Ideal x Answer

by LookItsADoggy

The man once named "EMIYA" realises something in the ruins of Einzbern Castle. No matter the people they meet, the place they're born, or the shape of their body, Emiya Shirou will always arrive at the same answer, the same conclusion; at Unlimited Blade Works. It is a female Shirou who proves the worth of Kiritsugu's ideals to Archer, and is left to wander the Moonlit World.

9. Act 0 Chapter 8 - Glass and Abyss

Welcome back.

Welcome to Emiya Shirou's darkest moments. Expect some level of OOC in this one; Shirou at this point, has almost nothing left. In her current state, the ideal is not worth upholding, not worth chasing. She has no reason to show mercy, no reason to try to save someone.

Not much else to say.

See you at the bottom.

Anyways, you clicked on this to read something, so here it is I guess.

---

Two Months Later (One Year and Six Months since the move to London)

An eerie city, looking almost normal, bustled with what seemed to be regular people, doing what seemed to be regular work, commuting to busy business districts and resting at restaurants and cafes.

The purple sky loomed ominously.

The strange, sinister glow cast upon the city by the backdrop of the purple sky only made the place feel even more unnatural.

A tremor, followed by a muffled rumble, shook a distant corner of the city.

However, no one was close enough to take notice of it.

The walls of a large, abandoned house collapsed in on themselves, broken down by an sudden impact from outside.

"!"

A thin woman ducked her head to the side, protected from the debris by her obsidian-coloured light Greek armour.

A hand shot forward through the thick walls, tearing through all of its layers and supports like they were nothing more than paper.

"Shit, they found me already!?"

The hand moved to the side, tearing away the rest of the wall and exposing her to the air outside.

The woman bit into her hand, letting blood ooze out from the punctured flesh.

As it dropped towards the floor, she waved her hands across the air, invisible sparks colliding with the liquid, magnifying its volume and transforming it into viscous, purplish goo.

The vile liquid sprayed forward, shot towards the cloud of dust through the lingering energy and momentum of the invisible sparks.

A thin length of metal cut through the cloud, and all of the purple liquid immediately evaporated as it neared the object.

The sheer force of the monstruous swing immediately blew black the dust, clearly revealing the unknown hunter.

A thin hand, wrapped in what appeared to be a crimson bandage of some sorts, held forward a simple broadsword.

The woman flinched as she took a long, unbroken stare at the blade which repelled her attack.

It glowed a soft white, dripping with some sort of clear liquid.

–Holy water!?

Shit, who exactly are they?

Are they working for the Grigori?

Why the hell are they snooping around in this part of the Underworld?

The woman's eyes slowly trailed past the hand wrapped in red, making sure to hold her hand behind her back, filling it with energy and preparing for the next move.

A beautiful, shapely woman stared her down. That's all she could say about her.

There was nothing else to see or latch onto. The woman's face was entirely covered by an opaque black veil, obscuring any possible identifying features.

She wore a fancy black mourning dress, like some sort of Victorian era widow grieving at her spouse's funeral.

The woman scowled, looking straight into the blank veil.

Somehow, even through the thick black cloth, she could still make out the chilling stare of harsh golden eyes.

"So, who are you? Fallen angel? Stray Exorcist? Some other dog of the Grigori?"

She spat out, tensing her hidden fingers.

A soft purple glow emanated from her palm.

"…Inalla Marbas." The enemy in the mourning dress did not acknowledge her, choosing to simply glare down upon her with bold, ruthless eyes.

The woman's cold golden eyes scanned the devil up and down.

Dark brown eyes, bordering on black. A purple tattoo – likely some sort of runic inscription – started from underneath one eye, tracing upwards through that eye, across her forehead, down the other eye and then trailing off behind her ears. Black hair that was tied all the way back into a short tail. Two large circular golden earrings, as big as coins, dangled from her ears.

"Second daughter of the Marbas Archdukedom. Disappeared some time following the end of the Civil War. Last seen consorting with remnants of the Old Satan Faction and black-market dealers."

"Hoh?" Inalla smirked, putting on a confident face.

The bead of sweat that trailed down from her authority betrayed her true emotions.

"Rumours say you are intending to join an emerging terrorist group, and intend on enacting a city-wide sacrifice of humans."

The smirk immediately fell, replaced by an uneasy scowl.

Inalla's eyes flickered across the room, searching for an escape route.

"You are under arrest, Marbas. Come with us and face judgement quietly."

"Under who's authority?" Inalla hissed. "The Grigori's? How laughable. I don't care what kind of reformation they're undergoing, that doesn't give them any right to be snooping around in the matter of devils."

"No." The veiled woman affirmed coldly. "They do not have any rights to interfere with devil matters."

She brandished her blade.

Inalla's instincts screamed.

"Officially."

A flash of holy silver.

–How-!?

Inalla snarled, twisting to the right, the blade's blessed edge scratching her cheek, leaving her with a scalding, burning pain tearing away her flesh, but still alive nonetheless.

–This speed, what the fuc-

"!"

She felt something rupture through her insides.

The shockwave that emanated from the sheer strength of the sword swing burst through the air, rumbling the entirety of the wooden house around her, her body having bore the brunt of most of the force.

–What the fuck!?

Inalla bit back a scream.

–If I wasn't right here, this entire house would have collapsed on the spot!

No, in the first place, how the hell did she manage so much control over that shockwave?

How did she direct the majority of its force into my body so easily?

What kind of monster did the Grigori send!?

She fought through the intense pain that literally shook her body, stomping down on the wooden floor.

The flooring shattered, splintering upwards into the gap between the two women.

An immaterial force took hold once again, melting the wood away and transfiguring it into monstruous spikes, which rushed towards the veiled woman.

The cadre – she assumed that monster was one, probably one with a True Name, why else would she cover her identity and who else would be as overwhelmingly strong? – was forced to pull her blade back for just a moment to defend herself.

Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, she pointed the arm behind her back straight towards the roof, an enormous fireball erupting from the glowing hand.

A cloud of smoke, dust and burning wood that fell from the roof obscured the vision of the veiled monster.

From inside, a loud flapping could be heard.

By the time the veiled woman had swung her sword to clear the room of the obscuring cloud, the devil had long since disappeared, flying through the hole she made in the roof.

"…"

Griselda made no move to follow her immediately.

She pulled her wrist up to her mouth, a silver bracelet resting on top of the red wrappings.

"Orphan. She's in the sky. East side of the abandoned slums."

"Got it."

Far, far away, perched at the very top of a tall, distant building, a lonely silhouette slowly got up from her knees, swinging her head around one hundred and eighty degrees.

She stood up tall and held her left hand straight in front of her.

Wisps of blue merged together to form a black behemoth of a bow.

Shirou quickly found Griselda's location, the smoke and large burst of fire serving as an obvious guide.

Her eyes shot upwards, spotting a small bat-winged figure flying away at breakneck speed.

A nameless sword materialised in the archer's right hand.

As it was pulled back on the drawstring, it twisted and sharpened into a thin object, half-resembling an arrow.

And–

Inalla felt something piercing straight into her back, sending her tumbling downwards.

She quickly regained her balance, reaching behind herself without looking and pulling out the object lodged within.

She glanced over the object with urgent fear.

–An arrow?

Shit, an archer as well?

How many of these fucking Grigori dogs do they have chasing me down?

She swivelled around, making sure to never cease in her flight, scanning the buildings with her desperation.

Nothing.

She saw nothing.

Three glints flashed at the very edge of her vision.

"!"

She barely managed to twist out of the way of the unusual projectiles, one of them tearing through the very edge of one of her wings.

–Where the fuck are these arrows coming from?

There's nothing!

Absolutely nothing within this area of the slu-

With terror evident in her face, the realisation dawned on Inalla.

Her gaze flicked upwards, looking into the far horizon.

Beyond the eastern block of the slums, beyond the entirety of the abandoned district…

All the way far out there, in the industrial district, surrounded by thick stacks of shrouding smoke and dozens of factories, a single, tiny shadowed figure could be seen, something metal glinting in their hands.

–All the way from there!?

"Lucifer damn it!" The devil shouted, a tattoo on her right arm flaring up.

A flock of a hundred massive crows, each one the size of a large dog, and each one having their talons replaced with what seemed like a lion's claws, were pulled out from underneath her skin.

Shirou tensed at the murder of birds.

Another sword materia-

–!?

Her footing suddenly fell apart.

The crows opened their small beaks, unleashing a variety of spells channelled through their mouths.

Shirou spun through the air in freefall, taking out one, two, seven, twelve of the crows before they got too close on her.

She clicked her tongue.

If it came to a weapon that was suited to tearing apart impossibly fast birds, there was only one sword fit for the job, no?

Or rather, one technique.

The bow and arrow in her hand disappeared.

Monohoshizao flashed into existence.

The falling debris of that distant building turned into a battleground between logic-defying steel and monstruous black feathers.

"Heh." Inalla let a small smirk overtake her features, some of the urgency inside of her body fading away.

That would buy her at least a little bit of-

Something boomed behind her.

–The fuck!?

She had a feeling she already knew who it was.

Inalla abruptly altered her momentum, pushing herself as high up as she could to avoid the terrifying lunge of the veiled monster.

–How the hell did she catch up so fast?

Who are these monsters!?

Why has no one heard anything about the fact the Grigori has these monstrosities under their thumb!?

The veiled swordswoman landed.

She bent her knees, power and tension building up like a spring.

Before she could leap into the air, Inalla agitated the open puncture wound in her arm, willing out a large geyser of blood that sprayed straight towards the enemy.

Once again, the veritable gallons of blood transformed into a vile purple substance.

By the time the veiled woman noticed, it was too late for her to jump to the side, she was already headed for a direct collision with the liquid.

She grunted, somehow bending her jump arc and twisting her body to the side as much as possible, small amounts viscous goo managing to land on some of her back.

"Gh!" Griselda groaned.

Her dress was suddenly melted down and spots of flesh on her bare back started to wrinkle, shrivel and decay, all in the span of less than a second.

She pulled her sword to her back, scraping away the liquid with the broadsword coated in Holy Water before any more damage could be done.

Inalla let out another sigh of relief, flying away in the opposite direction.

That should buy her at least ten, if not twenty seconds, or even a whole half-minute if she wanted to be extremely generou-

A panicked tingle shot up her back.

–Fucking what!?

Already!?

She barely managed to dodge a flying sword – not weirdly bent and condensed into an arrow this time, she noted.

–A regular sword?

A third one?

Rotating around, maintaining her flight path, Inalla looked at her pursuer.

"!"

A red-haired woman leapt across the city, almost looking like she was flying.

–No, that's not a third one.

That's the same figure I saw perched in the industrial district!

The devil panicked, her head quickly snapping to the crumbling building she sent her crows to.

A blood-red mist, surrounded by a fine storm of black feathers, hung in the air, slowly floating downwards.

–All of my familiars, done that quickly!?

She looked back towards the fearsome archer, quickly re-evaluating her capabilities. She had thought that since her long-range capabilities were on the extreme end, that had to mean the archer's close-range capabilities were at least a little bit more feasible to deal with, right?

Clearly, thinking logically when up against these opponents was a mistake.

Shirou landed on a building, keeping her eyes on the fleeing criminal.

She bent down and–

–"Sympathy for a Tragic Hero."

An unmistakable monster of a genius and soldier.

A terrifying shadow, ripping apart entire navies in a single leap.

She drew a plain katana from its furred sheath, which resembled a raccoon's tail.

The distance of eight ships was crossed in a single leap.

Inalla flinched at the speed on display, but kept her eyes focused on the arc of the oncoming slash.

–No, I see it!

I can dodge it, I just have to-

The sword and its raccoon tail sheath disappeared, quickly replaced with a nameless nodachi.

Shirou swiped at the woman with the incredibly long blade.

–One blow, vertical, to force the bird to move back.

The second blow, circular, trapping off the escape route.

And the third blow, horizontal, cleaving them in half.

Inalla's mind emptied itself in pure shock at the impossible strike.

–WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT!?

She was not experienced in matters of the sword, but even she knew that what she was witnessing was something incredibly ludicrous.

There was no dodging this attack. There would only be minimising its damage.

Inalla spun around, exposing her back to the attack.

The three strikes ripped through her wings and tore into her abdomen, sending her plummeting downwards to the ground.

–Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

The woman bit down on her tongue hard enough to draw blood.

The Japanese swordswoman… archer… thing… fell down with her, clutching the nameless sword tightly, holding it above her head.

The devil's eyes flicked towards the globs of blood that fell out of her mouth, rising above her as they were falling at a slower rate than the rest of her body.

–That'll have to do.

Inalla spat towards it, a magic current funnelling through her breath to reach the drops of blood.

The fluid exploded upwards, morphing into a colossal purple spike of condensed and pressurised liquid, diverting the path of the golden-eyed monster quickly collapsing onto her.

With shaky hands, as she landed, Inalla reached into her skirt, pulling out a thin vial.

A tiny sinister black snake wriggled inside of it, its eyes glowing an evil red.

–I didn't want to use this blessing so early.

But if I don't use its power now, I'll be killed before I get the chance to enact any of my plans.

She inhaled deeply, popping the lid of the vial open and throwing it into her mouth.

"Ngh!" She trembled, an indescribable sensation pulsing through her nervous system.

Something vile filled every crevasse of her being, pouring into her soul, bleeding its murky essence into her blood.

A thin black miasma rolled off of her shivering, sweating body.

Her veins and arteries throbbed and pulsed, bulging through her skin.

"…Heh…" Inalla chuckled shakily.

Her eyes went bloodshot.

There was so much of it inside her – power.

Yes, if it was this much, then…

The devil stared at her hand, tightening it into a fist, still trembling in exhilaration at the overwhelming energy flooding her body.

Two sets of feet landed near her on opposite sides.

"One last chance, Marbas." The veiled woman tried to threaten her.

"…" An unhinged, fanged smile broke out on the devil's face, almost splitting her face in half.

Griselda narrowed her eyes.

"…HAHAHAHAHAHA!" The devil threw her head back at an unhuman angle, laughing maniacally. "YOU THINK YOU CAN CHALLENGE ME NOW!?"

…

Griselda tightened her grip on her blade.

Something didn't feel right in the air around her.

She nervously flicked her gaze left and right, trying to gain a grasp on what the source of this unease was.

The Marbas bloodline's ability was organic transmutation; they could use their magic to transform any organic matter they could assert their ownership and dominance over into any manner of 'plague' or 'illness', usually manifesting it as some horrific biochemical weapon, acid, or venom.

There was nothing in the air around them, not even a fly. Diethelm already took precautions when they trapped her in the slums, purifying the entire district's air.

Was she secretly leaking some kind of gas into the air?

No, density of the air still remained the same. Nothing could be smelled or tasted either.

"With this…" Inalla slowly pulled the upper half of her body forward, glaring at the veiled woman with an insane enthusiasm.

"I can finally reclaim our true, pure heritage… back before it was muddled with the blood of low-class filth, diluting the power of our bloodline."

Somehow, the impossibly wide smile on Inalla's face grew even wider.

"You see… transmutation of organic matter into plagues, that's a mere fragment of what Archduke Marbas, the one recorded by King Solomon, was truly capable of. Grigori dog, do you want to know what his true power was?"

The maniacal devil tilted her head back, looking down on Griselda with a bloodthirsty, narcissistic glint in her reddened eyes.

Griselda's eyes widened.

No, this feeling, it was-

"ORPHAN, GET AWAY FROM HER AND COVER YO-"

It was too late.

"Rot."

The pure mana in the air suddenly blackened.

The air exploded with dark fog, smelling like carcasses and dead flies.

Griselda brought her sword-hand to cover her mouth, trying to leap back.

"Gh!"

She looked down at her left hand, the flesh literally peeling and melting away into nothing until only withered, brittle bone was left.

–Shit, Shirou!

Her head snapped back in front of her, trying to peer past the inky miasma, attempting to confirm the current status of her teammate.

–That girl!

Why the fuck is she–!?

Shirou ran forward, straight into the fog of rot, unperturbed.

