It was right there. Right in front of him. The artifact that would allow him to summon arguably the strongest servant anyone was going to find with so little time till the upcoming Holy Grail War. He and his sister had spent so long trekking through this disgusting forest and outback landscape. Waited so long to make sure that they'd found every Magus in hiding without being found themselves. It was all perfect, not even Darnic's little artificial dolls could get in the way of his victory.

Just one moment longer, that's all that he needed to transport Heracles' artifact and win this silly little charade of a battle would be over.

And then the world went white.

And then it was red. And warm. And slick with some kind of liquid.

His throat felt hoarse for some reason. His lungs burned and his abdomen throbbed with a pain that just made him want to tear at it till it stopped.

"…her!"

The ringing in his ears and the fuzzy feeling in his head was even beginning to sound like his sister now. What the hell was happening to him? Why wasn't Angelica helping? She was here to aid and support him! Not to stand around as he suffered!

Was he suffering? He couldn't actually feel the pain in his abdomen very much anymore. Maybe he'd imagined it? Maybe-

Black.

XXXxxxXXX

The twin screams lit up the battlefield like flares, catching everyone's attention, hidden or not. The one from Olga was alarming but the one from the black-haired teen with a hole in his abdomen was a full-on code red from the Einzbern and Yggdmillennia. Both side's forget the fight with each other for the moment to charge at the black- and blonde-haired teens and make sure that neither of them got away with the artifact. Not that one of them was really in the state to do so and the other was kneeling beside him as he collapsed to the ground with almost no hesitation between receiving the injury and hitting the ground.

In seconds attacks went flying, cracking the earth and splitting the skies, all aimed on the two Ainsworth's currently beside the relic, the relic that both the Einzbern and Yggdmillennia would rather destroy than let be taken by them.

Though luckily for at least one of all three parties, none of those options would come to fruition. A blue edged square spread on the ground under the two Ainsworths and let them both fall through and into wherever they had been transposed. And the Relic itself proved to be sturdier than expected, exploding out of the rock face in a blur of rock and dust. And with its flight it brought the attention of most of the surrounding Magi and Homunculi, though a couple people weren't quite so easily distracted.

Two of which were Gray and Waver, the both of them leaping to their feet and beginning to move, the man carrying Olga in a bridal carry as they both moved as quickly as they could. They couldn't afford to stay where they'd been after all, not only would it be criminal easy to find them after the murder that Gray had just pulled off but Olga's scream had also given them away quite handily, a fact proven a moment later as a wall of earth rose ahead of them.

"Oh wonderful, they've stopped fighting just long enough to put us in their sights." Waver deadpanned, staring through the foliage at the excavation sight with a stare that practically burned a hole in the leaves.

"Attitude later Master!" Gray admonished, pulling Add off her hip and transforming him wordlessly, slicing through a series of papers that snuck through the trees and towards them.

"Right. Where to?" Waver asked, clutching Olga a little tighter as she tensed up in his grip.

"I-I can move myself…Lord El Melloi II." Olga mumbled, a blush of embarrassment and self-directed hatred across her cheeks.

Of course, she'd given the three of them away. Like a simpleton. Like a child. She'd been the only one to panic when the Homunculus had appeared right besides her, the only one to lose complete control of herself and do nothing in the following moments.

"Can you keep up?" Waver asked, not looking her in the eye, scanning the foliage for more threats while Gray played forward guard.

'He…He's not even looking me in the eye! He- Have I already disappointed him that much!?' Olga felt like crying, first her father and now Lord El Melloi II?

No. No. This was her second chance! Her opportunity to prove her growth! To be a true league above the rabble!

Tears wouldn't help her here. In fact, they'd only make her situation worse. Just like they always did.

"Yes. I can." She spoke with as much determination and confidence as she could physically muster, seeing his face twist before he finally placed her on the ground.

"Fine. If you fall behind though I'll pick you back up."

He'd meant it to be reassuring, to let her know that he wasn't going to leave her behind. Yet to Olga those words were nothing but insults, challenges that the man had issued to see if she was even worth keeping.

Well, she'd show him! She'd prove her worth!

"I assure you; you won't need to!" She puffed her chest out and placed a fist on it.

"If you're both done, let's go. I have a route." Gray interrupted, getting a cute yelp from the Animusphere as she faltered right after her announcement.

"Alright, lead the way, Gray. Olga, let's go."

"Yes sir!"

XXXxxxXXX

Meanwhile

"Hm. They're closing in." Irisviel commented pleasantly, her eyes closed and a closed mouth smile spreading her lips.

