Artemis watches as the girl regards her.
Shock was apparent on her face. Her eyes were wide with surprise and fear as her whole body seemed to lock up for a moment. The boy, who was still underneath the goddess's moonlight net, stops struggling for a moment to regard her. The apparent signs of surprise were also clear on his face.
Artemis just smiles.
If there was something that she had learned from her millenia of hunting, it was that it didn't matter what her quarry was, nor how unique they or thought they were. Cornered animals always reacted in the same ways.
"I wouldn't bother trying to break through that, boy," Artemis says. "Not even gods were able to break through that net. You might as well try to break through the very essence of the moon."
Shirou, who wasn't really even struggling much in the first place, turns his gaze away from the net and towards the goddess. His expression, however, was one with a hard set, ice cold glare.
Artemis is brought back to when she first saw the boy standing on that cliffside. The cold, analytical look he had when he first thought of them as enemies.
Well, it wasn't like they were really allies either.
"What is the point of this, Lady Artemis?" Sakura asks, a placid look on her face. "Was all of this here waiting for us?"
The goddess chuckles.
"You could say that," she says. "You could also say that I've perfectly predicted how events would've played out since we talked not too long ago."
"That deal, you never intended to seriously commit to it," Sakura says. "You intentionally worded the deal in a way that you knew would make us consider having to leave the camp one way or another."
"I'm the goddess of hunters, my sweet girl," Artemis says. "And an important trait that a hunter, or huntress, must possess is cunningness. So now that I have the boy as my captive, I can do whatever I wish with him without having to give over anything in exchange. It was a good plan, yes?"
Sakura and Shirou just stare at the goddess for a moment as she smiles at them. The other Hunters around just kept their attentive gazes and their bows aimed at the two of them.
Shirou finally breaks off the stare to look back at the net on top of him. He releases his grip from the bright, silvery gray strings.
Then, he closes his eyes.
"We are the structure of our swords…"
Everyone goes silent at the words. Artemis just raises an eyebrow in curiosity.
"Steel composes our bodies, flame runs through our veins," he continues chanting, as if incanting a prayer. "We have created over a thousand swords."
Hmm, perhaps a prayer to his father? Perhaps Hephaestus? Artemis ponders.
"Unknown to death, nor known to life…"
A shimmer of sparkles rises from the ground behind him. Slowly, those sparkles converge underneath the net, right behind Shirou. The figure of a man shimmers into appearance.
He was taller than the boy, almost by a head, with very tanned skin and short, light gray hair. He was wearing a black shirt, one that showed off all the muscles in his abdomen, and a red coat over it with long black pants. His facial features, though older and more mature, seemed very, very similar to Shirou's. His body seemed translucent and was surrounded by a white light, as if he was there, but not really there at the same time.
Artemis turned to her Hunters. They all kept their stares and bows aimed at the two teens, but their faces betrayed no other emotion. As if nothing was wrong.
Hmm, can they not see him? the goddess ponders to herself, turning back to Shirou.
"Having to withstand the pain to create weapons," the redhead continues chanting, undisturbed. "Waiting for the arrival of the one that will bring me eternal rest. There is nothing left to regret, for this is our only path…"
He then holds out his hand, his eyes still firmly shut.
"Archer, lend me your power…your Unlimited Blade Works."
Behind him, the shimmering figure of the man closes his own eyes before crossing his right arm across his body.
Both him and the redhead opened their eyes. Then, in perfect synchrony, they exclaimed…
"Trace on!"
Sparks of bright green energy suddenly explode from his hand.
"My Lady," Zoe calls, keeping her gaze unflinchingly on the redhead unlike some of the other Hunters, who were forced to avert their gazes due to the sudden brightness.
"Yes, he's somehow able to access his abilities under that net," Artemis says. "How curious. After all, that is the point of a net that can capture even the gods. Well, even if he is able to, that net won't budge even under the full strength of a god. That boy has no hope of getting out."
The green sparks finally disappear.
In Shirou's hand, a weapon appeared, as if out of nowhere. It was a dagger with a jagged, weirdly kaleidoscopic blade and a jeweled hilt.
"The principles of magic, divine providence, and anything that institutes itself as a principle of the world," he says. "Anything that institutes itself as a principle of creation…
"Bring it all back to zero, Rule Breaker!"
With that, Shirou swings the dagger in a wide circle around him…
And, to the goddess's wide-eyed surprise, sliced through the silvery strings of the net.
That prompted an immediate reaction.
The sound of twangs rings throughout the forest as every Hunter standing around the two fire their arrows at him. The redhead grabs Sakura by the waist before kicking off the ground, the two of them seeming to dissolve into nothing more than a blur as the arrows all hit nothing more than air or each other.
What in Zeus's- how did he break through my net?! Artemis exclaims in her head. In her head, she was still in shock, having watched a mere demigod(?) somehow break through her net, with such a small dagger on top of that. It must have been the dagger. There must be something special about that dagger. There's no other explanation.