Her golden eyes hollowed out, becoming utterly cold and lifeless.

Inalla smirked, hearing the approaching footsteps behind her.

–Oh, look at that.

An idio-

Her smug, victorious expression immediately dropped the moment she turned around.

–WHY THE HELL IS SHE COMPLETELY UNAFFECTED!?

"YOU!" She grit her teeth, losing her balance for a moment as she tried to retreat deeper inside the unnatural darkness.

"HOW THE HELL ARE YOU NOT JUST A PILE OF BONES BY NOW!? ANY ORGANIC MATTER SHOULD INSTANTLY BE DECOMPOSED WITHIN THIS FIEL-"

Shirou's bare knuckles impacted her face, breaking the devil's jaw.

…

Her empty heart felt nothing.

Her empty soul felt nothing.

No physical pain came to her.

She pulled her hand back. As it scraped across the devil's face, parts of the outermost layer of the hand's skin flew off.

Nothing but steel laid underneath.

–I hate it.

I can't feel it.

Her body was not one of flesh.

Her blood was of iron and her heart of glass.

Nothing inside of that machine could be rotted. It could have been decayed, but Marbas' ability was not tied to the aftereffects of the passage of time, it was just simple decomposition of raw organic material.

–I hate it.

I can't feel it.

Shirou was not talking about the fact that her body was made of steel, and that there was nothing inside of her to be exposed to that ability.

–I don't feel anything.

I'm not sad.

She was talking about the emptiness that had lingered inside of her heart and soul since the beginning of this mission.

–I'm going to kill someone.

I'm failing to save someone.

I'm turning my back on them.

Nothing but a cold, logical, ruthless machine was left the moment she stepped into the Underworld.

–I feel no sadness.

I feel no bitterness.

I'm not angry.

I'm not resolved.

There's no loathing, no lamenting.

Shirou threw her fist towards the devil, who was still stunned and reeling from the blow.

–I hate it.

That thought, that single thought…

The realisation that in that moment, she was no better – no, she was even worse – than that man, made something inside of her snap.

–I hate it I hate it I hate it

I hate it I hate it I hate it

I hate it I hate it I hate it

Pure, unbridled rage filled every vein in her body, the emotion intense enough to turn the steel inside of her body white-hot.

Finally, then, the pain came.

And Shirou found that she still could not care.

–…

Something burst.

A hundred blazing white-hot blades extended out of Shirou's arm, impaling the devil at instant speeds, killing her on the spot.

–…

Shirou stared blankly at the devil held up in the air by the blades that had burst out from her body, not reacting at the vomit-inducing smell of burning flesh, nor flinching at the sight of the gruesome impalement.

The swords slowly receded back into her skin.

The fog fell.

Griselda approached warily, making sure to always stay ten paces behind the slowly diminishing fog, keeping her sword at the ready.

–That girl…

She stood alone, staring emptily at the dead body on the floor.

"Eugh." Griselda gagged at the uncomfortable sight.

The devil's face was entirely filled with holes from top to bottom, each slit singing and turning a crisp black.

She raised her sword arm, which was still intact, and spoke into the bracelet.

"Priest. Get over here. Target's neutralised. Also, I have a skeleton hand, might need your help on that."

"A… skeleton hand? Blade, what the fuck."

She could vaguely make out Diethelm sighing, but nonetheless moving towards their position, guided by the still burning roof of the house.

Griselda looked back towards her other teammate.

…When viewed underneath this black veil, the girl's lonely, haunted figure seemed rather morose and solemn.

"Oi, Shirou."

She called out to her.

The red-haired girl gave no response.

Still, Griselda knew she heard her.

"That's your… Reality Marble thingy acting up, right?"

"…"

"You…" Griselda sighed, scratching the back of her head.

She only really knew how to deal with children. Being delicate with anyone else wasn't really her thing. Except maybe with Gabriel. That annoyingly bright angel was slowly managing to soften her rough edges.

"Are you alright, Shirou?"

"…"

"If this was three months ago, you'd make this face of disgust whenever we had to kill someone, and you'd spend the entire rest of the day brooding in some corner of the room muttering about how you failed, looking like you hate yourself."

Shirou continued to stare blankly at the repulsive corpse beneath her, completely detached from her emotions.

–I want to go home.

I want to see Rin and Isaiah.

"…I'll manage." She muttered lifelessly.

–I want to feel something again.

---

"Ideal" x "Answer"

Act Zero – "Journey" x "Belonging"

Chapter 8 – "Glass" | And | "Abyss"

---

Spring was nearing its end.

The season of blooming flowers, filled with the all the bright natural colours of nature, would soon pass.

Its gentleness, its inspiring warmth, and its loving embrace would fade away by the time the next week rolled around.

A door slowly pushed open.

"I'm home." Shirou called out.

A scent drifted through the air, filling the apartment with a delicious aroma.

Garlic, ginger, lard, fresh spring onion.

"Mm." Rin acknowledged from the distant kitchen. "I'm making lunch, Orphan. Fried rice. Isaiah's waiting at the table. Go wash up, it'll be done soon."

Shirou stepped through the small entrance corridor, greeting the young boy at the table.

Isaiah kept a stern frown on his face, trying to not let his face betray his emotions. His shoulders were held high and his back was upright.

However, his legs gave him away. Underneath the table, they swung back and forth in wild anticipation.

Shirou smiled. "Hey, Isaiah."

Isaiah stiffened at the greeting.

"S-Sensei…" He bowed his head hurriedly, seeming like he was nervous about something.

Shirou shook her head and chuckled, pulling off her jacket and unwrapping the Shroud of Martin from her left arm.

She approached Isaiah, bending down on her knees and looking up into his eyes.

"I know it still might feel a bit unusual for you, and you're a bit scared… but there's no need to to try and hide anything, you know?"

Isaiah seized up, blinking like an owl.

"This place might seem fancy to you since you've grown up in a poor orphanage, but… it's just home. That's all it is. You don't need to worry about keeping up some kind of act to be accepted, just feel free to be open. It might be new to you to be getting three meals every day, and having access to ingredients you could never afford before, but it's fine."

She reached up with her right arm, ruffling Isaiah's head.

"We're not going to take anything away from you because you're not acting a certain way."

"…"

Isaiah made an uneasy face.

"I-"

His stomach gurgled, cutting him off.

An embarrassed blush flared up on his cheeks.

Shirou smiled, feeling something inside her heart of glass warm up.

"I'll remember that for next time, Sensei."

"That's good."

Shirou nodded, getting up and stretching.

–Please, live.

Please, be happy.

You're the only thing I can hold onto right now.

She went into the bathroom, setting aside her torn clothes, holes littering the right sleeves, and stepped into the shower, washing all the grime and dirt off of her body.

Still though, she could not feel clean.

No matter how much filth came off her body, the nothing that lurked beneath would continue to eat away at her.

–…

Her fist tightened as she stared blankly at the tiles of the bathroom floor.

–How long?

If one listened very, very carefully, then they would hear something akin to raindrops smashing down on a thin tin roof.

The droplets of water fell onto her cold, hardened skin, sliding away effortlessly.

–How long will I have to feel like this?

How long will I continue to be empty?

How long will it take for me to become something?

Shirou cleaned herself up and threw on a set of new clothes, joining the other two occupants of the apartment just as Rin finished up with lunch.

She smiled tiredly, flashing a quick smile of thanks towards Rin.

–I don't have anything left.

The meal, which had smelled so fragrant, so alive, when she first came home, tasted like nothing on her tongue.

No joy, no satisfaction, nothing… nothing came to her as she ate and swallowed.

In the first place… was she even hungry?

She couldn't say.

–I can't rely on those three words anymore.

'It isn't wrong' can carry Emiya Shirou on her path no further.

That had been shattered when reaching out to save Fiamma simply because she could had resulted in someone dying the death of Emiya Shirou.

–I can't rely on the promise to that man anymore.

Not turning my back on anyone, not letting go, not abandoning anything…

I can't claim to ever do that anymore.

No, in the first place…

I was never doing it, was I?

Her blindness and her foolish, hollow desire, born from those three words, had unknowingly made her abandon those in need, in favour of what should have been a certain death at the hands of ten thousand devils just to save one girl.

She could never have claimed to be trying to save both in that moment. She only got away with it because of a miracle.

And then later, she willingly turned her back on that promise.

Shirou had to let Arthur go beyond her sight. She let go of something.

She could not follow him where he was going. He was walking towards a destination she would never be able to reach him in – his future.

She had no place in it. He had to walk that path with nobody but the two girls by his side. She was just a stranger, an outsider who had provided an unlikely miracle.

The only way he could grow up to be the man he was destined to one day become was if she broke her promise and left him alone.

So she did.

–I'm alone now.

I won't ever hear your voice again, Saber.

I won't ever feel your warmth or protection again, Saber.

Avalon had finally left her.

Their one connection – that link, that oath, that protection – which existed beyond life and death, beyond past and present, had been sacrificed. It had been sacrificed to protect whatever was left of Shirou's crumbling heart, saving the one remaining fragment of what was left of an old friend's 'Answer'.

–I can't chase that ideal as my current self.

Even if it's beautiful… doing so will just lead to nothing but disaster.

It can only result in that man's future.

The meal on her plate slowly disappeared.

Shirou wasn't really cognisant of anything. She just let it happen naturally, not reacting once.

–I'm just a pathetic nobody right now.

An empty fool who never grew past her childhood.

No…

An empty fool who never progressed forward from the moment of her birth.

Ever since that fire…

I haven't changed once, have I?

The twenty-year-old Emiya Shirou is no different from the five-year-old Emiya Shirou.

Her gaze lifted itself up, looking across the table.

–All I can do is cling onto this one, tiny hope before me.

Isaiah's eyes, burned brightly with life and hunger, ferociously eating through the meal placed in front of him with vigor.

A small smile twisted on Shirou's lips.

–I don't want to let it go.

If he disappears,

If I lose him…

Like I did Arthur…

Like I did Fiamma…

Like I did Avalon…

Then I'll truly, truly…

Have nothing left, won't I?

Everyone cleaned up.

Rin left the apartment, going back to the Clock Tower to continue her studies.

And as usual, Shirou spent her time watching over Isaiah's training routine.

Eventually, as the hours passed, blue faded from the sky, replaced with yellow.

Then yellow bled into orange. Then orange bled into purple.

The sun set at last, purple melting away to leave behind a black sky.

The warmth of the spring sun disappeared; the ball of light having descended beneath the horizon to sleep until the next sunrise.

Left behind was a middling, bland coolness, the lurking presence of summer fighting back against what should have been a cold night.

It would be one of the last of these awkward, empty nights, filled with neither cold nor warmth. By the time the next week came, the nights would be short and hot, filled with sweat underneath clothes and blankets.

Shirou stood outside in the back yard, alone.

She stared into the starry sky.

The temperature-less air blew past her in a lifeless breeze.

The stars twinkled in front of her, taunting her with their dazzling light.

The memories of that night flooded in.

Not the night shared between the regretful man and the child who didn't understand the tragedy of the dream she was receiving…

But the night shared between that woman and the child she saved.

Shirou lifted her hand, raising her arm to the sky.

–"Isaiah… what are stars made of?"

She traced the tiny outline of a distant star with her index finger.

–"And after the sun, light has to travel for another four and a half years before it reaches the nearest star."

"Then, why are they so bright? If we can never reach them and touch them with our hands… why do they insult us by being so beautiful?"

Slowly, she held her arm out right in front of her view, blotting the star out with her palm.

–I'm lost.

Shirou gently brought all of her fingers inwards, as if trying to catch that star and hold it within her hand.

–I thought I could see the path towards the stars.

But I couldn't.

A blind person cannot see anything.

And now…

She closed her eyes.

–I don't know where I am.

The lonely woman brought her hand towards her chest, tightly clutching it and pushing it towards her heart, desperately trying to capture the imaginary light and warmth that the star she caught in her wishful dreams.

–I'm somewhere out there, in the infinite abyss, lost between the stars.

Still, however, nothing came to her.

Shirou let the hand drop limply.

She sighed, life fleeing from her, carried away by the breath.

–I have to move forward again somehow, but…

In the void, where direction is meaningless,

In the void, where there is no ground, no footing,

Where the distance between two points is formless and infinite,

On that omnidirectional road, lonely and cold…

She opened her eyes, and turned around.

She faced the apartment once more, leaving the view of the night sky behind her.

The stars were no longer in her vision.

–How am I ever supposed to know if I'm headed in the right direction?

As she stepped back inside, one sentence she spoke that night echoed in her mind of steel, haunting her as she trudged towards her bed.

–"He had no direction. He knew the goal, but not the path. He simply walked and walked. Never considering where he was, never considering where he was going and never considering where he had passed. He didn't even know why he was chasing the star in the first place. He just kept going for it, like a machine."

Something inside of her, like massive clockwork, groaned and clanked.

–I'm still the same.

Thinking I was different was nothing more than a pitiful illusion.

I desperately held onto it to carry me just one step further.

…No.

I'm even worse, aren't I?

He at least made a definition of 'saving' for himself, so he could protect his pursuit of the ideal.

He came to the conclusion that the word 'saving' meant 'numbers'.

He held onto that conclusion, no matter how twisted or wrong…

So he could take just one more step forward.

…

I don't even have that.

I've never known, never decided, what 'saving' someone looks like.

It was a slow day.

Nothing had been done on that day. No progress was made.

Not for Emiya Shirou, at least.

Rin continued to get closer and closer to mastery of the Second Magic.

Isaiah trained, growing stronger and stronger day by day.

Even Team Fogwalker was getting somewhere. They eliminated one more threat to a fragile peace, getting one step closer to a stable world.

She alone did nothing.

She was still the same as ever, still as hollow was ever.

Spring would pass her by. This season, filled with life and joy, where people reached forward towards the future, would eventually fade.

She still clung on, hesitant to take that step into the darkness.

Shirou foolishly clung on to that last singular hope, which was nothing more than a tiny speck of light, which too would one day grow into something that would eventually leave her.

Seven more days. Seven more empty, stagnant days like this, and summer would come.

And by then, she would be left behind.

Everyone would have left her, going somewhere she could never reach them…

The future.

---

Six days remained until summer would arrive.

It was a bright and sunny Saturday.

Rin had already left for the Clock Tower, bemoaning the fact that she was not free from the old man's 'pedagogy' (read: rambling, ranting and various forms of mental torture, both unintentional and intentional).

"…Let's take a break, Isaiah."

"Eh?" Isaiah blinked.

Suddenly, his legs wobbled, and he collapsed on the ground.

"Ow!"

He groaned as he hit the floor, his legs suddenly giving up on him.

The boy sighed.

"Whatever…" He mumbled, letting his back touch the grass.

Sweat soaked into his shirt, clinging onto his back.

"Sensei, why? Getting stronger is the only thing that matters right now. I have to one day stand strong enough to protect everyone around me."

…

Shirou sighed.

A bitter expression formed on her face.

–That's the exact mindset I had.

Those were the exact thoughts that led me…

That led him…

To ruin.

"And who exactly do you have around you to protect?"

"…" Isaiah stayed silent for a good while.

"You." He tried, but even he didn't really believe in what he was saying.

Trying to protect her, the woman who saved him…

It was nothing more than a pleasant fantasy.

She was his teacher, the woman he admired. He'd never be able to catch up to such a distant figure, no matter how hard he tried.

It would always be her who would be there to protect him.

"…Do you really think you'll ever reach that point in a reasonable amount of time?" Shirou asked, her empty voice echoing in the silent, sunny backyard.

It didn't really feel like she was trying to get an answer from Isaiah.

"How long will you spend chasing that before you reach it? When you do, what will you have by then?"

"…"

"Twenty years, thirty years? And you'll have nothing. You'll have no one. All that time spent trying to become able to protect those you care about… and by then, you'll have no one who you care about."

It moreso seemed that Shirou was talking to, and berating, herself.

"…" Isaiah made a sour face. "What are you trying to say, Sensei?"

"Live." Shirou answered without hesitation, barely even letting Isaiah finish his question.

–Please, live.