"Yes. Thank you for the play-by-play." Kiritsugu grouched, getting off the ground while dusting himself off on reflex.

"No need to be so hasty, I set up a little trap in the trees." The woman giggled in a childlike fashion, only getting a blank look from Kiritsugu as he looked down at the forest between them and the couple Magi and Homunculi approaching.

"On a scale of 1 to 10 how dangerous is that forest?" He asked, pulling out his trusty Thompson and checking the chamber and mechanisms.

"Shirou if his forge was destroyed."

"How?"

"Well, that's a secret silly!" She turned to him and stuck her tongue out, bonking her own head playfully.

In truth it was because she'd spent the entire time, she'd been on lookout setting it up. A forest full of razor thin, incredibly dense metallic wire strung in all manner of angles and elevations that she could think of without depriving herself of all of the wire she had brought with her.

She'd spent three entire spools of the specially made wire, but Kiritsugu didn't need to know that at the moment. She still had one left after all.

"It's not going to stop them all." He retorted, loading a round and snapping the gun shut with a flick of his wrist.

"Of course not. But it'll slow them down. That's what you were hoping for right?" She responded, almost like she was looking for his praise.

Oh, who was he kidding? He knew his wife; she was definitely looking for his praise.

A scream lit up the forest between the excavation and them, the slightest twitch of Irisviel's fingers tipping him off as the reason why.

"Yes. Slowing them down makes things much easier for us. Now let's head towards the Relic. It flew off and I'd rather avoid wasting ammunition."

"Okie dokie Kiri!"

XXXxxxXXX

"Wha- Why are we suddenly changing course!?" Waver yelped, nearly falling over while trying to follow his first apprentice as she made use of her superhuman physiology to weave through the flora.

"My instincts are leading me in this direction." Was the only answer he got, the man grumbling beneath his breath and following her, now slightly behind Olga who hadn't fallen quite as far behind by the sudden turn.

"αστροφεγγιά!" The Greek word sprouted from Olga's lips in an instant, making Waver think that an attack had been launched at them before seeing that nothing was happening, other than the constellations appearing in Olga's eyes.

"Olga? What is that?" He questioned, ducking low under a branch and leaping over a tall root barely a second later.

"Family…spell…L-Limited- ngh. Foresight." She grunted out, wincing and shutting one eye as the constellations in her left eye glowed briefly brighter.

"That seems dangerous. Don't injure yourself." Waver warned her, unaware of the tightening of her fist.

"I-I won't. I-I can handle this." She assured him, still managing to keep up, even while looking around with carefully squinted eyes.

She couldn't keep the spell up for too long, especially in a situation as stressful as this, so she'd have to drop it before she accidentally damaged her eyes or did something worse, but for now it was a precaution she believed to be worth the danger. Since if anything entered her line of sight, she'd be given a second's head's up and could react faster than she otherwise could have. It was eating up more prana than she was used to though. Was she wasting it because she was panicking? Or was the stress of the situation making it more difficult to keep alignment in proper order?

'Saturn in the eyes, Jupiter in the brainstem.' She mentally chanted to herself, making sure she didn't forget the order she needed to keep the spell running.

"Up ahead!" Gray called out, catching both her's and Waver's attention as they ran.

With a small shift in her posture, Gray skipped off the ground for a moment, pressing both of her feet into the ground and immediately pushing off in a flip. Grim Reaper flashing out and slicing a series of unseen wires to shreds as she twirled through the air, hitting the ground and transitioning into a series of cartwheels as she used her continual momentum to continue slicing through the wires with ease. Her two allies followed behind her with differing levels of worried expressions as they realized how booby trapped this section of the forest was.

It definitely wasn't because Waver knew of a particular woman with a fondness for metallic wire, who was a close companion of Kiritsugu Emiya, who lived in the very city that the next Holy Grail War was going to take place in…..

"Gray!" Olga yelped, snapping him out of his thoughts as he watched his first apprentice react at the exact same time as his second apprentice yelled out.

With a jolt of her body all of the girl's rotational momentum came to a halt as she jammed her feet into the forest floor, digging trenches with her feet as she threw her body weight back to avoid the three objects that flew where her body had previously been. Using her continually slowing momentum to jerk her body back upright and spin around to be facing the origin of the objects as she finally ground to a halt.

"Necromancy." Waver mumbled, watching the tree that had been struck by the objects begin to wilt and wither in real-time.

