Disclaimer: The works of Type-Moon and Jō Taketsuki are their own despite my most fervent wishes. This is a fan work and if anyone does pay me for it the only thing it will accomplish is to get me into trouble. This is being done purely for fun, constructive criticism is welcome, and flames will be ignored. Please be gentle though, this is the first fanfic I've put on the net.

My apologies that this chapter took so long to write. I'm afraid that half way through my muse deserted me and left completely stuck. In the end I began writing a Game of Thrones fic and that finally got my creative juices running enough that I was able to complete this chapter. If anyone's interested don't expect the GOT fic to be out too soon, at the moment it's more a loose collection of scenes rather than a structured story. Well, with any luck I should be able to change that in the future.

Damn it! I was really hoping that Illya would meet a kinder fate in the anime, but it looks like they decided to stick to the original Unlimited Blade Works plot. It really broke my heart to see her die like that, even if she did have some comfort at the end. On the other hand they managed to get the confrontation between Shirou and Archer almost spot on, far better than the Unlimited Blade Works movie. Another thing they did which was vastly superior was the final battle between Shirou and Gilgamesh. In the movie it was a real botch up, I mean Shirou finally uses Unlimited Blade Works and then the only sword he uses is Caliburn? Isn't that the exact opposite of the bloody point?!

In the series though they got it pretty much spot on, if you haven't seen it yet then I suggest you find it as soon as you can! The only down side to the episode was that Saber didn't stick around, guess they went with the True ending as opposed to the Good one. Sad, but I get why they did it.

On a different note, I've now got 4000 reviews and have had almost one and a half million views on the story itself. WOOHOO! I just want to take the time to thank all my readers who have made this fic vastly more successful than I ever imagined it would be.

SPOILERS.

Well, this chapter sees a number of reveals, but one of the main ones that I like is how Odysseus turned out. When I originally planned Apollo I intended him to be somewhat like how Odysseus is depicted here, silent, focused on the job of killing his enemy and aware that he mustn't give even an inch when dealing with such dangerous prey. When I wrote Apollo this ended up going out of the window because it didn't seem right for a god of theatre, among other things, to let dramatic moments pass him by. Odysseus has turned out far better and more in line with what I wanted, smart, genre savvy, flexible but not overpowered. All in all I'm quite pleased with him and I hope that you, my readers, are as well.

If anyone is wondering what the new Excalibur looks like then all you have to do is look up 'Excalibur Prototype'. It's the original design that Type Moon came up with when they first started work on Fate/Stay Night, and in my opinion it does have elements of Avalon, Arondight and the final design for Excalibur in its appearance.

In regards to just what my Excalibur is capable of, well that's going to come up later. This Excalibur is a sort of fusion of an Authority and a Noble Phantasm and as such is a unique existence.

Black Prince Alec has also made his move which will bring my story into the next phase of my plot. This was one of the events I've been planning since I started writing, though some of the details have altered as new ideas came up and were integrated.

I would once more like to thank my Beta for all his hard work and useful suggestions, rest assured that his aid always leads to a superior chapter than it would be if I just put it up as soon as I was done.


Chapter Twenty Eight: Conflict, Create and Connect

In Yusuke's cabin aboard the yacht a hum echoed through the small room as the carved tablet practically vibrated in place. Had there been any witnesses present they would have seen the figure etched onto its surface seem to dance and writhe upon the tablet.

There was nothing human in its movements; it didn't bend at the joints as a man would. Why should it? It wasn't as though it actually had limbs to move. Instead the lines that made up its form seemed to bulge and squirm as they transitioned from one pose directly to another. One instant he was standing, his fists raised to the sky, the next he was crouched, his fingers digging into the ground beneath him.

There was something oddly . . . frantic about the poses that the depicted god was taking. He clawed at the ground, he hammered on the air, his every action seemed driven by a need to escape the very tablet upon which he was carved, and his urgency, his need, was such that it was almost palpable.

Still, such was only to be expected. Power called to power after all, and at this moment the divine energies trapped within the tablet could sense the proximity of their larger selves. They had been close for some time now, but the link had been muted and indistinct. While the greater part of them was still hiding itself the powers within the tablet had been unable to properly orient themselves upon it.

Now that had changed. The larger part was no longer hiding itself; indeed it was flaring its power high as it engaged in battle. The divinity in the carved stone could, for the first time in centuries, sense its original owner.

So it was small wonder that for the first time since its sealing into this tablet the trapped power was trying to break free.

Tiny cracks began to form about the edges of the stone, tiny hair thin ones. For the moment they were barely noticeable, but with every passing moment more and more grew.

The escape of the power was now an inevitability, it simply a question of when it would take place.


-()-


Shirou coughed again.

Damn it, the tickling in his throat was getting worse with every passing moment. He'd thought that things would be coming to a close soon, what with the diminishing strength of the attacks being sent against him. But as it turned out his foe was drawing on deeper reserves of strength than Shirou had anticipated. It was true that the power behind each arrow had decreased, but the rate of fire had more than swelled to make up for it.

In a way it made sense, a good way to counter his current method of defence. As it stood he'd been using the superior speed and skill granted to him by Arondight and Dragon Slaying Hero to deal with the attacks. That had been a sensible approach to the original rate of fire, but as the power dropped and the rate increased it became clear this wasn't sustainable. The simple fact was that the arrows didn't need so much power in them, not if they scored a direct hit. The flesh of a Campione might be as resilient as chain mail and kevlar, but even so those arrows could probably hurt him enough to slow him down. That would in turn make it easier to hit him more which would leave him further vulnerable. If taken to its logical conclusion . . .

Was that the plan? Had the whole point of the attacks up until now been to sucker him into his enemies pace rather than him being the one taking the initiative?

It made a worrying degree of sense. Up to this point the attacks had been of negligible threat, but if the whole point of them had been to trick him, then the entire fight up until this point took on a decidedly different tone to it.

No, he couldn't afford to be complacent anymore. No more trying to wait out his enemy, no more playing defensively. He still didn't want to start busting out the 'level the local landscape' type weapons, but he had other cards he could play. The Armour of the Champion would probably be his best option. Its overwhelming defensive abilities would be able to laugh off the arrows and their accompanying explosions like thistle down against tank armour. It would also give him a further boost to his physical abilities, even if only a minor one. That combined with the increases that he already had from his sword and his other Authority and the nigh invulnerability his armour granted would completely alter the dynamic of the fight.

Another wracking cough shook his form, and he spat out something thick and slimy that he'd just hacked up.

And maybe the healing aspect of Armour of the Champion would help to get this damned dust out of his lungs. It just kept on getting worse as more of those arrows were thrown around. Wiping the last of the spittle off on his shirt sleeve Shirou dismissed the thought and focused back on the matter at hand.