"You don't have to give up training. Just every once in a while, remind yourself that you're alive. That you're doing this for a reason."

Isaiah furrowed his eyebrows, frowning.

Shirou closed her eyes, her heart of glass beating solemnly inside her.

–If you aren't happy,

Then this was all pointless.

It would just prove that Emiya Shirou, fundamentally, is unsalvageable.

So please.

Live.

"If I didn't bring back cheesecake on the day I came back… do you think you ever would have thought about going out and getting it for yourself?"

"…"

"It would have just been training, wouldn't it? That was the only thing on your mind at the time. Everything else was just a distraction. You would never have thought about cooking or baking or anything like that."

"…Yeah." Isaiah sighed. "I wouldn't have."

…It was nice.

That night was the happiest he had been in a long time. It was like Christmas, only two months later. The cake was like a mystery he couldn't solve, but one that he really, really wanted to. It was exciting, trying to work it out backwards; what the hell something like that was made from.

He remembered that night why he was doing all of this. So he could one day put a smile on someone else's face.

Getting stronger wasn't the be-all, end-all. It was just a way of maintaining what was truly important.

Somehow, he had forgotten that.

He had gotten to the point where he was just a razor's edge away from tipping into the abyss, like the man his teacher once told him about…

The man who finally found the star, but at that point, had thrown everything away, even the reason he tried to hold it. Nothing was left but a bitter, empty shell.

"So what am I supposed to do, Sensei?"

Isaiah couldn't figure it out. He had lived a poor, sheltered life. The only things he knew were the orphanage and that cold, cold research facility.

He didn't know what life looked like beyond that small world of his. He had never actually been to a restaurant, or a bakery, or a shopping mall, or a fashion store, or any of that.

He didn't even know what half of those things even were.

Shirou opened her eyes, looking straight into the sun.

The light did not burn her eyes. If anything, it seemed rather pleasant.

The woman made of steel let a small smile appear on her face.

"It's Saturday. The markets would be bustling right now."

"…Markets?" Isaiah frowned.

"Mm." Shirou nodded.

"Just everyday, regular people selling things they love to other people. Let's go there and just relax for a day. If you see anything you like, just pick it out and tell me."

Yes, spring would soon fade.

At the very least, before then…

She'd like to have at least one more memory to cling onto.

---

The streets were lively, bustling with people and chatter.

It was hard to even listen to one's own thoughts with the amount of noise that circled around.

Friends laughing and cheering, couples flirting, families being dragged around by children, and curious everyday people looking to find something fascinating.

Artisans, farmers, merchants, chefs, all shouting at the top of their lungs, beckoning the eyes, ears and noses of curious bypassers, all fiercely competing for their limited attention, time and money.

And through it all, a pair walked.

Isaiah tightly held onto Shirou's hand. If he let his grip waver for even a second, the enormous mass of the crowd surrounding them would tear the two of them apart without so much as a blink.

His eyes wandered in every direction, his gaze barely able to linger on one sight before he was quickly greeted by another. A constant sparkle of fascination and wonder glittered inside his eyes, like rays of light peeking through stormy clouds.

He bumped against someone to his left.

"Sorry." He quickly mumbled, not putting too much effort into his apology, knowing those people would quickly pass him without so much as an acknowledgement.

Two teenage girls passed him by, giggling to each other about some story one of them was telling, he didn't really care.

The scent of something mouth-watering suddenly wafted towards him.

It was exotic, rich; he had never smelt something so incredibly condensed in its savouriness and fattiness.

He froze for a moment, forgetting to walk.

His neck snapped towards the left, trying to track the two girls who just bumped into him.

A skewer was in each of their hands.

Thin rectangles of… something… were layered on top of each other. It was browned on the outside, some parts of it even having small charred edges, which somehow only made it look even more appetising. Off-white juices oozed down the rectangles, glistening in the sunlight, their subtle sparkle enrapturing both his eyes and his nose.

His mouth suddenly filled with saliva.

Shirou stopped, realising that Isaiah had gotten distracted by something behind him.

"Did you see something, Isaiah?"

"…Those two girls." Isaiah mumbled.

Shirou could only barely hear him.

She tilted her head.

"They had these… sticks of… beef? I think? In their hands… I-I've never smelt something that strong before… is there really meat like that out there?"

"Ah." Shirou knew exactly what he was talking about. "Wagyu."

Isaiah blinked, looking back at his teacher.

"Wa-…gyu?" He tried out the foreign word, finding it a bit uncomfortable to say. "What is that?"

"It comes from the far, far east. From my homeland, in fact. Japan."

"Japan?" Isaiah furrowed his brow. "You're from there?"

"Mm." Shirou nodded. "Maybe one day, when we've done everything we need to do in London, we'll bring you to our home there."

"I… see…" Isaiah hung his head, pondering on the information about his teacher's identity given to him.

That was probably the only thing he knew about her origin. He knew the word 'Sensei' sounded strange for some reason he couldn't place, but he didn't know enough people to place exactly what region of the world that word came from.

"It comes from a specific breed of cow." Shirou explained, looking through the crowd in front of her to see if she could try and figure out the position of that stall. "They're selective bred to have an extremely high ratio of fat within their muscles. That high amount of fat makes them extremely desirable, melting down and rendering into a beautiful taste and texture."

Ah. There it was.

"Come on, let's go try it." She tugged at Isaiah's hand, pulling the ruminating child towards her, a small smile tugging at her own lips.

They came to a small stall, waiting in line for a good handful of minutes before they got the chance to order.

Shirou tugged at Isaiah's hand lightly, beckoning him to step forward.

Her eyes flickered back to the owner, greeting him with a respectful smile.

"Hello." She nodded, her eyes then proceeding to wander across his stall. "Sorry, but may I ask what breed you are selling here?"

The middle-aged owner, a perfectly average man with a few wrinkles on his face, half-Japanese if she had to guess, blinked in surprise.

"Hoh?" He raised an eyebrow, unable to hold back a small excited smile. "You know, most people around here don't ask. They're just happy to order, watch their food cook, and eat."

Shirou chuckled sheepishly.

"I apologise if I'm being intrusive in any way. I'm a rather scrutinous cook, and this will be this boy's…"

She nodded her head towards Isaiah.

"…first time trying wagyu. I just want to make sure that his first exposure to it will be from the genuine thing."

"Nah." The owner of the stall waved it off with an easy-going smile on his face. "I totally get it. You look a bit Japanese yourself, I can understand wanting your home to represented well. That's why I'm doing this, my father's a farmer from Kagoshima. I'm just doing my bit to get the word about his work out there."

He shrugged, grabbing a knife from a small rack and heading towards a small attached room to the side of the stall, where large slabs of meat hung in a chilled room with controlled airflow.

He picked out a long, thin rectangle of white-streaked meat, placing it onto a cutting board and cutting out a paper-thin slice, bringing it back outside the refrigerated chamber in his plastic glove-covered hands.

"Here." The owner grinned toothily, holding it out for Shirou. "Try it for yourself. Don't worry about paying. If it gets your confidence and it'll put a smile on the kid's face, I'm fine losing a few dollars."

Shirou smiled in appreciation, gingerly picking up the thin slice of beef and putting it in her mouth raw.

It smelt incredibly fresh, almost sweet in a way. The slice was soft and tender, the fats almost literally dissolving as she chewed on it, melting the meat inside of her mouth.

Shirou smiled, swallowing the raw beef down.

Yeah, that was definitely the genuine article.

"A5, 58.5% intra-muscular fat." The owner grinned, noting the satisfied smile on Shirou's face. "Kagoshima, dad's work. Kuroge Washu, Japanese Black."

He arched an eyebrow.

"So, what do you think, live up to your standards?"

"Mm." Shirou nodded, pulling out her wallet. "I'll take a skewer of skirt steak."

"Haha! No worries."

Isaiah watched in fascination, peering over the glass pane.

A skewer of small slices of wagyu was placed over an open long rectangular box, glowing with the intense orange of live burning charcoal.

He stared intensely, burning the sight into his mind. The fat melting and rendering, dripping dangerously down onto the fire, the edges of the meat shrivelling inwards, shrinking and firming up as it took on a more defined shape.

It transformed so quickly from a vibrant, fresh red into a glossy, crisp and almost golden brown that he felt as if he couldn't blink, otherwise he would miss some part of the process.

"Here it is, skirt steak for the little guy."

Isaiah flinched, not even fully realising what was happening around him until the man spoke directly at him, holding out the curious foodstuff that had so easily transfixed him.

"T-thank you." He quickly bowed his head in thanks, nervously taking the skewer from him, scared that it would drop to the ground if he so much as breathed on it wrong.

"Come on, Isaiah, let's go."

Isaiah let himself be pulled away by his teacher, his attention still consumed fully by the wondrous thing in his hands.

He blew on it lightly, letting some of the heat, as well as a tiny part of that wonderful smell of light smoke and sweet fat, be pushed away.

He pulled it towards his mouth, and–

"!"

He wasn't sure if he had the words to describe the experience.

It was just too alien of a feeling, just far too much out of his league, for him to ever fully be able to comprehend it as he was in that moment.

His mind, completely free of thoughts as they had all been blown away from the second he took his first bite, was not aware of anything that had been happening around him.

Before he even knew it, the entire skewer had disappeared, leaving nothing but an inedible wooden stick.

Isaiah sighed, lamenting the fact he couldn't fully enjoy… whatever that was.

He looked to the side, looking for a bin so he could throw away the skewer.

"…"

Shirou came to a stop, lurching forward a tiny bit as she realised Isaiah wasn't moving.

He was staring intently at a stall that they had just passed by.

A grizzled man with slowly greying hair sat alone at a small booth with protective see-through walls surrounding it.

A large blowtorch blew directly towards him. Its heat must have been close to unbearable at that distance and angle, but the man simply sat there unfazed, with barely a single bead of sweat trickling down his forehead.

He reached for a long rod of glass, putting directly into the path of the blowtorch.

Isaiah's eyes flicked towards his hands.

Calloused, scarred, bruised. They were hands of great experience, that had done this for many, many years, sustaining far more injury than he could ever imagine. Even now, white cloth bandages were wrapped over his palms and knuckles, no doubt concealing a terrible burn or two even at this very moment.

Yes, they had certainly sustained great damage, but with that damage…

With that damage came great history, great stories to be told.

The aging artisan pulled the glass away from the torch, reaching to the side for a pair of tweezers.

He held down the heated, soft glass with his tools, twisting and flourishing with his other wrist to pull and stretch at the material, shaping all sorts of beautiful twirling glass threads.

How much time had that man spent doing this?

How many years, how many artpieces and works had he made over his long, long life?

What drove him towards such a hobby? What sort of passion was there inside of him that burned with so much fuel and drive that he was willing to put on this performance even when his hands were in terrible condition? Was that love he felt for his work and the fulfillment he got from seeing others pay their respects to it truly something so great and powerful, able to overcome the constant accidents that had been inflicted on his hands?

"…"

Isaiah could not know the answers to any of the questions he had posed internally, but still, he felt as if he could not look away.

He was enamoured by the work of the man in front of him, who had cut himself off from the rest of the world, focusing on nothing but the construction of the artwork he had envisioned in his mind.

"A glassblower."

Isaiah briefly diverted his gaze towards his teacher, who had taken it upon herself to explain what he was looking at.

"Or a lampworker, one of the two. I'm not too sure on the specifics of what they call themselves."

Isaiah frowned.

"So the thing that man's holding… it's just a rod of glass?"

"Yes."

"Like what they make windows out of?" Isaiah looked back at the artisan's work.

He couldn't see it.

"Shouldn't the glass just… I don't know, either melt or crack?"

"It doesn't heat up quickly enough or suddenly enough for that to happen. Under a blowtorch, it's possible for someone to control the temperature of the glass by introducing it slowly enough to avoid thermal shock."

"…"

Isaiah nodded blankly, his attention already completely captured by the craftsmanship in front of him again.

He wasn't sure how long he was just standing there, watching.

He had to have seen the man complete at least three separate pieces. That had to be at least what… fifteen minutes?

At least fifteen minutes of just standing completely still, mesmerised by the simple rod of glass in front of him.

Isaiah shook his head, suddenly roused from his trance.

He turned around, moving away from the booth.

It wasn't that he was bored, far from it.

It was just that if he watched any longer, he would probably have stayed there for several more hours, all the way until the man would begin to pack up for the day.

And in that timeframe, who knows how much else he was missing?

How many other people, how many other forms of art and craftsmanship, were lying around in this marketplace, just waiting for him to stumble across them?

Shirou smiled, happy to let the hours pass by as she was dragged around by the boy.

She was glad.

That boy had not lost the spark of life that had made him stand out so saliently in her view when she first stumbled upon him.

He was alive. Truly alive, unlike her.

He could smile. He could let himself be fascinated by everyday occurrences. He wasn't some sort of monolithic single-minded machine endlessly pursuing just one thing…

He was just a child. A child who let his attention be taken by anything that came his way. He liked to eat delicious food, see pretty things and have fun.

–I'm…

Jealous.

She didn't understand it.

For as far as she could remember, it was only her and Kiritsugu in that lonely household.

That hollow man, who had given up on living, could give the hollow child no such meagre joys.

And that hollow child, who didn't know how to live, never dreamed of such things for herself.

The only thing that child understood of 'being happy' was the smile that man showed her on that night.

Shirou stared at the boy, his sparkling eyes fixed on a small booth where a man dressed in white chef's clothes stood close to a roaring fire, tossing a wok that was almost wider than the man's body.

She focused on every minute detail of his expression.

On how his shoulders would lightly tense every time the rice flew up into the air, and the small exhale he released when it landed back safely in the wok.

On how his eyes trailed up and down, perfectly following the arc of the food flying through the air.

She wondered if he even knew how much he was drooling, or how openly his jaw hung.

It was not something she had ever felt for herself.

She had started to cook in her childhood as a necessity, as that man was utterly hopeless in the kitchen.

She had never felt that ravenous hunger a normal person would feel at seeing a masterful dish constructed before them, she had never imagined what it was like to taste something she had seen on the television.

Such simple, normal desires were foreign to her.

–…Why?

What made you so different?

How come you get to live?

He should have been like her.

He lost everything. His friends, his home… and in that snowy field, he had almost lost himself.

When Valper's men started to beat him into the snow…

He had given up. He had let go of everything.

He should not have had any regrets left. His eyes should have lost hatred. His hands should have lost anger. His legs had already lost hope.

…But his self never lost its self.

–Was it me?

It should have turned out just like it did with Fiamma, just like it did with Kiritsugu and her.

But it didn't.

–Was it something I did?

He lived. She could not understand how it happened, but she had truly 'saved' him.

–I hate it.

I wish I knew what happened, what was different about that day.

If I knew what was different about you…

If I knew what was different about me…

Then maybe I could understand how to give that to someone else.

This was why Rin had tried so hard, wasn't it?

She made Shirou swear that promise because she just wanted her to open her eyes and look.

If she just looked at Isaiah, and stood by him for just long enough…

Then perhaps she'd understand what it was that made him different.

She could live.

Shirou chuckled listlessly, shaking her head to get rid of those thoughts for now.

Those melancholic whispers… it wasn't the time for that right now.

She should just try as best she could to engrave the memory of this day into her mind for now.

Every single time the boy smiled, every small shimmer of excitement in his eyes…

She would not let go of what she was seeing today.

Something flashed at the very edge of her vision.

–…

…?

Shirou blinked.

Suddenly, all thoughts left her brain.

–What…?

Her glass heart stopped beating.

The bright sunlight stopped shining down on her steel skin, refusing her its warmth.

–Why do I suddenly…?

The smile that Isaiah had on his face suddenly seemed empty.

The pleasant memories she had been trying to hold tightly all suddenly flew out of her grasp.

The world seemed to turn colourless around her.

The movement and actions of every single person around her slowed down to a crawl.

–…

Shirou was left alone in a motionless and colourless world.

The eerie hum of the still air whispered in her ear.

There it was again, that faint sparkle.

Mechanically, she turned her head to the side, peering far into the distance with hollow eyes.

