July 21st, 2003 AD – Kumamoto City
Beneath the Mihashira construction site
The stench was the first thing to reach Shirou as the elevator descended into the darkness. A potent reek of rot and death wafted up the elevator shaft, and he nearly threw up as it filled his nostrils. The deeper he went, the more the stench intensified.
Finally, the elevator cage slammed at the bottom, the machinery going quiet. By that point, the stench was almost unbearable, and Shirou had to use his self-hypnosis training to force himself to ignore it as he took stock of his surroundings.
Beyond the light of the elevator's light bulb, the underground was plunged in total darkness. Fortunately, this wasn't an obstacle to Shirou, who simply poured the smallest trickle of od into his eyes. They started to glow, enabling him to see as if it were daylight.
A torii gate sculpted of stone stood at the entrance of a passage that went at least a few dozen meters deep. Broken chains hung from its pillars, and a line of rust could be seen between them where the links had fallen and rusted away to nothing.
A silent generator laid next to the elevator, cables leading from it to the corridor. Behind the elevator were stone steps leading a few meters up, before being suddenly interrupted by collapsed rock and earth.
And right in front of the elevator's gate was a woman's corpse, laying at the end of a trail of blood.
As he knelt to the side of the body, Shirou forced himself to put his emotions aside and look at this as he thought his father would – coldly and analytically. There was nothing he could do to help this woman, except make sure she hadn't died in vain.
The woman had died from bleeding out through the long, vertical slash that had almost completely eviscerated her. Judging by the trail of blood – which, like that he had found above, was days old at best – she had managed to crawl from deeper into the underground complex before dying at the foot of the elevator, failing to get in. Shirou didn't have any experience in evaluating how long a body had been dead, something for which he was thankful, but it was obvious the woman had died weeks ago. The corpse was the source of the stench that had wafted up the elevator shaft.
Whatever had killed her had cut through her bullet-proof vest, but it had not been a clean cut. The material had been shredded. That she had survived long enough to get here – that she had survived at all past the initial shock – was a testament to how tenacious the woman had been.
She had a company ID badge attached to her chest, next to the wound. It was splattered with flecks of dried blood, but Shirou could still read it. On it, along with the Mihashira Conglomerate emblem, were her name – Ochiyo Mizusawa – and her position in the Conglomerate – member of the Special Security Division. There was a barcode and a combination of letters and numbers that Shirou was confident would have meant something to someone working for the Conglomerate, but he didn't have in-depths knowledge of the group's methods or activities.
Perhaps that would need to change in the future, if the Conglomerate was involving itself in situations such as this. For instance, in one of her hands, Mizusawa held a sword whose blade was broken a few centimeters past the hilt. What kind of conglomerate employed security forces armed with swords ?
Shirou Grasped the blade. It was of good quality, despite having been forged on an assembly line using high-quality steel. Bracing himself, he went deeper, trying to extract more information from the broken sword.
It was something he had discovered a few years back, when facing a gangster who had used a sword as a weapon in order to get around Japan's strict gun control laws. His nature as an Incarnation allowed him to synchronize with any bladed tool, letting him absorb their history with an ease normally reserved for true masters of Structural Grasping or those possessing a special talent for psychometry.
He doubted there would be anything pleasant to learn from that sword, but he needed more information.
Nervousness, hidden behind a mask of practiced calm. Her hands tighten around her weapon's grip.
Yellow bones – an altar of black stone – a cage – "is that … is he still -"
Shock. Pain. Fear. So much fear it seems to drown her.
Run. Run run run run – pain. The bizarre sound of her own body coming apart.
More pain. More fear. Need to get away, need to get way, need to get away.
Run. Fall. Crawl. Need to get away. Can't fight it. Shouldn't have come. Intel was wrong.
And then … noth-
Shirou pulled himself from the visions, frowning even as he closed the dead woman's eyes. Like the blade itself, the memories he pulled from the weapon were fragmented and broken. That was alarming in itself – he had practiced on broken blades in the past, and every fragment had kept the memories of the whole. Whatever had broken the weapon had damaged its very spiritual essence – what someone more poetically inclined than Shirou may have called the sword's "soul".
Picking up his tonfas from where he had laid them during his examination, Shirou activated his Reinforcement, strengthening his body and the two weapons, and prepared to advance further. Whatever had killed Mizusawa had not followed her from deeper into the … temple ? The torii gate certainly seemed to indicate so, at least.
He could restart the generator, but announcing his presence to whatever had killed Mizusawa and her team didn't strike him as a good idea. Yet while his altered eyes could penetrate the darkness, they also glowed as a result – it was a weakness he hadn't gotten around yet. As long as there was some light, he could manage with simple Reinforcement – giving himself the same type of nightvision cats and other animals possessed – but in total darkness such as this, his eyeballs had to provide the illumination themselves.
Better to go in with glowing eyes and risk being noticed than guaranteeing they know something is coming, he decided before setting off and crossing the torii gate.
The tunnel was obviously man-made. It circled downwards, and there were alcove carved out in the walls that were full of ancient human bones. Skulls glared silently at the trespassing teenager – hundreds, thousands of them as he continued to go down. How many people had been buried here ? And more to the point, how had they died ?
Down he went, his respect for Mizusawa's tenacity growing with every turn. The descent wasn't steep, but making it back up with her injuries … He couldn't have done it, not without having Avalon heal the wound first. At some point in the descent, the trail of blood turned into a few drops where the woman had finally stopped being able to stand and had had to crawl the rest of the way.
On his way down, Shirou passed electric lights that were connected to the cable from the turned-off generator. A lot of these were broken, and using his Structural Grasping on those that weren't told Shirou that most of them were still no longer working, their inner components appearing to have rusted or burned out.
Several minutes later, the corridor ceased turning and went into a straight line again. A dim light emanated from the end, and Shirou lowered his Reinforcement, stopping his eyes' glow. He stopped in place, closed his eyes, and focused on his hearing instead. He hadn't mastered Reinforcing his ears yet, and this was a poor place to have his eardrums burst. But by focusing, he could hear …
… was that breathing ?