"That was close…" Olga mumbled, a bead of sweat trailing down her temple, not wanting to know what would have happened if Gray had been hit.

Or if either her or Lord El Melloi II had been hit.

"Well, I'll be. The esteemed Lord El Melloi II with a couple of brats. The rumors about you are true." A voice spoke up arrogantly, a person revealing themselves from the bushes.

They were rather unremarkable all things considered. A fancy, expensive suit, an arrogance that wafted off him in waves, and juggling what appeared to be lumps of malformed flesh in his right hand while his left was in his pocket.

"You know of me?" The Lord in question asked dryly, his gaze sliding over the man, to the ground, and then back up to the lumps of flesh juggled in one hand.

"Who doesn't? The man that lowers himself to-"

"Shape the earth."

"-teach a class- HRGK!" The man let the juggled flesh fall to the floor, clutching at his neck, around the earthen rod that had forced its way in and out.

The man had come into this confident, his necromancy was built around fighting living people after all, necrotizing them with his specially made ammunition. And when he'd found Waver, he'd seen him as an easy target, after all everyone in the Clock Tower knew how deceptively 'average' the man was as a Magus.

Yet like many of those people they'd forgotten that 'average' only described his Thaumaturgical capability, not his knowledge, cunning or implementation of Thaumaturgical theory. In the end it had come to a battle of average Magi, and Waver had triumphed in a single attack aimed squarely at one of his weakest points during a moment of ego.

"They'll never learn. Let's keep going." He sighed before ordering, getting a nod from both girls before they took off once more.

XXXxxxXXX

"Kiri, someone is coming, they're cutting through all the wire." Irisviel relayed, following after her husband.

The woman herself was untouched by any injury, nor by any kind of blemish. Unlike her husband who was the picture of rugged survivalist in her eyes. Dirt, twigs and the occasional splatter of blood seen on his form as they moved.

"How long until they get here?" He asked, continuing to run with her on his tail.

There was no point in stopping unless necessary, if they could simply outpace whoever was coming then they would. Stopping to fight every single opponent in this forest would do nothing but cause them to fail, if not die.

"Uh- not sure but they're closing in fast!" She called out in worry, getting a grunt from him as they continued to run.

And then every instinct in his body flared at once, leaving his nerves a jumbled mess as he turned on a dime with his Thompson out and his finger on the trigger, seeing a girl who looked vaguely familiar.

Wait. No, scratch that. Very familiar. Too familiar. What the fuck was a Saber-look-a-like doing here? Shit, had she somehow managed to incarnate too? First Gilgamesh and now her? No, calm down, she's too different, and Excalibur isn't anywhere to be seen. Just a look-a-like then, a really, really uncanny look-alike, but one that would die much easier than a Saber-class Servant.

"EMIYA DON'T!" The shout came from a tall man as he stumbled out of the bushes with all the coordination of a newborn giraffe and a face so familiar that both Kiritsugu and Irisviel remembered it in an instant.

"Waver?" Both adults parroted, one in wondered intrigue and one in cold curiosity.

"Emiya?" The Saber look-a-like asked, her expression beginning to morph from one of serious determination to outright awe as she looked at them.

"Lord El Melloi II….Who are these people?" The youngest of the five asked, a girl of clear nobility with constellations in her eyes and a pensive expression.

'This is her first taste of combat. If it comes down to it, she'll be an easy target, no use wasting Thompson ammo.' His mind churned through the situation at a speed that would leave the average Magus jealous.

"You're Shirou's parents!"

"You know Shirou!?" Irisviel asked in excitement, instantly dispelling Kiritsugu's more murder-based thought process as he quickly recognized the road that this conversation was going to go down.

"I'm Gray!" The hooded girl exclaimed excitedly, such a stark contrast to King Arthur that Kiritsugu could almost feel the psychic whiplash he took.

"Oh, my goodness! Shirou's told me all about you!" Irisviel squealed, running forward and glomping Gray into a hug.

And thankfully for Kiritsugu's psyche, she at least seemed to react normally to this. Normally being a rather confused and shocked expression as she wriggled around in Irisviel's grip from panicked instinct.

"Shirou….Shirou Muramasa!?" The youngest girl yelped, taking a step back from Velvet and looking at Kiritsugu and Irisviel as if they were preparing to take her head off.

…The fact that he had his Thompson still pointed at Waver probably didn't help.

Lowering his gun, he watched as the girl quickly straightened herself out and coughed into her fist with a small blush on her cheeks, the constellations fizzling away from her eyes as she looked back up at him.