Yes, no more defensiveness, he was going on the attack. Stretching out his left hand the red haired teen Traced a nameless Noble Phantasm. It was a simple dagger, a D rank weapon that possessed minor anti-fire capabilities, but at the moment that was hardly of any importance. What mattered was that the care put into its forging as well as the deeds it had been used to commit granted it a weighty enough 'existence' in the world to make it an acceptable sacrifice of Steel for him to use his Authority. Even as the freshly created weapon dissolved into grey sand, which in turn faded from existence, he began to speak the spell words that would call forth the armour he needed.

"I am Steel, Steel that-"

The rest of the incantation to invoke the Authority was cut off as pain ripped through him.

No, perhaps pain wasn't the best word that could be used to describe the sensation that assailed him. He didn't hurt, not seriously; rather it had been as though a severe electric shock had just struck his entire nervous system at once. His limbs, his entire body really, had spasmed so sharply and violently that it had been as though a physical blow had hit him everywhere at once.

Shirou collapsed to the ground. It wasn't a matter of losing his balance or concentration, he did everything he could to stay afoot and ready. The problem was straight and simple mechanics, the muscles in his body had all momentarily slipped from his control. Simple gravity bore him to the ground even as he struggled to regain control of himself.

He hit the ground hard; the force was enough to drive the air from his lungs. Still something worked to his favour, because somehow the same shock that had robbed him of his strength ran through him once more as he impacted on the dirt. This time rather than stealing control it returned it. His strength was still largely gone, but at least he could move, at least he could act.

Then he sucked in air and the coughing hit him again.

There was nothing he could do. He knew that any moment now another shaft could come cutting through the air at him, but it made no difference. The action was completely involuntary, all he could do was crawl on his hands and knees as his lungs seemed to try to escape his body via his throat. He felt something dripping down his chin, something warm and sticky. Instinctively his hand came up to wipe it away.

His hand came away from his mouth crimson with blood.

Shirou stared down at his hand, then his eyes darted to the sleeve of his shirt. There too dark red stains of drying blood marred the white of his thin sweater's arm.

Wha-

The arrow struck him on the left side of his body and exploded with a power that sent him careening across the small clearing with enough force that when he struck the trunk of a tree, leafs were shaken free. More coughs wracked him, but Shirou forced his limbs to move even as he hit the ground.

He couldn't run, he just didn't have the strength for it; instead it was a scramble on all fours, like some desperate animal. Blood splattered to the ground, both from his mouth where he spat it out and from the ugly wound in his side. In his head he could almost hear Luo Hao rebuking him, telling him that Kings such as them should comport themselves with unmatchable dignity and grandness, that he should be ashamed of himself to be reduced to such a state by an enemy he had yet to even see.

Ugghh, maybe the collision with the tree hand rattled something loose in his head if he was really taking that seriously.

Dismissing such addled thoughts from his mind the eighth Campione forced his mind to focus on the matter at hand. The spot he was currently occupying wasn't a bad one, but it was by no means safe. As he was he slumped between two boulders and the cliff side, meaning that his attacker only had a single direction to attack him from.

. . . Or they could just hit one of the boulders with a sufficiently powerful exploding arrow and topple it over onto Shirou.

. . . Or they could fire the arrow at the cliff face above him and bring the whole thing crashing down onto the King of Steel and bury him alive.

No, this spot wasn't safe, but he couldn't move yet, he just didn't have the streng-

It all happened so fast that it took place in that fraction of a second before his conscious mind could fully engage. He saw the arrow coming at him, the head glowing with power as it shot directly at chest. Without a thought his hand came up and the words came to his lips.

"Trace On."

The shield that formed was large and heavy. It was round in design and big enough to cover his entire body. It was a Spartan shield, the type used by the same legendary warriors that had held against impossible odds in the famed battle of Thermopylae. This shield of wood and bronze had once been a mortal weapon, but legend and belief had transformed it into something greater.

And now it was all that stood between Shirou and death.


-()-


The time for waiting was over now. No more trickery in order to spin things out, now was the time for the kill.

At least metaphorically anyway.

Odysseus grimaced in displeasure as he lined up another arrow and released it at his foe. To actually kill the young god slayer at this point wouldn't have been too daunting a task. With the poisons in his system he was unable to call upon new Authorities to strengthen him, not without tearing up his organs from within. To be sure he still retained much of his strength, but with every passing moment more and more of it was slipping away from him, like sand from a fist.

But his death wasn't what was needed. Indeed his death was something to be avoided as it could spell the ruin of all the god's hopes. What he needed was the energies that clung to Emiya Shirou, the other parts of the strange otherworldly power that he had first encountered in Naples and had painstakingly tracked across the world.

However those energies were now tied to the very lifeforce of the young man who had been titled the King of Steel. If Odysseus was to take those energies in order to complete the power he had tied to his own vitality then it would mean the death of the young King. However the process by which they would be extracted from Emiya Shirou was a complex and fragile one, a process that could be easily disrupted if the red haired teen were to resist.

That was what this battle was all about, Odysseus had to not only defeat his foe but also break him, even if it was only temporarily. Even something as simple as rendering the eighth Campione unconscious would have been enough, since it would leave him unresisting long enough for the deed to be done.

A simple plan in theory, but in execution it was proving to be far more challenging. Campione were not easily prey to bring down. An attack was more likely to kill them than it was to knock them out, their enhanced bodies and vitalities kept them going well beyond the point where they should have collapsed into insensibility. Right now he was having to carefully balance the threat of his attacks so that even though they would hurt, they would not kill.

Seeing Emiya Shirou pull himself into the cleft between two boulders the hero god used the Authority of Travel that was a part of his legend to change position once more. This time he let his quarry see the arrow coming. The shot was aimed at the young King's chest as clearly as the sun at midday. It was a careful shot, one meant to be frightening but not lethal if he was unable to dodge it. Had it struck the arrow would miss the heart by just under an inch and instead punch through one of the teen's lungs. A grave wound, but not one that would kill him thanks to his enhanced body.

But the eighth Campione didn't dodge, instead he raised one hand and a swarm of blue glowing motes coalesced into a large hoplite shield. The arrow impacted upon the Spartan weapon, but despite its seemingly mortal construction it held. Flames washed over its surface, and the force of the detonation drove it back into its wielder, but it held.

Odysseus's eyes narrowed as he called forth another arrow. That was a new trick. He'd been aware that his target could use his strange magic to create weapons on par with divine arms, but he'd been unaware that he could also do the same with shields. He had to be careful, Authorities were powers of immense potency, the very keys to divine supremacy, but at the same time they were a known quantity and something he could plan for. Between him and Circe they had been able to concoct the poison that now coursed through the eighth Campione's veins. It wouldn't last for long, but for a time it would render the god slayer unable to use the powers he had usurped from his victims.