The possibility, however remote, that someone was still alive down there overcame all of his prudence and restraint, and Shirou rushed through the last stretch of the corridor. He had made his peace with the fact that all he was likely to find in this subterranean complex were more corpses, and consoled himself with the vow that he could at least find out what had happened and neutralize the threat. But if there were survivors …
Shirou burst out of the corridor and into a vast, circular cavern. Judging by its smooth walls, it too had been dug out by human hands. He estimated its size at around a hundred meters wide.
There were burned-out candles on the floor, and ash-filled brazeros scattered along the walls. The source of the room's illumination came from a trio of floodlights that were connected to an electric generator identical to the one Shirou had found at the bottom of the elevator shaft – except this one still worked, its purring echoing softly across the cavern.
The temperature had been steadily decreasing as he went deeper, but it was even colder inside the cavern – cold enough Shirou could see his breath turn into vapor. There was something unnatural about the cold, an impression which was only reinforced by the cavern's contents. The stench of death and decay was even stronger here than it had been at the elevator, though the cold helped make it – barely – tolerable.
On the opposite side of the cavern was what Shirou could only identify as an altar. It was made of a single piece of black stone carved with symbols that made Shirou's eyes hurt, and he turned his gaze from it – he didn't want to know what Grasping it would do.
In front of the altar was a large hole whose edges were covered in dried blood. Cracks in the floor spread from it, and Shirou could sense the raw, utter malevolence that emanated from it. But it wasn't what caught his attention, for there, to the altar's right, was a cage, built of … bones. Human bones, tied together with what looked like woven tendons and hair. And within that cage was the source of the breathing he was hearing.
Shirou ran toward it, making no effort to hide his approach, but the figure crouched within the cage of bones did not react. Only when he smashed the "bars" apart with his Reinforced tonfas did the prisoner twitch. With a grunt of effort, Shirou pulled the entire small cage up and tossed it aside, before kneeling to the prisoner's side.
The man wore the working clothes of a construction worker, caked in filth and hanging over his wasted frame. He was thin, skeletally so.
In his right hand, he was clutching a small pendant inscribed with old words of blessings – the kind of talisman that was common among Japan's more traditionally religious families. But this was more than a mere piece of stone – Shirou could feel the power radiating from it, spreading into the prisoner's body. Judging by how thin the captive was, that power was probably the only thing keeping him alive.
Gently, Shirou lifted the man's head, and looked at his face. It was gaunt with hunger and horror, but he recognized it.
"Natsuo Sakai ?" Shirou asked, softly. The man opened bloodshot eyes, shivering in Shirou's arms as he looked at him in abject incomprehension. "I am a friend. The Fujimura Group sent me."
He reacted to the name, opening his mouth as if to speak – but no words came out. Shirou reached into his bag and pulled out a sports drink. He opened it and brought it to the starving man's lips.
"Here, drink. Slowly, now. Slowly …"
Sakai was so weak that it took him almost five entire minutes to drink the entire can. By the time he was done, his breathing had become a bit more regular, and he was looking at Shirou in wonder, as if he couldn't believe someone else was really there.
"How long have you been down here ?" asked Shirou.
"I don't know," the man whispered, and the raw vulnerability in those three words made Shirou tense. "What … what day is it ?"
Shirou told him. Sakai's eyes widened. "Weeks," he managed to say. "Ate through my boxed lunch long ago … licked the bones for water," he moaned, shivering. "It was poison, and it felt like a knife in the guts after, but I was so … so thirsty …"
"It's okay," said Shirou quickly, before the man could descend into a panic attack. "You are safe. I will get you out of here, and to a hospital."
Explaining things to concerned medical personnel wouldn't be easy, but he should be able to figure something out. But his words seemed to cause Sakai to grow even more agitated.
"No ! You … you need to leave, now ! It will come back ! It's gone for now, but it always … come back !"
"What will come back, Sakai-san ?"
"The monster," he babbled. "It … it took their minds, those who came here first. They brought everyone down here, put them in front of that … that thing, and it drove them crazy. They prayed to it … and then they gave themselves to it. I … I was the only one who didn't … who didn't …" His words trailed out, before he suddenly lifted his right hand in Shirou's face, showing him the talisman he was clutching with cramped fingers : "My grandmother gave me this when I was a kid. It … it burned when they dragged me down there … kept me sane when the others went mad." He sobbed. "I wish … I wish it hadn't kept me alive. The things I have seen … Leave me here. Go … Go before it comes back …"
"I am not leaving you here," replied Shirou firmly. "Come on."
Gently, Shirou put his right arm around Sakai's back and lifted him up, beginning to walk toward the exit. The man obviously needed medical attention – he would come back here to investigate once that was taken care of. Sakai continued to whisper that he needed to leave, but he didn't dare to go too quickly – the talisman may have kept him alive, but there had to be limits to its power, and Sakai was on the verge of death already.
They were half-way to the cavern's entrance when -
Click.
Shirou froze in place at the sound, feeling Sakai shudder and twist under his hold. It had come … it had come from the pit.
"It's coming," the older man moaned, terrified.
Click. Click. Click click click click click click click click click -
Shirou turned just in time to see it emerge from the pit.
It was enormous. Over five meters high, though it was hunched over. Its outline was – vaguely – humanoid, with two forward limbs and two backward ones. But it was an amalgamation of bones and rotting corpses, some of which still wore the tattered remnants of the Mihashira security forces.
Its "face" was made of a several heads whose flesh had run like wax, forming a nightmarish mix of eyes, mouths and teeth. It groaned as it pulled itself out of the pit, clawing at the stone with claws made of snapped bones. The reek of rot and death was stronger than ever, and the cold had grown intense enough that the stone around the pit was beginning to freeze over. Shirou felt as if the creature's mere presence was sapping his life away, and the talisman in Sakai's hand burned even hotter, keeping the monster's aura from affecting him.
Dropping Sakai to the ground as gently as he could, Shirou drew his two tonfas, pouring prana into them as the monster crawled toward the two of them with surprising speed. He leapt to meet it, and smashed its front with both weapons, putting all of his strength behind the blow. Bones splintered, pieces of rotten flesh flew off, and bile spurted, forcing Shirou to twist out of its way.
But the creature didn't even seem to notice the damage. It lifted one of its forward limbs and swung it at Shirou. In a split second, Shirou realized it was too huge and too fast to dodge, and raised his arms to block the blow, Reinforcing his entire body along with his weapons to absorb the impact.