"Greetings. I am Olga Marie Animusphere, Heiress to the Animusphere Lineage of the Clock Tower. It is a pleasure to meet you both, parents of the esteemed…Muramasa lineage." The girl paused a little at the end, and despite finding her prim and proper 'noble' speech rather useless, he couldn't exactly fault her on that matter.

The Emiya family and those that made it up were a jumbled clusterfuck of different lineages, personalities, backgrounds and motivations that could put even the Yggdmillennia to shame despite their comparatively miniscule numbers.

"Oh! Hello! I'm Irisviel Emiya!" Irisviel greeted happily, letting go of Gray to face Olga properly. "I'm the mother of Shirou Muramasa-Emiya."

"Kiritsugu." The man greeted blankly, staring down the girl before turning his gaze on Waver.

"It's so great to see you all here! Were you after the artifact as well?" Irisviel asked the three of them.

"We were, I assume the both of you were as well?" Gray asked, smiling brightly as she rocked back and forth on her feet.

"Speaking of, Irisviel." Kiritsugu grunted, getting a small whine from the woman even as she turned around.

"Sorry Gray. We'll catch up later, ok sweetie?" The woman smiled apologetically and clapped her hands together, spinning around and skipping a few steps over to her husband.

Waver could feel his pointer and middle finger twitch as Gray turned her gaze on him. Wide, pleading eyes practically digging their ice-cold talons into his heart and tugging it. And the barely veiled look he got from his newest apprentice didn't help things in the slightest. She may not have the same connection to Shirou or the Emiya's as Gray did, but clearly, she wanted to curry some kind of favor with the family.

Given just what kind of shit they found themselves slipping into and clawing their way out of, he couldn't exactly blame the young girl either. They were remarkable allies if you could get around their…..oddities.

"Emiya! Wait!"

"There's no time Velvet." Kiritsugu grunted, starting to run, getting a groan out of the Thaumaturgy professor as he took off after them, his apprentices close behind.

"Oh! Do you three want to come with us?" Irisviel asked, as if they weren't sprinting through the forest.

"I think we…..could work together. A common…goal!" Waver spoke, trying to balance his attention between multiple things at once and obviously stumbling at a couple of them.

"Ooooh! Can we Kiri? Pleasseeeee?"

"If you can follow my lead. Fine." The man relented with almost no hesitation, making Waver wonder if the man had been expecting this the entire time.

"Yes sir." Gray nodded seriously, getting a sweatdrop from Waver as he looked over at his eldest apprentice.

'I feel like something horrific has been unleashed on this world…'

XXXxxxXXX

Five Minutes Later

"Where is it!? Shit! Where the hell did it la- HAGGH!" The throat of the Yggdmillennia split open in a blur of sharpened metal and hemophobic cloth.

Behind him, about twenty meters back, the chest of another Homunculi burst open in a spray of blood as a projectile ripped in and out of them in an instant. Their body hitting the ground a second later and yet in that time their entire squad had been set upon by a pair of demons.

And for the three standing off on the sidelines, it was sickening how easily the mercenary and reaper ripped through the six humanoid figures. Kiritsugu went around and double tapped everyone while Gray flipped and launched herself from enemy to enemy, removing limbs or gouging flesh. It was a strategy that required very little teamwork, relying mainly on their own skills and powers in close proximity to each other, but they made it work.

With a jolt from the last body as Kiritsugu ripped his knife out of them, the man looked around while wiping his blade off, covering the razor-sharp metal and humming to himself.

"Something wrong Kiri?" Irisviel asked as she walked over, looking back when she heard the barely perceptible sound of Olga trying to stifle her dry heaving at the rather brutal corpses that had been left behind.

"The artifact is nearby; its trajectory should have made it land somewhere within a hundred meters."

"I'll look around?" Gray suggested stoically, prompting Kiritsugu to look over at Waver to see his reaction.

Having Gray look around was the most efficient option that the five of them had, but if the girls' Master decided to throw a fit then there was no point wasting time. So, if Waver so much as even looked like he was going to argue, then Kiritsugu was just going to go with Plan B, no need to entertain dramatics.

"Sounds like a plan, keep an eye out Gray." The man shrugged, easily agreeing with the plan and barely blinking when the girl shot off in a buffet of wind.

"Ahem. Uh, Mr and Mrs Emiya…I've heard a lot about your son's accomplishments."

"Is now the time?"