–What was-…

Where was that coming from?

Why did it set her off so much?

Her eyes sluggishly sweeped across the street.

…

A painful shiver was sent tremoring down her arm.

"!"

Her eyes widened.

The steel inside of her began to poke at the flesh.

The panic started to flood the emptiness inside of her.

She spun on her heel.

"ISAIAH!"

---

A loud bang pierced through the blanket of chatter in the street.

Everyone on that small street flinched at the sudden noise.

"ISAIAH!"

A red-haired woman dived to cover the body of a young child.

The child was barely able to process the alarmed cry for his name, only barely starting to turn his head by the time the woman had collided with his body.

The boy's eyes widened.

What was going-

"!" A great force impacted the body of his teacher, forcefully pushing her into him.

"Gh!" Shirou grit her teeth, feeling a small metal object try to force its way past her steel body.

The small metal object fell to the ground.

Blood sprayed from Shirou's shoulder.

A bullet clanged on the floor.

A second bang.

A third.

People screamed in terror and panic, fleeing the location immediately.

The small streets were crowded with desperate families and friends running away to go anywhere else but there.

"Sens-" Isaiah couldn't get anything out, finding himself dragged away Shirou.

Shirou pushed her way passed the fleeing crowd, heading in a perpendicular direction from them, diving straight for the closest alleyway.

She pulled Isaiah to her chest and dove forward, rolling to safety.

The stampede of fear and terror continued to thunder in her ears, the mass of footsteps somehow large enough and powerful enough for her to feel it in her feet.

"Sensei, what's going on?" Isaiah had no time to process or understand any of what was happening around him. All he knew was that his teacher shouted at him, covered him from something, and everyone started to run away.

"…"

Shirou gave him no answer, sticking her back to the walls and edging closer to the entrance.

Two silhouettes, a scared child and an empty woman, stood alone in the dim, shadowy alleyway.

The tremor caused by the crowd passed them by for at least a few more dozen seconds.

Slowly, bit by bit, all the noise faded.

"…"

"…"

It was quiet.

Isaiah shivered uncomfortably, suddenly aware of how uneasy and tense the air around him made him feel.

Cold and still. It became hard to breathe in that freezing, heavy air.

He was scared.

"S-sen…sei…" He feebly called out, feeling his vocal chords wavering. "What's-…"

Shirou's eyes flicked towards the scared child.

Her glass heart could not feel anything. She desperately wanted to comfort and reassure him, but no such feelings of warmth and concern could come to her in that moment.

"An assassin." She coldly stated.

That single uncaring answer was all she could manage right now.

"A-an assassin?" Isaiah's arms started to lose their strength. His legs started to tremble. "F-for who? M-me? You?"

"…"

The silent and still air almost made Shirou unable to move.

The sunlight of a fading spring peered though the small gap between buildings, casting a soft, strange light into the alleyway.

The two silhouettes, their outlines shadowed by the eerie sunlight – which had no longer felt warm, rather, it gave a sensation of bitter, freezing hardness – painted a creepy picture.

"I can't say." Shirou admitted.

She didn't know anything. She couldn't even say for certain who was being targeted by the sniper she spotted.

She stood directly in front of the line between that building and Isaiah. It was possible that she had been saving Isaiah's life when she moved to cover him, but it was also possible she was just diving out of the way of a bullet meant to blow her head out.

There was simply not enough information.

Something rolled towards them.

Shirou's cold gaze snapped down immediately.

…

It was just a spent round.

Shirou cautiously bent down on her knees, warily stretching her hand out inch by inch until the bullet finally came within arm's reach.

She picked it up and examined it closely.

An incredibly long cylindrical thing, with a sharp bullethead large enough to nail through someone's palm.

It definitely came from a massive and powerful firearm.

Shirou brushed her finger over it, gleaming as much information from the object as she could possibly manage.

–Silver…?

A silver bullet…

A pit started to form inside of her. She could start to feel her stomach drop and churn.

Unease and tension settled in.

She rolled the bullet in her palm, flipping it around.

–Runecraft…

Magical inscriptions were engraved onto the bullet.

–A supernatural encounter then.

This wasn't an accident.

They weren't just scribbled on, burnt in or chiselled out after the fact, no…

The bullet was forged out of a mould that naturally held those engravings.

That was not the work of an amateur.

This was professional-quality craftsmanship.

–Someone at this level isn't called in for petty jobs.

They know that they're dealing with another magi or exorcist.

This is Enforcer-quality weaponry.

She tightened her grip on the bullet.

"Isaiah. Stand back."

She looked to the right, scanning the alleyway for anything she could use to her advantage.

There. That would do.

She pointed with her free hand.

"Hide in there, got it?"

Isaiah slowly turned to look at what she was pointing at.

An open, empty dumpster.

He gulped, nodding warily.

Shirou slowly got up from her knees, standing up and pressing herself against the wall.

To her right, she could hear Isaiah slowly scurry towards the dumpster, climbing inside of it.

"Isaiah."

She had likely intended to call his name in a reassuring or confident manner, but what came out of her throat was anything but that.

It was harsh and mechanical, like a cold sword being drawn from a sheath.

"You need to stop shivering. Keep your movement to a minimum. Lower your breathing. Make absolutely no sound. If anyone gets to you, I need you to scream as loudly as possible, as fast as you can."

Shirou crept closer towards the edge, not pausing for a single second to see if Isaiah had heeded her instructions.

She clutched down on the silver magic bullet in her hand even more tightly.

–None of that matters right now.

I need to live.

He needs to live.

Everything is secondary to making sure we get out of here alive.

She brought the bullet up to eye level again, examining it one more time.

–Something this dangerous…

This wouldn't be used to kill a child.

Even a normal bullet would be able to do that much.

That almost definitely makes me the target here.

She flipped it around, scanning the inscriptions.

–In the darkness, a fiery explosion thundered.

A loud bang.

"Trace on."

Her circuits lit up.

Structural Analysis fired off.

–No history.

It's completely blank.

There's no love, care, heart or soul poured into this thing.

It was forged as a tool, then stored away until it would be used in a mission.

That's it.

I can't decipher anything about its owner.

The only thing she could gleam from it was its functionality.

–Three layers of enchantments.

The first one sends out a pulse of prana to detect any present magical defences.

The second one embodies several miniature blades. It's not trying to cut anything, just mark and scrape at the links of the magical defences just enough to open up the tiniest weak point.

The third one is set to trigger when blood reaches the bullet's core, detonating inside flesh.

"…" She lowered her hand, putting the bullet away inside her pockets just in case she would need it for later.

–I can certainly dismiss the possibility of the Pendragons being involved.

I'm not sure if they know of me, or if they want to get rid of me…

But this doesn't line up with what I know of them.

From what I understand, they've always been a family of witches and wizards,

Contact with the Clock Tower, and other magi organisations, is extremely rare.

A sword materialised in her right hand. It didn't seem like something fit for combat; it's edges weren't sharpened properly, its handle and guard were far too ornate for someone to be able to wield properly, and its blade was almost blindingly clear and reflective.

–A weapon of that quality…

What higher power did I anger?

Someone who is able to call for assassins of this calibre…

That's no joking matter.

She forced prana through the decorative weapon, the gleaming surface of the blade altering to become even more reflective and refractive, the image reflected on the blade becoming more and more magnified.

Shirou crept towards the very edge of the alleyway, holding the makeshift telescope out in front of her at the perfect angle for it to just barely be able to reflect the image of the entire street clearly.

She used Reinforcement on her eyes, doubling down on the optic enhancements.

Nothing in three hundred metres.

Five hundred…

There.

Eight hundred metres away, twentieth story.

Something immaterial pulsed, washing over Shirou's body.

Shirou shivered at the cold sensation.

–A Bounded Field.

She pulled down her sleeve, bringing her left hand over her wrist.

–Unlimited Blade Works didn't react.

This is a barrier of someone from this side of the world then.

So this has nothing to do with the Reverse Side at all…

She pulled the prana away from her eyes, redirecting it towards her ears.

Footsteps rushed towards her location from every angle.

–Eleven… twenty… no, I can't tell.

I can't get an accurate measure of how many people might be surrounding me right now.

The footsteps stopped.

They had all arrived at the now empty street.

–I can be sure they only have one sniper though.

If they had a second, they would have closed off a second, if not third angle.

The alleyway wouldn't have been a viable escape option if they had more than one.

That's good.

She raised the reflective sword again, looking through it to get one last look at some of the foes who had now surrounded her, littered about through the streets.

–I don't see any customised or personal Mystic Codes or Conceptual Weapons.

Lower ranking then.

She dismissed the ornate sword, letting it crumble away into blue motes of light.

Shirou closed her eyes, and took a deep breath in.

–The main threat is the sniper.

I got lucky that Unlimited Blade Works stopped the penetration just enough for my blood to not get too far on its body.

If they're intelligent enough to make a Mystic Code of that calibre…

Then they should also be intelligent enough to realise it wasn't due to a random mishap the bullet didn't detonate as it was supposed to.

I can't know what bullet that sniper will pull out next.

It could be over for me just like that.

For example, if they pulled out a bullet that was created for the sole purpose of shattering steel rather than tearing through flesh, that attack would almost certainly blow her entire shoulder off with her Reality Marble in its current unstable state.

She couldn't pull out the black bow as she usually did. It was far too heavy and clunky to put up a fight against an already mounted and loaded sniper rifle in what was essentially a quick draw battle.

Two weapons appeared, one in each of her hands.

In her right, a strange jet-black crossbow formed, two spinning reels replacing the limbs, a complex series of criss-crossing red threads tightly drawn back from them to form the bowstring.

In her left, an unsettling blood red spear slowly shrunk down, thinning and sharpening until it was small enough to be loaded into the crossbow.

Shirou put the spear-turned-arrow into place, tightly holding the crossbow to her chest.

She closed her eyes and focused.

–Eight hundred metres. Twentieth story.

…

She ran forward.

She jumped high into the air, exiting the dark and quiet alleyway with an explosive leap.

–There.

Shirou spun around, pulling the trigger, launching the deadly arrow straight into the distance without looking.

It didn't matter.

The attack was sure to hit on two separate fronts.

–A crossbow shot with the son's faith that the father's aim was not incorrect.

My protection of Isaiah fulfills that condition.

And a spear that rewrites cause and effect to always pierce the opponent's heart before it even strikes.

Even if one fails, the other will correct its course.

A loud bang echoed.

A second bullet grazed her left arm.

"!" Shirou felt her body twist and spin against her will, pulled in the direction of the bullet.

She didn't need to use Structural Analysis to understand what had happened.

That was nothing but pure physical force. Even just a tiny graze of that bullet was enough to entirely pull her out of her original arc of motion.

Thankfully, she would not have to worry about the sniper any longer.

By now, the miniature Gae Bolg would already have reached its target.

That just left everyone beneath her.

Shirou quickly replaced the crossbow with a handful of Black Keys, fanning them out in her fingers.

She regained control of her body, the kinetic energy of the bullet finally having faded away, spinning the other way.

A Black Key flew her by, passing right through where she would have been

–An Exorcist?

No.

I can't make a judgement just based on that.

Anyone can get their hands on those if they try hard enough.

She threw all four Black Keys at once, each one perfectly landing in the shadows of their targets, pinning the hooded figures in place.

Three black and red bolts of energy shot through the sky.

–Gandr.

That would be easy enough to deal with.

High level Gandr, or Finn Shots, were dense enough in power to manifest as physical forces. While deadly, that also opened them up to physical interference.

Monohoshizao appeared in her hands.

The sleek blade slowly bulged and expanded, its gleaming silver edge slowly dulling and darkening into a tarnished grey. The sword became nothing more than a large rectangular hunk of metal.

Still, however, it was still 'Monohoshizao' at its core, and thus, it still contained the secret technique that came with it.

The three cursed bolts came closer.

The angle and timing of each shot should have made it impossible to dodge all three of them at once.

If she moved out of the way of two, the last would catch her on the way down.

If she tried to block or parry one, the other two would nail her.

And even a single Finn shot of that calibre would be enough to for professionals to take advantage of, even if she wouldn't be knocked out straight away from them.

Shirou swung the sword, altered to fit the purpose and concept of a shield.

Space bent and folded, and three impossible swings of the shield were enacted at once.

"Gh…" Shirou grunted, feeling the reverberations of the impact travel through her body.

Her arm of steel strained and trembled, the feedback of the impossible manoeuvre and the three attacks coming back towards her all at once.

Normally, just a single use of Tsubame Gaeshi would have been fine, but all the things she had altered about both the technique and the sword had made it incredibly physically taxing, and that was without mentioning needing to deal with the recoil of the cursed bullets themselves.

Shirou abruptly lost control of all of her limbs.

"!?"

Her head snapped towards the ground.

A Black Key stabbed into her shadow, locking her limbs in place even as she was falling through the air.

With her clearly predictable and choreographed arc of motion through the air, it was child's play for anyone with even a modicum of experience to correctly track her shadow.

She let her left hand leave Monohoshizao, the thick and dull blade slowly returning to its regular shape.

Carnwennan manifested in her left hand.

Shirou landed on the ground.

The moment she came into contact with her own shadow, her limbs immediately came back to life.

She spun on her heel, quickly parrying the strikes of two oncoming assassins and bending out of the way of a Gandr bolt aimed for her back.

Carnwennan's authority over shadows was much, much more powerful than a standard Black Key. Using the sheer strength of its Mystery as a Noble Phantasm, it was easy for her to just brute force her way through the Black Key's immobilisation effect by taking advantage of Carnwennan's power to meld with the shadows.

Her eyes hastily swept across the street, evaluating the enemy forces.

Scraps of paper, resembling playing cards, flew through the air, the wind pushing against them to slowly flatten them out.

The moment they all directly faced her, the scribbled inscriptions of ink and prana on them came alive, forming a full connected network of runes mid-air across the charms.

Four would-be assassins approached her, two on the left and two on the right.

Shirou leveraged Monohoshizao's much superior reach to eliminate the two on her right before they could even get close.

A quick usage of Tsubame Gaeshi cut down the entire complex network of paper charms before any of them could come online.

The last two were quickly dealt with, having lost the advantage of their numbers.

"…" Shirou let nothing show on her face, coldly staring at the fallen bodies.

Blood splattered over her face.

She could not even show concern over whether she had killed these people or if she had simply temporarily taken them out of commission.

During that brief attack from all sides, she had managed to turn in a wide circular arc, getting a good view of all the foes who surrounded her.

Fifteen. That was all that was left.

–That can't be it.

She shook her head, shelving that thought away for later. She needed to deal with the immediate enemies first.

Shirou quickly tore through the remaining forces with nothing more than Monohoshizao. Unlike that sniper, these were all nothing more than basic foot soldiers to fill out their ranks.

The street fell silent once more, littered with bodies both alive and dead, the smell of blood stinking up the air.

But such a hellscape was normal for Shirou.

It was never the atrocity and ugliness of what had happened that effected Shirou in scenes and moments like these.

Whatever it was, none of it… none of it… compared to the hell she saw that night in the fire.

No, what had always filled her heart with disgust and her throat with bile was herself.

Her inability to prevent the situation, her hand in causing it.

But all of that was relating to the selfish want to save everyone, no matter what, no matter who.

When that ideal was lost, like it was with the knight in red the moment he decided to turn his back on the 'few', defining 'saving people' and 'being a hero' as simply standing on the side that led to the least casualties, the disgust would simply disappear.

And just like the knight in red, just like the other broken, regretful man with black hollow eyes, the Emiya Shirou who stood in that street did not have that – the ideal.

All she could do was tighten her grip on the bloody silver sword in her hands, the dirtied blade still gleaming like moonlight.

–They weren't as highly skilled as that sniper,

But that doesn't mean they're not significant in any way.

It just means that whoever is behind this is even more well-connected than I thought.

This is just a tiny fraction of their numbers.

If they can pull together both no-name magi and exorcists, and someone at least on the level of a proper Enforcer, then this simply cannot be the full extent of their numbers.

"Rin." She whispered to herself.

