have food on me!"
"Human food is never going to be enough to sate my hunger."
"Then what do you need?" he asked.
"What do you think an Oni eats, fool?"
Right… why could things never be simple for a change?
'I guess it's time to do something stupid again then,' he decided, willing the swords that were coursing through his body to dig deeper inside of his flesh.
There was splattering noise, and Shirou's left arm, cut slightly under the shoulder, fell on the ground at his feet. His HPs were already at zero anyway
"There's your meal," he told her as he projected a sword through the stump of his shoulder where his arm had been. It wasn't the same as actually wielding a weapon with his hand, but this fight wasn't about finesse as much as it was about hacking away at the enemy has hard and as quickly as he could. He didn't stop looking at what Ibaraki was doing, but he heard all the same the sound of teeth tearing flesh even above that of the raging battle.

[br]
Ibaraki had seen a lot of weird things in her lifetime, but humans had long since ceased to amaze her. That changed on this day. She didn't know what the deal was with this human kid, but there was one thing she was certain about.
He was completely out of his mind.
Nothing short of that would explain the way he fought, impaling himself with swords from the inside out, and that he came to the rescue of an Oni going as far as offering his flesh for her consumption.
Oni were the embodiment of chaos. They existed outside the Common Sense of mankind, completely alien to their rationality and she was starting to think that this midget was more similar to them.
When she sank her teeth into the flesh of his arm, she knew that her assumptions about his nature were misplaced. However she also realized something else.
He tasted delicious.
She ate humans by the dozens, maybe even hundreds, from all walks of life and all ages. Peasants, warriors and nobles, she had tried them all. Yet none came close to this one.
Tender, yet firm. With a round taste that perfectly suited her tongue and the fragrance of iron from his blood, higher in concentration than anybody else, was like a strong wine the burned in her belly. Even his bones were a delicacy, that she crunched upon with greed.
She finished the meal faster than she would have liked and much to her surprise it sufficed to put her centuries-old appetite to rest, if only just. She licked the leftover blood off her lips and stood back up with a wide grin, flexing her fingers.
Time to put all these vermins in their place.
[br]
The tide of the battle changed immediately. Now that Ibaraki-Douji was no longer famished, she was a force of nature. She shredded the remaining Fishmen like they were made of paper, completely disregarding their weapons and the few injuries they managed to put on her.
Shirou was flabbergasted, but took advantage of the shift to stuff his mouth with all the food he could fit into it, restoring his stamina to the max. He was barely done swallowing that he was slammed into the ground by Ibaraki, who pinned him down by the neck. She had already finished dealing with the Fishmen.

Actually, most had escaped when faced with her true wrath, but the end result was still the same. The battle was over and so was their tentative truce. Still, she was pretty damn quick to turn on him.
"You! YOU!" she snarled in his face.
"What?" he asked completely calm
It's not that he wasn't afraid. Quite the opposite, in fact. However there was no hope for him to fight against Ibaraki. Even when weakened by hunger, she had toyed with him. Not now that she was at full power, struggling was entirely pointless.
He could have made a run for it before she turned on him, but she immediately cut away that possibility, so all he could do now was lay there and accept his fate.
"What type of fool are you? Do you understand that I am Oni?"
"That was obvious from the start. What's your point?"
"I'm the enemy of mankind, yet you came to help me? There's a limit to how foolhardy one can be, even for a species that spawns the heroes who slay us."
Shirou blinked. Is that what she thought? That he came to help her?
That had never been his intention, for once. He just thought that his odds of getting away from Ibaraki were higher than from a group of Fishmen. Although, again, the end result was still the same.
He had helped her.
"I don't care that you are Oni. Of course I'd fight you if you were trying to harm someone else, but I have no grudge against you or your people."
"You do not hate us?"
"What is the point of hating an Oni for being what it is? Our species might be natural enemies, but that does not mean I hate you."
Would a sheep hate the wolf? Does the gazelle hate the lion? Such things were pointless.
"Pffft…. HAHAHAHAHA! Good! Good! Good! Here I thought that nothing more about your species would surprise me. I was thinking that it wasn't even worth waking up anymore, but I was mistaken. There is still something about your kind worth wreaking havoc."
Much to his surprise, she got off him and let go of her hold on him.

