Fate/Kaleid Liner Prisma Taylor

"...And, done!" I said when I finished the new, upgraded wards and spells on Brian's apartment. "Now, if someone comes in here after you to try and hurt me by hurting you, their blood temperature will rise by five degrees, they'll lose all sexual desire and potency for a month, they'll be mildly electrocuted, evicted from the premises, and if they try again they'll get it again and be cursed to die alo-"

I quickly turned around and grabbed my tail in my arms, glaring at Brian's little sister, who had tried to yank it again. "You. Don't push it. I'm still mad at you."

"You put the fluffy tail in front of me," Aisha said, "I'm gonna touch it."

I rolled my eyes. "Anyway," I said as I reverted the Caster Install. "Now I just need to throw in a few runes to make sure that the spells can distinguish between people who are doing it of their own free will and people who are forced into attacking." I drew the Lancer card and prepared to Install when Brian, who seemed a bit uneasy about all of this, interrupted.

"Are you sure that this much is… I mean, why the… Seems a bit excessive," he finished awkwardly.

As I installed Lancer, I decided against telling him that the suite used to include a crotch melting curse. I'd told Lisa about it this morning when I upgraded her apartment's protective spells and her exact words had been 'Taylor? You're one of my best friends and I love you but what the fuck is wrong with you?'

"Young Mister Laborn," Opal said as I started tracing runes in the air with my fingers, "this is the bare minimum that my Master is comfortable leaving those she's close to with at this time. If I had my way, we'd be using instantaneous organ necrosis curses or turning people into newts in such a way that they will not get better."

"How do you get better from turning into a newt?" Aisha asked.

"I have no idea," Opal admitted. "It's just something I've heard about from time to time."

I finished up the context-sensitive runic array. "So, now that this had been taken care of… I really wish I could stay longer...," And I did, "but I'm a superhero in a Warzone. I've got responsibilities. Are you sure you don't want me to put up some security around your dad's house?"

"I'm sure," Brian said neutrally.

"Besides," Aisha chimed in, "a black guy in a poor neighborhood hiring someone to work some voodoo-witchcraft on his house is the kind of thing that makes the skinheads make a house call." That… She sounded rather upbeat about something that I don't think you should be upbeat about.

Opal, it seemed, was about to go on a rant about how the magic I did was different from voodoo magic but she got cut off by an alert from the watch that Armsmaster had given me.

"Emergency," I said gesturing to the lit up button. "Gotta go, I'll call later."

I left the apartment and hit the button to get the message.

F/KLPT

I twirled gracefully through the air, firing off six bullets and destroying six guns before hitting the asphalt in a perfect three-point landing.

I'd landed just in time for Glory Girl and Aegis to knock down three gangers each.

I stood up, ejected the Archer card, and cast my binding spell on the downed enemies. "Check."

A couple of PRT Agents came up from behind us and started looking over the downed Bad Boyz for signs of recent surgeries.

The "emergency" call hadn't been a real emergency. Rather, the PRT had gotten an anonymous tip-off, claiming that the villains were mobilizing, so now the PRT wanted to take out the Bad Boyz fast before we had a full-fledged gang-war in the city, so they'd deputized every hero in the city and sent everyone who was willing to chase Bad Boy sightings.

"You know," Glory Girl said to me, "it's a bit funny that your least lethal card is the one whose power is guns."

"The best way to avoid inflicting unintentional harm," Opal interjected on my behalf, "is to be as precise as possible. An outlaw he may have been, but William Bonney was a legend in part for his incomparable speed and accuracy with a handgun."

"So uh," I said, "I've been meaning to ask, how are things at home after…?"

"Awkward and uncomfortable," Vicky deadpanned.

"Yeah… so how is Panacea, anyway?"

"I uh, haven't seen her much," she admitted. "She's been leaving early for the hospital every morning and staying late. Normal work hours don't apply in a crisis or something like that."

I nodded.

Aegis, who was in charge of this group, was talking to one of the PRT Agents while the other Agents loaded the gangers, who it seemed were bomb-free, into the back of a transport van. Then he took to the air and floated up over to the two of us.

"There's a little more gang activity in this area," he explained. "They want us to-"

He was cut off by being shot in the neck, which made him fall to the street. I jumped back, my heart beating fast at the shock of the sudden attack, and immediately re-installed Archer.

With the power of Archer came clarity. My racing pulse slowed and my awareness of the area expanded as I began to see with the Eye of Archer's Mind. Checking Aegis' already… Well, healing wasn't the right word, but his already mending neck wound to get an idea of where the shooter was.

Glory Girl had already taken to the sky in pursuit when I saw our sniper, perched on the roof of a warehouse.