He had underestimated the creature's strength. The "arm" shattered the two tonfas like matchsticks, the impact pushing Shirou's arms away before smashing into his chest with enough strength to crack his ribcage and send him flying across the room. He crashed onto the stone floor, his back hitting the ground first. Lights danced before his eyes as he pushed himself on all four, eyes darting left and right, searching for something he could use to focus the monster's attention on him.
There were scraps of cloth and body armor there – the discarded pieces of the monster's victims, he realized. And there, amidst the debris, miraculously intact, was a gun, with the emblem of the Mihashira Conglomerate emblazoned on its handle.
Shirou's eyes flashed as he Grasped the weapon. A flow of information flooded his mind, which he triaged with the ease born of long practice. The gun had been fabricated in the same factory as the swords he had seen so far, using the same advanced techniques and materials. But what really mattered to him was that it was still in working condition, and had nine bullets left in the magazine.
He reached for the weapon. Even if he managed to hit the creature with it – which was a big if since he had never held a gun before, and his Incarnation status didn't grant him any special advantage where firearms were concerned –it likely wouldn't affect it. It wasn't as if it had done its previous owner a lot of good, after all. But perhaps it could draw its attention and make sure Sakai was safe while he tried to figure out a way to actually escape with the man.
His fingers closed around the gun – and the wORld ShaTTered.
He stands on the black sands, which run red with the blood of demigods. The air is thick with screams of hate and madness.
He sees the warriors of three banners, retreating from battle and running toward him and his brothers. They are wounded, brought to the brink of defeat by the defenses built by those who waited for them. They think he and his brothers are their salvation.
In his hands, he holds a sword and a pistol. He has carried them through a hundred campaigns, and the sight of them is more familiar to him than that of his own naked hands. They feel heavier now than they ever have. But he has his orders, and he knows what must be done
There is no choice in this. There never was. He knows this, too. And so, when the order is given, spoken aloud by another of his brothers, he obeys.
He aims, and he pulls the trigger. His shot hits a warrior of the Hydra in his armor's gorget. The bolt was crafted in secret forges in preparation for this war, and it pierces through the metal with ease, severing the head of this son of Alpharius. The body takes seven more steps before falling.
It is the first of his kind that he has ever killed, and he does not even know his victim's name.
He wonders, even as he fires again and again, alongside the thousands at his side who unleash death upon those who believed them brothers : how many more will there be, before this nightmare ends ?
But he cannot stop. He has no choice. He repeats that truth to himself, over and over again, every time he kills another of his own kind. He forces himself to believe it. He has no choice. He has no choice. He must do this. They all must do this. It is the only way.
It must be. It must be. It must be.
Because if it is not …
If it is not, then he is …
The vision … (No. Not a vision. Never a vision. A memory.)… it hurt. The remembrance of it sickened Shirou to his core. He was … he had … No. No. No no no no no no no wrong no wrong wrong wrong WRONG …
Traitor.
Oath-breaker.
Heretic.
Butcher.
Kinslayer. Kinslayer. KINSLAYER -
MONSTER NO NOT HIM HIS HANDS BLACK SANDS RED BLOOD THE GUN IN HIS HANDS
Shirou screamed in pain and anguish as guilt for a sin not his own overcame him, and he fell to the ground, eyes wide open but seeing nothing. There he laid, limbs twitching with pain, the traces of his Reinforcement fading away. Pieces of the gun that had triggered the vision slipped between his nerveless fingers, his grip having shattered the weapon during his convulsions.
The monster of melted corpsesapproached the collapsed boy slowly, cautiously. Somewhere deep within what passed for itsmind, it remembered to be wary of the smell of the boy. It lowered a clawed hand toward the unconscious boy's head …
Thump.
A fist weakly hit the monster in its side. By itself, it would not have even been noticed – not when there was such enticing prey laying before the creature. But the fist held something within it, something old and sacred, infused with the strength of a man's desperate faith. With surprising agility, the monster jerked back, seeking to put distance between it and the source of its pain.
"L-leave him alone," sobbed Natsuo Sakai, forcing the words past dry, cracked lips. His stick-thin legs trembled as he fought to keep his emaciated body standing, and put himself between the collapsed teenager and the abomination.
This was not thanks to the power of the talisman he held, for all that relic could do was keep the monster at bay and sustain the flickering embers of his life. This was the strength of an ordinary man whose body was on the edge of giving up, whose mind had been ground down by the horrors he had witnessed, but whose will stubbornly refused to surrender.
The monster gazed down at its victim, incomprehension flickering in its bouquet of stolen eyes. Then the flickering vanished, replaced by bestial hatred, and the monster roared at the man, poisonous spit leaving its many mouths in a foetid breath. In the hand of Natsuo Sakai, the talisman glowed, burning the hand that held it, and began to crack as what power it held was overwhelmed by the strength of the monster's focused fury.
Yet Natsuo remained standing, for he had seen too much, and would tolerate no more.
"Leave that kid alone, you monster !"
There is nothing but pain.
I cannot move. I cannot think. My mind is broken, my will sundered by revelation.
I do not understand what I have seen. I do not know the meaning of the names, I do not know the context behind this abject betrayal. All I know is the sin of it all, the evil unleashed upon the universe on those black sands.
My hands held the gun. My fingers pushed the trigger. My my my my my my my my my my …
My fault.
I am not the hero who saves. I am the monster people need saving from.
… Am I ?
I see a man looking down at me, tear-filled face full of joy as he pulls me up from ash and ruin.
I see purple eyes, looking up at me in wonder from a pit of nightmares.
I see …
I see a light in front of me. Someone is standing there, between me and a monster.
Natsuo Sakai, something within me recognizes. The man I came here to save, if he could still be saved.
Now he is saving me, holding the monster that has broken him at bay. But he won't last long. He is too weak, and the monster is too strong. Surely he knows that. Surely he knows he will die if he does not flee.
And yet he stands.
I realize that he will die before he steps aside, before he gives up.
He will die for me, and that is …
Wrong.
No.
No.
I refuse this.
He understood now. He understood where the power that had let him save Sakura had come from. He did not know it – the context of those memories was still lost to him … but he understood enough.
And it didn't matter.