Then she shakes her head, ridding herself of the thought.
She raises a hand, calling upon some of the power of the will of nature within the forest to immediately bring the two back to her location. But then she stops herself.
Actually, a better idea. This boy is unusual. This could be great practice for the Hunters.
She lowers her hand before then reaching for her bow. She aims the glowing bow up into the sky and holds out a hand. A thin, bright white arrow appears in her outstretched hand. She nocks it into the bow before pulling back the drawstring, the arrow pointed directly upwards into the sky. Then, she lets it go.
The projectile soars upwards, perpendicular to the ground. Upon reaching a high point in the dark expanse of the night sky, it then explodes with a shower of white particles. A second white projectile shoots off from the explosion, shooting off in a random direction like a shooting star.
"There is your quarry," the goddess says with a smile. "Let the hunt begin. Oh, and I want him alive. The girl too, if you can."
With that, all of her Hunters, as one synchronized unit, took off in the direction of the projectile.
A fairly far distance away, the figure of two people seemed to solidify into shape from nothing more than a multi-colored blur.
"Whoa!"
Shirou, who had been moving at a speed comparable to the full speed of a certain archer-class servant with C-rank agility with Sakura hefted onto his back in a piggyback position, decides to finally come to a stop after starting to feel the strain of moving at such an inhumanly fast speed for around a minute. He quickly shuts off the prana flow to his legs and tries to bring himself and her to a complete stop.
Unfortunately for him, the one place that he decided to stop happened to be right on top of a small bit of a tree root poking out of the ground.
Shirou's foot collides with the side of the root. His eyes widened just as Sakura let out a surprised squeak.
The momentum from their speed sends them flying forwards a short distance. Sakura lets go of the redhead, allowing the two of them to separate in midair before gracelessly hitting the ground a short distance away from each other and kicking up a small cloud of dust from the flat, silty ground of the woodlands.
Shirou coughs and lets out a pained groan, allowing himself to just lie on the floor for a moment. Once he felt that he had recovered well enough, he moved to pick himself off the ground.
Only to stop when he feels a jolt of sharp pain shoot up his legs.
The redhead lets out a grunt of pain as he falls back to the ground, shutting his eyes. When he opened them again, his vision swam.
The pain was soon to subside. However, now it was replaced with numbness. Shirou wills motion into his right leg, but it stayed lying there, prone on the ground. He sighs, taking a look around.
It was rather easy to spot the obstacle that he had tripped on, because the ground, a moderately large area around the small root segment, was completely flat, save for the pine trees scattered around.
Dammit, Archer, he mentally curses.
He's broken out of his thoughts at the sound of a small cough.
"Senpai!" comes Sakura's slightly raspy voice. "Are you alright?!"
"Yeah," Shirou says with a pained groan. "Though I can't move my legs."
Sakura, who had fallen to the ground somewhere nearby, picks herself up into a sitting position and twists her head to find him. Upon meeting his eyes, she smiles before getting up from the ground and walking over to him. She then sits back down again, right beside his head.
"Well, it does make sense," she says. "I wouldn't think that your body can handle moving at the speed that a Servant can for very long."
"Yeah…"
The two of them remain like that for a moment.
Although the two of them were in a forest, the foliage above was not really that thick. That was because the trees around them were all pine trees because of the somewhat cold environment they were in. Because of this, moonlight was able to illuminate the Earth below.
And as Shirou just stared up at the purple-haired girl above him, he couldn't help but take a moment to appreciate just how beautiful Sakura looked underneath the moonlight. The silvery white beams seemed to make her purple hair sparkle and as it reflected off her already pale skin, she seemed less like a human and more of an ethereal being.
It was already an established fact that Sakura was pretty, significantly more so than almost every other girl her age, possibly rivaled only by her sister, in which case they were barely on equal footing (not that Shirou would ever tell Sakura that). But underneath the moonlight, her beauty seemed amplified. It was a sight that the redhead couldn't tear his eyes away from.
He's broken from his trance at the realization that Sakura's face had gotten a little bigger. It takes him a moment to realize that she had bent down so that their faces were ever so slightly closer to each other. He felt heat rush into his cheeks.
"Say, senpai, don't you think that this situation is a bit…backwards?" she whispers softly. There was a mirthful gleam in her eyes.
"W-What do you mean?" Shirou asks.
Real smooth, genius.
"Isn't it supposed to be the prince who is looming over the princess, ready to give her that kiss and awaken her from her eternal slumber?"
"W-Well, I'm not exactly asleep…"
"You might as well be," Sakura says quietly, almost on the verge of a whisper. "Especially if I provide you some healing magic through a kiss, don't you think?"
Shirou was pretty sure that his face had gotten even redder. He could definitely feel it at least.
Sakura just laughed.
"You're so cute, senpai," she says.
Then, pushing a lock of her hair away from her face, she closes her eyes and leans down to press her lips against Shirou's.