"Oh, hush Kiri! You keep a lookout, I'll make conversation." Irisviel swatted her husband on the arm, only getting a grunt from him as he looked through the forest. "You have? I'm so happy to hear that! He puts so much work into his craft."

Olga could tell that Irisviel was clearly proud of her son and his abilities and based on what little she'd heard she wasn't exactly surprised, though she wondered just where the boy sat on the scale from 'regular civilian' to 'Senji Muramasa' in terms of smithing.

"Yes. And I was interested in….commissioning him." Olga continued, quite nervous for more than one reason. "Something that would aid my-"

"Sorry! I'll have to cut you off. Shirou would be happy to take a commission if you pay for it. He'd take one if we brought it to him, but I think it's better if you bring it up yourself!"

"Shirou won't be coming back to the Clock Tower for another 10-11 months?" Waver cut in, getting a devastated look from Olga as she realized she may have to wait the better part of a year to even order what she had been thinking of.

"Oh, he won't, but he'll take commissions all year round!" Irisviel smiled innocently, getting a silent sigh of relief from Olga.

"I see. Well, before you leave Greece. Might I be able to draft a letter for you to bring to your son?"

"Oh, aren't you just the sweetest? Of course, you can!" Irisviel hugged Olga tight and began to rub their cheeks together, getting a high-pitched whine from the girl as she tried to escape the older woman's grasp.

"Master I've found- Oh." Gray looked between Velvet and her fellow apprentice, her expression blank and entirely unreadable.

Add's on the other hand…

"AHAHAAHAHAH! Oh, this is gold! Hold me up Gray! Hold me-"

"Bring us to the artifact. And shut it up while you're at it." Kiritsugu ordered gruffly, letting the existence known as Add slide off his focus like water off a duck's back.

"It's this way."

And so, the five of them moved, their goal coming ever closer, and with it the realization that their goals had been accomplished. At least….most of their goals.

"What are you doing after this?" Waver asked as they reached the location, seeing the artifact buried into the dirt and roots of the thick forest around them.

"Oh! We're heading to Syria!" Irisviel revealed easily, getting a disapproving glare from her husband even as he worked on removing the artifact.

"Syria? What for?"

"A favor for one of my son's friends."

"A favor for one of Shirou's friends? Which one? Rin? Sakura?" Gray asked, her fingers interlocked behind her and her eyes wide and curious in a way that Irisviel was certain Saber had never been in all the time that she'd known her.

"Oh, he's told you about them? Rin!" The woman happily supplied, getting a hum from Gray before the smallest spark of chaos appeared in her eyes.

"Master? May we accompany Irisviel and Kiritsugu on their trip to Syria? I believe it would do well to have Olga experience travel and other cultures." Gray requested diplomatically, now sounding like the King Arthur that Irisviel knew.

'Bullshit! You just want to spend time around Shirou's parents and fuck with Luvia! I see through you, you little shit!' Waver raved internally, just humming and closing his eyes outwardly.

"You make good points. Very well."

"If you're all done making plans. Assistance."

"Coming Kiri!"

It only took a couple minutes for them to free and pick up the artifact, that Waver graciously, and definitely not through an unspoken threat of life-scarring torture, decided to let Kiritsugu and Irisviel have without a fight.

"There are Homunculi on their way." Gray spoke up, crouched on a tree branch high above the ground with her hood up and hands on the branch itself for added balance.

'Not that she needs it with how often she practices her gymnastics.' Waver deadpanned to himself mentally, having seen the girl flip and twirl across things much thinner than a tree branch for fun.

"How many more?" Irisviel asked as she watched her husband start to scale a tree himself, leaping from branch to branch and pulling himself up with his one free hand and a freakish amount of grip strength honed through a bloody career.

"Thirty…..six. No, seven."

"We'll all have to get involved for such a large group." Waver hummed, his gaze already flitting around the area.

"Understood Master." Olga nodded, determined not to let anyone down in this combat like she had earlier.

Even just reminding herself of it made her queasy.

"All of you get ready." Kiritsugu grunted, bringing the scope of his rifle up to his eye as in the much higher tree branch across from him, Gray brought Add out and transformed him into a rather large bow.

"I almost feel bad for those Homunculi." Waver deadpanned, looking between Gray with her Bow as tall as herself and Kiritsugu with his much smaller, but no less deadly, sniper rifle.

"Don't be! They were made to kill or be killed after all. They're quite literally incapable of empathy." Irisviel waved his comment off easily, smiling innocently even as the professor turned to face her, his neck figuratively creaking like a rusty joint as he did so.