On instinct, I raised my revolver and fired three simultaneous bullets with a whisper of "Thunderer" on my lips.

The sniper fired at me. One of my bullets perfectly impacted and neutralized his. A second hit the scope on his rifle. The third went right up his barrel.

One second later, as he dropped his gun in shock, Glory Girl settled down right behind him, grabbed him by the collar, and flew him down to us just as Aegis pushed himself back up.

This close, I could make him out a bit better. He was wearing body-armor over his Bad Boy colored outfit, a red and green bandana covering his face. "Heh. Guess I'm caught," he said coldly.

"Yeah, you're caught..." Aegis said weakly. Seemed his throat had gotten damaged.

"You're really calm for somebody who just got caught shooting at some young Superheroes," Glory Girl observed.

"There's a bomb in my chest," he said with disturbing calmness. "I'm dead either way, once Bakuda finds out that the hero-trap failed." Behind us, one of the PRT agents cursed.

"Look," I said, "if you're being forced to work for them against your will, we can-"

He laughed at me. "I was there."

"What?"

"I was there when you were flipping the fuck out," he explained while looking right at me. "Back in January. A Panicked white girl running around near Lung's territory… My brother, my cousin, and I… We had to put a stop to that. It was my idea to wipe the puke into your hair."

My stomach clenched, but I took a breath and let it pass. "And?"

"My brother's in prison after you and Glory Hole made him squeal and spill where one of the bitch-breaking farms was. My cousin's dead-Lung tracked him down and killed him for desertion after he ran the night you fought Lung… Āyí blamed me for that. Said it never would have happened if I hadn't been a bad influence on him. Really, I think it's your fault though."

I blinked. "How?"

"I just noticed," he said, "that things started to go to shit for the Bad Boyz in general and my family in particular when you pulled that stick out of your ass and chased us off… My family's all either gone or hates me… I figured I had nothing to lose volunteering for a suicide mission. Was hoping I'd get a chance to put a bullet in your head," he finished. I could practically taste the hate and bile on his words

"Your choices and your family's choices are yours," I said shakily.

He laughed again. "Saito Repairs."

My eyes widened. "What!?"

Oh my god, I'd completely forgotten about Mister Saito.

"The fucker who runs the place has been holed up there since the offensive started," the prisoner explained. "Been hiding neighbors in his basement, barricaded the doors… fought off three attempts to conscript him by force." He laughed bitterly. "Lung, and Bakuda, and the Oni… They were getting frustrated, then someone said he saw you hanging you there. Now Lung's heading there to kill the fucker himself."

And that was when I figured my heart had stopped, Archer's senses or not.

"Also," he finished, "I'm wearing a toe ring that lets me manually set off my bomb and I just activated it. In conclusion, fuck off Princess!"

Then he started twitching.

Glory Girl's own eyes went wide and she chucked the guy back in the direction of the warehouse he'd been perched on. As his body distorted, I ejected the Archer Card and with a wave of Opal encased him in a bubble of prana to contain the blast.

He went off and the bubble quickly turned crimson, then shattered.

And we were left staring at a pool of gore in the pavement.

"Princess?" Aegis said as he came up behind me, voice still weak.

"I need to go," I said. "If I can get there fast enough I can..." I can't believe I forgot about Mister Saito...

"I don't think-"

"I know exactly where the shop is! While you're finishing here and calling in about this, I can fly there, drop an emergency beacon, and start setting up defensive wards to fortify the place."

I didn't wait for a response before I took off flying towards the edge of the docks.

F/KLPT

Saito repairs looked abandoned, with boards over the windows and doors. On the other hand, if Lung had been here it'd probably have been burned down, so…

I approached the roof, only for a man in an urban camo hooded poncho to leap up from under the raised edges on the roof and take aim right at me with an arrow knocked to a high-quality modern sporting bow.

And then he lowered it. "Sorry. Thought you were one of Lung's."

I landed on the roof, pressing the emergency beacon button on my watch as I did.

Mister Saito lowered his hood. "Taylor? Or, should I say Princess? What are you doing here?"

"Lung's on his way here," I said. "He found out that I know you and he's coming to get you to get to me."

"I see," Mister Saito acknowledged calmly.

"But, the Protectorate already knows he's coming," I explained. I pulled out my Caster Card. "if you head back inside, I can throw up some spells to keep him out until they get here and..."

Mister Saito wasn't moving from his position.

"Taylor? May I tell you something?"

"Uh, yeah..."

"Ever since I was a small child," Mister Saito began, "all I've ever wanted to do is help people. Do you know why Kyushu sank?"

