Chapter 11

Shirou slowed down his van and turned into a narrow alley between two buildings until he reached a banged-up shutter, where he slowed to a halt and turned off the engine.

Akitsu followed him out and waited patiently while he fiddled with the keyhole. He had the key, but the shutter was in such a sorry state that it took him a few twists and turns to finally unlock it. It made an ear-grating noise when he pulled it up and got stuck halfway, refusing to budge any further.

At least he could get inside just by ducking a little, so it wasn't much of an issue.

It was dark inside, even though it was the middle of the day. Caught between tall buildings on all sides, the only illumination warehouse was from the dirty skylight overhead. The light switches clicked when he tried them, but they didn't do anything. That wasn't surprising either.

Nobody was supposed to be here for any stretch of time. It was just a deposit, meant to store things that people no longer needed but couldn't get rid of for any number of reasons. There were several boxes and crates piled up against the walls, with varying layers of dust covering them depending on how long they had been held in storage.

The only exception was a wooden crate, about six feet long and half as large, shoved against the farthest wall away from everything else, as if the person who had put it there was worried that it would hurt the other boxes.

A reflection of the opinion he had of its owner, perhaps. Or maybe Shirou was just reading too much into it.

He approached the crate and inspected it for signs of tampering, but it looked every little bit as he had last left it, plus a few scrapes due to being moved around.

It was sealed close and there was no need to check whether it had been opened in the time it wasn't in his possession. It wasn't possible to do so without completely breaking it. He had closed it through means of Magecraft, after all, and while any half-baked Magus could get through his locking system, anyone else couldn't hope to do so without doing irreversible structural damage.

No, it wasn't a spell that kept it shut, just regular physics. He had used simple Alteration to straighten out loops of metal that were placed in key locations along the inner walls, and when the Gaia undid the effect, they became perfectly interlocked. The only way to open it again was to repeat the process or break it open.

Not that it would crack so easily. It was lined with steel, forged by Shirou himself. It wasn't straight up impossible to get at its contents. Just hard enough that only those truly motivated would try they hand at it, but not without making it obvious.

Those moved by idle curiosity would be sufficiently discouraged from prying by his reputation. He was confidant that only a Magus could tamper with it without him noticing, and none of them had any interest in a third rate Mage like him.

What could a first generation like him possibly have to offer to warrant their attention? Nothing whatsoever, that is. Whatever Mysteries he managed to scrape together in the years since the Holy Grail War weren't worth a second of their time.

Of course, if they knew what he knew they would sing a different tune. But then it wouldn't be the crate that they would want to crack open as much as Emiya Shirou himself. Which only added to his certainty that his belongings were fine.

"Akitsu, would you please help me load this inside the van?"

"Of course, Master."

Truth to be told, Akitsu could have lifted the crate on her own with her strength, but it was too unwieldy to do so easily. The two of them together loaded it in a matter of minutes, and they were soon heading back home.

[br]

The winds blew gently, sending a few stray leaves rolling. The sound of traffic was distant, as if that part of the city existed under a transparent dome that dampened all sound. Everything was peaceful as if it was wrapped into a woolen blanket

The woman dressed like a Miko, momentarily stopped sweeping the front of the mansion to push a strand of lavender hair behind her ear.

"Welcome, Kazehana," she said without turning. "What brings you by this morning?"

"Good morning, Miya," the Sekirei of Wind greeted with just a bit of disappointment in her voice. After all these years, she still could not sneak around this woman without being caught. "I was just dropping by."

"Hm-hm," she replied. "When you show yourself around these parts, it's always to crash in my lobby, completely inebriated and almost entirely naked. Since I can smell from here that your drinking habits have not changed, what's the real reason for your visit?"

Kazehana sighed. Forget about sneaking around Miya. It was already hard enough to slip something under her nose.

"I'm looking for one of your tenants," she admitted.

Miya stopped sweeping and turned to face the other Sekirei.

"The rules of Izumo Inn apply to everyone. Do not infringe upon them and we won't have a problem."