Shirou hurried back towards the alleyway, pulling out her phone.

"Isaiah."

She opened the lid to the dumpster.

Isaiah flinched.

His teacher's face, it-…

He shivered, looking away from the hollow gaze, the woman's steeled face splattered with blood.

Those cold golden eyes filled him with fear.

Was this…

Was this really the woman who had smiled so warmly, who had shown him so many wonderful things?

Shirou froze.

The phone in her hand almost fell from her grip.

The sight of the trembling, afraid child woke something in her.

Regret and disgust, which had escaped her until now, suddenly filled her very being.

Her mouth warped and twisted in an ugly way.

A flicker of self-loathing and bitterness danced inside her golden eyes.

She swiftly turned around, suddenly unable to find the strength to face the boy.

Steel sharpened inside of her.

–I-…

What was I doing?

H-how…

Something groaned and creaked inside of her.

–How could I ever think of showing him such a disgusting thing?

The bile, which should have been there the moment she looked at what she did, finally came up her throat.

Emiya Shirou did not have the ideal, but she did have him.

The only hope remaining in her life.

Terror flitted through her nerves, making her twitch.

His terrified face flashed repeatedly in her mind.

–No, no, no.

A tiny blade poked through her wrist, exposing itself to the bloody air.

–If-…

If-...

If h-he hates me…

If he's s-scared of me…

Something slipped inside of her.

That invisible thing slipped through the gears and cogs, allowing them to move once more.

The mechanisms inside of her began to rapidly rotate, creating an unbearable groaning inside of her soul.

The repeated collision and rubbing of metal and metal produced a mind-numbing heat inside of her body, the temperature right at the cusp of burning her alive.

"I-Isaiah…" She called out softly this time, her voice trembling heavily.

It sounded almost as if she was more scared than the little boy inside of that dumpster, who had just seen his idol in a horrifying state.

She held out her left hand towards the bin, clutching Carnwennan inside of it.

"Take this. No matter what, don't ever let it go."

Wordlessly, still afraid, Isaiah did as she asked.

"As long as you have that, and you stick to dark places and shadows, they shouldn't be able to find you easily."

She offered her hand to the boy, pulling him out of the dumpster.

Still, Shirou did not have the courage to face him.

"Cover your eyes. Do not open them until I say it's safe, okay?"

"O-…okay…"

Shirou briskly trotted through the street filled with bodies, desperate to get Isaiah out of there as fast as possible before he had a chance to think about what she did.

Isaiah continued to shiver as he was dragged along.

He might not have been able to see, but…

He could still smell.

The memories started to come back to him.

The cold, cold laboratory.

The smell of blood that would come every month or so.

Every once in a while, one of his friends – one of his brothers and sisters – would simply disappear.

He'd never see them again.

The shivering intensified.

That night came back to him, filling the blackness of his vision.

His friends dying one by one in front of him, in his arms.

The bodies of Valper's men surrounding them.

Guts spilled out onto the floor, belonging to both his friends and Valper's men.

The smell…

Oh, God…

That smell.

–It's disgusting.

I hate it.

I want to die I want to die I wan-

"Isaiah."

All of it disappeared with that single call of his name.

…

Slowly, and very hesitantly, the boy opened his eyes.

The smell of the air, free from the innards of fallen men, filled his nose.

No, actually…

One part of it still remained.

His gaze slowly trailed towards the back of the woman holding his hand.

Her wild red hair, flowing down to her back, seemed slightly muddier than it normally was.

Patches of what by now was brown stained her clothes.

"S-Sensei…"

"…"

"A-are-"

"Don't look." Shirou hastily cut him off, her voice filled with anxiety and panic. "I-If you look…"

The hand holding onto his suddenly started to tremble.

It tightened further, as if she was scared he would disappear if she let go.

"You would be scared. You would be disgusted. You would cry… a-and if that happened…"

Shirou suddenly became painfully aware of just how brittle and empty her heart of glass felt in that moment.

"I don't think I could handle it." She finished with a whisper.

For some reason, that statement let Isaiah relax just a little bit.

Some part of that woman, who he found to be so beautiful, who he had admired so deeply, still shined through.

She hadn't suddenly transformed into some cold, blood-thirsty monster.

She was just doing it to protect him.

"If that's the case, Sensei…" He whispered back to her, his voice a little firmer than before. "I'll believe in you. I'll have faith, I'll hope and I'll pray."

…

Shirou let a hideous chuckle escape her throat.

An utterly unattractive smile bloomed on her face.

"Thank you, Isaiah."

She pulled her phone up to her ear, punching in a familiar number.

"…"

"Shirou?"

Rin asked from the other side, her voice filled with concern and worry.

"What's going on?"

"I've become a target of something. I don't know why or how but I've angered someone big. Big enough to call both exorcists and magi to his side, and influential enough to get Enforcer-level aid."

"…"

"Pack everything up. It's not safe, you could be compromised as well. Activate all the Bounded Fields and wards and get ready to leave. You need to get out of London as fast as possible."

"I'm calling for help."

"Don't."

Shirou grit her teeth.

"The Clock Tower doesn't have any reason to get involved with the affairs of an apprentice of an apprentice, even if they are an Enforcer, and even if that apprentice is a disciple of the Second Magic. And besides, all you'll do is open us up for an investigation, then they'll find out about the Reality Marble."

"I can still call for Bazett. She won't open her mouth and its not like the Mage's Association is going to care about what she does in her free time."

"…"

Shirou's grip on Isaiah tightened to a level that was almost painful.

Isaiah did not wince. Knowing the woman in front of him was almost certainly struggling with something, he squeezed back.

He was there for her.

Shirou relaxed, just the tiniest bit.

"There's no reason to involve anyone else in this. Whatever the reason behind this attack is, this is the fallout of my own actions. I'm the only person who needs to be involved with this. This is my judgement and penitence. I'm not letting anyone else get hurt."

The glimmer of hope that held her hand let a tiny remnant of the person that laid deep inside the abyss of Emiya Shirou shine through.

That person, more than anything, even if she had no reason to believe in and follow that path at the moment, did not want innocents to be harmed because of her actions.

"…"

Rin let out an odd sound, halfway between a relieved chuckle and a groan of pained exasperation.

"You're finally sounding a bit like you again. I don't know whether to be annoyed by the fact you choose right now of all times to do so or be thankful that it can happen even at the worst of times."

She let out a long, tired sigh.

"Alright."

Rin gathered herself, nodding seriously.

"You're with Isaiah, right?"

"Yeah." Shirou nodded. "You need to take him with you. It's not safe for him to be by my side."

"Where do we rendezvous?"

"The bridge. That should be right at the halfway point between our two locations."

"I'll be there. And also…"

She could hear Rin take in a deep, worried breath.

"…Stay safe, okay?"

"…"

Over ten seconds passed before Shirou managed to give a response.

"I'll try."

She shut the phone.

She clutched it tightly, as if she was trying to hold onto Rin's voice.

–Alive.

We're all getting out of here alive.

That cursed memory, of the smiling red-haired girl with golden eyes, continued to play over and over in her mind like a broken tape.

–I'm not failing this time.

I can't afford to.

Not now, when I understand what it all means.

Shirou bent down, offering her cold back to Isaiah.

"Get on."

She began pre-emptively circulating prana inside of her legs.

"We can't waste any time. It'll be faster if you hop onto my back. A second lost is a second a dozen assassins have to track us down."

"…"

Isaiah hung his arms around her shoulders, hopping onto her back.

Shirou leapt across the city as fast as she could, the eerily empty streets doing nothing to comfort her.

---

Rin huffed.

She fiddled with her handbag, riffling through it anxiously to quadruple check nothing had fallen out.

Azoth dagger. Jewels. Current experimental prototype of the Jewelled Sword.

Everything was still there as it was thirty seconds ago.

She stood alone, skulking around on the shadowy river bank, a bridge hanging directly over her.

Footsteps softly crunched through grass behind her.

Rin swung around, her left hand pointing straight towards the unknown party, Gandr at the ready.

"…"

She relaxed, sighing.

The blue light emanating from her left arm slowly faded.

"Shirou." She nodded grimly.

Her gaze flicked towards her friend's back, at the child who hesitantly stared back at her.

"Rin." The red-haired woman acknowledged, crouching down to let Isaiah off.

"Let's not waste any time." Rin shook her head, her expression as cold as stone. "Isaiah, over here."

The scared boy scuttled towards her.

"Here."

Shirou threw something towards her.

Rin caught the object without looking.

She brought it to her face.

A pitch-black dagger stared her back.

"Carnwennan?"

She frowned.

"It's almost summer. The sun is reaching a point of intensity where its abilities will be incredibly diminished, and that's not even mentioning the natural decrease of its power from Projection."

Shirou's stony face turned the slightest bit bitter.

"I know. Current conditions aren't ideal for it. But their primary target right now is me. If they're not actively searching for the two of you, it'll be good enough to get you out of the city."

Something flashed in the distance.

"Get down!"

She pushed past the two of them, temporarily tracing Monohoshizao for just long enough to cut through the bullet, before immediately swapping it out for a black metal bow.

Prana flowed through Shirou's eyes.

Three of them. Six hundred, five-fifty, and seven hundred metres away. Two of them were still setting up and the last was reloading.

Three steel arrows appeared in her hands, each one fired off in quick succession with perfect accuracy.

"No more time, you need to get out of here now."

Rin scowled, but had no response.

She pulled Isaiah towards her, swinging her right arm across his stomach and pulling him up, cradling him with just one arm.

"!"

Rin leapt away at breakneck speeds, her eyes flickering left and right, watching for any potential hostile forces.

Her left arm lit up underneath her long-sleeved shirt, the circuits embedded within her family's Crest coming alive.

"W-where are we going?"

Rin didn't look down when she answered.

"North is our best bet for now. We don't know how long this is going to go on for. If this is going to last the entire night, we have an acquaintance up in Carlisle we can ask for shelter."

She had met with Mordred Pendragon VIII a few times since that day two months ago.

She wasn't quite sure how safe she felt letting Shirou travel alone on whatever missions she was going to on that side of the world, so the least she felt she could do for at least those first few times was escort her to Mordred's mansion.

–If this looks like it's going to go even the slightest bit south,

Shirou's stubbornness can go screw itself.

I'm calling in Bazett and those two Exorcist friends of hers immediately.

Rin was somewhat glad that this situation had forced just enough life into her friend to get her to give that response, but there was no way in God's name that she was just going to bet everything on that.

She would not let Shirou die right here, right now when they were just starting to make proper progress.

–And the Mage's Association isn't going to bat an eye,

Even if this is all happening right in the heart of London.

If they're not alerted to it specifically,

They'll just ignore it.

Far, far too many spats between local magi and students happen on a similar scale for them to care about any specific, single one.

Something glinted from her left.

Rin reflexively reached into her handbag and threw out a translucent jewel.

The gemstone rapidly absorbed energy from the atmosphere the moment it was exposed to the air, transforming the mana into raw mass, expanding and ballooning at an exaggerated rate.

Whatever the attack was impacted the stone barrier with a dull thud, barely pushing it.

She pointed her arm straight towards where she remembered the flash of light came from.

The Tohsaka Magic Crest glowed intensely.

Black and red wisps of lightning gathered at her fingertips.

Without waiting for the enlarged jewel to drop, she let the cursed bolt fly, the spell puncturing straight through the wall.

She vaguely heard something resembling a body hitting the ground.

Something began to gnaw at her.

–…

We're out of range of Shirou by now.

They're still after us.

Something about this situation was deeply unsettling to Rin.

–Something's not right here.

She couldn't let that stop her.

Rin pumped more and more prana into her legs, pushing her Reinforcement as far as it could possibly go, running through the streets fast enough to match the speed of a car.

–If they're after Shirou,

Are they going for me because I'm a useful hostage?

Still, she couldn't help but bite the bottom of her lip nervously.

–Whatever is going on…

I don't like this one bit.

---

The enemies seemed to come without end.

By now, Shirou had to have taken out at least two dozen of them.

Their skill and power all varied, some going down in just a couple of swings, and others actually forcing her to use Reinforcement at a decently high level.

–Who the hell did I anger that could have gathered up a force this large?

The last Exorcist (?) fell.

–No, in the first place,

How did they find me?

It's policy for Enforcers to not leave a single trace or witness behind.

If this is to do with a job I took on at some point…

There shouldn't be a single remnant of any of the targets left.

The first wave seemed to come to an end.

She stood silently, alone in the bloody and quiet street.

–I can't just stand here.

The bloody woman dashed towards a nearby alleyway, giving her a moment of brief respite, safe from any snipers that might have been looking for her.

–If they have any eyes in the sky,

They'll still be able to easily find the bodies.

She grinded her teeth.

–I need to start moving.

Shirou spun around, retreating deeper into the shadows of the alleyway.

She quickly fastened a copy of Carnwennan to her hips.

–I need to figure out what my next course of action is.

She came to a dead end.

The only way out was up.

That was not at all ideal.

Exposing herself in the air, where she would be open to attacks from both below and above, would almost instantly get her caught.

–Fuck.

She could not help but curse.

Her nails took on a slight metallic sheen, becoming as sharp as knives.

Blood leaked out of her palm.

Shirou turned around, facing the entrance of the alleyway again.

"…"

She stared silently for a few seconds, contemplating something.

–The metro shouldn't be far from here.

A torn black cloak was conjured.

Shirou threw it on hurriedly.

–Angles.

Premium sniper spots are six hundred metres to the east.

If I stick to walls that face the east, I should at least have some sort of concealing cover.

There wasn't any more time she could afford to waste.

Shirou moved out immediately.

The silent, empty streets allowed her to easily isolate incoming footsteps, a task that was trivialised even further with Reinforced hearing.

–No one's here, wh-

Right, the Bounded Field.

Whoever is behind this, they're also at least not stupid.

They set up a barrier to keep the public out of this.

That guarantees the Clock Tower will have no reason to interfere.

If there's no chance of the existence of the Moonlit World leaking,

Then as far as they're concerned, this is just a private squabble between two feuding magi.

She slipped into the shadows, holding her breath as two men ran by her.

–I can't be certain that concealment of these events in the only function of the Bounded Field though.

It covers a least a few blocks and districts.

They're probably not willing to step on any toes, so it definitely at least stops at the border between Southwark and Tower Hamlets.

Still, a Bounded Field of that scope takes a considerable amount of preparation and thinking.

I can be quite confident that whoever established it is very high up on the hierarchy of the enemy force.

That should be my primary goal.

Tracking down the source of this barrier.

Three more man ran by her, this time in the opposite direction.

Her eyes caught a glimpse of something bright.

"!"

An upside down cross hung from the necks of one of the men.

–Stray Exorcists?

That was the classical sign of someone who had defected from the Church.

–Did I underestimate the influence of the mastermind?

That means they're someone who has their hands dug into the underbelly of the Moonlit World.

It's not the easy to get the aid of defectors.

Once the street was clear, she slipped by them, dashing for the nearby entrance to the underground metro.

Shirou was at least somewhat in the clear now.

There would still certainly be more than a few people patrolling underground, in the metro line, the sewers, and any other miscellaneous locations, but they were all probably isolated.

If she could take them out fast enough, they wouldn't be able to communicate or coordinate with any of their allies.

–A Bounded Field of that size isn't easily maintained.

Even if they had the reserves to do it, it'd be a waste of their prana.

Leylines.

If I follow the flow of prana through the leylines,

I should be able to track down the source.

She walked through the dark tunnels, placing her hands on one of the cold stone walls.

She closed her eyes, concentrating.

–I'm not the best at this kind of thing,

This is more Bazett's thing.

But if we're this deep underground,

This close to the leylines,

Even someone as talentless as me should be able to feel their energy.

…

And sure enough, she did.

–Southeast?

That was good enough for her.

The cloaked figure stalked through the dark tunnels, her heavy, steel-like footsteps echoing in the blackness.

---

Around half an hour had passed.

By now, Rin had to have already made it out of London.

Well, that was if she was headed in the direction Shirou thought she was going.

That put her well out of the range of any of this.

–Directly above me.