In the end, it didn't matter where that power came from. It didn't matter that the memory of the black sands threatened to make the bile rise from his stomach, that it made his very soul feel as if it would be torn asunder.
All that mattered was that there was someone who needed his help in front of him – someone who was risking his own life to protect him, despite their own fear, despite their own weakness, despite how much they had already suffered. How could he simply lay there, while he was being saved again ?
He could not. He would not. Because in the end – just as he had told his father years ago, under the light of the moon – all that mattered was the choices they made.
Shirou's hands closed into fists, so tightly his nails drew blood from his palms, and he stood up.
If his focus slipped, even for an instant, the conflict between who he was and who the person in the memory had been would tear him apart – literally, as the power inside him ran out of control. His Circuits would explode, his flesh would be broken and scattered across this unholy temple. Even Avalon would not save him from death then.
But …
He was Shirou Emiya. He was the son of Kiritsugu Emiya, a man who had dedicated his life to saving others, and had lost everything he held dear as a result. He was heir to the Magus Killer's impossible dream, and Sakura Matou's hero. This nightmare memory of treachery was not, and would never be, him.
Because whoever it was that had stood upon the black sands with his brothers' blood on his hands …
… whoever it was who had broken their oaths to Humanity …
… whoever it was who had turned their back on the dream they had sworn to defend …
… whoever had rejected their own free will to hide from the weight of their own guilt …
… it wasn't him. It wasn't Shirou Emiya. And so, in the end, it came down to a simple choice :
To master this power, or to let it master him.
Shirou chose.
This is not who I am.
This will never be who I am !
I am …
█ ██ ███ █████ ████ ███████ ███ █████ ██ ████.
Wings formed of shadow spread behind him, and black lines blazed on his skin as his eyes burned darkly gold. Suddenly, in his right hand was the familiar weight of the great monster-slaying sword, pulled from a time before it had become as tainted by treachery as the warrior who wielded it. His Circuits were burning, and he could feel the awesome power he was drawing from somewhere deep within him.
He also felt pain, monstrous pain. His body was burning, breaking apart under the strain and repairing itself, again and again. Within him, Avalon blazed, drawing upon this flow of power to heal him even as that very power was killing him. He could feel the Noble Phantasm straining to use the power he was calling forth, to force it into its fey structure. The pain was monstrous – even a first-rate Clocktower Magus would have been driven mad and lost control.
But pain was an old friend to Shirou Emiya, and this torment was nothing compared to the agony of the sheer distortionbetween who he was and who the power's original owner had been.
He stood, and put his left hand on Natsuo Sakai's shoulder. The man would have jumped, had he had the strength.
"Thank you," he said. "You can let me handle it now."
It took a few seconds for the man to react, to process the words he was hearing. When he did, he fell backwards, and Shirou caught him deftly in the crook of his left arm, lowering him to the ground while keeping an eye on the monster, which had warily retreated as Shirou rose.
A quick look at Sakai confirmed that the man had fallen unconscious. Shirou needed to take care of this quickly, so that he could get to the far more important business of getting him to a hospital.
"I see you," Shirou said to the abomination towering above him. And he did.
With his golden eyes, he saw past the stitched and melted corpses, held together by strands of arcane power. Past the creature's monstrous appearance, and into the truth of its nature.
He caught glimpses of the spirit's past as he peered into its very heart. He saw a mansion built of still-living, rotting trees – a cauldron bubbling with all the plagues of the universe – a Garden of infinite scope and malice – robed figures kneeling before the altar, offering up their own flesh as sacrifice so that it may rise from the pit …
He saw a battle – men and women holding shining swords, bringing purity into the den of abomination. He saw these heroes defeat the monster, each slice of their blessed swords cutting off a sliver of its power and weakening its hold onto physicality until its body fell apart and its spirit was imprisoned within the pit with prayers and Magecraft. He saw them raise thetoriigate at the entrance of its temple and collapse the only tunnel that led down into it, sealing the monster in its own lair – dead but not destroyed, merely sleeping. He tasted its bitter hatred, and the slow corrosion of the seals that had been placed upon it, until all that held it back was the packed earth that cut it off from any soul it may corrupt and draw strength from.
He saw the core of the monster's essence, a ravenous desire to bring rot and corruption to all things, to pervert all natural order and twist it into a never-ending, never-changing state of un-life.
The creature recoiled before him, hissing in fear and hatred. It could sense his intrusion into its past, and it despised him for it.
The feeling was mutual. He … he hated it, he truly did. This surprised Shirou, even in his current altered state of mind, fighting to keep control and not succumb to horror again. Not since facing Zouken had he felt something like this. Even the part of him that wasn't – that wasn't him, that would never be him hated the creature.
"I see you, servant of decay," he repeated. "Handmaiden of rot. Defiler of bodies, of minds, of souls. You have no place here !"
He brought the sword up to his shoulders, holding it horizontally in a two-handed grip, and the monster flinched. For a moment, the two of them stood facing each other – and then Shirou moved.
The stone beneath his feet cracked as he burst into motion, striking forward with his sword. The monster dodged almost out of the way, but the blade still scored a deep wound into its shoulder.
It struck back at him with its claws, and Shirou turned his sword around to block the attack. This time, when the blow landed, he remained standing, his black wings pulsing with power as they held him in place. With a roar, he pushed, and the monster stumbled as its limb was forced back.
He leapt forward, holding his sword in two hands, and delivered a horizontal cut that caught the retreating monster on what passed for its torso. The blade cut deep, and black ooze spilled from the stitched corpses – yet that physical damage paled in comparison to the hurt the sword's power had inflicted upon the sorcery that animated the monster.
Its many mouths opened, spitting gobbets of foul-smelling liquid at him. He twisted in mid-air, dodging most of them, and blocked the rest with his sword. The stuff hissed as it tried to eat into the Traced metal – and failed.
With a beat of his wings, Shirou plunged at the beast, and his sword bit deep into its stolen flesh. It shrieked as black, rotten blood erupted in tainted torrents.
It screamed at him then, howling its hatred of him and the World. It pummelled his psyche with images of decay and madness, of the horrible things that it had made the excavation team do to each other and to the construction workers. It showed him the precipitous descent into degeneracy, the monstrous sacrifices, the self-mutilations and the ultimate offering of their own flesh and souls so that it could manifest fully into the material universe, poisoning the World with its cankerous existence.