The magic that Emiya Shirou used was another matter though. Normally Odysseus would not have concerned himself with any mortal magic since it was an incontrovertible truth that the magic of humanity could not harm a god. If a mortal were to borrow the power of a fellow divinity then they could conceivably harm a divine being, but even then they were a minimal threat. The magic of the King of Steel was a different matter entirely, a power that broke the rules by being a genuine threat without the aid of a god's power. It was something that the hero god had little knowledge of and couldn't plan around with the accuracy he desired.

But that was acceptable; things had progressed beyond the point where such an unpredictable factor could turn them around. Emiya Shirou was wounded and poisoned to the point where the Authorities he wasn't currently using were beyond his reach, in time even the one he currently held would slip from him.

All he needed to do was keep the pressure up, not let his foe have the opportunity to turn things around. He knew he still had to be careful, after all only a fool would underestimate a Devil King, no matter how dire their situation was. But he was sure that if he maintained his focus and continued his attack as he was doing then victory would be his.

Across from him Emiya Shirou's bloodied form staggered forth from the smoke of the detonation. Though the shield he'd conjured up had protected him from direct damage it had done nothing to block the cloud of poisoned dust that the arrow had released. Even now he was violently coughing as he stumbled forwards.

Odysseus released another shaft, this time aiming at the young King's shoulder. But once again the arrow was cut from the air as the disquieting dark blade that his target held in a death grip swept through the air with blinding speed. Even poisoned as he was the eighth Campione remained a dangerous quarry.

Well, that was alright, time was on the travelling god's side.

Shifting positions once more Odysseus notched another shaft and took aim once more.


-()-


Illya ducked to once side as her puppet Berserker dodged in the opposite direction. The movements came not a split second too soon as a shaft of radiant silver steel cut through the spot that they had just vacated.

The white haired Einzbern heir knew full well how dangerous those bolts were. There was a foot wide gap missing from her artificial Servant's left shield where it had tried to block one such assault. Had it not ducked at the same time that it had raised the massive metal slab then it might well have lost its head in the bargain. The simple fact was that for all the power and skill Illya had invested into their creation the Mystic Codes were still mortal constructs, no match for a true divine power like the one she now faced.

In the sea the ocean waters were being churned to white froth as Snappy battled with the serpent. Flashes of electricity lit up the whole bay as the creature of the light goddess released shock after shock against Tiamat's child, but it was proving to be having only minor effects upon the multi-limbed monstrosity. The problem was that though the serpent wasn't able to hurt Snappy in any meaningful way the same seemed to be true for Tiamat's creation. Illya hadn't been able to see too much, but what she'd been able to make out made it seem that the serpent was too agile to be caught by Snappy's jaws and its scales were too tough to be penetrated by the stingers in the tentacles.

So, with no swift resolution to the battle being immediately available, the pair of beasts had settled down into a ferocious straight battle. The winner would be the one that either ran out of endurance first or simply had the poorer luck. Either way, it wasn't going to end any time soon.

The situation on the beach wasn't any better. The huge archer had apparently selected her false Servant as its main target and had been focusing upon him to the exclusion of everything else. That would normally have been an opening for the snow haired girl's allies to strike from the sides, but they were having problems of their own.

Manaka, Kaida, Guinevere and Tiamat were all engaged in trying to keep the huge eagle from kicking up a hurricane. So far they had managed to keep things from getting worse, but it was pretty clear that the enormous bird was a powerful divine beast. Most of Manaka's spells had glanced off it as ineffectively as they would have had it been a true god, though for some reason it didn't like being struck by lightning spells. Kaida was hanging back for the most part, but she had jumped in once to use a Dragon's Roar to deflect a blown boulder that would have struck her friend otherwise. Her Roar had hit the large rock with such force that it had been sent straight at the divine beast as though it had been fired from a cannon. It hadn't done any apparent harm, despite its thunderous impact, but it had exploded into enough rock dust that the eagle had been blinded for a few precious seconds.

By contrast Guinevere and Tiamat were doing better, but that was only due to them being able to inflict any sort of damage at all rather than none. The Witch Queen of Britannia was clearly doing her best to conserve her strength, but even so the occasional fireballs that she hurled detonated against the eagle's feathers with gratifying force. Sadly they weren't doing much more than slightly singeing the feather tips, but it was enough that the beast would cease empowering its hurricane in favour of trying to avoid another such hit.

Tiamat, on the other hand, was being far more aggressive as bright blasts of light licked out to strike at the huge bird's eyes and throat. As with the Divine Ancestor's attacks hers weren't doing much more than superficial damage, but her attacks were much more frequent and they forced the eagle to turn away far more often. All in all it wasn't coming to much, but at least the powerful monster wasn't able to bring its full might to bear.

As for the goddess that had summoned them, she seemed to be content to remain in her form of a swirling mass of golden lights, a fact that irked Illya somewhat. On the one hand it was a good thing that the heretic goddess wasn't adding her own might to the fray, had she done so then the severe situation would have gone to flat out hopeless in very short order. On the other hand the fact that she wasn't stepping in signified that there was more at work here than her simply wanting to do away with them all. And that meant that she was just trying to keep them occupied.

Shirou, he had to be the main target. It was the only possibility that made sense.

Cutting them off from him was a way to deny him aid or back up, which in turn most likely mean that he was already being engaged by another god. This goddess was just a collaborator, someone intended to keep them engaged and out of the way. Exactly why they weren't simply being killed to ensure they couldn't do anything was unclear, but the Einzbern heir wasn't complaining about it.

Then another arrow was shooting towards her puppet and she had no more time for contemplation.

That archer was the real reason that she couldn't do anything to aid the others. She was sure that if she had been able to join her power to either of the other struggles going on then she'd have been able to swing the odds in their favour at the very least. Though it was a reduced version of the Servant that had served her so faithfully during the Holy Grail War her creation was still immensely powerful, enough that it had been able to tear other divine beasts apart with minimal difficulty. If she could close with either the serpent or the eagle she was sure that her puppet would have been able to wring the life from them with his bare hands.

Unfortunately the gigantic archer was proving to be a nearly ideal counter to her creation. The speed with which it repeatedly fire wasn't all that great, but each time that one of those arrows was released the power behind it was tremendous. Illya wasn't able to measure it with any great degree of accuracy, but she was fairly sure that if it did hit the false Berserker it would be more than strong enough to rip through his imitation God Hand Noble Phantasm.

The only way that she could be sure that she could avoid the shots was if she kept her distance. With enough room she could tell where the shot was going to go and could use the speed of her puppet to get it out of the way. The problem was that if she closed with the archer then she'd be unable to make that distinction and the next arrow would be right on target.

Simply put, it was a stand off.

And that was most likely exactly what the goddess attacking them wanted. It didn't matter why she didn't want to kill them, what was important was that she was keeping them from helping Shirou. She needed to do something to break the deadlock, either to destroy the giant or get away from him. Oh . . . wait, Shirou would probably be unhappy if she left Tiamat and Guinevere to their deaths after she saved Kaida and Manaka. It wouldn't be too much of a loss in her eyes, but he'd probably be disappointed in her.

