Chapter 8 - The Second Meat Dish (Reveal)

...

Issei appeared, dressed in black cloth, much to Shirou and Tohsaka's shock. Neither of them knew that Issei was a mage, let alone that he was a participant in the war.

"Issei..." Shiro asked, hesitantly, as though he didn't want to believe it, "Are you the one siphoning life from all these people"?

Shirou sounded pained, as though he didn't want to believe it, that his own close friend could be responsible for such things.

In contrast, Issei was very calm, "Well, just calm down and listen." He said.

"I'll listen." Shirou said, "But you'd better have a good reason."

"To start with," Issei began, "I am indeed a mage, as you can see."

"This war isn't supposed to be like this." he continued, to which Tohsaka nodded in acknowledgement, "Under normal circumstances, the Servants themselves would be summoned, instead of just cards channeling their power. But, because of my mistake, something changed."

"What do you mean?" Tohsaka inquired, "How would your mistake have changed things so much?"

Issei's face furled a bit at being interrupted by Tohsaka, but he went on, "I was just getting to that." He said, annoyed.

"But my magecraft, or more specifically, my family's bloodline magecraft specialty is "transference". "Transference" or more simply put, "swapping" magecraft is a subset of "displacement" magecraft, differing from it in that it requires two things, one to link to and the other to "switch" with, in other words, it requires two objects, to displace them into each other's positions."

"Ah..." Tohsaka seemed to start to understand what might've happened.

Shirou however was clueless, and looked to Tohsaka to explain,

"Normally, "transference" magecraft, just like "displacement" or "projection" magecraft, it would be an extremely simple and useless magecraft, but..."

"Yes," Issei, interrupted, "As reluctant as I am to admit it, Tohsaka, witch that she is, are be entirely correct."

"What do you mean "witch?!" Tohsaka rebuked, angrily, "And let me finish explaining this to Emiya-kun!"

Issei shrugged and let her go on. Shirou just laughed nervously, while Sakura trembled behind Shirou.

"Normally," Tohsaka continued, "Like its main branch of "displacement" and like "projection" or "sword" magecraft, it would an extremely simple magecraft that is normally useless."

"But just like those type of magecraft," She continued, "It is an extremely deadly and extremely useful art when taken to its logical extreme, despite being a simple magecraft."

No, more accurately, it might even be said that it is in fact because these magecraft are extremely simple and very singularly-focused magecraft arts in the first that they have the potential to reach such logical extremes in the first place, unlike much more complicated magecraft or High-Thaumatology with many moving parts to it.

"If I'm guessing correctly," She said, "As a result of their Mage Crest and many generations of practicing "transference" magecraft, most of the family's members naturally have "transference" as their inherited magical attribute".

She looked to Issei for an answer,

"You've guessed correctly." Issei said, "And unlike many of members of my family, both my "Element" and "Origin" are "Transference"."

Issei was in fact is the miracle born to the main branch inheritance of the Ryuudou family, someone who has not only inherited their magecraft arts, but was also their first successor who had both his original "Element" and "Origin" successfully swapped out with the element of "Transference".

"As such," he continued, "I'm capable many things that my other family members are not."

He could do amazing things, in fact, with his magecraft.

Though in truth, Issei actually didn't care much for the traditions of his family. In his mind, it was just another old-fashioned ritual and unnecessary tradition that was forced on to him as a child. One that was out of touch with times, and nothing more than abomination towards nature itself.

He really didn't want to to make use of natural talents and abilities, though, unless forced to in a desperate situation.

"But normally," he said, "I don't really make much use of such abominable powers. However, just a few days ago, I was forced to make use of them, when an enemy Servant, a Caster, more specifically, started to assault our temple."

"Unfortunately," He explained, "I may have overreached a bit. I wasn't aware there was such a power source beneath our temple, after all."

"Just a bit?" Tohsaka asked, scathingly.

"Yeah, just a bit." He shot back, bitterly.

It was as an accident, in other words, done out of desperation, as an attempt to defend himself from Caster when she came upon Ryuudou temple, attempting to take it over its Leylines in preparation for The Holy Grail War.

"I hadn't meant to make such a large change," He explained, "But unfortunately, I hadn't practiced my magecraft much, and unaware of the power source below me, I may have swapped too much."

In other words, that was when he had accidently switched the concept of "Servant" for the concept of "Servant Cards".

Tohsaka scoffed, "Some mistake. Not even an amateur would've been unaware of such a massive pool of energy beneath their feet."

"Well, I'd rather be someone who's not even an amateur, than a twisted witch like you."

"What was that?!"

They glared at each other, tensely, but luckily Shirou interrupted, breaking the tension. "Well, alright, that explains some things, but then why are you still absorbing people's mana, Issei?"

"Ah, about that," Issei said, "Well, it's not my intention to harm anyone or drain enough from them to cause them to pass out. I just wanted to gather enough energy to return things to return things to their proper. Not to kill anyone or cause any trouble."

