Revised 2/13/22

Hello everyone! Now here's the response section.

KimranReech: Don't worry, I'm trying to constrain Shirou to abilities he's shown in the VN, and growing naturally from there. There's more than enough overpowered Shirou stories out there, and I agree, Shirou's appeal isn't his power, it's his ability to get the living crap beaten out of him and still get up and keep going.

SentinelSlice: The exact mechanics of what happened are going to remain a mystery for now, perhaps indefinitely. A broad knowledge of Type-Moon stuff might give some hints as to what I was going for, but I don't want to outright state it, in case I get told "Wait, that's not how that's supposed to work."

Shirou

Crack

"Argh! Dammit!" I swore, slamming face-first into yet another tree branch!

Gently probing my forehead, I discovered a fresh bruise to add to my growing collection. Gods, what I'd give for a flashlight! If this kept up, I'd get beaten to death by the undergrowth before succumbing to hunger and thirst.

'Or blood-loss,' my calf reminded me. That wolf had to be laughing in the afterlife, the instant I thought the wound had scabbed over, I'd trip over a root or get my foot lodged in a rabbit hole, and it would open all over again. My shoe was starting to squelch, and I bet my improvised bandage would look bright red if this forest wasn't dark as a mine shaft.

Whatever dim light existed had vanished hours ago, leaving me groping around like a blind man in the dark. Which was just perfect, since it meant I had no idea where I was going in this forest full of wolves and gods knew what else. Nevertheless, better get a move on, moaning wouldn't do me any favors.

Putting on my best zombie impression, I resumed blundering through the woods, this time keeping a hand at face-level. Three times was enough for one night, thank you very much.

This forest's only saving grace was that the ground was fairly level underneath all the tripping hazards. Imagine traveling all these miles in the dark, only to walk off a cliff! As it stood, my path had me shuffling around trees, climbing over fallen logs, pressing through briar patches—

"Huh?"

My hand found empty air.

Stepping forwards, I glanced around in the dark, then I waved around some more. Nothing.

For a single moment, I let myself believe that my journey was at its end, then I looked up and despaired. No stars, no moon, nothing, guess this was just a clearing getting my hopes up.

I sighed heavily. 'At least it's a break from getting whacked by branches.' I took one step forwards and—

"Grrrrrrrr."

My foot hit something and woke it up!

I scrambled to get away from it. "Okay, okay, backing away now."

Whatever it was, it was big, its deep growl sent vibrations rumbling through my chest cavity. This was not a wolf, never mind that my wolf repellant laid in pieces miles behind me.

Something rustled the leaves, and then another woke up. And another. And another, Andanotherandanother—

My getaway blew a Shirou-sized hole in the undergrowth. That uncanny empty sensation kicked me in the gut when I tapped my limited od, but that was better than getting ripped apart by whatever the hell those things were! Those weren't bears, they sounded more like wolves, but huge! What sort of country had giant wolves in the woods?

The bright side of running like this was that my reinforcement shed light on my surroundings, so for once I could dodge around trees. Sadly, my puny reserves didn't last for long in this freaky magicless forest.

About a mile from the clearing, my legs turned to lead, a sign that I was seconds from falling on my face.

"Oh, come on!" I gasped, but closed my circuit just in time to miss an appointment with the dirt. Without my reinforcement to light the way, everything plunged into darkness, and I screeched to a halt.

Petrified, exhausted and blind as a bat, I swiveled my head around, hunting for the slightest sign that something had followed me. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realize my panting drowned out all other sound in these woods. Holding my breath, I listened, and stilled when I did pick out something in the dark.

Water.

That wonderful rushing sound was all I needed break into a sprint.

It took me a while to get there with no prana involved, but the view was well worth the wait, because bathed in glorious moonlight was the river I'd been hunting for all night.

"Oh gods, it's beautiful."

Well, not really if I was being honest. The water looked sort of cloudy, but who cared, I was parched!

I practically dove into the river, scooping up handfuls of water and gulping them down as fast as I could.

Once I'd drunk my fill, I studied my surroundings. The river cut a deep notch in the earth, so there weren't really riverbanks to speak of, just a place where the forest abruptly ended and gave way to open air. That meant no walking along the water's edge, but that didn't really matter, I could just step back in the woods and follow it out of here, and this time the moon would light my way!

I made to stand, but winced when the pain in my leg flared up. Looking down, I grimaced.

'Man, that looks nasty.'

My whole lower left pant leg was soaked through, it was a miracle I hadn't keeled over yet.