"That's a rather cold thing to say about your own family, no?"

"It is." She nodded while beginning to stretch metal wire between her fingertips. "Lucky me that they aren't my family, right?"

"Yes….Lucky you indeed." He droned, sighing and pulling a cigar out, lighting it with a quick, and tiny, fire spell.

"Master, what would you like me to do?" Olga asked, looking between Waver and the direction that the Homunculi were apparently coming from.

"Focus on support. That may change depending on the fight." He breathed a puff of smoke out. "But just support to start with. Emiya and Gray will have the offense handled."

"Y-Yes sir!" Despite being a little put off by his 'insinuation' that he couldn't help with offense, she was at least self-aware enough to know that the limited offensive capabilities she had were largely lacking in comparison to the Mercenary and Reaper, so she accepted it without complaint.

And if Waver wanted her to focus on support, then she was damn well going to focus on support. Those homunculi wouldn't know what hit them.

And barely ten minutes later, as trees toppled, fires raged and bodies lay in chunks, missing chunks or just otherwise dealt with by the variety of Thaumaturgical methods available to the group of five. Olga realized exactly what type of world she had just tripped into, her previous life as a purely scholar-type mage already fading from her mind as she breathed in deeply, coughing a little from the dust in the air.

"You ok, Olga?" Gray asked, landing next to the younger girl with a slight bounce.

"I'm fine. You did…well." The girl muttered lamely, looking specifically at all the bodies that she had been the cause of.

"Thank you. You were a big help with your spells."

"Hmph. Well glad to see that you've recognized that!" Olga smiled proudly, putting her hands on her hips.

"Girls, we have to move!" Waver called out, making both of them jolt and yelp.

"Coming!"

XXXxxxXXX

In the morning, Fuyuki

Shirou hummed to himself, looking out of the window from his position at the back and to the left of class. His reflection in the glass showed him his own scarred eye that he currently had closed to keep up pretenses and some of the people sitting closest to him.

Amongst those people were his new friend Issei Ryuudou, and also one of his longest standing friends, Rin Tohsaka. Who, rather humorously, weren't exactly fans of each other. Issei, who seemed to have an almost supernatural sense for a person's character, could barely stand to look at Rin without calling her a witch, or a demon, or some other evil entity. Honestly it was rather impressive the list that he could pull from depending on how creative he was feeling that day. And Rin must have thought so as well because she purposefully egged him on.

At school she played the perfect popular girl. Smart, kind, helpful and cute to boot, she'd almost instantly carved out her own place as the 'princess' of Homurahara Academy. However, it had taken her barely twenty seconds after meeting Issei to make him the target of a rather sadistic streak of pranks. Which mostly consisted of dropping her façade around him and only him, at times where nothing could be proven and with an accuracy that kept him looking like a raving lunatic while her own reputation suffered nothing more than a superficial bump that she always buffed out within a day or two.

However, that wasn't entirely accurate, she dropped her façade around two other people at school as well. Sakura and, of course, Shirou himself.

Speaking of Sakura, he could see her being led out of the school by the decrepit swarm of bugs formerly known as Zouken Matou. Something which stung him after learning everything that had happened at her home but also knowing that at this current moment there wasn't anything he could do. And then, as they crossed over the threshold of the school, Sakura paused for only a step, looking up at the window Shirou was staring through.

Ping!

The swordsmith's fingers tensed around his bicep, the action entirely involuntary and he was sure that had his hand not been resting on his other arm he would be holding a fist at the moment.

'That feeling again…' He turned his head to look at the rest of the class, looking at Rin to see if she had felt it, despite knowing the answer already.

Thus, he was rather unsurprised when he saw that she hadn't even twitched in the middle of her sentence, currently talking to another girl in class about an assignment that they'd been giving in Geography.

It had been like this since the battle with Enhance, and it was starting to make him wonder if he was just imagining the feeling. A feeling that only ever came from Sakura, was never consistent on when it appeared and could seemingly only be felt by him. He'd even tried outright questioning Rin, Liz and Sella and they'd confirmed that they hadn't felt anything, nor did Sakura feel any different when he'd asked her about it.

'It's nothing to do with Enhance…I don't think. Rin and Illya aren't reacting to it at all. And Sakura doesn't feel any different…What could it be?' The bell ringing jolted him out of his thoughts, making him physically jump in his seat as he looked around for a moment before mentally catching up to reality.

"Come on Shirou, don't want to be late to class." Issei commented calmly, already standing next to his desk with his bag.