No! She mustn't let her mind wander, not at this point. What she needed was a plan of attack, some way to . . .

Ah, that could work.

It was simple really; so much so that she'd missed it earlier . . . in fact it was TOO simple. This had all the hallmarks of being a trap rather than an opportunity. On the face of it the opening she could take advantage of was simple, wait until the giant had fired an arrow then immediately afterwards attack by throwing one of her puppet's shields at it. Given its relatively slow ability to draw fresh arrows it wouldn't be able to regain one swiftly enough to simply shoot the thrown shield out of the air. It seemed like a fairly safe bet, but she simply couldn't believe that a manifestation of divine power would be so easily defeated. It had to be a trap of some sort.

But could she afford not to take the chance? Maybe the bow wielding warrior had some tricks that he had yet to show, but Illya had one or two aces of her own that she could use if it came down to it. The only problem was that she wasn't too sure that such cards would be enough to ensure her success.

Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

The next shot from the huge bowman came on the heels of that thought, a flash of silvery steel aiming to take her imitation Servant just below the throat. Had the attack struck true then it might well have blasted away her Berserker's head and shoulders into fine mist. Perhaps his copied God Hand would have allowed him to regenerate from such a level of damage, but she had no desire to test that out.

Instead she had her creation moving before the arrow had been released from the string, moving at speeds that even the finest mortal mage would have been unable to duplicate. A single side step brought it out of the line of fire, then her puppet continued the step as it turned like a discus thrower building momentum. In a single savage motion that had every scrap of the false Servant's considerable mass behind it her creation came whipping around and hurled its right arm shield straight at the divine bowman.

The shield tore through the air, rotating so fast that the teeth along its edge made a buzzing noise like a horde of enraged wasps. It cut through the intervening space with even greater speed and ferocity than the earlier attack against the one eyed giant.

But it wasn't enough.

With a grace and swiftness that even a Servant would have found impressive the giant bowman swung his bow as though it were a staff. The angle and speed of the swing were perfectly calculated and the bow avoided even touching the vicious teeth that lined the edge of the shield and instead struck its centre, the part against which its wielders arm would normally rest. It was a simple target, at least in theory, but in practice it was a fiendishly tough target given the speeds and force with which the shield moved.

Regardless of the difficulty the blow was enough to send the shield careening off to the side, harmlessly bypassing the intended target. A most impressive achievement.

Then the second shield was coming straight at the divine giant. Again the bow whipped about like a staff and the shield was deflected, though this time with less skill as the movement seemed a bit frantic. Rather than being spun off to the side the giant bowman was forced to make a harder defection, one that lacked the elegance of his first success. There was definite vexation on his face as he turned to face her now weaponless puppet, a fresh arrow forming in his hand as he glared down at his attacker.

In response Illya simply smiled at him as she watched her plan come together.

Both the shields hadn't been blocked, they had been deflected. That meant that both had gone flying off in different directions much of their power still intact. However rather than continue their flight both had changed course as the magic in the shields drew them back towards each other. In the space of only a couple of seconds they had gone from flying in opposite directions to heading straight towards each other.

And the divine bow user was directly between them.

This had been a trick that Illya had seen Shirou practicing for months now. By using Traced versions of those black and white Chinese swords that were always drawn back together her brother was able to pull off all sorts of seemingly impossible tricks. She'd once watched him Trace three pairs of the Noble Phantasms, their paths through the air curving in all sorts of impossible ways, to attack a training post from multiple directions all at once. From what she'd seen the crux of the skill was his ability to keep track of how each swords pull affected the others. By use of careful timing and spacing he could throw one weapon and cause three others to strike his target from a variety of angles.

What she was doing was a far simpler and cruder approximation, but she was quite proud that she was able to pull it off using her puppet's enhanced senses and reflexes.

However despite being caught between the oncoming spinning discs of death the bowman gave no indication of concern. Instead each of his hands lashed out at the shields as they entered his reach, his speed blinding and his movements sure.

There was an explosion . . . and then suddenly the shields were once more flying to the side, this time parallel to each other even as they were drawing closer together.

The important part was that they were heading away from the divine archer.

By the looks of things the act hadn't come easily to the giant, the arrow he'd been holding had been reduced to glittering splinters and even the bow seemed to be smoking slightly. For a moment Illya felt pride that the Mystic Codes that she'd crafted had been able to match up against literally divine weapons so well. Granted, they hadn't escaped unscathed, but the fact that they were even still intact was a major point in their favour.

The huge archer turned his attention back to her puppet, but Illya had one last trick to play.

"TRACE ON!"

The thing about Shirou's magic was that technically it was simply a more advanced version of one of the simplest forms of magecraft to exist. That meant that in theory just about any semi-competent mage could have duplicated it. In practice though, without the unique mix of affinity, temperament and natural ability that her adopted brother possessed, the results were pitiful by comparison. When looked at from that perspective it meant that his Mystery would never be in danger of having its power divided.

Illya was able to cheat by using her family's Wishcraft Sorcery Trait. The results were still lacklustre, and the cost for this single Tracing was astronomical for her, but for this one task it would be enough.

Blue light crackled before her, not the careful condensation of prana that Shirou used, instead lines of blue light shot through the air and wove themselves into the form of a third shield. In an instant the glowing cords of energy condensed and there was a third shield stabbing into the ground just before Illya. In the next moment her puppet was behind her, one huge hand reaching out to hold the shield in place.

The introduction of the third shield was the crux of her plan as its presence reached out to the others and drew them back. The divine giant must have realized something was off, because in the act of materializing another arrow he paused for a split second. It was a small thing, but it was all that the Einzbern heiress needed.

Drawn by the pull of the magic linking them all the two shields buzzed to meet their third sibling.

And, once again, the only thing in the way was a certain giant archer.

It was close, so close that it was almost painful to see it slip away. The bowman must have seen something in her face at the last instant, even though she'd been straining to keep her expression a mask that gave away nothing. Granted, she probably hadn't been doing a very good job since this was contrary to her nature, but she had been trying.

Whatever the case something alerted him, because at the last possible instant he spun in place and brought up his bow to block the two shields. It was a move that no mortal could have managed to pull off, but this was a manifestation of divine power.

The two huge shields slammed into the comparatively thin bow with a force comparable to a runaway truck at full speed, only concentrated into their spinning edges.

Both the shields and the bow exploded into glittering shards.

Illya could have stopped to think of many things. She could have exulted in the knowledge that creations she had made had been able to clash with a divine weapon and manage a mutual destruction. She could have frozen with indecision as to what to do next, as to whether she should aid the others, retreat or something else. She could have tried to make a break to join Shirou.

Instead she didn't even pause to think, she simply summoned the Noble Phantasm her onii-san had given her, reinforced her body as much as she safely could and then did something extremely foolish.