The current bandage clearly wasn't doing its job, so I tore another strip off my shirt, grit my teeth, and slowly peeled the bandage away to replace it.

I was getting ready to wrap up my leg when something hit me. This was the first chance I'd gotten to wash the wound, and there was no telling what germs that wolf was carrying. Oh gods what if it was rabid…

My shoe was off in a flash, and I got to work scrubbing my leg like my life depended on it.

Plop

The shoe fell off its perch into the water below. Within seconds it floated around the riverbend and out of sight.

"Oh come on!"

Hours later

'That's it, just keep going, put one foot in front of the other.'

I slowly shuffled out of the woods.

Yesterday had not been kind to Shirou Emiya. I was hungry, exhausted, nursing a wound on my leg, and missing half my shirt and one of my shoes. But now the sun was up, and the end was finally in sight.

Sunrise had revealed that the trees were a lot thinner than before, which was fantastic news. After last night, I'd be happy to never see a tree again, let alone a forest. Now I was in the home stretch, just a few more feet and I'd—

"WAH!"

A tree root snagged my foot. After two days without sleep, the obstacle was too much to handle, and I thumped face-first into the dirt.

"Owwww."

Beaten by branches. Attacked by animals. Robbed by a river. And now tripped by tree roots. It was official: Nature hated Shirou Emiya.

My eyes became slits. "I swear, I'm going to stop recycling paper."

Pushing myself to my feet was a little painful, but the view was worth it. Nothing but clear blue skies ahead, and not a tree in sight! In fact…

"Is that a wheat field?"

I shaded my eyes, and sure enough, it was! There was a big square patch of grain planted by the side of the river, rippling in the breeze, and that wasn't something you saw growing in the wilderness.

Not to mention the column of smoke rising behind it. Something was burning out there, and it wasn't a wildfire. That meant chimney smoke. I'd found a farm, and farms meant people!

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Civilization."

My journey was finally over! It took walking all night through a spooky forest, but now I could talk to another human being, get some food in my belly, and find out wherever the Grail sent me.

I took a step forward, and winced as my bad leg protested the action. Looking down revealed that there may be some unpleasant reactions when those farmers saw me.

It hadn't been so obvious in the dark, but my clothes were shredded. Thankfully my modesty was intact, but all those branches and thorns in the thickets had left me wearing bloody rags, and if the stinging in my eyes meant anything, they must be all baggy and bloodshot from two days of no sleep. Between the blood and my eyes, I probably looked like an axe murderer escaped from the madhouse.

'Dammit, if anyone sees me like this, they'll call the police!'

Nobody would open their home to a bloodstained foreigner, they'd just slam the door in my face and I'd be in lockup within the hour.

Then something occurred to me, that might be a good thing!

I'd need to contact the authorities to get a trip home anyways, so no matter what happened, my journey would take me there. Calling Fuji-nee from a foreign jail would earn me some awkward questions, but better that than starving to death in the middle of nowhere.

'And besides, they have food and showers in jail!'

With that bizarrely comforting thought in my head, I started towards the wheat field once more. Maybe the farmer would think me a maniac, but unless I'd landed somewhere awful like North Korea, the locals could hardly treat me worse than the forest did.

A few minutes' walk brought me to the edge of the wheat, and after thinking it over, I decided to go around it. Whatever the farmers thought of me, no need to anger them by trampling their crops.

I'd been walking for a hundred feet when I heard a shout from behind me.

"Arhoswch yn iawn yno!"

I stopped in my tracks. Well, if the weather didn't confirm the foreign country theory, that language did. I'd never heard anything like it.

Turning around confirmed that even further. There was a middle-aged European man standing there, giving me the stink-eye. But at that moment his language and skin color were the last things on my mind.

'What is he wearing?'

The man was dressed in crude, rough-spun pants and a shirt, wore a floppy leather hat, and was walking barefoot. On top of the bizarre fashion choices, he was brandishing a sickle at me. He looked like some sort of historical reenactor playing a Medieval European peasant.

'Okay, maybe I'm further from food and showers than I thought.'

Whatever this guy's deal was, he definitely wasn't happy to see me. Which was understandable, he had caught a blood-splattered foreigner creeping around the edge of his property, that wasn't the sort of thing that inspired trust. But that was fine! If there was one thing Shirou Emiya was good at, it was hospitality.

"Good morning sir, hate to be a bother, but do you have a phone?" I said, putting on my best friendly face.