"I know, I know. Just got distracted." He laughed while grabbing his own bag and standing up.

"Distracted? That's not like you."

"I know. But I guess I'm just having an off day." Shirou shrugged, since he couldn't exactly just blurt out anything about Magecraft to Issei, especially in the middle of school.

"I saw you looking at Tohsaka. Don't tell me that she's trying to dig her claws into you Shirou. You have to resist!" Shirou deadpanned as his friend grabbed his shoulders and began to shake him while they walked.

"Awww, what's wrong Issei? Maybe I want to be best friends with Shirou-kun~" Rin purred with an impish look on her face, having appeared seemingly out of thin air between the two boys, leaning closer to Shirou for emphasis.

"You stay away from him! Shirou is a proper gentleman and won't be seduced by your golden girl mask!" Issei near on screeched, pointing a finger at the girl who only giggled into her palm in response.

"Golden Girl Mask? What a good joke Issei!" She giggled, though Shirou could practically feel the vindictive aura flowing off of her.

"Joke? Joke? I won't allow you to-"

"Oh look. We're at our class. What a shock." Shirou deadpanned, grabbing Issei's bicep and pulling him inside the room as Rin just giggled and smiled innocently, following after them.

'I know that she has fun messing with him but she really didn't have to do all that to slip a note into my pocket..' Shirou thought dryly to himself, well aware of the folded slip of paper that the twin tailed girl had snuck into his school blazer.

So, it took all of about 67 seconds after class started to subtly pull it out of his pocket and read it through a tiny crack in his left eyelid. The note was hidden once more before the teacher had even turned back from the blackboard and his left eye firmly shut once more. The contents of the note, in Rin's rather beautiful handwriting, practically seared at the forefront of his memory.

Sakura managed to sneak a message to me on her way out of the school. Shinji died. Thinks grandfather is behind it. Will be in touch soon.

Honestly, for as different as both girls were, he could see the similarities between them when they worked together to pull this kind of stuff off. He could have waited to find this out, quite easily. Would he have been curious? Undoubtedly. But trying to sneak messages around a Magi as old as Zouken was risky, if what he'd heard of other elder Magi in the Clock Tower was applicable, and likely not needed. Yet both girls still did it anyway, like they were part of some kind of spy movie.

Well at the very least his curiosity was sated, now he just had to hope that the ritual that Caren was performing today would be a success and today might actually be a good one.

XXXxxxXXX

Meanwhile, Altrouge's Castle

"Hm. So this is where a Princess of Vermin lives. How droll." Gilgamesh muttered to himself, clicking his tongue and shaking his head when he only saw 4 towers on the front face of the defensive wall around the building itself.

Behind him, Vimana floated stationary above the ground, awaiting an order from its pilot and master, whether that be to return to the vault or to fly to another country. And with a simple motion of his hand, the ship descended ever so slightly lower, 'parking' itself for all intents and purposes but never touching the ground.

After all, Gilgamesh refused to stain his ship by letting it touch the territory of vermin.

Though, he'd happily stain the ground with the blood of its own peoples, if you could call them that, as they shambled out of the forestry around him. The golden King merely smirked cockily with his hands in his pockets as he looked around them in a lackadaisical manner.

"Only 23? You insult me." He spoke aloud, certain that his target was listening to an intruder of his caliber.

Immediately following his shout, the miniscule horde broke into a sprint towards him, inhuman screeches leaving their mouths and promptly dying off as golden portals and entirely non magical weapons ended their undead lives. The entire ordeal barely took two seconds, and their bodies began to crumble to ash as Gilgamesh let his summoned weapons fade into golden light themselves.

Yet, their blood remained. The viscous red liquid bubbling and rising into the air to form words before his eyes. A rather vain attempt at intimidation and ego-rubbing but he'd let her have her fun. After all it would be far more fun to conquer her and her territory if she let herself get a big head beforehand.

You're unusual. Why are you here?

"Unusual? Well of course a King would be unusual to vermin!" He barked egotistically, grinning as the blood rearranged itself in the air.

What a big head, I should expect nothing less from a Servant.

"Was that meant to be an insult?" He snorted with a raised eyebrow, well aware of what she was trying to do by making a double-entendre out of the word.

If you believe it to be. Leave my territory or you'll regret it.

"Straight to the point? Well, that's not like the stories I've heard of you at all. Though when faced with one like myself it's an understandable reaction." He gloated; a hand placed on his puffed-up chest.