She had her puppet pick her up and hurl her straight at the now weaponless archer.

It was a reckless move that Shirou would have yelled at her for using if he'd known about it, something she regarded as hypocritical since she was convinced he'd have done the exact same thing in her situation. The thing was that at a gut level she knew it was her only option that had any chance of success. Fast as it was her puppet couldn't cover the distance separating them in the time available, so this was the only option.

Actually . . . reckless wasn't a sufficiently strong enough word to cover what she was doing. 'Insane' might have been a bit closer to the mark. The speed at which she was going, the sheer force with which her creation had thrown her, it was more than enough to break her bones, pulverize her organs, rip open her veins. Rather than attacking she would have been nothing but a ruined lump of meat after having travelled only a few metres. At least, that would have been the case had she been a normal girl.

But she wasn't, and even before the false Servant's hand had closed around her Illya had already been fortifying her body's entire structure with every scrap of prana it could safely handle.

Using Reinforcement upon one's own body was regarded as one of the peaks that could be achieved with that relatively minor magecraft. To use most forms of thaumaturgy was to flirt with death, but self Reinforcement was one that brushed it a bit closer than average. One mistake, one lapse of judgement was all that it would take for the mage's own power to tear them apart from the inside out. Rin had been quite skilled in its use, and Shirou had become adept at an extreme form of it once he'd had Archer's arm attached.

By contrast Illya had a number of advantages over both of them. Firstly the quality of her magic circuits was vastly superior to either of them, as were her reserves of power. Secondly as the child of a 'product' of the Einzbern family she possessed a more robust and durable body than a child of her apparent age could have hoped to possess, a body that responded marvellously to the prana forced through it. To be sure while she was in motion she was unable to move since the same reinforcement that flowed through her had also rendered her body immobile, but it would hopefully be enough. Thirdly, Wishcraft allowed her to 'cheat' once more, though the cost in prana was once more enormous. And lastly, though she was of a different flavour than Rin, Illya was a genius in her own right.

Her body took the punishment. Her sundress ripped, and one of her sandals fell away as she shot through the air, but her body held together. Her eyes stung in the wind, but they remained fixed on her target. She saw the giant turning back to her, his movements impossibly fast. She saw him catch sight of her, saw him raise one arm to ward her off.

Too late. Just a tiny fraction of a second too late.

THUNK!

It had been tiny, but it had been enough. Like an arrow the white haired girl shot under the raised arm and the blade of the Beautiful Head Taker sank into the glowing flesh of the giant at a spot just below his throat. Just as she hoped the Noble Phantasm bit deep into the 'flesh' of the giant. As a divine being her shields had been limited in just how much damage they could cause, but a legendary weapon created by the magic of a Devil King? That was another matter altogether.

Dropping her enhanced reinforcement for the more mundane variety Illya moved like the most practiced of dancers, the skills imparted upon her by the Noble Phantasm she held telling her exactly what she needed to do. Rolling with the impact she swung from the handle of the naginata like a gymnast upon a pole, twisting the weapon so the wound was opened further, then dropped her weight all in one go so that she descended to the ground. And as she did so she held tight to her naginata, so the blade cut down in a long bloody wound as it came down with her all the way to the belt of his loincloth.

Despite being seemingly made out of light the huge bowman was fleshy and solid, enough so that glowing ichor spilled forth from his wound in an oddly radiant waterfall. He didn't cry out, but a dull groan did force its way past his lips as his left arm came up to hold his chest closed. In his right a new arrow formed, and as it took on substance the glare he directed at Illya left little doubt as to what he intended to do with it. Though it was only an arrow to the colossal archer from her perspective it was even longer than her puppet was tall, and she had absolutely no trouble imagining what it would do to her petite form if it hit.

Then it was no longer quite such an urgent concern, because the iron grey form of her false Servant crashed into the wounded giant with all the force of typhoon incarnate.

Her creation had no weapons, but such weren't needed as its fingers bit into flesh and ripped it away through sheer brute strength. As her puppet tore into the bowman with all the savagery she could muster the snow haired girl lashed out with her Noble Phantasm, cutting at her foe's legs and tried to sever tendons. As he was driven down onto one knee and more glowing ichor rained down Illya started to think that things might be swinging back to their favour. Off to the side the eagle had been driven to the ground, though it was still fighting fiercely, and the swirling vortex of the light that was the goddess's form didn't seem to be doing anything. Even the battle in the water was coming to an end as Snappy finally closed its teeth around the serpent's throat.

They just might be able to win here.

As soon as the thought ran through her head the island's mountaintop vanished into insanity.


-()-


Shirou's body hurt.

This wasn't something that he was unfamiliar with; indeed it was almost an old friend to him. His first memories were of the scorching airs of the Fuyuki Fire, the pain of the burns on his body, the exhaustion and hopelessness of being trapped in that hell. During the Holy Grail War he'd become acquainted with pain on a far more intimate level, having endured blows from Lancer and Berserker, having experienced the pain of losing Saber and failing Sakura, and then feeling the countless blades of his Reality Marble invading his body as he corroded from the influence of the power he couldn't withstand. He'd felt his own mind break apart, felt parts of his brain explode, felt his very identity slipping away. He also had all of Archer's 'wonderful' memories to draw upon, including one time he spent several days in the 'care' of a Dead Apostle worshipping cult before he was able to escape.

Yes, all in all Shirou could honestly say that he had a more than passing acquaintance with pain.

What was different was the sheer helplessness that he found himself. His body simply refused to respond. Always before, no matter how grave the situation had been, he'd at least been able to do something. Even when he'd found himself lost in the hellish burning ruins of the Fuyuki fires he'd at least been able to move, to stagger onwards until exhaustion and suffocation had claimed him.

But now he could do nothing, he could simply lie were he was his back leaning against a tree as he half slumped to the ground. That blasted dust cloud still obscured his vision, but it didn't really matter. Whatever poison had been used against him had reached some sort of saturation point despite his attempts to avoid breathing in any more. His muscles had simply slowed, weakened and then finally stopped responding. He'd barely had enough time to prop himself up against this tree before he'd lost the ability to move entirely. Just to make the situation worse he was also having trouble breathing. The wracking and tearing coughs still plagued him, but now his throat seemed to have constricted making it harder for him to even draw in a proper breath.

He could still use magecraft, despite the pain and weakness in his limbs that hadn't deserted him, but without hands to wield his swords all he could do was manifest and launch the weapons. For a moment he considered simply Tracing as many as he could in one go and levelling the entire mountain top, but he discarded it. His foe had already demonstrated both cunning and the ability to move instantly from one location to another, between the two Shirou was sure that his tormentor would simply move out of range as soon as he saw the weapons manifest.