The cloaked figure who stood solemnly in the darkness, one hand pressed against the wall, tilted her head back, looking straight up at the ceiling.

–Nearest exit is at least one kilometre away from me.

They almost certainly have their eyes on it.

They have to know by this point I've gone underground.

She raised her right hand to the ceiling.

–I can't risk going out that way.

There's probably at least five dozen of them just waiting for me to pop out of there.

Circuits of blue energy lit up beneath her skin.

Steel rattled from beneath her flesh, excited by the flowing energy.

A thin sword formed in her hand.

It moreso resembled a lance, rather than a sword.

It had no real 'cutting edge', just a black length of steel that coiled and twisted on itself, like a drillhead.

Shirou pulled it back…

And threw it forward.

BOOM

The tunnels around her wobbled.

If she wasn't extremely precise with that throw – if she aimed it just a few centimetres to the left or right – she might have accidentally collapsed the structure down on herself entirely.

Fortunately, she had the foresight to create an extremely watered-down version of Caladbolg and use Alteration on it to make it embody the idea of a 'construction and demolition device'.

The ground trembled, an explosive force rumbling directly overhead as Caladbolg tore straight through the ceiling, creating a large hole that led straight to the surface.

Distant shouts could be heard, echoing as they trailed down through the hole.

Shirou leapt through it, Monohoshizao already prepared.

A cloaked figure burst through the building from underground, wisps of autumn-coloured hair dancing in the air.

"ALL FORCES, BACK TO THE BOUNDED FIELD!"

A panicked shout could be heard speaking into a radio.

Half a dozen Exorcists descended upon the figure, not even giving her a chance to find her footing.

Kanshou appeared in Shirou's offhand.

She threw the dao behind her and quickly projected its white counterpart to throw in front of her.

The twin blades tore through their intended targets, the force of her throws sending each of the swords towards the far walls, before their pull on one another hurtled them towards the centre of the room, set on a collision course for their partner.

Shirou bent down on her knees, sweeping Monohoshizao across the floor, cutting off the feet of two approaching fighters.

The twin swords whizzed by overhead.

Just before they clashed, an opposing tragic force – one that ensured the two blades could never reunite – blew the two of them apart, like two of the same magnetic pole colliding.

The blowback of that force sent Kanshou and Bakuya careening towards the left and right, spinning through the air until they landed right in the chests of the last two Exorcists.

Shirou took the brief moment of respite to look around her, evaluating the building she found herself suddenly breaking into.

Sleek, glossy surfaces. A large polished wooden reception desk. Large marble pillars. Minimalist, elegant and modern. Elevators on the side.

–An office?

A business establishment?

A skyscraper?

Something like that.

She clicked her tongue.

–The last enemy is waiting for me on a very high floor, aren't they?

Something lit up beneath her feet.

"!"

A runic circle, glowing a bright burning orange, let off a scorching heat.

Two katanas contained within thick flowery, ornate sheaths manifested mid-air.

Shirou flipped backwards, using her feet to kick the two blades out of their scabbards, dismissing Monohoshizao to hold one of them in each hand.

She spun in circles at blinding speeds, blots of ink leaking out of the blades, painting great waves and waterfalls using nothing but air as their canvas.

Great gushes of water, flowing like a waterfall crashing down from a cliff, burst out of the mystical sword strokes, flooding the entire floor of the building.

The sheer volume, density and force of the water was enough to slam everyone caught in its radius against the walls, knocking them out effortlessly.

The bottom-most storey of that tall building went silent.

The water slowly dispersed, melting into ink before evaporating into nothing.

The wishful blades of an artist's daughter who sought to become a storybook hero faded into light.

Shirou's gaze slowly trailed towards the elevator.

–No, I can't take those.

I'm closing myself off into a tight box where I can't see anything.

I won't be able to move either.

I'll be a sitting duck.

Her golden eyes flicked to the left.

–It'll have to be the stairs.

She scrambled for the stairs, hurriedly ascending up the building, chasing the now overwhelming feeling of the Bounded Field's core.

Dozens of Exorcists – stray and otherwise – as well as magi tried to stop her, but their attempts were all fruitless.

The weight came to its peak when she reached the nineteenth floor.

Shirou kicked down the door, rolling through it to avoid a Black Key aimed directly at her head.

"Hm?" A lacksadaisical, quizzical hum echoed through the empty floor.

Shirou's head snapped up.

A tall, lanky man strolled towards her, seven Black keys clutched between his fingers.

He reached underneath his grey coat to fill the last gap in his fingers with a Black Key, replacing the one he threw towards her.

Shirou narrowed her eyes.

Tanned skin. Straggly blonde hair of a dirty shade. Cold blue eyes. Middle-aged, stubbled.

"…"

–I don't recognise him.

I don't know this man even the tiniest bit.

"Are you the one leading this hit?"

The man smiled with the slightest twinge of curiosity and amusement.

–?

Shirou shivered.

–Why…

Something's wrong about this situation.

What's with that look?

I'm missing something.

Why do I feel like I'm missing something?

He brought his hands up to his face, using the underside of his wrist to readjust his round-framed glasses.

A threatening glint entered his eyes.

"I suppose I am. And you're the target I suppose?"

Shirou slowly got up from the ground, manifesting Monohoshizao with uneasy hands.

For some reason, she could not help but sweat.

It was not that the man in front of her was threatening, no…

But something just felt terribly, terribly wrong.

Her eyes raced up and down, searching for anything that could provide her even the smallest bit of comfort.

A silver rosary hung from his neck.

Shirou froze.

Her eyes quickly shot towards his hands.

Four Black Keys in each one.

A completely relaxed, unthreatened stance.

Yet still, it was clear he was completely ready.

–An…

Executor?

She hadn't come across many, only being really familiar with Ciel, who by all accounts was a rather extreme anomaly among that group of anomalies, so she wasn't fully certain, but…

Someone who carried Black Keys so expertly with such ease had to be someone on that level.

–When the hell did I enter their eyes?

No, wait a minute…

Her mind flashed back towards the men she saw before she dove into the metro tunnels.

–Those were Stray Exorcists.

Executors are people who live by a fanatical belief in purging heretics.

Why would those people who are so maniacally devoted to that idea work with the epitome of a heretic?

Her grip around Monohoshizao tightened.

–No, I can't afford to be distracted right now.

She pulled back Monohoshizao, closing the distance with measured steps.

–I need to focus on this enemy.

If I can get rid of him…

Maybe this uneasy feeling will get rid of itself.

The Executor's arm shot forward with superhuman speed and ferocity.

The man swiped downwards with his four blades.

Shirou quickly raised her blade to parry the strike away.

"!"

She grit her teeth, biting back a groan.

The thundering clashing of steel echoed throughout the empty building,

The reverberation of the clash sent vibrations through Monohoshizao.

But it didn't stop there.

The feedback coursed through the blade, down to its handle and climbing straight into Shirou's arms, vibrating the steel underneath her skin.

–Strong.

Four flashes of silver came in from the right.

Two Black Keys flew from his other hand to cover his attack, striking from two angles at once.

A black Chinese dao entered Shirou's left hand.

All three oncoming attacks were beaten back – Monohoshizao met the swing from the right, and a thrown Kanshou cut through the Black Keys like butter.

Bakuya flashed into her now free left hand, its presence suddenly bringing its partner to a halt before it slowly started to zoom back towards her like a boomerang.

She threw Bakuya at the man before he had a chance to recuperate, quickly bringing her hands together on Monohoshizao's hilt, stepping right into his range.

Bakuya was knocked towards the ground, but by then, it was already too late.

Shirou had already prepared a massive overhead swing, fully intending on cleaving the man in half.

The massive, pristine blade descended upon the Executor.

The man managed to step to the left, swinging with enormous strength with his right hand to try and divert the arc of the swi-

A black shortsword tore his right arm through the elbow, coming from behind.

His eyes widened in surprise, recognising the blade as the one that the woman had thrown just a second ago.

Monohoshizao cut the remainder of his right arm off clean.

The man stumbled back, reeling from the unexpected blow and the subsequent loss of his limb.

Bakuya, lodged inside of the floor, disappeared, which made its partner instantaneously lose all momentum, dropping to the ground slightly behind Shirou.

Neither of them took the chance to breathe.

Both combatants rushed towards each other, swords drawn.

A maniacal smile overtook the blonde man's expression.

He emptied his remaining hand of the swords in it, tossing them all towards Shirou.

–!?

Why is he emptying his hands?

She didn't have the time to ponder his actions, however.

She swiped through the air, scattering the volley of swords, lunging towards the man, the nodachi prepared to stab him through the lungs.

And the man simply bent.

His spine seemingly cracked in half backwards with a sickening crunch, allowing the man to dodge her attack.

And that left Shirou slightly exposed.

Something vile roared inside the man's body.

Grotesque, bloodied vines burst from the open wound on his shoulder.

She tried to bring Monohoshizao back to her side to defend her, but there was nothing she could do to stop the writhing mass of vines from slamming into her.

Shirou slammed into the wall, spiderweb-like cracks emanating from the point of impact.

"Ngh!"

She tried to break herself free, but even with her body of steel and Reinforcement pushed to its max, there was nothing she could do to push back against the mass that was binding her.

The wall behind her began to crack even further, as her body began to be pushed further and further in.

A second copy of Monohoshizao came to her to replace the one she had dropped when the vines attacked her.

Before she could away at them, however, the organic mass spread to the sides, preventing her from moving her arms.

"Heh." The unnamed Executor chuckled at the sight of his struggling opponent. "You know, I really had no idea you were going to push me this far."

Shirou grunted, still trying to twist and push away.

–What the hell is he talking about?

Someone of his level should have made preparations on a professional level.

It's basic protocol to do research on your target.

He should've already known exactly what I was capable of before he even co-ordinated this attack.

She needed another plan.

Bakuya manifested inside of her hand.

Kanshou, which laid on the ground uselessly, began to rattle.

It only moved an inch or two.

She fed more and more prana into the blade, forcefully altering it to enhance its properties of attaction, until suddenly, Kanshou began to hurtle towards its partner, cutting through the vines, clearing a straight line to Bakuya.

The force pushing on her slackened.

Shirou pushed the vines aside, grabbing the flying sword with her other hand and rushing towards the enemy.

The mass of vines continued to grow from where it was cut, crawling towards Shirou, but this time, she was prepared to deal with it.

She threw both swords in her hands in a massive arc to the left and right, sending them far enough away to clear the path of the vines, though it was clear they would not each the Executor.

A longsword, once white and pure, reflecting the heart of the maiden who wielded it, now stained and cursed with the black taint of hatred and vengeance, entered her hands.

Purplish-red flames spilled from the blade, igniting the biological mass, reducing it all to ash in the blink of an eye.

With the obstructing vines removed from her vision, the Executor's figure once again entered her view.

A fresh, bare arm had appeared, attached to his right shoulder like it had never left.

A second set of Kanshou and Bakuya swiftly replaced the European longsword.

The maniacally grinning Executor threw both of his arms inside his coat.

The original twin swords began converging towards Shirou, beckoned by the presence of the new copies.

Shirou swung.

Something shattered.

Shirou's eyes widened.

The blades in her hands began to fade into nothing, cracking and shattering against a pair of pitch black metal gauntlets, covered in dark blue spikes and crosses, almost looking like it was made from a dragon's scales.

–An Ash Lock?

Clawed fingers reached for her throat.

She crouched down, grabbing the converging Kanshou and Bakuya, throwing the white sword in her right hand past his shoulder.

Monohoshizao took its place.

She stepped to the side, pushing away a fierce punch with her forearm, tossing the remaining sword in her left hand to the roof.

The man's other hand clasped onto Monohoshizao, trying to snap the blade in half.

Bakuya manifested in her left hand, slowly pulling Kanshou away from where it was stuck in the roof.

The white blade was stabbed firmly into the elbow of the arm holding down Monohoshizao, freeing the sword.

She pulled Bakuya out of his arm, lunging forward and throwing it straight into his stomach.

There was nothing he could do to block it, as there was less than a metre between the two of them, and he could not pull either of his arms back in time to defend himself.

It found itself lodged deeply within his stomach, cutting into his guts and vital organs with a disgusting squelch.

The man stumbled back, finding himself quickly losing control of his body.

Shirou placed both of her hands on her katana, pulling the shimmering blade back for one final blow.

This was it. All the setup she had done would come together here now that she had found the one opening she needed.

Kanshou descended from the roof, pulled towards its partner. On its current path, it would cleave him diagonally on a mostly vertical angle, from his shoulder through to the other side's kidney.

The first copy of Bakuya circled from behind, cutting off any escape route.

She swung Monohoshizao from right to left, turning her entire body – ankle, hips, torso, shoulder and all – intent on bisecting him horizontally.

One strike to cut off the vertical escape.

The second strike to close off their escape and encircle them.

The third strike to cleave them in half, cutting off the horizontal escape.

This was the true essence of the technique known as Tsubame Gaeshi, performed by a faker; a machine that could not understand how to wield swords, only understanding how to create them.

The man's eyes flickered all around him, searching for an escape path.

There was nothing.

This was checkmate.

"Tch."

Yet he showed no sign of anger, grief, fear or desperation.

All that showed on his face was a look of mild annoyance.

All three swords struck true, fatally wounding the man.

The Executor stumbled, falling backwards on his knees and collapsing, facing the ceiling.

It did not matter if he knew some secret regenerative technique. With his body as utterly destroyed as it was by two Noble Phantasms and the blade of one of the greatest swordsmen to ever live, there was no hope of ever coming back from this.

His arm was something he could heal, as he still had most of his energy then, but the moment that black sword tore through his heart, all of his strength immediately left him.

Still, though, he did not die immediately.

Shirou slowly stepped towards the Executor, a stony look cast on her face.

She hooked the edge of Monohoshizao underneath his chin.

"Who are you, who sent you?"

The battle was over.

Now was finally the time to settle the burning unease inside of her.

"Hahahaha!"

The man laughed, blood spilling from his lips.

"Oh, wouldn't you like to know, lass?"

A shaky, blood-smeared smirk rose.

"I'm just a nameless good Christian man, doing my best to rid the world of heretics."

Golden eyes narrowed.

"What the hell does that have to do with me? I don't recall ever angering any Executors. Who the hell are you working for? Why did they call this hit on me?"

…

The man's smile twitched.

A crazed light filled his eyes.

"HAHAHAHA!"

He coughed and heaved, wet, mucky filth spilling from his throat.

"Oh… that's rich."

Shirou tightened her grip around Monohoshizao, pushing it further into the man's chin.

She growled.

"What the hell do you mean?"

An unhinged smile broke out on the man's tanned face, threatening to tear his face in half.

"You think you're the one this is for?"

…

Shirou froze.

–

.

.

.

All sensations, all feeling, all thoughts and all emotions, all of it, left her.

The clockwork that kept the barely intact Unlimited Blade Works running came to a complete halt.

"What."

Blood flew into the air as the man coughed, splattering onto Shirou's pants.

"Talk."

Shirou shoved the blade into his flesh, drawing blood.

The man just continued to smile.

"Ah, whatever. By now…"

Something around his neck gleamed.

A soft blue light emanated from a sapphire fixed onto a nearly invisible choker.

"Sir, we have the target. Continuing with the mission."

The man's unhinged smile widened even further.

"They already have him."

Shirou's entire body went numb.

She could no longer feel the hand which held the sword.

Her golden eyes dulled, all light leaving them.

The steel inside of her started to shift.

A blade began to poke through her left forearm.

"You see… that boy has something very important to Father Galilei's research… If we could retrieve that… then everything can be set right. If that thing can enter his hands again… then all the heretics on this filthy world can still be erased… as they should be."

…

Horror filled Shirou's face.

Everything suddenly began to click. All the mysteries and questions she had put aside answering came back to haunt her.

A second sword poked through her left arm.

–No.

No.

No.

Why had this man, clearly very powerful, experienced and dedicated to his job, not done basic research on the capabilities of his opponents? Why did he seem so amused and surprised when he saw her?

The answer was quite simple. If she gave it even a second's worth of thought, she would have come to the correct conclusion immediately.