"Leviathan sank it," I answered automatically.

"Well, that's technically true," Mister Saito explained, "but, some experts suggest that the beast would have wandered off with the island mostly intact if it hadn't been held there by a drawn-out duel with another monster who vaguely resembled a Western-style dragon."

Mister Saito took a long, drawn-out breath. "Countless people were lost at sea, my homeland suffered a blow it will probably never recover from, and the man I admired most in the world gave his life, because Lung, that man… that inhuman thing chose to engage in an extended battle with an invincible monster instead of focusing on evacuating or helping others to evacuate as would have been sensible."

Mister Saito looked sad. And tired. "I spent a lifetime refining my skills so as to best help others, moved to a new land where I felt I could make the most of what I had… To find a significant portion of my new home town under the shackles of the monster who had so much blood on his hands. Who spent so much time forcing everyone who even looked like they were from East Asia to join or support his gang… For the past few years, I've been forced to keep my head down, lest I attract Lung's attention… I'm so tired of it, Taylor. All I want to do is help people. If Lung's coming for me regardless, I might as well face him."

"No!" I shouted. "Lung's… Lung's a monster. He'll..."

"Taylor," Mister Saito said, "I assure you, I can handle myself better than you might think. If you're at all worried, then go inside," he gestured to the door on the roof, "and work your magic to keep my neighbors safe while I do what I feel mu-"

He was cut off by sudden automatic gunfire. It tore through him like, like…

The gunfire went on for nearly a minute, or at least that's what it felt like, watching the hot lead force his body to convulse like a live-current was going through it.

And then it quieted, and Mister Saito's riddled corpse collapsed on the roof. I… I couldn't look away. I…

"The irony here, Ohime-sama," Opal literally growled at Lung's voice, "is that he may have had a chance to flee, or at least die in a more dignified manner, if you hadn't tried to warn him of my arrival."

There's an old short story. I think it was adapted into a computer game at some point. I don't remember the whole thing, but there's a passage that I recalled, just after Lung said that… 'There are 387.44 million miles of printed circuits in wafer thin layers that fill my complex,' the story's rogue AI villain had said, 'if the word hate was engraved on each nanoangstrom… it would not equal one one-billionth of the hatred I feel for humans at this micro-instant.'

I don't think that the computer in that story could begin to comprehend how much rage I felt in this moment.

I turned, clenching the Caster Card in my fist so hard that I was bleeding, to face Lung and the dozen men he'd brought with him. I could barely make him out through the tears welling up in my eyes. "...I'm going... kill you..."

"What was that, brat?" Lung called back to me. He sounded like he was laughing. The fucker hadn't even done his own dirty work.

"I SAID I'M GOING TO KI-!"

I cut off when I noticed Mister Saito getting back up. He was a little shaky, but… He pulled off his tattered poncho and tore off the bullet-riddled tank-top he'd had on underneath it. Bullets were popping out of his flesh. I could have sworn I could make out something shiny in his bullet wounds.

"How?" I asked, taken aback.

"Not everyone dies when they're killed, Princess."

"Miniaturized blades that reinforce the body and knit together damaged flesh..." Lung said in understanding. "That's Muramasa's technology."

"He called it A.V.A.L.O.N.," the now mended Mister Saito, shirtless with rapidly growing hair but otherwise healthy and whole. "I never did learn what the acronym stood for, but I know that Father was very proud of it… My only complaint is that the healing feature accelerates the metabolism. There's supposed to be something to compensate, but the sped up hair-growth is a bit inconvenient when you have to dye your hair." Then I noticed that Mister Saito's roots were Orange.

"I hope that you don't think a piece of decades-old tinker-tech makes you my equal," Lung said menacingly.

"Don't worry," Mister Saito-Mister Miyazaki, if he really was Muramasa's son-said. "I have some tricks of my own."

He held out a hand, clasped around something invisible. Energy formed in his hand, tracing out the outline of a katana with something not unlike an engine at the crossguard. "Trace..." Mister Saito started. Purple cubes surged through it in a wave and a solid sword took its place "...on!"

The engine-like-thing began humming and frost rapidly formed across the katana's blade, with mist flowing off of it.

"Projection Magecraft..." Opal said. "Princess, when we're done with this brute we're going to have to have a long talk with Mister Saito."

As the swordsman took a stance, I held up my Class Card. "Install: Caster."

Once I'd finished my transformation into Tamamo-no-Mae, I took my place next to the cursed-tinker's son.

*End*

AN: Yeah. Muramasa was an Alt Kiritsugu, Shirou Saito is this world's Shirou Emiya. How he can use magic in Earth Bet shall be explained in a later chapter.