If that happened then it would be all over. Though the eighth Campione's magic could work his body felt exhausted. He had enough in him for a brief and intense flurry of Tracing, but once that was done then he'd be tapped out, his reserves run dry. He couldn't afford to use his last card unless he was totally convinced that it was all he could do.

He gritted his teeth in frustration, or at least he would have done had he had the muscle control to do so. He knew he should be able to do more, but even there something was wrong. Maybe it was the poison messing with him somehow, but he felt far more drained than he should have. He'd reached for prana to create a Noble Phantasm earlier, and had found his reserves of energy drastically low, as though he were a barrel that had sprung a leak.

So here he was, paralysed, exhausted and only having one card left to play.

That was why he'd let himself collapse where he had. It was in the open enough to be seen, yet concealed enough that seeing him wouldn't sound alarm bells. Shirou knew that his enemy didn't want to kill him, at least not yet anyway. All of the shots that had been aimed at him had either targeted non-lethal areas or had come when he could defend against them. At first he'd thought that this was just a continuation of the tactics that had led him into the choking clouds of poisoned dust, but the pattern had continued even when his attacker had had several genuine openings that they could have taken.

So that meant that this wasn't simply an assassination. His foe wanted something from him, maybe some sort of information, maybe his capture. Despite his helpless state Shirou felt a slight wrench in his guts at that thought.

Not again. Never again! He refused to let himself be taken prisoner like that again!

On a purely rational level he was aware that such a conviction was foolish. If he was defeated then being taken prisoner was far better than being executed on the spot, as long as he was alive there was a chance he could escape after all. Rationally he knew that, but emotionally the thought of being captured again, of having no control, no say in his fate . . . it twisted his guts up.

Maybe he should think about seeing a therapist. Of course, that would mean finding a therapist that knew enough about the magical world to listen to him and not have him carted off to some institution or other when he started talking about fighting gods and being a King.

It was strange, the kind of things that went through your mind while you were waiting to see if you lived or died. Especially in this unnatural quiet that had descended upon the clearing. Aside from the soft sound of dust settling back to earth and the crunch of rubble settling back into place there was nothing. Given that for the last few minutes the sound of explosions had been going off every few seconds the contrast was oddly eerie.

The King of Steel cursed internally as he tried and failed to make his neck turn. As things stood blinking his eyes was the greatest feat of muscular control he could accomplish, even glancing around was difficult to the point of futility. As such all he could do was observe the area directly in front of him. It wasn't much, but it was better than it could have been. Had he fallen any differently he might well have only been able to watch a patch of dirt directly before him.

There!

Something moved in the corner of his eye. He couldn't make out the details, a tall figure dressed in Grecian black leather armour with a golden trim to it. He was pretty sure the figure was male, judging by the dark colour around the chin, but since he couldn't directly look that way he couldn't be sure. It might be a scarf or a tattoo or something.

Well, that wasn't really important at this point. What was important was that his mystery foe had finally come out into the open. Now all Shirou had to do was wait for them to draw a bit closer and then he could rain down a veritable avalanche of Noble Phantasms down on them. So far the fact that his enemy hadn't tried to kill him with the bow indicated that they wanted something, maybe a personal kill with a knife, something ritual that needed to be done in person to a living victim. Then there was the possibility this was all intended to capture him. Whatever the case was it would hopefully give him the opening he needed to survive this mess.

He just needed to wait until they got a bit closer.


-()-


Odysseus had no intention of getting any closer to his enemy.

To be sure his foe was paralysed, unable to use his Authorities and barely able to breathe, but even so the travelling god would not draw closer than he had to. Campione were those that were able to overturn destiny, they were the heroes and villains that could surpass the natural bonds of mortality and step onto a greater plane. Simply put they were the ones that could beat the odds no matter how bad those odds might be. How many gods in the past had been secure in their victory, had drawn close to their prey only for the god slayer to pull off some miraculous victory? Far too many, he suspected.

Odysseus had never been slain by a Campione, not even once. He had been slain by his fellow deities, he had been sent back into his legend by Circe after she had stolen one of his strongest Authorities. He had once even become so drunk on the wine he had pillaged in one of his raids that he'd stumbled off his ship and drowned in the ocean's embrace.

But never had a Campione slain him, and that wasn't a trend he intended to break. A viper with a broken back might be far less dangerous, but its venom remained potent and a single bite was all it would need to kill. Why then should he put his flesh anywhere near its fangs? The wise thing to do, if you needed to touch it at all, was to use a long stick or sword to do the moving.

Of course, what he intended to do was far more complex and dangerous than moving a mortal serpent. If he wanted to draw out the energies that he knew dwelt within Emiya Shirou he would need to be very careful. Those energies were tied to his lifeforce, and so there were conditions to be met before it could be extracted. For one thing his target had to be sufficiently weakened that he wouldn't be able to resist those energies being drawn out of him. Since the power would draw out the King of Steel's lifeforce along with the energies he sought Odysseus knew that he'd have to be thorough in his preparations.

That step, at least, was complete. In his current state Emiya Shirou would be unable to even try to run, let alone fight back. The second step was also complete; blood was flowing freely from a number of wounds even though they weren't grave at all. That was an important part of it since the blood was a natural conduit for lifeforce. As the blood left the body it took a small part of the energy of life with it, and as that energy left the young red haired King's body the hero god could seize it and use it for his own ends.

It was a small thing, but it was like grasping the end of a ball of yarn, once you had that end it became infinitely easier to draw it out.

At this point Odysseus knew that many of his fellow deities would have begun to talk to the fallen devil king. No doubt they would have mocked him, explained what they were doing and why. Most likely they would also have thrown in some boasts about their own grandeur, their great achievements in the time of their legends and how he should feel honoured that they were the ones to take his life.

As the travelling god had noted earlier such declarations were almost always followed by the turning of the tables and the inevitable defeat of his overconfident brethren.

So he didn't say a word. He didn't draw nearer to his target and he didn't stand directly before him. Instead Odysseus stood a good distance away off to the left of where Emiya Shirou had fallen, an angle that afforded him a clear view but one which meant his paralysed foe couldn't see him clearly in return.

Then he reached out with his power and began to pull.

The response was immediate as the power that he'd taken into himself all those months ago felt the presence of its missing part within the young King's lifeforce. With almost mechanical precision the two halves 'interlocked', the slight differences between them merging and harmonizing almost immediately. In less time than it took to blink the fallen Campione and the Heretic God were connected by a thick cord of invisible energy.

There was a tug, a pressure at both ends of the cord, but weakened and helpless as he was Emiya Shirou could place no pressure upon his end. This was a tug-o-war where one contestant had had both his hands broken. To be sure it was not the most heroic or equal contest that it could have been in, but Odysseus had stabbed out the eyes of sleeping giants when he'd had to. Heroism was the luxury of those with absolute certainty in their victory, and until the King of Steel drew his last breath the travelling god had no intention of regarding him as anything other than a threat of the most deadly sort, and to treat him as such.