It amazed Shirou that Natsuo Sakai, who had seen all these things, had retained even the modicum of sanity he had displayed. But Shirou had seen worse. His mind flashed back to his very first memory – black sun and crimson skies, the stench of burned and corrupted flesh, the screams of the dead and the dying – and the familiar horror brought with it a renewed determination.
I will not fail, he swore. I will save Sakai-san. I will avenge those it has killed. I will protect this city.
And there were other thoughts amidst those that could be called heroic, too – thoughts of the girl who waited for him, of the promises he had made to her. He could not die here, not if it meant breaking those vows. Not if it meant abandoning her.
I will survive. I will go home.
"Until all oaths are fulfilled," he said, gritting his teeth as he plunged the blade deeper. "Until the last monster is slain. Until the World is free."
The monster clawed at him even as it fell on its back, smashing its forelimbs into his body with enough strength to shatter stone, but Shirou remained unmoving, his skin now almost entirely covered by the black lines of his unique brand of Reinforcement.
"I will not give up !" roared Shirou Emiya as the power within the Traced blade finally broke through the last of the monster's defenses and reached its blasphemous heart. "I will not surrender ! I will not relent !"
Panicking, the monster twisted and turned, trying to dislodge Shirou – but to no avail.
"Begone," he declared, and once again, the sword in his hands ignited.
As it had done to the rotten soul of Zolgen Makiri, the sword ███████ ████ obliterated the creature's essence, reducing every strand of its existence to nothingness.
Without the sorcery holding it together, the monster's patchwork body fell apart, and Shirou landed on the stone amidst a shower of bones and rotting, rapidly liquefying flesh.
Hatredburned within him, hot and true and not his own, warring with pain, horror and grief. Shirou's sight swam as darkness crept in – darkness, and other images held within it. He forced his mind away from its grip, trying to force the power he had drawn upon back down. It resisted him every step of the way, but eventually the black lines faded from his skin, the wings vanished and the radiance of his eyes waned. Yet it was not gone – not completely. Shirou could still feel it burning inside him, coursing through the handful of Circuits he had not managed to shut down. It hurt, but it was a pain that Shirou could force himself to ignore.
When Shirou's vision returned, the cavern was just that – a cavern. Creepy, sure, but not supernaturally so. The vile presence that had been imprisoned there for centuries had been banished entirely; not simply sealed this time, but obliterated forever. The altar of black stone had splintered as if it had been cleaved in two, the unearthly sigils carved into the black stone now no more than meaningless shapes.
Shirou stumbled back to where Sakai laid on the ground, ignoring the pain of his overworked muscles, and examined the unconscious man who had risked everything to protect him. Sakai's hand had been charred by the talisman, the entire palm of his right hand covered in a burn that replicated the pattern that had covered the object. The talisman itself fell into pieces as Shirou lifted Sakai onto his shoulders, the fragments turning to dust as they hit the ground.
Shirou's walk back up was far slower than his descent had been, every turn of the spiralling path a struggle, but eventually he made it to the elevator. The corpse of Ochiyo Mizusawa was still there, exactly where he had left it.
Slowly, gently, Shirou put Sakai down and pressed the command button. Groaning and shaking, the elevator began to go up, and Shirou let himself fall on the floor, breathing heavily.
The trip back up seemed to be even longer than before, though it only felt this way because of his pain and exhaustion. Shirou took the opportunity to gather his thoughts and plan his next move.
He had done it. He had saved the man he had come to find and slain the monster responsible for the deaths of the construction crew and the Mihashira security team. But there was much yet to do, and many questions yet unanswered. First, he needed to get Sakai to a hospital and figure out a plausible story he could tell the medics. Then he would have to make it back to the hotel before Fuji-nee noticed his absence. He checked his watch, which had miraculously survived through the battle. Somehow it was still only a few minutes past eleven PM. With any luck, he would make it to the hotel before midnight …
The elevator suddenly stopped, jerking Shirou away from his thoughts. He blinked, his awareness returning to his immediate surroundings. He and Sakai were in the elevator cage, which had reached the surface and the foundations where the shaft had been dug …
… and all around them were over twenty men and women wearing the same kind of uniform he had seen on Mizusawa's corpse, aiming guns and rifles at him. There was a helicopter nearby, which had landed directly into the hole. It, too, wore the emblem of the Mihashira Conglomerate.
For several seconds, it was all Shirou could do to blink as he stared at the corporate security forces. He … he had not expected that. And clearly, judging by how nervous they seemed, neither had them.
Someone in a hazmat suit and holding some kind of tablet broke through the circle of guards and aimed the device at Shirou and Sakai. After a few seconds, it beeped, and the figure visibly sagged in relief before addressing the rest of the Mihashira personnel :
"They are clean. Lower your weapons, everyone."
As the figure in the hazmat suit removed his hood, the security forces followed his order, holstering their weapons and stepping back from the elevator.
"Sorry about that, sir. We needed to be cautious, in case something tried to get out."
"I … I understand," replied Shirou, though he did not – not completely. A group in a different type of Mihashira uniform approached the elevator, assisting Shirou out of it and toward the second elevator that led out of the foundations and to the rest of the construction site.
"Medics !" said one of them as they saw Sakai. "We have a survivor in need of help."
"He has been starved for weeks," said Shirou, stopping and turning to address the one who had called out. "And he was subjected to … horrible sights down there. He needs medical and psychological help."
They nodded back. "Understood, sir. Don't worry, we will take care of him." They turned to another of their own : "Prep the chopper for medical evacuation and call base."
Even as Shirou was brought back up, he kept his gaze on Sakai. The Mihashira personnel brought a stretcher and carefully laid him down on it, before carrying him to the helicopter. As the elevator reached the top of the foundations, the helicopter's blades began to rotate, carrying the white-clad medics and their patient off.
Part of Shirou felt that he should have asked more questions before letting them take Sakai away … but he didn't know just how much these people knew of Magecraft, and in his state, there was no way he could fight back against so many armed people without breaking the rule of secrecy.