But she didn't even want to consider it.

She hated the unease, hated the whispers of despair, hated the hollow pit inside of her stomach that came when she thought about it.

She was too convinced this was about her to consider any other option. She was too desperate to be the one to find the answer herself. She was under the delusion that all of this circled back to Emiya Shirou, that this somehow had to do with the path she had walked up to this point.

She was deluded by the notion that her current self wasn't worthy, the idea that she had to face judgement for her mistakes.

All of that, and so many more indescribable thoughts, all clouded her judgement, making her ignore the one answer that stared her in the face, right in front of her.

Emiya Shirou was once again still too blind, still too stupid, still too foolish to just look.

To look at what was right there.

She was not the target.

She never was.

All of this was to distract her, to occupy her attention and pull her away and isolate their actual target.

The Executor was amused because he wasn't expecting her to fall for it so easily, he wasn't expecting for her to wholeheartedly selfishly believe that this was all about her.

He was surprised because he didn't know her at all. They were two entirely unrelated people. She was just an unforeseen obstacle that shadowed over their true goal. Pulling her, this mysterious unknown quantity that guarded their target, was paramount to their mission's success.

Thinking back on it, even if this was all about her, why today? What made this day in particular a better time to collapse on her, compared to any other day? Why risk combat in broad daylight right underneath the gaze of the Clock Tower which seemed to be nearly omnipresent in London?

There was only one thing about today that was different.

And it nothing to do with her.

It was the fact that she brought him with her.

Isaiah.

He was at the centre of all of this.

She had gotten complacent.

She had gotten lazy.

She was so focused on the idea that he was important, that seeing him smile was paramount over everything, that she had entirely forgotten that he was still a figure of interest in an unresolved case and as such…

Should still have been under strict Enforcer protocol when it came to protecting witnesses.

The fact that he lived with her, the fact that the place he was being protected in was her and Rin's home, came to strike her in the back.

That sense of comfort had made her complacent and lazy, with her feeling like it was simply natural for him to be there, like he was just another part of her family, like a nephew, a younger brother, or a son.

And she did the one thing she should never, ever have done under any circumstance.

She brought Isaiah into the city without anything to conceal his face or identity.

Valper Galilei was not a man to be underestimated, even when he was backed into a corner like he currently was.

His influence ran deep, penetrating all the way into the core of the Vatican, his roots crawling and lurking throughout the entirety of the world.

A man of that position, with that much power and influence, would have eyes and ears everywhere. No corner of the world was truly safe, not as long as you showed your face in public. Your only hope of staying hidden was to never, ever leave your home.

And if there was one place especially that he would have eyes and ears in, it would be here.

London.

Home of the Clock Tower, the Holy Church's biggest rival.

She was doomed the moment Isaiah was brought into the metropolitan region of London.

That also explained why there was such a mish-mash of groups and forces on their side as well.

Certainly, a man as high up as Valper would be able to call upon a redundantly large amount of Exorcists, but given his underhanded nature, that also put him in the pockets of many, many magi and Stray Exorcists.

And someone with as much power as him would certainly be able to win over expert Executors and even an Enforcer or two, if he offered the right compensation.

"…"

The Executor stopped breathing.

A red-haired woman with golden eyes stood silently in the bloody building, utterly alone.

Her phone rang.

"…"

Mechanically, she pulled it out.

Rin's number popped up on the small screen.

Shirou brought the phone to her ear.

"Shi-…rou…"

Rin breathed heavily into the phone, groaning in pain.

Her voice was shaky.

"…"

"Th-e… the moment we left London… when we stepped outside of the Clock Tower's territory… they… they all came. A-at least two dozen Executors. I-I tried… to hold them off and… escape, but… I could only take three quarters of them down."

"…"

"They-… They have Isaiah."

---

Something cracked.

A deep, jagged fault line ran across the steel and the gears that laid inside of the body of the one known as Emiya Shirou.

---

The window shattered.

Shirou jumped out of it without a second thought.

Her mind was completely empty, voicing not a single thought.

Her heart was completely empty, feeling not a single emotion.

The only thing that mattered was getting to Rin's location.

Shirou looked down at her phone's locating software, tracking down her friend's own phone.

She landed on the roof a building, her bones cracking and crunching from the impact.

She didn't care.

That machine had only one thing it cared about.

She jumped in a straight line through London, not caring for who saw her, or what magi might have been looking in her direction.

Her legs began to ache, cracking further and further, becoming weaker and weaker.

But that pain, that feeling of uselessness, only made her push even harder, pushing past her breaking point and making her go faster and faster.

…

Eventually, she found it; the place Rin was resting in.

A field by the side of a highway, bodies scattered all across the green grass, blood still spilling onto it, dirtying it.

Someone nearby groaned.

Shirou robotically walked towards the source of the noise, kneeling down by the person's side.

Rin propped herself up with whatever was left of her strength, clutching her bloody abdomen weakly.

"Shirou…"

Her voice was haggard, sounding like she was on death's door.

She was far paler than Shirou thought was possible.

"S-sorry… I-I couldn't… protect him…"

"Save your breath."

Shirou's words were cold and mechanical, not an ounce of warmth or concern in what should have been kind words.

She took out a different phone, typing down a set of coordinates in a message and sending them to the only healer she knew.

Rin raised a trembling arm, pointing vaguely towards the northeast.

"T-that way… They took him that way. I-I… managed to injure the remaining forces… there should be a d-decent amount of blood to follow."

Shirou nodded.

The gesture was not reassuring in the slightest.

She pushed Rin gently onto the grass.

A third sword began to poke through her left forearm.

Shirou stood up, silently staring at the trail of blood Rin gestured towards.

Her nails, still as sharp as knives, once again started to tear into her palm, reaching deep enough inside of her flesh to hit bone.

–This is my fault. This is my fault. This is my fault.

this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault

this is my fault this is my fault this is my fault

---

A gear inside of Unlimited Blade Works began to groan, cracking underneath the stress.

It shattered, falling to the ground uselessly.

A gargantuan cloud of dust and smoke began to cloud the Reality Marble.

The clockwork came to a complete halt, the system now incomplete.

---

A blood red broadsword appeared in Shirou's hand, shimmering with a promise of violence and bloodshed.

Shirou's nose twitched.

The intense smell of blood overwhelmed her empty consciousness.

Her vision began to warp, staining red.

The hunter's instincts, bestowed to her by Hrunting, began to paint a clear trail towards her prey.

She ran forward, leaving everything, everyone, in that field behind.

A fourth blade jutted out of her skin.

The nothingness deep inside of her was starting to be overwhelmed by the violent instincts contained within Hrunting.

A single word repeated in the machine's mind.

–alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive alive

Over and over, in a fashion that could barely be likened to a prayer of sheer desperation.

The arm that held Hrunting began to shake.

The hatred and the bloodlust seeped deep inside the core of that purposeless clockwork.

Her eyes became bloodshot.

Veins and arteries throbbed and pulsed.

Her nails sharpened even further, transforming into claws.

A fifth blade broke free of the machine that contained it.

The word repeated itself with an ever greater ferocity and desperation.

–ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE ALIVE

That single word overwhelmed all of her senses, rendering her blind and deaf to everything.

There was not enough consciousness left in her to know how much time had passed. It could have been a minute of running, or an hour.

None of it mattered.

"You."

She growled gutturally, like she was nothing more than a beast.

–That statement was far too kind to the machine known as Emiya Shirou.

Even a simple mindless hungry beast had more value than her.

Even a hungry beast wanted to satisfy its hunger.

Even a hungry beast wanted to live.

Shirou could not see the form of the Executor in front of her.

She barely even knew they were there.

In her bloodstained vision, there was nothing more than a vague smear of blood.

A blob resembling a head snapped towards her.

"W-who are you!?"

It cried out in something resembling fear.

The machine-

–monster

-tightened its grip on Hrunting even further, the sword seemingly fusing with her iron flesh.

And finally, the tension inside of her exploded, breaking everything.

"GIVE HIM BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!"

Dozens of white-hot, burning swords burst from inside of her left arm.

---

The massive cogs spinning in overdrive flew apart, slipping and shattering the moment that first cog fell.

All the built up tension.

All of that despair.

All of that desperation.

All of that meagre hope.

All of that distant future.

All of that desire.

All of those dreams.

All of those wishful thoughts.

All of those prayers.

All of the bitterness.

All of the hatred.

All of the regret.

All of the memories.

Every single last fragment of Unlimited Blade Works came crashing down in an instant.

All of it became fuel.

Fuel for the fire that was ignited by a single catalyst.

The crumbling remnants of the person who bore the name Emiya Shirou…

And her heart of glass.

Everything exploded into a great blaze.

---

That building, whatever it was…

And the people inside of it, whoever they were…

Could no longer be recognised.

All that remained was a fine red mist that clogged the crumbling ruins with a putrid stench.

Distant shouts could be heard.

"Shit! We have what we need! Get out, get out!"

"The portal to the Underworld is open! Everyone, get in!"

The foundations of whatever that building was began to quake.

Rubble and debris dropped down from above.

Dozens of bodies laid scattered through what were probably once hallways.

They were filled with giant holes, pierced by massive blades, their wounds burning and scorching, turning them into charred corpses.

The world seemed to fade in and out.

A second world overlaid on top of this one.

A burning hellscape.

Flames licked at the edges of the walls and beams, hot enough to melt them for just a second before the fire disappeared in the next moment, only to reappear again.

Eventually, all of the stone walls fell.

In their place, tall pillars of fire took their place.

Something hobbled towards the distant voices, nearly tripping over a sword that had mysteriously manifested in front of it.

The thing limped through the blazing pits of hell.

Countless nameless blades, suddenly manifesting by its side, began to melt under the heat.

Its footsteps echoed emptily, like hollow steel.

It had lost all its regrets there, in that hell.

Its eyes lost hatred there.

Its hands lost anger there.

Its legs lost hope there.

Its self lost its self there.

It was such an absolute hell even the smallest, most mindless child could understand it.

The hateful curse of that machine – the last remnants of the will of Unlimited Blade Works – attacked everything, consuming everything in its path.

…

–A long time ago, a man walked through hell.

Emiya Kiritsugu's eyes were very strange. His once sharp gaze had vanished; his eyes were like empty caves, devoid of expression. The distracted impression he gave – he would not have recognised even things that were right before his eyes.

That man had become like a walking corpse. Kiritsugu, who had wanted to save others but instead brought about disaster, was the loser in the truest meaning of the word.

He must have been searching for even a single survivor.

That, foolishly, he believed could give him comfort – salvation.

It was nothing but absolute foolishness.

That thing walked through the blazing ruins.

No feeling was left in its steps.

Nothing but a terrifying machine was left.

"Please be alive."

A single haunted whisper broke through the snapping and crackling of the flames.

–The steps had no majesty left. He surveyed the surroundings in a terrifyingly hollow manner. The expression on his face was no different from the vengeful dead who wailed as they wandered in burning hell.

"Please be alive."

That thing was nothing more than a walking corpse.

"Please be alive."

Something suddenly burst from inside of it, jolting its shoulder, breaking its mechanical walking rhythm, sending it stumbling towards the ground.

A sword ruptured its body, coming from within.

It could not feel the pain.

Or perhaps it could, and the thing simply could not care.

Regardless, it found its footing through its broken, bleeding legs, which had seemed to reach the limits of their strength.

It continued hobbling forward.

"Please be alive."

The world went silent.

It could no longer hear the crumbling, burning world around her. The sounds of steel dropping to the floor faded in and out. The vengeful licks of fire no longer echoed.

Or maybe, none of it was ever heard in the first place.

"Please be alive."

That thing, Emiya Shirou, eventually came into a room.

A runic circle, drawn with blood, was inscribed into the floor.

Right in front of her, a portal to the Underworld closed.

If one looked closer, they would find large gashes running through the circle, smearing the inscription, concealing the coordinates they went to and ensuring the portal could not be activated again.

Wherever they went, it did not matter.

This was a worse hell than that place could ever dream of being.

At the back of the room, hung and suspended from a wall with chains, a pale, still boy hung his head.

"Please be alive."

Pale, quivering fingers reached out towards him.

He was bleeding from the stomach.

Something very, very important to him had been gouged out.

Even if he was still technically alive, it was too late for him.

Without that crucial thing inside of him, he could not live.

A massive blade exploded through its right hand, sending chunks of blood, flesh and skin to the floor.

It sizzled, burning white hot.

The blade had likely scarred and scorch the inside of the thing's arms, but it seemed completely undeterred by all of it.

It dragged its arm across the air, cutting the chains away with the searing blade.

The blade began to push further and further out of its arm, before its handle started to protrude from the thing's palm, breaking away even more of its flesh and skin.

The sword dropped to the floor, the heat emanating from the blade still hot enough to melt the cement beneath it.

The thing reached out, cradling the boy who fell into its arms.

It clutched the boy's body tightly, hugging him to its chest.

"Ple-…"

Its voice gave out.

That last fragment of desperation reached its very end.

Emiya Shirou reached her very end.

"-ase…"

The words rung uselessly.

"…be alive."

…

Swords burst through her back, the sheer force of the weapons' manifestation making her body lurch and bounce each time one erupted.

"…please."

It trembled.

Its nails, sharper than swords, dug into the boy's unconscious body.

–alive

alive

alive

More and more.

The swords ruptured from her soul at an ever-increasing rate.

The gears inside of her which had crumbled onto the floor began to spin, even when they weren't held up by anything.

A desperate, metallic shriek pierced through the fire, blowing all of it away in the blink of an eye.

"NNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The building around them completely disappeared.

A ruined world was all that was left.

Shattered swords were strewn around her, the presence of the broken things stretching all the way out beyond the horizon.

The grass which was once vibrant and green, was now completely dead. Brown, stiff, burnt to a crisp.

Gigantic gears could be seen far out in the distance piling on top of one another, still uselessly spinning, powered by an unknown force.

And in that moment, when the world around it disappeared, something impossible happened.

Three things collided in a certain, incredibly specific way, producing an impossible result.

The prayer of complete and utter desperation and despair.

The implausible world the machine found itself in – the crumbling remnants of her very soul.

The portal to the Underworld, the inscription for which was still below her feet.

Something broke through.

Something vile and tainted.

Something completely and utterly irredeemable.

It was evil itself, condensed into a single thing.

The tissue of the world in front of her ripped. An ugly scar tore through the air.

"Hm?" A curious, indifferent voice hummed in amusement, looking around.

The devil in red smiled.

"It's been a long time since I've been able to receive someone's desires. That sort of thing doesn't exactly happen to Lucifer himself."

It was unknown whether or not the broken thing, kneeling uselessly on the ground and cradling that boy's corpse, could even hear him.

"Do you have any idea how raw, how pure and powerful, how inhuman and utterly removed from the regular axis of common sense, that desperation has to be to reach my ears?"

His eyes trailed down, noticing the infinite amount of swords that laid around, broken in half.

More specifically, his eyes went down to where the runic circle should have been in the proper world.

"Ah."

He chuckled.

"I see. A complete and utter coincidence."

He shook his head.

"A portal to the Underworld that's still cooling down from an activation. That provides the gateway."

He knelt down, picking up one of the shattered swords.

"And this is a Reality Marble, no? It's been a long time since I've seen one of these. A separate world acting on a parallel axis of logic and laws, coming from a deeply distorted being whose common sense defies the world itself… the emotional wavelength of that kind of soul is certainly detached enough from common sense, bizarre enough, to reach my level of existence, which is one of the only things that exists on that same wavelength."

He continued to shake his head and chuckle in amusement.

"That's certainly a fortuitous set of circumstances you've found yourself in, girl. Had you not called out in desire in your Reality Marble, and had you not been doing it right over a freshly activated portal to the Underworld… I would not have received your cries."

A truly vile smile broke out on his face.

"It'd be a shame if I let this opportunity pass me by. So, girl…"

The devil grinned.

"What can I do for you?"

…

…

"…"

The thing's lips moved.

No more strength was left in its vocal cords.

"…please…"

The devil in red's ears perked up.