"Gee, chill out. I'm not looking for a fight. I'm here for a consult."

"A consult? You are not looking for Uzume, then. Kazehana… what manner of trouble have you gotten yourself into, this time?"

"No trouble at all, I swear," she said, frantically waving her hands. In the years since the first generation of the Disciplinary Squad got disbanded, Miya had mellowed out a great deal, but Kazehana still didn't want to be at the receiving ends of one of her lectures. She had nightmares for weeks about those "I just need to borrow her expertise for a while."

"Hmph," she scoffed, not at all convinced. "Do as you wish, but I better not have that horrid woman knocking at my door looking for you."

"Oh? Since when are you afraid of Karasuba?" she asked.

"I do not fear her, and I would advise you to never suggest otherwise, if you know what's good for you," she said with a smile that made Kazehana regretting saying those words. "I merely do not wish her presence to sully my home."

"Alright, alright. You made your point. Look, I'm not planning on getting into trouble. I'm just want to satisfy an idle curiosity."

"As you say," Miya nodded, motioning for Kazehana to step past her and inside the building. "But I urge you to keep in mind the proverb about overly curious cats."

"Don't worry. Nothing bad will come of it, I promise," Kazehana said as she sauntered past the other woman.

Miya followed her inside, sighing softly. Children rarely learned from the mistakes of others and some not even from their own. Kazehana was one of the former, but fortunately not one of the latter. One could only hope she only made mistakes that could be undone.

[br]

Shirou returned to his home base, parked the van inside and immediately checked if anyone had gotten inside. The Boundary Field he had set up didn't suggest that there had been intruders, but since he wasn't fully sure of what Sekirei could or couldn't do yet, he'd rather be safe than sorry.

He spent an entire hour searching for bugs, and only then he was satisfied that his place was still secure. It seemed that MBI surveillance was quite lax, all things considered. Then again, if they could track most Sekirei remotely there was no need to be particularly invasive.

As luck would have it, since he was acting Ashikabi of the only Sekirei not tagged by a GPS, he was likely under more scrutiny that anybody else, but even so it appeared that they were content with leaving him to his devices unless he tried to leave the city.

All the much better for him.

With the help of Akitsu, he unloaded the crate, and placed it into a remote corner of the warehouse.

"Akitsu, please return to the apartment. I'll be over here for quite a while," he told his Sekirei.

"As you wish, Master," the ever-dutiful Akitsu complied.

Shirou watched her climb up the stairs, all the while she stared at him like she did any other time he was in her presence. Her sheer devotion was incredibly unsettling to Shirou, first because he didn't feel like he deserved it, and second because Akitsu deserved better.

At least she deserved better than to live in such a sorry place. Later, he would see to improve upon her living arrangements. Currently, he needed to take stock of his equipment.

"Trace On," he chanted, and Mana immediately trickled down the one Circuit he had turned on.

He briefly looked at the apartment, but Akitsu showed no sign of detecting his use of Mana, so they probably didn't have such an ability. Or at the very least Akitsu did not possess it.

He ran Structural Analysis on the crate as additional insurance. This was the one spell he always managed to perform excellently at, even when he made a new Circuit out of his nerves every single time he cast it. Now that he could use his natural Circuits, it was almost a walk in the park.

Magecraft was an inherently dangerous and painful activity, but his pain threshold was out of the scale even by Magi standard. After ten years of doing the equivalent of injecting a burning steel rod into his own spine, doing Magecraft the regular way was a breeze.

He still sucked at it, though.

Once he had confirmation that no one had tampered with his crate or its content, Shirou sent Mana to the rudimentary locking mechanism and unsealed it. He lifted the lid and carefully lowered it to the ground next to the wooden box, before peering inside it.

With a satisfied nod, he reached for its contents and pulled out a long object wrapped into a white cloth.

[br]

Kazehana stood in front of what appeared to be an empty wall on top of the stairs. Of course, the wall was of no interest to her. Her attention was toward the barely visible trap door just ahead, as well as the small, almost invisible camera pointing down the stairs.