A woman in the same uniform as the deceased Mizusawa – her own ID badge named her as Atsuko Kurata – brought Shirou to a small tent that had been hastily erected in the middle of the construction site. Inside were a handful of chairs. She gestured for him to sit down while she pulled a cell phone from her pockets and dialled something on it.
"Here, sir." She handed him the phone after a few seconds. Tentatively, Shirou brought it to his ear, while the woman immediately left the tent, leaving him alone, with the electrical lamp resting on another chair the sole source of illumination.
"Hello ?"
"Hello, Shirou Emiya," replied a male, perfectly composed voice.
"Who are you ?"
"Who I am is irrelevant. In this conversation, I speak for the Mihashira Conglomerate. For simplicity's sake, you may call me Kodai."
That was … a strange name, to say the least. But it would have to do. Shirou had a lot of questions, after all – and he might as well start with the obvious one.
"How do you know who I am, Kodai-san ?"
"Your face was recorded when you broke into the construction site and we dispatched our response team. Since then, I have been doing some research to identify you. Given your participation in the ongoing archery tournament in the city, it wasn't difficult to find out your name – though a deeper investigation into your background certainly proved interesting."
"There weren't any cameras when I checked before entering," Shirou said, even as all kinds of alarm bells were ringing in his head.
"Of course not," scoffed Kodai. "Come on, Emiya-san. We are professionals. If you could have seen our eyes, I would need to have words with those responsible for placing them – stern words. Our watchers had strict instructions to simply observe, and to send a warning if anything got in or out of the Bounded Field."
"Why didn't you send people in sooner ?"
"We did. Weeks ago, when the reports from the excavation team stopped, we immediately dispatched one of our special teams. I believe you saw for yourself how well that turned out ?"
"Yes," admitted Shirou. "They … they all died in the temple. But clearly you have more people -"
"You underestimate both your own skills and the scale of our operations, Emiya-san," cut off the Mihashira representative. "The team we sent in first was one of our best, and they were wiped out to the last. We have other teams, some more qualified, but not many of them, and they were all already engaged elsewhere. That is why we had to resort to cordoning the area off while searching for more qualified personnel, or until one of our other teams finished their current assignment."
There was a pause as Shirou considered Kodai's words. It made sense … though it still begged the question of why the Mihashira Conglomerate had been interested in the underground temple in the first place.
"If I may ask," continued Kodai, "what happened to the entity that was sealed within the temple ?"
"It attacked me and Sakai-san," replied Shirou. Then, seeing no reason to hide the truth – after all, being thought of as capable of defending himself could only be useful right now – he continued : "I destroyed it."
"You … actually destroyed it ?" For the first time, there was a note of surprise in the other man's voice, though Shirou couldn't help but feel that something was wrong with it. "Are you confident of that, Emiya-san ?"
"Yes. I know it was only imprisoned the last time it was defeated but this time – it's gone."
"… I am impressed, Emiya-san. Not many could have come up against such an entity and survived, let alone defeat it. But to destroy it … you understand that we will need to send our own experts to confirm the entity has been removed from the World, of course. Can you tell me how you did it ?"
"I cheated," said Shirou without elaborating further. "Can you tell me what that thing was?"
"… Yes. If our research was correct, you would know it as a shikome, one of the handmaidens of the goddess Izanami according to ancient legend – though of course the myths weren't quite true, as those things always are. It was imprisoned here centuries ago, in what was at the time a remote rural area. But the city expanded, and eventually reached it.From that point on, it was inevitable that someone would stumble upon it, sooner or later. That is why we bought the land and began construction to cover our excavation efforts."
"Why ?" he almost growled, holding his anger back only by reminding himself than pissing off a major conglomerate would be a poor idea. "People died because of you – a lot of them. Your own employees were driven mad and offered themselves as sacrifices to this … this thing ! Why in God's name would you do such a thing ?"
"Would you rather this shrine be uncovered by another construction company, one without any connection to the Moonlit World ? Things didn't go as planned, I admit, but you must see it would only have been worse if someone else had unearthed the shikome. As I said : from the moment the boundaries of Kumamoto City reached the site, it was inevitable that the entity would eventually be able to influence those dwelling above. The team attached to the construction crew was tasked with making sure the work did not disturb the temple. Unfortunately, from what we have been able to piece together, the ancient seals had already been eroded through by the time they reached the temple to get more data in order to perform a complete exorcism, or else reinforce the existing seals. But it appears that, despite our precautions, the entity affected them, turning them into its service."
"Then," continued Shirou, following the reasoning, "they captured the construction crew – which was made all the more easy by the weapons they were no doubt equipped with – and dragged them below to expose them to the shikome's influence in turn. From what I saw, it … it built itself a body from their corpses. But it was huge. It wouldn't have been able to fit through the tunnel leading to the surface, let alone the elevator ..."
"Indeed. We were all fortunate that this entity, for all its power, wasn't very bright. The Bounded Field was put into place to make sure it couldn't get more servants until we could send someone capable of dealing with it once and for all."
"… Fine, I believe you," Shirou gave in. "But I still have questions."
"Of course. I will answer what I can, though you will understand that there are some secrets of the Conglomerate that are not mine to share."
"Yes, I do. First : what do you intend to do about this whole … incident ? You can't sweep the death of so many people under the rug – at least not for the construction crew. If you could, I wouldn't have been here in the first place."
"Now that the incident has been resolved, I already have people on it. Tomorrow, the newspapers will publish a story about the tragic accident at the workplace that claimed the lives of the construction crew. Their families will be given a comforting lie and appropriate compensation, I assure you."
"And what about Natsuo Sakai – that's the man I rescued from the temple ? He survived, but he knows what really happened."
"I promise you that Natsuo Sakai will be given the best of medical care, and will make a full recovery. We will have to alter his memories, of course – he will remember being stuck underground after a collapse, and surviving for weeks in terrible conditions. It will be a traumatic experience, but we will do all we can to support him and assist him in overcoming it."
"What proof do I have you won't simply kill him to clean up the loose ends ?"
"Emiya-san. We are not the Clocktower. We are a company that operates in the eyes of the public. Yes, some of our activities are best kept out of sight, but we try to operate according to at least the most basic of moral guidelines – and that includes taking care of our employees."
Shirou didn't answer. Eventually, a sigh came from the other end of the line.