"…save him…"

He smiled.

An ominous shadow was cast over the thing and the body it cradled in its steel arms.

"Is that all?"

"…"

The thing could not give him a reply.

All it could do was repeat the one thing it knew.

"…please, save him."

The devil in red chuckled.

"If its something as simple as that, I can certainly do it… but."

His grin turned into an ear-splitting smile.

Not that it could see him.

"It'll cost you."

"…please, save him."

It could only repeat one thing mechanically.

"Are you sure you're willing to pay the price?"

…

There was one simple truth in the world.

There was one rule, one piece of advice, that someone should never, under any circumstances, ever break.

One could sin. One could lie. One could break promises. One could run away in cowardice.

But no matter how low they sunk, no matter what layer of hell they found themselves in, no one should ever, ever…

Make a deal with the devil himself.

"…please, save him."

But the thing named Emiya Shirou could not heed those words.

"You'll never see him again."

Those words made whatever was left of the machine freeze.

"And also, you'll owe me one unconditional favour. I will own your soul for one day of my choosing. I'll engrave the terms of this contract into your very soul, in this crumbling world around us. If you're willing to agree to those terms, then I will save that boy, as you so desire."

…

Whatever was left of Emiya Shirou screamed.

Whatever scraps of rationale and logic pleaded and begged.

An afterimage of Rin tugged at its arms, shaking its shoulders. She cried, screaming with a hoarse throat for Shirou to not listen. No matter what, it wasn't worth it. It could never be worth it.

The knight in red scowled and growled at it. His face was one full of scorn and hate. His bitter words tore through it, berating it. He was shouting with all the bitterness and regret inside of him that he could muster to try and turn whatever was left of the girl away from making the same mistake he did.

It could not listen.

It had no ears to hear their words.

It had no mind left to make decisions.

All it had was a single prayer.

It wanted that boy to live.

"Please."

Three words.

Again.

It always came back to three words.

"Save him."

Emiya Shirou could not save him.

It thought it could, it thought it did, and it latched onto that belief.

But the cruel reality stared it right back in the face.

That thing could not save anyone.

Even this one meagre hope was too much for it to hold onto.

Still, it did not want to see him suffer.

Still, it wanted to see him smile and live.

Even if he couldn't hold onto their promise, it wanted him to live.

Whatever it took.

If it could not be the one to provide that to him, then the only option was to pray for an exceptional salvation. A miracle beyond all compare.

One had come to it.

So it would take it, no matter what the price was.

The devil in red smiled.

"Then it will be done."

And he simply vanished.

The boy in Emiya Shirou's arms disappeared alongside him.

Its arms dropped to the side.

It was utterly alone now.

It had nothing.

Avalon was gone.

Saber was gone.

Arthur and Le Fay were gone.

The promises it swore to the knight in red were gone.

The ideal was gone.

And its last hope, which it reached towards in desperation…

Isaiah was gone.

Emiya Shirou was empty beyond compare.

That singular conclusion was what had come from all of this.

It was wrong to hope. It was wrong to desire something.

It was wrong to want to be happy.

The giant swords, still sticking out of her back, began to clatter.

They cracked.

And they shattered.

The steel left its body entirely, crumbling away into nothing as it touched the floor.

Not even that machine – Unlimited Blade Works – was left behind.

The impossible world around it fractured at its seams, splitting and snapping into pieces, disappearing deep into the void of whatever was left behind in its soul.

Her body was of flesh again. The machine had finally broken.

And in its wake, this was all that was left.

Emiya Shirou was utterly alone.

Nothing remained of Emiya Shirou.

Nothing but her heart of glass.

---

We fell into the abyss, and as we tumbled, we found a singular extrusion to cling onto.

But that can only last for so long. The only way to truly get out is to climb.

Shirou could not climb back in time, so her grip slipped.

Now, we find ourselves at the very, very bottom of the abyss.

It's time to make our way back up.

Welcome to the bottom, in more ways than one.

It had to happen eventually.

But here's the thing.

There's nowhere to go from here but up.

A pretty simple chapter compared to the last three, to be honest.

I'm not sure I'll have too much to say this time around.

The melancholy of the first part of the chapter might seem a bit odd, given the hopeful note we ended on last time, but… well…

This arc is three parts for a reason, you know?

Not too exciting or mindblowing of a chapter, all things considered. Compared to what came before and what's coming next, this is definitely the weakest part of this arc. Still, it does what it needs to, I think, and I'm pretty satisfied with its ending, which is the main thing I wanted to nail.

Anyways, some miscellaneous stuff.

So, Sirzechs at the end. Not too much to note here, since he didn't even get a proper introduction, but what I will say is that you should expect a very different take on the character. Not something as drastic as Kokabiel, but different nonetheless.

We're all pretty familiar with goofball siscon Sirzechs Lucifer, and that's fun and all, but I hunger for something more. I want full bastard Satan himself Sirzechs Lucifer. So flaming sleazy snake bastard Sirzechs Lucifer you'll get.

He'll still probably be a siscon though.

That small bit at the end with Kiritsugu by the way comes straight from the novels. I revisited the last volume specifically for this section and man did the feels hit.

I had quite a bit of fun during a few of these short fight scenes. They're nothing quite so big, flashy or spectacular but some specific sequences were just really fun to tinker with. Those things mainly being the parts mish-mashing different Noble Phantasms and completely mangling their intended purposes and altering them beyond recognition, or quickly switching between weapons on the fly for a one-two sequence of weird effects and techniques.

Usumidori for the Eight Boat Leap into Monohoshizao to deliver the actual attack.

Combining William Tell's crossbow with a crossbow bolt-altered Gae Bolg to form a dual-layered sure-hit attack.

Completely bastardising everything that Tsubame Gaeshi is by altering Monohoshizao into a shield and using it to parry three attacks at once.

Also, as much as I knocked on how the two's relevance to Shirou, Kanshou and Bakuya's magnetism is admittedly very fun to play around with. Also her recreating Tsubame Gaeshi through the only way she knows to be herself; by being a complete faker.

That sort of thing.

It's probably extremely overkill but frankly I just find it hilarious and it's a fun underutilised gimmick to play with so I'm going to play with it while I have the chance.

(Also, just for the sake of thoroughness, the two unnamed weapons that Shirou used were Oei's and Jeanne (Alter)'s respectively. I would normally take the time to slow down and give a little spiel for them as I did with Usumidori and Apfel Schiessen, but I think its more reflective of Shirou's current mental state to just leave a single sentence for both)

Sadly, we're not going to see much more of that kind of thing for most of the rest of Act Zero.

Throughout these last three chapters, Shirou has barely been able to hold onto 'Emiya Shirou', and along with that person, Unlimited Blade Works.

But now, there is nothing more for that girl to hang onto.

Having fully lost everything, Emiya Shirou and Unlimited Blade Works begin to crumble apart.

The last scene is not meant to be ambiguous in that regard, it's just communicated in really flowery metaphoric language, so I'll clear it up just in case.

By the end of this chapter, Unlimited Blade Works has fully crumbled.

It's still there, but just completely destroyed, lying in ruin. Nothing can really be salvaged from it anymore.

The infinite swords that exist inside of it, for the foreseeable future, can no longer be called upon by her own will.

All that remains of it in her current state is the heart of glass.

I'll be reiterating this every chapter in this arc, but it's very important to note the current state of Unlimited Blade Works throughout the second half of Act Zero.

This is by far her lowest point.

She doesn't have any of the weapons to call on and her soul lacks the necessary steel (conviction and strength of will) to turn her body into swords.

All that is left is the hollowness inside of Emiya Shirou. The tragic distortion that lays at the core of everything – the heart of glass.

But what does that thing, the heart of glass, truly mean?

Is it really the sole reason for Emiya Shirou's tragic future? Is it really a weakness, or is it her strength? Is it really everything wrong with her… or is it the one thing that's right about her?

In reality, there's no way to say for certain, but as she is, Shirou can only see it one way right now.

Let's see whether that view is right or wrong…

Or, really…

Let's see whether being 'right or wrong' matters at all.

I'm really excited for this next chapter.

I said in Chapter 7 that that chapter was my favourite chapter, but I think I might like the ending of Chapter 9 even more. We'll see if it lives up to expectations.

See you next time, when we go to…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

---

Six days remained until summer would arrive.

The cruel sun started to set.

"This way."

The black-haired woman pointed vaguely towards a burning warehouse.

"…Inside there?"

Diethelm deadpanned.

Rin grunted.

Her feet dragged along the floor. One arm was slung around the priest's shoulder.

"Yeah. I can feel the stench of her Reality Marble tearing through the fabric of the world. Leads right there."

Several hours had passed since Shirou called for help.

Rin was quite surprised when a priest stumbled onto her location around half an hour ago, sweating and panting, exhausted at having to cross the world on such short notice.

She vaguely recognised the man in her bleary vision, remembering him as one of the people she briefly met one of those times she went to Mordred's mansion.

Accompanying him was the famous Griselda Quarta, a woman of such notoriety and status that even she, a Japanese magus, could recognise her.

His Sacred Gear – whatever the hell that was, she didn't really get it – apparently gave him the ability to convert Christian faith into healing energy.

Luckily, the Tohsaka family came from a long lineage of Christians, so everything ended up working out and she was patched up.

Still though, there was not really any strength inside of her body, so her two companions ended up having to drag her towards Shirou, led by her vague directions, guided by the sixth sense she had for magic.

Even in her delirious state, it was easy to track Shirou's movements down.

Her Reality Marble was literally manifesting into the world as she moved, leaving huge scars on the world behind her.

Rin's heart ached.

She knew that could mean nothing good.

Unlimited Blade Works was already unstable, and for something like this to happen…

She could only hope that the worst-case scenario had not happened.

Diethelm sighed.

"That's just like her, really…"

Griselda narrowed her eyes at the burning building.

She stepped forward without hesitation.

"W-wait, Griselda!"

Diethelm stammered lightly.

He inhaled deeply.

–Welp.

Here goes nothing I suppose.

He sucked it up and stepped forward, carrying both himself and Shirou's friend straight into the fire.

Griselda's eyes flicked to the sides.

Something about these flames seemed off to her.

She rose a curious hand towards them.

"G-Griselda, just because I'm here doesn't mean you can just go sticking your hand into-"

The priest trailed off, staring wide-eyed at the sight in front of him.

Griselda thrust her hand into the fire.

Nothing happened.

"The fire's not hot."

She remarked simply.

"It doesn't even seem emotionally charged, like a cursed or metaphysical fire. There's no hatred or vengeance in it."

The Exorcist waved her hand up and down, waiting for something to happen.

Nothing ever did.

"The hell is this?"

Rin groaned, lifting her head.

All of her senses were assaulted by the unworldly sensation and presence around her.

"It's not hot because it's a part of Shirou's Reality Marble."

She didn't recall Unlimited Blade Works having fire as a part of its manifestation outside of the ring that formed the basis of the World Egg, but it was the only thing it could be.

Every nerve in her body screamed at her.

It was the same harrowing emptiness and despair that led her here, tearing through the fabric of the world.

"She's lost all of it."

Her words turned the heads of the two members of the Holy Church.

"Hm?" Griselda raised an eyebrow solemnly.

The mood plummeted.

"All hate. All bitterness. All vengeance. She's stopped crying. She's stop pleading."

Rin gulped, trying to fight the painful, painful beating of heart away.

It did not fade.

It continued to claw away at her, filling her lungs and restricting her breathing.

"She's stopped feeling."

"…"

"…"

Griselda looked to the end of the corridor once more, and stepped forward resolutely.

She was there.

It was just yesterday when it happened.

She was right. There.

She could have done something about it.

Shirou's Reality Marble blew up right in front of her, instantly killing their target, and she just let it happen.

She just asked that stupid girl a single question and bought her vapid answer.

She could have done something about it.

Griselda grinded her teeth.

Someone's tragedy.

On her hands.

The promise she swore to that blue-haired sister she called her friend for a short period of time echoed inside of her.

What the hell was she doing back there?

Did she swear this promise just so she could let this happen in front of her?

To a stupid, young girl who had been braver than all of them, stepping forward into the unknown part of the world, leading the way towards the future?

Why the hell did she just fucking accept that empty answer?

'I'll manage'?

Yeah, fucking right.

What the fuck was she possessed by yesterday?

Griselda stomped forward.

–When I see her, I'm going to grab her by the shoulders and-

Whatever thoughts she had, whatever plans she had for Shirou, left her mind when she saw what was left of that girl.

"…"

Griselda froze, coming to a stop inside the room that laid at the end of the corridor.

Diethelm and Rin caught up.

A body knelt in the middle of the room, her head hung.

She was like a corpse.

No one else was in sight.

She was bloody. Her clothes, and indeed her flesh, were torn to shreds by what seemed to be swords. Some parts of her seemed to be singed and charred.

Gingerly, as if her steps would somehow topple the corpse over, Griselda approached her.

"Shirou."

She called out.

No response came.

"Shirou."

…

Rin sighed.

She pushed past the heaviness – the pain and suffering – that clouded her lungs, and managed to get out a single whisper.

"Shirou."

She called her friend's name with anguish and desperation.

Something was roused in the corpse that knelt in front of them.

"…he's gone…"

"Are you…" Rin groaned, shivering. The unbearable weight of the collapsing Reality Marble threated to render her unconscious. "…talking… about Isaiah?"

But that weight was only the second biggest among her problems.

The thing causing the most pain to her was her own heart.

Her own care and compassion for the woman she called her friend.

Rin might as well have been stabbed straight through the heart. It certainly felt as if she was watching herself lose something of that importance.

"…I'll never see him again."

With that final mumble, the machine fell quiet.

Shirou's breath evened out.

Her dulled eyes closed.

The broken, empty girl fell onto her back.

Only a single glass tear was left on her face, trailing down her cheek.

Griselda gently approached the unconscious girl, holding her in her arms.

"Diethelm."

The priest's gaze flicked towards Rin.

The young woman nodded silently.

Diethelm let Rin down onto the floor as gently as he could, before walking up to Shirou.

He placed his hands over her.

…

God.

She was in even worse condition than when they left the Underworld for the first time.

He couldn't even begin to imagine what kind of hell and trauma the girl was put through.

He bit his lip.

"I don't know, Griselda."

He sighed, aggrieved.

"There's nothing I can do. Not even the single tiniest fragment of hope remains inside of her. Not the single tiniest shred of faith, for anything is left. I-I… I'm completely lost, Griselda."

The Exorcist scowled.

"So what the hell do we do? How in God's name do we fix this, how do we heal her?"

She stared at the crumbled machine in her arms.

Rin coughed, crawling towards them.

"If you don't know how to fix a broken machine…"

She groaned, pulling herself closer.

"You look at its blueprints."

Rin gingerly stroked the red hair of her friend.

A mournful expression was set on her face.

"If you can't make sense of its blueprints, then you track down its origin."

Her fingers slowly traced Shirou's face, sliding over the singular tear tract.

The glass tear seemed to crumble away into dust in her fingers.

"You two… do you know how this all started?"

"…" Griselda's confused gaze shifted to the left. "You mean with the boy, Isaiah?"

"No."

Rin shook her head.

"I mean Emiya Shirou."

Her mind was cast back to the distant past.

Yes…

A very, very long time ago…

"Emiya Shirou can be called a fake person. Hollow, empty. Pointless. Useless. A being comprised of nothing but lies that climb futilely towards an impossible future."

"…"

Rin brought the finger to her chest, holding the remains of that glass tear to her heart.

"In that bottomless pit of lies, there is one singular truth, buried at the very, very bottom."

She closed her eyes and listened to the aching beat of her heart.

It all started there.

"Thirteen years ago, in a place called Fuyuki, a great fire broke out in the heart of the city."

---

…Oh.

See you in Fuyuki, then.

Let's go back to where it started, and once and for all, put an end to this.

There's only one thing left to find out, only one thing that really ever mattered.

Who is Emiya Shirou?

The heart of glass will be unravelled at last.

Much love, cheers.

See you all next time.

---

Next time: Emiya Shirou.