She waved cheerfully, knowing full well that the person on the other end was looking. There was a soft click and the trap door slid open, immediately followed by a ladder being lowered.

Kazehana climbed up without hesitation. The ladder was pulled up and the door closed behind her remotely.

The first thing that she noticed, was the swelling heat. She took off her coat right away, but even that didn't give her much respite. Being right under the roof in this season meant that it should have been extremely cold, but it was the other way around.

There was another door, this one much less concealed, through which light and a low whirring noise filtered. She pushed it open and stepped through.

A woman was sitting in the middle of the room, bathed in the light of a dozen screens. Her red hair was mostly let loose, except for two long braids. Her back was turned to the door, but even so there was something about her that was perfectly clear.

That is to say, she was completely naked.

"Hello Matsu. As relaxed as ever, I see," Kazehana said to the occupant of the room.

"You are one to talk," she said, looking at the newcomer from behind her shoulder. "I am only ever naked in my own room."

"Eh, fair point," Kazehana concurred.

"So, what brings you by? You don't have anything to drink on you, so I assume this isn't a social visit. What do you want?"

"For starters, could you, you know… close that porn video?" she asked, nodding at one of the screen where a man was furiously doing something which Kazehana could not describe because she was pointedly not looking in that direction.

"Hm? Oh, I didn't even realize it was still playing. Gimme a sec. Alright. Now that you misplaced prudishness has been acquiesced, what can I do for you?"

"I met a guy last night…"

"Ho-oh! Now that is interesting. Have you finally moved on from…?"

"It's not like that," she immediately interrupted. "He was with a Scrapped Number."

"Someone from MBI then?" Matsu asked. "If so, I can't help you. All of MBI's databanks are kept strictly offline."

"No, I'm ninety-nine percent sure he's not from MBI, but he knew I was a Sekirei and did not wing me even though I passed out naked on him."

"… Seriously? Alright, tell me everything."

And so Kazehana did. It didn't take long to recount the entire encounter with Emiya Shirou.

"This is certainly peculiar. Not even a real Ashikabi yet, and he can already detect the presence of Sekirei and guess at their Attribute? Are you sure he wasn't making it all up?"

"My guts tell me he wasn't, and it wouldn't make sense either. He could have just winged me right there and then. No point in bullshitting me after passing on that opportunity."

"Hm. Yeah. That's right. So you want me to look him up?"

"Precisely," Kazehana nodded. "I really want to see who I'm dealing with here."

"Alright, it won't take long," said Matsu, as she turned her eyes back to the computer in front of her.

Her fingers clacked expertly on the keyboard she held in her lap. Several windows opened and closed on the screen, and soon enough a picture appeared.

"This is the guy, right?" she asked, pointing at the screen.

"Why? How many Emiya Shirou are there in this city?"

"There are six, but this is the only one that fit your description. However, he could have given you a fake name. I'd rather make sure I'm looking into the right person. So, is he the guy?"

"Yeah, it's him."

"Good. Then, I'll get started."

Again, she returned her attention to the terminal, fingers tapping away with abandon.

"Hm. That's… hm…."

"What? What is it?" asked Kazehana.

"You sure picked an interesting one. His name comes up in several databases, but there are some serious gaps. I'm going to have to get serious on this one. You better take a seat because it's going to take a while."

Quirking an eyebrow, Kazehana followed Matsu's suggestion and sat on the floor. Honestly, if she was going to stay here for a while, she might take a page out of her book and ditch the dress. Ultimately, she decided not to. The last thing she wanted was to infringe on Miya's 'No lewd acts in Izumo House' rule out of misunderstanding.

She'd rather take the literal heat over the figurative one.

For thirty long minutes, Matsu focused on her terminal. Windows popped up and then closed faster than Kazehana could follow. Lines of codes blurred by a flash. Initially, Kazehana didn't even notice that Matsu had stopped typing entirely, but her computers were still working.