"But if you need a more pragmatic reason for sparing Sakai-san : being seen taking care of the lone survivor of this disaster will do wonders for our PR, and keep us from becoming enemies with you."
That Shirou could believe. Though he knew many would consider his ideals naive, he did not think himself so. He knew people could be selfish, and act in their own self-interest even if it meant others would suffer : years of working for the Fujimura Group had made sure of that. And he also knew that corporations were far worse than people in that regard. It was possible that the Mihashira Conglomerate genuinely cared for its employees … but Shirou wouldn't have bet on it. Even if Kodai himself did, a company the size of the Conglomerate was all but guaranteed to have very little in the way of empathy.
"I have to say, Emiya-san, I am pleasantly surprised by your concern for our employee's well-being. It isn't exactly the kind of attitude one would expect from a Magus."
"I am not a Magus," replied Shirou automatically. "I think of myself as a Magecraft user only."
"Indeed ? Interesting. But if you weren't here to investigate the temple, what brought you to the construction site ? I somehow doubt you just happened to pass by and noticed the Bounded Field."
"I was asked to look into Sakai-san's disappearance," replied Shirou cautiously. "He has friends in Fuyuki who noticed he wasn't answering phone calls and letters and knew I was going to Kumamoto City for the tournament."
"I see. I suppose things turned out for the best. Even our most efficient Magecraft practitioners wouldn't have been able to destroy the shikome as you say you did."
"Speaking of Magecraft users," Shirou prompted, "the team you sent in the temple knew about Magecraft, didn't they ? But they didn't seem like magi either. I am not sure the Clocktower would approve of that. In fact, I am rather certain they would not."
"We have an understanding with the Director of the Clocktower," said Kodai, sounding amused at Shirou's blatant fishing for information. "Japan is an old land, with many old secrets that the nobles of the Clocktower would happily pay any price to obtain … whether it be in money or lives. The Director understands the necessity of keeping these secrets from the hands of those who would abuse them in their pursuit of the Root. Since you are already affiliated with the Moonlit World, I can reveal to you that one of the Mihashira Conglomerate's purposes is to help maintain its secrecy in Japan, as well as to protect the relics of the Age of Gods in this country. This is accomplished both by actions such as the one that occurred here, and by making sure that the European Lords of the Clocktower continue to regard the East as a backwater good only for breeding inhuman bloodlines."
"And what are your other purposes ?"
"One of them is profit, of course," shamelessly admitted Kodai. "We are a corporation, after all, and need to appease our stockholders and finance our operations across Japan. For the others, I am afraid you would need to work for us first … which segues nicely into the next part of our conversation."
"You want to hire me ?" asked Shirou, nearly flabbergasted. He had not foreseen that turn of the conversation.
"We would certainly be interested with it, once you have finished your education – hiring highschoolers doesn't really look good on the books. The Mihashira Conglomerate employs many … Magecraft users ourselves. The Special Division has a training program to teach the rudiments of Magecraft to those best suited for it, in order for them to be more effective in the field. They combine modern technology with basic Magecraft in order to accomplish their missions. From what I have found about you, you do not share the common magus' distaste for modern methods and tools. That alone would be enough to make you worthy of notice, but you are so much more than that, aren't you ? As one would expect of Kiritsugu Emiya's adopted son."
"… you know of my father ?" asked Shirou warily. Kiritsugu had warned him – many, many times – that there were a lot of people in the Moonlit World who despised him, sometimes for good reasons, and that some of them would seek to take their revenge on him if they learned of his relation to the Magus Killer.
"Of course. The Conglomerate has hired your father in the past, to help deal with ... rogue elements. Similar to what happened here, in fact. Unfortunately, relics from the Age of Gods are dangerous to deal with, even for trained personnel. The attrition rate within the Special Division is ... substantial. That is why we often need to resort to freelance personnel. Your father was a very effective contractor. We were sorry to hear of his death during the Grail War, even if it seems that he didn't die during it as the rest of the Moonlit World believed. He is dead now, isn't he ?"
"Yes," admitted Shirou. "My father died years ago from the wounds he received in the Grail War. But you … You know about the Grail War ?"
"Of course we do. Were it not for our agreement with the Wizard Marshall, we would never have allowed it to continue. Given the advancement of technology, we are not looking forward to helping contain the next one in a few decades."
"If you couldn't deal with the situation here, I find it difficult to believe you could have stopped a Grail War with Servants and Masters," said Shirou bluntly. The laughter that answered him sent a chill down his spine.
"Understandable, Emiya-san … But believe me : we could. It would cost us, but we could."
Shirou contemplated the implications of that for a few seconds … before sighing.
"Alright. I understand what happened now – more or less. And I am flattered that you want to hire me, but that's something I would need to think about. For now, I will trust that you will take care of the situation here, and I will tell Sakai-san's friends that he was caught in an accident at his workplace that put him out of contact for some times – hopefully the story will break before I need to."
"That would be for the best. I believe we will have reason to speak again in the future. You have done us a favor, Emiya-san : though such was not your intent, the Mihashira Conglomerate owes you a debt that will not be forgotten."
"You are welcome," said Shirou, standing up to leave. Pain flared through his legs, and he caught his breath as he stumbled before reasserting his balance.
"You sound in need of medical attention. I can help you obtain it discreetly, if you so desire."
"No," he gasped. "Sorry, but I don't trust you quite that much yet."
"Understandable. I hope that will change in the future. Goodbye, Emiya-san."
"Goodbye, Kodai-san."
The call ended. Shirou left the tent and handed the phone over to Kurata, who was waiting by the entrance. She not-so-subtly indicated the closest exit of the construction site, and Shirou made his way out with a final nod to the Mihashira employees.
Hopefully he could make it back to the hotel without being noticed. A few hours in his bed meditating should help him bring his Magic Circuits under control and recover from the worst of his exhaustion.
By dawn, Shirou had realized that he just might have been overly optimistic.
He had not recovered. Avalon was pulsing within him, but the power he had called up refused to go down. Because the scabbard was focused on keeping him alive, it wasn't dealing with less important issues – which meant that he had a pounding headache, and every muscle in his body hurt from the efforts of the previous day. His entire torso was one giant bruise where the shikome had struck him – it had been a challenge to change without the others noticing it and asking awkward questions about where it had come from. The cracked ribs, at least, had been healed during the battle itself; he didn't think he would have been able to hide that from his roommates.