Despite what most people would (and had) assumed, Shirou and Sakura's relationship was anything but chaste. Shirou could understand how people could assume that though: almost everyone who somehow had caught wind of their relationship were shocked that the usually meek girl was able to gather enough courage to ask out her long-time crush (that was the lie they went with when asked how exactly the two of them got together. They couldn't exactly just tell everyone about the Holy Grail War after all.) On top of that, Shirou was seen as somewhat of a moral character by his classmates when he was still at school in Japan. Those two factors put together lead to a lot of jokes about them committing "lewd" acts in private such as holding hands or using each other's first names.
However, their love life, although chaste at some moments, was also rather carnal in others. They definitely kissed. They kissed a lot, but a good majority of the time, that kissing led the two to commit to…deeper forms of love.
But no matter how many times they kissed, Shirou never got tired of it.
So when Sakura touched her lips to his, he lost himself to the feeling of her. He closed his eyes as he reached up towards her with his arms, curling them around her neck so that he could bring her just marginally closer. Sakura just hums in approval, laying an elbow on the ground next to Shirou's head.
The redhead was faintly aware of the warm, soothing feeling that was starting to flood through his body, undoubtedly Sakura's magic at work. However, he gave it little focus as his focus was needed elsewhere.
After around a minute or so, Sakura finally pulled away from him. Her mouth hung open slightly as quick, short puffs of air left her lungs. Shirou's eyes were drawn to her…sizable chest.
Immediately, he withdraws his eyes and closes them.
His face felt like it was on fire.
Sakura gave him a knowing chuckle.
"How are your legs feeling, senpai?" she asks.
Shirou looks down at his leg. He wills his right leg to rise and lets out a sigh of relief as it complies this time.
"Feels good as new," he says with a smile. "Thanks, Sakura."
"Now, don't you think we should put those legs to good use~?" the girl asks with an intentionally deep, sultry voice.
Shirou didn't miss the hint. He felt his face heat up again.
"W-well, yeah, we should," he manages to get out. His mind was in a scramble, but it wasn't a foreign feeling. It wasn't uncommon for Sakura to do that to him. "We should take this time now to cover as much ground as possible."
"I suppose you're right," she says, seemingly professional as if she hadn't just made a suggestive comment on this very topic. "Well then, let's get to it, right senpai?"
Shirou just deadpans at her for a moment. Sakura giggles quietly at that before offering him a hand and pulling him up from the ground. Despite his partner's healing magic, his legs still felt a teeny bit wobbly, so he leaned onto Sakura for support for a bit before regaining his balance. Soon, the two were ready to begin their way forward.
"Alright, so which way do we go now?" Shirou asks. "I just took off in a random direction, so I'm not exactly sure where we are…"
"Looks like we'll just have to pick a direction and stick with it," Sakura says. "Hopefully we'll end up somewhere in civilization."
The redhead just nods his head.
"So, how about still east?" he asks.
"Sure. Any direction will do."
The two of them start their trek forward, side by side.
Unfortunately for them however, that trek would be brought to a halt even before the duo could take more than a few steps forward.
For the moment that Shirou did take that first step forward, there was the very audible sound of a thwack, sound reminiscent of that of an arrow being fired from a bow. A sound that both teens were familiar with.
Shirou had just enough time to whirl around just as a silvery arrow suddenly found itself lodged into his shoulder.
A/N: Frankly, this chapter shouldn't have taken nearly as long as it did. Unfortunately, my schedule has not been kind to me and I barely had time to put this chapter together. Be prepared for a long A/N this time though, cuz I gotta address some frequently brought up topics in the reviews.
On the topic of Celestial Bronze, why can't Shirou project Celestial Bronze weapons? Celestial Bronze itself is a divine metal, as it was harvested by the gods themselves. So even though the weapons themselves are made by mortals, he can't replicate the metal itself, which prevents him from performing one of the necessary steps for tracing, which is "duplicating the material of composition." And to specify, no, he can't project divine constructs. Only a few Noble Phantasms are actually divine constructs, a list of which could be found on the F/SN wiki.
Now, on the topic of Shirou's abilities. Remember that the Shirou in this fic has a part of Archer's soul within his. Thus, he can pull Noble Phantasms out of Archer's Reality Marble...but at the same time not really. Think of it as the Unlimited Blade Works chant Shirou says here invoking the spirit of Archer within him and having the Servant('s spirit) project the weapon for him. And yes, he will get even more overpowered when he actually starts using Archer's arm. Yes, Shirou will be more powerful here than he is canonically at the end of Heaven's Feel, but he won't be borderline overpowered. He'll be somewhat of a glass cannon: he'll be powerful as hell but that very same power damages his own body.
Anyways, until next time.
Oh, and sorry for the sorry attempt at fluff. But after all, in the words of Draedon himself, "to experiment is to fail, and to fail is to learn, and to learn is to advance." Except I'm probably not gonna get past that fail part.