The man just squinted, and stared at me suspiciously.

"Beth yw'r uffern wyt ti? Nid wyf erioed wedi gweld eich math o'r blaen."

That friendly face was getting harder to keep up. Alright, so he doesn't speak Japanese, that's understandable. Not too many outside the Islands speak that anyways.

Luckily, Japanese wasn't my only language. My English was horrendous, but I knew enough to stumble through a few sentences. Fuji-nee may be a chronically late klutz, but she was no slouch as a teacher.

"Can you understand me?" Hopefully that worked.

The man just gave me a bewildered look.

'Okay… he doesn't speak English either.'

And that said nothing good at all. Between the British and Americans beating down all takers, almost everyone spoke a little English, or at least recognized it, and this guy clearly had no idea what I was saying. Wherever I was, it must be in the middle of nowhere, which said bad things about my chances of getting home anytime soon.

While I was having a minor panic attack, the farmer was scratching his head and giving me a once over. He must have decided I was no threat to him, because his eyes softened, and he spoke up again.

"Dewch gyda mi, fachgen. Rydych chi'n edrych fel eich bod wedi cael eich cam-drin gan anifail."

After that final line of nonsense, the farmer turned around and walked back into the wheat field, waving for me to follow him.

As much as I appreciated the show of trust, I still hesitated.

Something was deeply wrong with this situation.

But after that pause, I followed him into the wheat. Whatever was going on needed answers, and there weren't any out here. Better to follow him than stand around doing nothing.

Llywelyn

Knock knock knock

"Come on in," he groaned, looking up from the ball of dough he'd been kneading. He just couldn't catch a break this morning!

First Owain the blacksmith had stormed in, demanding he punish Coel's boys for stealing his tongs. It had to be the third time this month, was it really that hard to lock up his smithy when he wasn't around? And just as he'd convinced him that no, it wasn't his job to track down and birch the little blighters, Llud's wife turned up. The chatterbox had yammered on about some pointless piece of gossip she'd heard from her cousin in Gwent, like he gave a damn about some knight he'd never heard of sleeping with some noblewoman he'd never met. Couldn't everyone just leave him in peace for the morning and let him bake?

Then to top it all off, he woke up that morning feeling exhausted, and he'd slept fine last night. Hopefully he hadn't caught something, or he'd get even less work done!

The door to the bakery opened, and Llywelyn was treated to a curious sight.

'Damn, it's been what, five years since he last showed his face?'

It looked like Madog had finally left his farm. The old recluse hadn't been seen since his wife died, and a few around town wondered if he'd joined her. Not that he'd been missed, man was a crotchety old bastard that never paid his tabs.

Though looking at his side, he could see why the man turned up after so long. He'd brought along a foreign boy, and a damn strange one at that. The kid had bright red hair, yellow-tinted skin, and odd, tilted amber eyes. Wherever he'd come from, it was nowhere near Britain.

"So Madog, what've you got for me?" Whatever was going on, it'd caught his interest.

"Not sure to be honest Llywelyn," he replied, eyeing the boy, "I found him wanderin' round the edge of my field a couple hours ago. Boy was all torn up and covered in blood, plus it looks like he had a run-in with something in the woods. Had a bite wound on his leg, probably a wolf from the teeth marks."

He raised his eyebrows. 'If the boy really did come out of the forest, then he ought to thank his lucky stars. Better a bite wound than getting the whole leg torn off.'

He gave the boy a once over, and noted a few things. Madog had cleaned him up and given him a fresh set of clothes, though now he was fully barefoot. On the other hand, the kid himself was in rough shape. It looked like he hadn't slept in days, and there was a hollow look in his eyes, like his whole world just ended. Whatever happened, he'd been put through the wringer.

"Did you find out what happened to him?" He'd sure as hell be curious about a wounded foreigner puttering around his land.

Madog threw up his hands. "That's the thing, the boy doesn't speak a lick of Brittonic. He tried a second language after the first one, sounded kind of like the Saxon tongue, but not really. Wherever he's from, he's a long way from home."

'Now that's damn strange', he thought, then turned back to the foreigner.

"Can you understand me boy?" Might as well confirm it for himself.

"Sumimasen, anata ga nani o itte iru no ka wakarimasen," he replied, sounding apologetic.

Well, that confirmed that. He'd never heard anything like what the boy was spouting.

Llywelyn furrowed his brow, and turned back to Madog. "So, what do you want to do with him?"

He shrugged. "Hell if I know, that's why I brought him here. You're the headman, it's your job to solve problems like this when they pop up."