Her head had dropped as if she had fallen asleep sitting, but her eyes darted quickly under their lids.

This was Matsu's talent. The ability to interface with everything digital and control it at her will. She didn't strictly need an interface. Provided that she was close enough, or the device in question was plugged into a network that she could access, there was no information that she could not get to.

Eventually, the search had come to an end.

"Uh-oh," was the first thing she said when she opened her eyes.

"That doesn't sound good. What did you find?"

"You've got yourself a dangerous one," she replied, nodding at the screen.

On it, there was a picture of Emiya Shirou, dressed in camo with a red kefiah around his neck and an automatic rifle hanging from his shoulder.

All around him, there were the burning ruins of a crumbling city.

"Yes… it definitely seems that way," Kazehana agreed.

[br]

The white cloth fell at Shirou's feet, freeing the matte black of his rifle barrel. He held it up for a moment, turning it around to check for damage. He had packed it carefully, but later he would disassemble and clean it. Better safe than sorry. He had no intention of using it, especially not in a densely populated area like this, but he had no place to drop this stuff, so he shipped all his possession together.

He carefully put the weapon down and then pulled out of the crate a box of magazines., which he placed next to it.

Now for the important stuff….

[br]

"This guy sure has a history," said Matsu looking at her findings.

"What do you mean?"

"Well… for starters he was orphaned in a fire that killed some few hundred people when he was five. His real identity before that time is lost, so it was not possible to find living relatives. He was adopted by one man named Emiya Kiritsugu, who died of natural causes about five years after that."

"Shit, talk about bad luck."

"Yeah, but that's just the beginning. Nothing worthy of notice comes up in his teenage years. He was a pretty average student, but…"

"What?"

"Well, Emiya Kiritsugu himself was a shady character. There are very few informations about him, but if you read through the lines very carefully, he was probably an assassin or a mercenary of some kind."

"Seriously?"

"Oh, yes. Which explains what he did after high school. According to what I managed to dig up, he moved to England to study, but I can't find any record of him enrolling into any institution, so that was probably a cover. Not much later he started traveling the world, always in some war-torn country."

"So, he inherited his father's business?" Kazehana asked.

"Ah, this is where it gets interesting. He was a soldier of fortune, no doubt about that, but from what I managed to gather he never fought for any side. He always operated on a peace-keeping mission. Protecting civilians and humanitarian groups, evacuating refugees… that kind of stuff. So, if anything, it's the opposite of his father's job."

"Uh… So, he's a good guy?"

"Well, I can't be sure," Matsu replied. "There's almost zero reliable data in digital form coming from war-torn, third world countries. What I found I put together from the registries of the humanitarian organizations and other entities that are officially based in more developed countries. However, what he really did when he got in those places, there's no way of verifying. Either way, he's someone who lived through armed conflict so he's more dangerous than the average human. … You don't look surprised by any of this."

"I had a feeling that he was, you know, like me. Is that all there is to it about him?"

"Ha… unfortunately not. Remember that his father died a few years after adopting him? Well, he got taken in by a neighboring woman, one Fujimura Taiga."

"What's special about her?" asked Kazehana.

"Other than she was a Yakuza Princess? That she also died. Her and probably all the people he knew from his hometown."

"What? How could they possibly all be…?" Her question died in her throat, as she glanced on the screen at the name of the place where he came from. "Oh crap. He's from Fuyuki?"

"Yeah. I can't speak with certainty about what he did with his life, but this guy drew the short end of the stick time and time again. Biological family killed in a fire, foster father passed away from natural causes, legal guardian and all his friend murdered. Worst of all, my timeline puts him right in the city at the time, so he probably saw it happen."

"Fuck," Kazehana swore. "This guy… fuck. Bad luck doesn't cut it."

"Yes, if I believed such a thing, I'd say he's cursed. Damn."

"There is no way he's got anything to do with that, right?" Kazehana asked.