Believe what you want, but when given a second chance at life I'd have thought one would be less likely to throw it away in vain.

"Oh? Is that what you believe? Well, well look at the ego on you, little bat. Tell me, are you really expecting the ground forces to so much as scratch me?"

Goliath, meet 11,000 David's.

"Oh!? You think this is anything like that? How sorry a state your mind must be in. No, you haven't sent eleven thousand David's to fight Goliath. You've sent eleven thousand Icarus' into the sky."

Hundreds of Dead Apostles of varying stages began to rush from every direction except the castle itself, their screams and footsteps drowning out any sound of nature nearby. Yet the golden glow of the Gate of Babylon drowned out even that, bathing the entire area in the color of the King of Heroes, a dark, sadistic grin stretching his lips as he held both of his arms out wide.

"And I am the SUN!"

XXXxxxXXX

Side Story: Caren arrives

"Ahhhh, so this is where you live, Shirou Muramasa. Quite disappointing, I have to say." Caren spoke the first words that had left her mouth upon entering the Emiya Estate.

"Well, aren't you a gem? I'm Rin Tohsaka Heiress of the Tohsaka lineage." Rin greeted properly, holding her hand out with all the formality she'd drilled into herself.

"Oh, my apologies, but until you've been purified by the light of God I prefer not to touch the hand of one that's been sullied by Muramasa's taint."

"S-S-Sullied!?" The Tohsaka Heiress stuttered, her face going bright red as her mind went towards the heavenly light for all of three microseconds before descending to the pits of depravity so fast it made Lucifer raise a brow.

"Hortensia." Shirou greeted coolly, his lone opened eye half-lidded and blank as he looked at her.

"And there's the barbarian of the hour."

"Tough words from a sister of the Church."

"I am not a Nun, Muramasa. Is your memory going already?" She gave a look of faux concern that didn't convince him for even half a second.

"You made your vows to the Catholic Church, you're a sister. Is your own memory going already?" He snarked, throwing her words right back at her.

"Hm. Well played, for once." She acquitted with a nod of her head. "Were it not for the favour I owe, I'd make you head straight to the Church to confess your sins for arguing with a sister such as I in this manner. Though it'd likely light on fire the moment you stepped foot upon its hallowed ground." She placed a hand on her chest.

"Because you'd be there as well. What do you need for the ritual?"

"Oh? Admitting defeat so quickly? That's not like you Muramasa."

"Hortensia. What. Do. You. Need?"

"Hmph. You're not nearly as fun when your family is in danger. And here I was expecting more entertainment. Fine. Show me to her."

"Follow me." He ground out, leading her through the house while Rin just slowly sank to her knees.

"S-Sullied..~"

XXXxxxXXX

HOLA

Tis my birthday. My bday. My day of not-quite birth cause I was cut out of my mother but you get the point. I am now 21.

Hip-hip HOORAH

Anyways, how'd you guys enjoy the chap? The end of Greece, a bit of Fuyuki and the beginning of Gilgamesh v Altrouge. I'm honestly very happy with the conversation between the two powerhouses so I hope you guys enjoyed it too.

Also in other news, I'm like 1.2K into chapter 21 as of writing this AN and im pretty damn happy with how that's turning out so far.

I don't really have too much to say so make sure to join my discord if you have ideas or want to discuss the story with other fans and have a good December!

Discord code: ctMzhq3

REVIEW REPLIES:

Marcus De Gabriel: I'm glad you think so because I very much enjoy blacksmithing and a lot of the theory and history behind it and have many ideas for Shirou's blacksmithing going forward.

SentinalSlice: Very true, imagine Gil's reaction if he was Shirou's uncle though XD

Fujin of shadows: I have many ideas for Shirou's future and how he could potentially use UBW. It helps that one of my beta's for this story does Type-Moon deep-dives for fun.

Blazing ice cream: Mainly just the fact that he see's it as inferior because of the Age of Man and technology and so on. The newspaper is close enough to how he used to get news that he accepts it.

Zukafew119: It always makes me happy to read the huge reviews you write and I'm glad you took my suggestion into consideration regarding the spaces between paragraphs. It makes it so much easier to read on my end.

Ghostly(Guest): Yes, he has. It may come up in the future but it hasn't for now because there's not really been any point to bring it up for. Also who know's about Illya, you'll just have to wait xP

AND THAT'S IT FOR REVIEW REPLIES

Have a good December, remember to be as responsible as I am and I'll see you all after Christmas but before New Years.