'Great, more work.'

If it wasn't for his father passing it down to him, he'd never have taken the job. At least he got free drinks out of the deal.

Llywelyn turned back to the boy and looked him over. He seemed fit enough, and spoke at least two languages, so he must be fairly sharp. A second set of hands wouldn't hurt, and he'd been a bit lonely living in this big empty house, ever since Peredur joined the militia.

"You know what? I'll put him up for a few days. We can figure out what to do with him in the long run later, but I could use some help around the house in the meantime. Might find out what he's good at too, see if he knows a trade."

"Alright headman, I'll leave him to ya." The farmer turned on his heel and waltzed out of the bakery.

Realizing that he'd been abandoned, the boy spun around and stared at the door in confusion. Poor kid, bastard didn't even say goodbye before ditching him, even if he wouldn't understand it.

'Well, no use crying over spilt milk.' Now that he was living here, might as well put a name to that face. He knocked on the counter, and the boy whirled around to look at him. Patting his chest, he said his name. "Llywelyn."

The boy caught on pretty quickly, and touched his own chest. "Shirou."

So Shirou huh? Good to have a name for his new tenant. Now came the hard part, miming his way through enough instructions to get the kid set up and doing chores.

Shirou

It looked like I wouldn't be heading home.

The oddly dressed farmer, Madog I learned later, lead me to his house and gave me a change of clothes. That was when my unease started growing.

While I wasn't expecting modern amenities from the rustic farmer, even the poorest had things like windows and floors, things that were missing from the man's house. It was a squat little drystone hut maybe twice the size of my shed, with a thatched roof and a dirt floor. There was obviously no electricity in the place, forget about a phone or a shower.

That had been disappointing, but not too out there. This man lived all alone on the edge of a forest, maybe he was a hermit? It would take some work, but eventually I could get to an actual town, and then get some answers. The farmer even asked me to follow him, so it must have been nearby.

Sure enough, there was a town a few miles from his home. Unfortunately for me, I wasn't any closer to getting back to Fuyuki.

Following the river brought us to a deeply rutted dirt road. That had brought another spike of worry, before I forced it down. We were in a rural area, unpaved roads weren't that unusual.

A few minutes' walk brought us to another wheat field, which confirmed the small farming town theory, but once we reached the place, I ran out of rationalizations.

First the smell had hit me. A putrid mix of rotten garbage and raw sewage floated on the breeze, and I barely held off dry-heaving. That was hard to justify, even rural towns had toilets, people didn't just dump their waste in the middle of the street, but the sight of the place clinched it.

Crowds of people dressed like Madog wandered the streets, rows of wooden houses with thatched roofs flanked our path, there were even a handful of ox-drawn carts rumbling up the road, carving furrows in the mud with their wheels.

The Grail hadn't just teleported me somewhere else. It sent me back in time.

After all the abuse of the past few days, the shock nearly made me crack. Fuji-nee? Sakura? Even Tohsaka and Illya? I'd never see them again.

I couldn't even imagine how Taiga would react. Ever since Kiritsugu died, she'd been there for me, always ready with a joke or a laugh, even if she was greedy little thief that robbed my fridge in the middle of the night. I was her responsible little brother, and she was the immature big sister that needed to be taken care of. She spent so much time over my house that it was practically her second home, without me cooking her meals, could she even take care of herself? She'd be gnawing on leather by nightfall!

And then there was poor Sakura, the thought of her tore at my heart. Shinji might have been a slimeball, but he was the only family she had, and Illya had Heracles snuff him out. Now that I was gone, and she was all alone, who would be there to brighten her day?

If anybody handled my disappearance well, it would probably be Tohsaka. She was a magus through and through, and at least she had an idea of what I was doing at Ryuudou temple. Taking down Kirei and Gilgamesh had always been a longshot, so if she went to investigate, she'd find the temple in ruins, and assume we killed each other.

Hopefully she took care of Illya, the little girl had been through enough.

I shook my head to clear my thoughts, and continued carrying the bucket of water back to the house from the river. The guy Madog brought me to, Llywelyn, had put me up in a room on the second floor of his house. The man was simply too generous, he even fed and clothed me, and all he asked in return was some help with the chores.

The past few days involved a lot of carrying water and chopping wood, like I was some sort of Buddhist sage. Those monks must have been on to something, since all the hard labor helped me work through my grief and move on with my life. I missed everyone back in Fuyuki, but they wouldn't want me to hide under a blanket all day feeling sorry for myself, and doing that would only spit on Llywelyn's hospitality.