Even as he pulled the power from the slumped god slayer he could feel the strange otherworldly energies that he'd been carrying within himself responding. They were flowing down the connection, meeting their counterparts half way between the two of them. Of course since the energies he carried were not connected to his life essence Odysseus had little to fear at this occurrence. Emiya Shirou on the other hand . . .

The powers were meeting now, and the mixture of energies was scaling into the visible realm. It was like the shimmer one saw upon a road on a hot day. Of course it also looked as though some madman had managed to trap a rainbow in the shimmer, but the resemblance was there. Colours danced around madly within the growing distortion, yet there was an oddly ghostlike quality to them, as though he were seeing the memories of colour rather than the colours themselves. For the moment the shimmer was only the size of an apple, though one constantly bulging and shrinking in different areas as the distortion shifted about with frantic energy, but it was growing at a visible rate. In only a single minute it went from the size of an apple to as big as a melon. And it was still getting larger.

Odysseus found himself staring at the enlarging distortion with a sort of fascinated incomprehension. There was something in there, something that he could almost grasp and yet at the same time was utterly beyond his frame of reference. It was like looking into a tunnel of constantly shifting mirrors, reflections of reflections kaleidoscoped about in a way that was dizzying. Images of places and people, some as mundane as any that could be found in the mortal world, others nightmarish vistas of plains of towering infernos, fields of battle where the corpses still moved, places were the fields were not covered in corpses but were instead made from rotting meat. And there were beautiful scenes as well, huge palaces made from crystal and delicate wire, lush jungles teeming with birds and butterflies of heartrending loveliness, endless oceans and lands he didn't recognize.

The images danced before him, but at the same time it was as though the growing pulsating orb were drawing him in. The images unwrapped until they seemed to be all around him, endless windows into infinite possibilities everywhere he looked. Hungrily his eyes darted from one to the next, drinking in each new sight as a man in a desert might drink from a recently found oasis.

There . . . there was adventure, there was freedom!

Suddenly there was something wrong, an incorrect note amidst a sea of perfect harmonies. The discordance quickly grew and spread, the images in the mirrors vibrating and juddering until the views they showed were no longer comprehensible. There was a sense of tension amongst them, a pent up force as though any moment the ringing running through them might cause them to shatter.

The Heretic God stared around wildly, trying to find the source of the dissonance. Then his instincts were suddenly screaming at him.

He didn't allow himself the time to think, he didn't even take the time to employ his Authority, he simply hurled himself backwards as hard as he could.

In the end that was all that saved his life as the dull blue blade slashed through the space that had once been occupied by his throat.

His eyes widened in shock as he stared at the impossible sight before him. The eighth Campione was back on his feet, his limbs still trembled slightly and blood still ran from several deep wounds, but his hands gripped his weapons tightly and his footing was as sure as a mountain. His shoulders heaved as he panted for breath and his eyes were bloodshot, but despite that the young King didn't look weak. Instead he looked dangerous, very dangerous. Right now all of the intuition and instinct that Odysseus had honed over several lifetimes of adventure were all howling at him to get the hell away right now.

For a moment he stood, paralysed by his desire to beat this boy down so that he could claim the freedom he had just caught a fleeting glimpse of warring with his instincts to get away.

Then the decision was no longer his to make.

Odysseus had thought that Emiya Shirou had been fast before, that the strength and speed imparted upon him by his Authority was impressive, but it was nothing compared to his current speed. It was as though his speed had doubled, tripled, maybe even quadrupled, in the space of an instant. It was all that the travelling god could do to manifest his own blades and defend himself.

Not enough, it just wasn't enough. Odysseus had fought in the Trojan wars, he had crossed blades with heroes that had gone down in legend, had witnessed the battle between Hector and Achilles, mortals that could have matched any gods of war, he had encountered many warriors and monsters in his travels afterwards. None of them compared to the living onslaught that he now faced.

He barely managed to raise his left hand sword in time to block a blow that would have taken his head off, but the force of the blow sent him stumbling back. He didn't even have time to regain his footing before Emiya Shirou was there again, the broadsword in his left hand stabbing towards the Heretic God's heart like a spear. Desperately Odysseus rolled to the side only to then frantically cross his swords before him as the right hand blade slashed out at him again.

This time the blow was so forceful that it lifted him off his feet and hurled him across the clearing until his back impacted on the cliff side. Even as his head rung like a struck bell his instincts screamed at him once more and he threw himself to the side. As he landed in the dirt twin swords tore into the cliff where he had just been standing. And it was done with such force that the small mountain rumbled as a side of it collapsed into a shattered avalanche.

Too much! The Campione wasn't pausing or relenting in the slightest, the attacks came one after another so fast that he simply couldn't mount a proper defence, let alone think of fighting back. The swords cut at him in a frenzied blur Odysseus could barely keep track of. Already several cuts bled red on his arms where the sheer force of the blows had left paper cuts on his exposed skin.

This was absurd, impossible. With the poison in his veins Emiya Shirou shouldn't have been able to move, let alone fight. His Authorities should have been sealed for at least another hour, his strength gone, his power unreachable. So how? How was he able to launch such a relentless and frenzied attack?

He'd come into this battle knowing that he might end up as the slain rather than the slayer, but right now for the first time since he'd shot his first arrow he feared he might have bitten off more than he could handle.

NO! No, he couldn't start thinking like that. He was so close, so tantalizingly near to attaining the freedom he craved. He could not fall now; he wouldn't surrender to the final hurdle in his path.

"Many began the journey with me, but none ended it at my side. Through war and strife, across oceans and islands, one by one they slipped away. Yet I endured, I continued, I lived."

He spoke the chant in ancient Greek. Campione might possess the power to understand any language, but it was not a gift that activated immediately. First they had to be exposed to the language for a time, then they would be able to quickly come to understand it. Using the ancient tongue of his homeland meant that Emiya Shirou wouldn't be able to understand the words with ease, and so he wouldn't be able to puzzle out their meaning or his identity.

In response to his spell words he felt the Authority wakening within him, its power and knowledge surging through him. It wasn't enough, not to grant him any sort of overwhelming advantage. Indeed, if anything he was still the one being overwhelmed, so great was the sheer speed and strength of his enemy. But that wasn't an impassable obstacle; Sole Survivor would give him the edge he needed. After all, he didn't need to win, he just needed to endure until this burst of energy exhausted itself and the damage the poison had inflicted took its toll.

To be sure it had a cost, sealing a number of his other Authorities while it was being used. He could summon none of his subordinate deities, nor could he employ the winds to carry him so long as it was in use. It was a costly power to use, but he was certain that it was the best to employ in the situation he found himself in.

Sparks flew through the air as even with Sole Survivor aiding him he was only just able to raise his swords in time to keep his head from being removed from his shoulders.

Alright, simple in theory, but in practice it might be a bit more of a challenge.