"What? No, no. If there's one thing I've got more than enough reliable data around is that massacre. The case is almost clear cut. The guy who poisoned the city's water reservoir with the nerve agent was caught. He never confessed but the evidence was pretty damning. His father was a former member of Aum Shinrikyo who allegedly dropped out of the cult before the 1995 terror attack on Tokyo, but he was meant to create a dormant cell of the movement. Apparently, the attack on Fuyuki was retaliation for the execution of the cult leader, Asahara."

"Sometimes I wonder if Karasuba's loathing of the human species is really that misplaced," said Kazehana in disgust.

"They are better than that, for the most part," said Matsu. "It's just that they can be extremely vicious when they choose to."

Kazehana nodded grimly. She had seen with her own eyes how far humans were willing to go, at times. The kind of bloodshed they were willing to cause for the things they wanted.

The question now was, which type was Emiya Shirou, truly? The good or the bad kind?

She had a premonition that time would end up telling, for better or worse.

[br]

Shirou had laid out his belongings on the ground. There was all manner of tools, from the crudest like plier and hammers, to the most delicate, like precision screwdrivers. Some had entirely mundane applications, while others were anything by. Unlike most Magi, his applications of Magecraft were quite practical, and by extension so were his methods of developing it.

Not that he had the opportunity to do much of that in the past few years, since he was moving around all too often. The upside of being stuck in this city was that he could set up his own Workshop once again and eventually advance some of his projects.

If one would call them that.

If they knew what he was working on, back at the Clock Tower, they would label him a heretic. And although that wasn't necessarily an offense by their own laws, it would make him even more of an outcast than he already was.

Not that he planned on telling them anyway. If there was one thing that he took to heart about being a Magus,it was to not reveal his Magecraft except to the people who would die by it and possibly not even them. Methods of killing worked best when no one saw them coming, after all

Therefore, he picked up a relatively small wooden box with a lock and moved it to a metal table that had been left behind by the previous owner of the place. There were still months of work and research before this project was truly finalized, but in his mind, he could already see it coming together.

Due to his unique combination of Element and Origin, Shirou had such an intense affinity for swords that was straight up overspecialization. But swords were conspicuous and not too versatile, so he sought a way to integrate them and his Magecraft into something more suited for the modern world.

He unlocked the box and took out its contents neatly laying them upon the table.

Although disassembled, it was clear what they were.

Two guns, both massive in size. They were huge even for someone the size of Emiya Shirou. The barrel was easily as long as his forearm.

But the size was not their most conspicuous feature. Under their frames, each gun had a curved blade attached, one pristine white and the other pitch black with faint hexagonal markings.

They were clearly nothing more than prototypes, but they weren't the first iteration.

Necessity demanded that Shirou found a way to combine short and long range combat. He was partial to the bow, for obvious reasons, but it was difficult to carry around arrows without obviously resorting to Magecraft. Bullets were easier to transport and harder to notice. No one would be able to tell if an extra bullets or two magically appeared inside the magazine.

A bow was also ill suited for close range combat, but by integrating a blade to the gun he would easily be able to switch from one another.

They were no ordinary blades either. Although he forged them with his own two hands, they were purposely made to resemble Kanshou and Bakuya, the two Chinese Dao that the nameless Archer wielded in the course of the Fifth Grail War and for which Shirou developed an unexplained affinity, that he understood only later in life.

There was some black humor to that.

Shirou had no idea if Archer had tried to make something like these two guns in his lifetime. Somehow, he did not think he had. For whatever reason, he had the impression that the Heroic Spirit had developed the practical mindset that Shirou possessed now only much later in life.

Or perhaps even after.

But none of those musings were of any use, and Shirou was not one to waste time. Since the rest of his day was clear of other engagements, he might as well start working on this project right now.

There was a conflict brewing, and he'd better be ready to face it, or even more lives would be forfeit.

[XXX]

AN: Hi everyone. I am not dead. Right now I'm posting advance chapters on my public Discord Server

Feel free to join me at: / Vwkz2dt47Z