I still couldn't understand what he was saying, but I'd learned some things over the past few days. The town's name was Caer Afon, and the strange language everyone spoke was called Brythoneg. He'd tried to teach me a little the past couple days, but it was slow going so far.

It wasn't clear what I'd do in the long run, but helping my host seemed like a good place to start. Shirou Emiya wasn't an ungrateful layabout, so I'd pay back Llywelyn tenfold if I had anything to say about it.

Artoria

"Could you tell us when we're setting up camp Arthur? It's getting dark out."

"When we get to the next town Kay, and no sooner."

After the events of the past few days, there was no way I would camp on the road. Something was deeply wrong in the Midlands.

The morning after that magical… implosion, our company had traveled east from Viroconium. Once Merlin's mind settled, he had consulted his clairvoyance, and pinpointed the epicenter of the event in the southeastern Forest of Arden. Thankfully this meant investigating the event would not interfere with our original plans, though our new mission was always at the forefront of my mind.

While Kay and Bedivere were unaffected beyond a little fatigue, some change in the air left me deeply unsatisfied, as if some vital ingredient was missing. Meanwhile the pain in my heart had receded over the past few days, but it still felt like someone had taken a maul to my chest.

Our first stopover had been in Letocetum, a Powysian outpost on the edge of the Forest of Arden, and it was there that I realized the sheer scale of the event.

Upon arriving in town, the whole garrison was in a panic. Sometime the day before, every single werewolf auxiliary had fallen unconscious, whether they were resting, working, or drilling with their human counterparts. Nothing succeeded in rousing them, and it was only that morning when the first had regained their senses, complaining of raging headaches and nausea.

That revelation made the event even more alarming. Letocetum was thirty miles away from Viroconium, and they had been struck simultaneously. This was not a targeted attack on Merlin and I, but on every phantasmal being in the region!

Our discovery the next day only confirmed that. While riding through the hills south of Letocetum, we were struck with an overwhelming stench of decay. Investigating the smell turned up a shocking find.

Hidden in a cleft between two hills was a tribe of dead giants, clustered around a pair of half-butchered oxen and the wreckage of a cart. They must have been preparing a meal when the cataclysm struck, because they had died without a scratch on them, just trickles of blood flowing from every orifice. While I would never shed a tear for the monsters, not after Mont St. Michel, the gruesome sight had ignited a spark of fear in me. What awful event could slay such fearsome beasts at so great a distance?

The only good news we had learned was that the event was dissipating. As Merlin explained it, all the ether in a vast area had been drawn to a single point, the source of the disaster. Whatever the cause, the "Hole" left behind was slowly being filled with common mana from the surrounding lands, and would likely vanish over time. How this would affect the rest of the island, only the gods knew.

The road bent around a copse of trees, and when we emerged, I spied lights in the distance. Internally I breathed a sigh of relief, it seemed we would reach Caer Afon within the hour.

One of the larger settlements in the region, Caer Afon laid on the Forest of Arden's southern edge, so our investigation of the Hole would begin there, although another feature of the town caught our attention. The locals had organized a small militia based out of an old Roman fort, so this would be our first stop on our recruitment drive in the Midlands.

Bedivere sped past Merlin and rode up to my side.

"My king, it looks like our journey is at an end. Would you like me to head onwards and find a place to stay for the night?"

'Bless you Bedivere, for your initiative.'

Looking at my knight, it was clear that the journey had worn on him despite being the best rider among us. The shoulder of his one remaining arm sagged with fatigue, but despite that, it was just like the man to go the extra mile for his companions.

"If it pleases you Bedivere. That would be much appreciated."

A nice soft bed would be the perfect way to end our travels. I required little sleep, but the road had worn on me as well. Nevertheless, this did not show on my face. A king could show no weakness before their men, even ones as compassionate as Bedivere.

"Uh, Arthur?" Kay spoke up, his voice tinged with worry.

I snapped my gaze to him. "What is it, Kay?" My brother, for all his skirt chasing and wordplay, was not one to worry over nothing.

He pointed at something up the road. "Does that look like a fire to you?"

What?

Sharpening my senses revealed that indeed, there was a burning watchtower in the distance, but even more alarming was the sound of battle cries and the clash on metal on metal. Rest would have to wait, it was time to perform my duty to the people.

"Kay, Bedivere, ride on with me at once. Caer Afon is under attack."