"But people are passing, you know."

"Yeah, that was mistake." Issei admittedly, sounding regretful, "But I've corrected that. No more people should be passing out now, or any time recently. I'm trying to only absorb as little as possible from enough people to return things back to normal. But at the start, I was really lacking, and made some mistakes. They should still be fine, though, after they've been given enough time to recover."

Shirou nodded. "Well, I'm not exactly satisfied with that," He said, "But I guess it's better than knowing you were doing it as a bad guy, Issei."

Issei nodded. "Yeah."

"Incidentally," Issei continued, "I know this is a war, but I would rather not fight you guys, if possible."

Shirou nodded, agreeing.

"So, I would like to propose an alliance. I won't ask you to take care of other enemy Servants or anything, but at least a mutual non-aggression agreement would be to both our favors, I would think."

Tohsaka was reluctant, but Shirou and Sakura gladly accepted, since neither wanted to attack Issei.

"Wait," Tohsaka interrupted, "How do we know we can trust you?" She asked.

"Well, that's a good point." Issei admitted, "Unfortunately, I don't have any proof, so you'll have to take my word on faith. But, if you're going to head into battle with any other Servants, I might be able to provide some support."

Tohsaka still looked unsatisfied, but at the very least, she, even with Archer's enhanced senses, couldn't feel any sort of malice or deception from Issei, and against Shirou and Sakura's vote of confidence, there wasn't much she could.

...

And so, their investigation finished, they made to head back to Shirou's house.

Only to be interrupted by a familiar figure, at the bottom of the stairs...

"Remember me, Onii-chan?"

A familiar girl stood in their way, the shadow of a faming-red knight looming over her.

"Oh no..."

This wasn't a good situation.

Shirou was still exhausted from earlier, and Tohsaka, by herself, was not of a match for her by herself. Gritting her teeth, she decided to make the best of the situation.

"Sakura, you hold her off for now! I'll go and get support from Issei!"

"Huh?" Sakura, suddenly thrown into the fray, was bewildered but had no choice but to equip her card and intercept Ilya as she went after her sister.

Shirou had also equipped his Saber card, but his response was a bit slow, not least of which was because of his mental exhaustion from the prior battle.

"Hmph!" Ilya scoffed, "So you're also fighting, huh...?"

"It's not like I want to," Sakura replied, "But I won't let you hurt Tohsaka-senpai or Emiya-senpai!"

"Hmmmm..." Ilya hummed, amusedly, "Well, we'll just see about that."

But, right as she backed off and was about to lunge for Shirou, a shot of concentrated magical energy from the Temple came at her, forcing her to jump back even before Sakura could intercept her.

"Tch!" Ilya clicked her tongue, "Even more support? How annoying!"

"It's four-on-one now!" Shirou declared, as he could see Tohsaka in sniping position on the hill from the side of his eyes, "So if you don't want to fight, then you should back off now!"

Ilya pondered for a bit. "Yeah, certainly. Especially with her at your side."

Ilya's tone was a bit mocking, in a spiteful way. Shirou didn't know what she meant, though Sakura knew full-well what she was referring to, and glared back at the smaller girl.

"Fine!" Ilya said, "I'll retreat, for now! But I'll be back!" She declared.

Backing off, she retreated, for now.

Sighing a breath of relief, Shirou almost collapsed as the tension left his body and all his previous exhaustion came back to him all at once, before Sakura caught him in her arms.

"Good work, Senpai."

"Yeah," Shirou said, "Thanks to you."

Tohsaka finally came back, and the lot of them headed back to Shirou's house.

"Our only remaining enemies now are left are only Lancer's Master, that crazy grinning woman and Berserker's Master, Ilya." Tohsaka analyzed.

"Yeah."

Shirou didn't really want to face off against either of them again, but he would have to eventually.

"Well, let's just rest for now," He said, "I'm exhausted."

Tohsaka nodded, as both she and Sakura supported Shirou back to his place.

...

In another place, underground...

"W-why...? Kirei-san...?"

Kotomine Kirei only grinned without answering, as his hand reached through Bazett's heart, crush it with his bare hands.

"And next, only the Einzbern homunculus is left."

...

Bon Appetite!

...

...

...

Author's Notes:

(Some version of Magical Girl Ilya out there must've be incredibly confused when their cards suddenly disappeared and full-blown Servants suddenly started appearing in their place.)

...

(Bonus OMAKE)

On the prowl, a certain predator spotted three kids heading home at night. One boy and two girls, by the look of it!

"HEY! YOU KIDS! I WON'T ALLOW ANY STEAMY ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES AT THIS TIME OF NIGHT!"

"Fuji-nee?!"

"It's not Fuji-nee! It's Jaguarman! Hero of Justice!"

Shirou took one last exhausted glance at her, and then fainted at the absurd sight. It was just too much for his tired mind to process at the moment.

"Emiya-kun?!"

"Senpai?!"

...