"What?" he asked.
"Run away," she told him. "Run as far as you can, knowing that I'll come find you and devour you down to the bone marrow. Show me what futile endeavor you'll set out to. I want to see the despair on your face while I tear down everything you put in my way until I finally get to you."
"You want to eat me…. yet you are letting me go?"
"Yes. Do you not even understand your own language? Your hopelessness and despair will make your flesh taste so much better when I finally catch you. You might consider this the reward of your offering to me."
Shirou narrowed his eyes, but said nothing.
He stood up and stepped back, away from Ibaraki, all the while they started at one another. Eventually, when it was clear that she was serious, Shirou turned around and made his escape, occasionally looking behind his shoulder to see if she was already following after him.
He couldn't believe she had let him go just like that. The again, her thought process probably couldn't be understood by a human, otherwise she wouldn't be a monster. Of course what he got was only a temporary respite. As long as he was trapped in this Singularity, he wouldn't be safe from her.
Neither would anybody else, for that matter, which was probably what Ibaraki intended. She didn't want to just kill and eat him. She wanted to make him suffer, just so that he would taste better. He needed to find Waver and get back to their world, because he couldn't count on his luck to save the day the next time.
[br]
Ibaraki watched the human kid makes his escape. She was dearly tempted to eat him right there and then, but it would have been such an unforgivable waste. Now that she was awake, she needed some form of entertainment and that small human would certainly provided it for her.
More importantly, there were certainly other appetizers around. She had already run into two humans, so there would probably be even more. She just had to find them. Incidentally, that meant that she had to leave these depths and go back to the surface. She had no idea where to start from so she ventured in a direction at random.
She would get somewhere eventually.
[br]

Waver opened his eyes with a gasp. He didn't think he would ever wake up again and considering how he was feeling, that would have been the better option.
His body was burning. Melting. It was like his flesh was being ripped away from his bones. Death would have been extremely welcome in that moment, but the merciless mistress seemed to take her sweet time with him.
He could only suffer, unable to even scream from how dry his throat was. As a Magus, pain was a familiar feeling but this went orders of magnitude beyond what he was used to.
He feared that he wouldn't die. He feared that this fever would leave him alive, but mentally crippled. Of course he would die soon afterward in this hostile environment, but if there was something that Waver feared more than death, it was the loss of his intellectual faculties, even in the short term.
However there was nothing he could do other than lay there and suffer this ignominious fate.
He knew that working for the El-Melloi would cost him everything one day, and it appeared that his prediction had been right. He cursed them with the little consciousness he could muster, promising himself that he would haunt them from beyond the grave.
He should have never accepted this stupid mission. The consequences would have been much more preferable.
[br]
Shirou kept advancing in the near-complete darkness, running only ever so often into the Fishmen that had escaped from Ibaraki's wrath. Alone or in small groups, Shirou was capable of killing them with relative ease and thus advance further.
Only now that things had calmed down a little, he had the opportunity to notice that he had leveled up three times during the previous battle. That didn't help him much, but at least he had gotten something out of the entire debacle, besides a hungry Oni with a fixation on him.
Unfortunately, he still had no idea where Velvet was. Looking for him down there would be fruitless. The other Magus wouldn't have not stood still and was certainly looking for a way out himself. The most intelligent thing was meet again outside rather than finding each other in these caverns.
Eventually his trek reached an end when her arrived in front of a great rocky wall that extended up into the sky. He had found the edge of the cavern. Now, if there was any opening that led back to the surface, it would probably be on it somewhere.

He started walking along this perimeter, hoping to get back out before Ibaraki could. Otherwise, the only way he would get away from this island would be by swimming and his odds with that would be even worse than fighting Ibaraki and Shuten.
He really wasn't looking forward to any of those options.

[XXX]