He hadn't slept at all, except for a few moments of trance when he had managed to use meditation techniques to have a part of him focused on containing the alien memories while the rest tried to relax. It had cleared his head a bit, but also made his headache worse.
Mundane doctors could not help him with whatever was wrong with him. He needed Sakura's help, and probably Tohsaka's too. And while his situation appeared to have at least stabilized during the night – it had been a couple of hours since the pain hadn't gone worse – he wasn't going to take risks and wait another day before going home.
Unfortunately, using Magecraft in his current state – even the minor effort required to use hypnosis – would be astupid thing to do. Fortunately, his guardian and adoptive big sister had a tendency to worry about him overmuch.
"I think yesterday's competition may have taken a bit more out of me than I thought," he told Taiga at breakfast, having forced himself out of bed – despite the worried looks of his seniors, who had all but ordered him to get back to bed and let them tell the teacher he wasn't feeling well. "I think … I think I should go home, Fuji-nee."
She took one hard, long look at him and sighed.
"You are barely standing up, you dolt. OK, fine. Everyone, go to the gymnasium and get ready. I am bringing this idiot to the train station and making sure he gets on the first train to Fuyuki. Tell the organizers that my ward needed to return home before the end of the tournament. If they ask why, tell them it's none of their business."
The seniors nodded, though Shirou could tell none of them were going to be as blunt as Fuji-nee was suggesting. Mitsuzuri was biting her lower lip as she looked at him, clearly worried. He smiled weakly at her.
Within an hour, he was sitting on a bench at the station, ticket in hand, waiting for his train. Fuji-nee had left after accompanying him – it had taken some effort to persuade her that he didn't need her help to get onboard and that she should return to the tournament.
Despite his exhaustion and the growing heat of the July morning, Shirou didn't need to struggle to remain awake until his train arrived. He was too busy fighting the tumultuous power roiling within him.
His mind was so preoccupied that it was only when the train had already left Kumamoto City that he realized he hadn't called Sakura to warn her of his early return.
I really need to get myself a cell phone, he thought, looking through the window and not really seeing the rushing countryside. Sakura wasn't going to be happy about him not calling her in advance. Hopefully Tohsaka was still at the Emiya residence – though he did not look forward to her dressing him down for forgetting to warn them in advance that he needed help.
Despite the ongoing pain of his muscles, his skull and his Magic Circuits, Shirou smiled slightly. If the worse thing that happened today was him being scowled at by the two teenage girls, he would accept it gladly.
AN : Well, that took longer than anticipated. I really struggled with the fight scene, mostly because those have always been a weak point of mine. Hopefully I managed to give justice to the confrontation.
So, the truth - or at least part of it - of Shirou's strange abilities are revealed. And he didn't take it well to say the least. Yes, the spirit that merged with Shirou's broken soul in the Prologue was - at some point - a warrior of the Traitor Legions, who opened fire on the loyalist at the Istvaan Massacre. Considering Shirou's own nature, I believe his violent reaction to learning that truth is appropriate.
The shikome and the Mihashira Conglomerate are more new elements to the F/SN universe. While the former was intended as a catalyst for Shirou's "awakening", the Conglomerate is going to be a recurrent character (can you call a corporation a character ? I am not sure).
Next chapter, we return to Fuyuki. I believe it is time to use the time-honored tradition of Fate games : the Deus Sex Machina. We are seven chapters and around 70k words in : it's about time Shirou's harem grew !
As always, I look forward to your reactions on the events of this chapter. I look less forward to the inevitable accusations of ignoring the lore I clearly said I would depart from, but I will have to learn to take that in stride if I want to continue this story - and I very much do. If you notice anomalies and contradictions within the confines of the lore established for this story, however, please point them out.
Oh, and formatting continues to be a challenge, so please be sure to tell me if you see something strange on that front, too.
Two more things : first, as promised, here is the list of topics I had to research for the Kumamoto arc.
Depth of a skyscraper's foundation, along with surface and height.
Kyūdō history and tournaments.
Kumamoto city and Prefecture.
The hour of sunset in Japan in 2003.
The speed of elevators used on construction sites.
Japanese Mythology.
Japanese gun control laws.
How long a human can survive without food and with very little water.
The temperature of underground caverns.
Japan's cellphone history.
If I ever travel to Japan and they have access to my browser history, I expect the border guards will have some questions to ask me.
Secondly, here is something I realized a few weeks ago. I published the following blob on SpaceBattles immediately, but I couldn't do the same here :
"See, after spending entirely too long researching the Japanese school system, the dates at which the school year start and end, and the timeline of F/SN, I realized that I messed up.
By the time the War starts in canon F/SN, Shirou and Rin are in their second year of high school, while Sakura is in her first.
Also, according to the visual novel, the War starts in JANUARY 2004 (end of the month, most events happen in February).
Japanese school year starts in April and ends in March. That means that in order for the timeline to make sense, Shirou and Rin should be in second year of highschool from April 2003 to March 2004.
Which in turn means they should have been in their first year of highschool from April 2002 to March 2003.
Which in turn means they should have been in their third year of middle school from April 2001 to March 2002.
... Except that in A Blade Recast, Shirou and Rin are in their third year of middle school in December 2002. I believed (not sure why) that the school year in Japan started in January and ended in December.
So let's add another ten months. The Grail War will start in December 2004, so that Shirou, Rin and Sakura are all in their appropriate grades. It will probably mean I need to change the birthday of Rin and Sakura, but screw it, it's an AU, I can do that.
Would anyone have noticed if I had just fudged the dates/grades ? Probably not, but I have noticed, and now I won't be able to write until I have fixed it.
That's what I get for trying to be precise about dates and ages in what is supposed to be a fix I write to relax.
... Also, I need to go back in time to punch myself for putting these stupid timestamps at the start of each chapter. THAT backfired."
There. Now you are up to date.
Stay safe !
Zahariel out.
EDIT 13/05/2020 : Changed the date at the start of the chapter from July 22nd, 2003 AD to July 21st, 2003 AD : the previous chapter clearly indicated that Shirou descended into the depths long before midnight. Apologies for the mistake.