-()-


It was through eyes clouded with fatigue and pain that he'd seen her, and it had been a mind clogged with exhaustion that he'd understood what he'd seen, but there had been no mistake. Up in that growing pulsing distortion he'd seen Sakura.

Sakura!

It had felt like an electric current had shot through him at the sight, his mind, which had been growing hazy as a malicious lassitude crept over him, sharpened to a razor's edge in an instant. He'd stared at the strange phenomena before him and a memory that had belonged to his older self had risen up to identify it.

Archer hadn't had many encounters with Zelretch in the past, even though Rin had become his student their friendship had slowly drifted away as that version of Emiya Shirou had thrown himself more and more into his dream of being a saviour hero, but he had had some encounters. Those encounters had been enough to let him know what he'd found when he broke into the workshop of a dangerous Philosopher that he'd tracked down. The rogue mage had been dead before he arrived, consumed by his own failed attempts, but he had left quite a mess to clean up.

As far as the elder Shirou had been able to determine the fool had been trying to recreate the Kaleidoscope using some notes and records left to him by his grandfather, a former student of Zelretch's that had 'flunked' out of the lessons after being crippled by a particularly unpleasant accident. The fool had continued his studies into the True Magic, but had only succeeded in getting himself killed in a rather spectacularly gory fashion.

Well, that and making a small tear in the fabric of reality.

It had been a misuse of the rudimentary knowledge that he'd had, but the reckless mage had been able to achieve something both potent and dangerous, a dimensional distortion that could in time have grown into something that could threaten all life on the planet. Fortunately in its initial stages the tear had been fragile and unstable, enough so that even with his rudimentary knowledge Archer had known which Noble Phantasms to Trace in order to dispel the tear.

What he was seeing now wasn't a tear such as that had been, but there were some similarities. No, not a tear, an opening.

An opening . . .

A chance to get back!

The thought ripped through Shirou's mind in a way that defied description. He knew that he was somehow being drained, and he also knew that that same drain was slowing his thoughts, making his mental processes feel gummed up and fuzzy. But in the wake of that realization it was as though the wool that had been clogging his thoughts had ignited into flames.

This . . . this had to be some sort of remnant or copy of the same portal that had brought him and Illya to this world. That was the only thing that explained the gut sensation of familiarity that hit him even as he felt his energy being drained away into that thing. And if it could bring them here, then maybe . . .

He had to have it; he simply couldn't afford to let it go. But right now he couldn't even move, so what . . .

Rage and desperation flooded through him as he tried to move, something, anything, but his limbs stubbornly remained immobile. A low growl built in his throat as he tried to force himself, but nothing happened. It was torture of a type so cruel that even the gods of ancient Greece would have approved. Here he was, with the way back to Sakura right in front of him, and he couldn't so much as move as his life was slowly stolen away. He wanted to scream, he wanted to curse, he wanted to-

Like a leviathan rising from the deeps a voice rose up in the back of his mind.

"Is this all that you can think of?"

It wasn't real, it was simply a memory, but even its recollection had the same effect as a bucket full of icy water being dumped on him. Passion and rage weren't the ways to go; they had never been the tools that he had used. Steely nerves and cold calculation, those had been the chosen mental weapons of the Archer of the fifth Heaven's Feel. Emiya Shirou wasn't at his best when he let his emotions drive him like some out of control chariot, he was at his best when he saw through the Eye of his mind.

By comparison the King of Steel might only possess a tiny fraction of the experience that the Counter Guardian had wielded, but that would have to be enough.

Shirou forced the burning emotions within him to the side, fire wasn't needed now, but later it could be useful. Fire could be a fuel, could be a weapon, but it wasn't needed now.

Solutions, that's what he needed. Alright, what were the problems? Well, obviously he couldn't move, he couldn't access his Authorities and he would soon die as his life energy was leeched away. If that was the problem then what was the cause? Poison, that was the only answer that made sense, most likely in the dust that he'd breathed in.

If poison was the problem then what could he do about it? Ignoring it or bulling through anyway wasn't an option, it was already painfully clear that he couldn't overpower the effects. That left only two options as far as he could see, either fight from a prone position or find some way to cure himself.

Attacking from his current position was an option, but it would be an all or nothing attempt, and with all his senses both natural and supernatural as hazy as they were he didn't rate his chances of hitting a foe as stealthy and mobile as this one as at all high. In his current state he couldn't even draw a direct bead against him, only get a vague image out of the corner of his eye. In the space of an eye blink he evaluated his chances, weighed the value of using the last arrow in his metaphorical quiver and discarded the idea.

Too much of a long shot, it would be a move of desperation only. No, what he needed to do was something more, something that would change the playing field completely.

What he needed was to regain the ability to fight, but to do that he had to overcome or purge the poison in his system. The problem with that was that his own defences would work against him. He could Trace any number of weapons, shields or armour parts that could heal or purge him of poisons; however his Magic Resistance was so strong that even touching them wouldn't mean they'd work on him. Normally it was a potent asset since it meant that spells from anything short of a true deity couldn't hurt him and he could also handle some of the cursed weapons in his Reality Marble without having to worry as much about their negative effects.

The problem was that any beneficial spells, such as healing or blessings, had to be applied internally so they could bypass the protection upon his skin. Potions were an ideal way to do so, though according to Illya Godou's harem had come up with their own rather novel way of bypassing that little problem. Come to think of it hadn't Guinevere been using that particular method when she'd healed him after his battle with Mordred?

That wasn't important, what did matter was that he didn't have any potions or allies about to heal him, so he had no way by which to apply any internal effect. He needed something else, something more-

Oh!

Oh, that could work.

Od flowed out of him as he concentrated and Traced, blue light formed into physical form as metal and leather materialized in the form of weapons. It was even harder than he thought it would have been, what he was doing was far smaller than the hail of weapons he'd originally planned on and even so it was exhausting. He wasn't sure that he would have been able to go through with his original plan even if he had gotten the opportunity. Well, a good thing he wasn't planning to, he had a new plan.

Four identical weapons took form, rotated to aim and then shot forth as though fired from a gun.

Straight into Shirou's back and shoulders.

Pain shot through him, even with the physical enhancements that came with being a Campione as well as his own high pain threshold having four dull blades stabbed into you was far from a pleasant experience. In a distant corner of his mind he grimly laughed and thought he could imagine Rin yelling at him for having idiot ideas and ever thinking that stabbing himself was a good one. However for the vast majority of his mind the pain was a galvaniser, something to drive back his growing lethargy and narrow his focus down to just one thing.

Sakura!

The blades hadn't penetrated deeply, even though they were Noble Phantasms and had been fired with great force. As a Campione his flesh had the constancy of military grade kevlar even without magic running through it, and for all their mystic nature the blades had been dull, only penetrating about half an inch or so. Barely enough to hold the short swords in place.

But it had been enough, Íonú Domhanda was not a weapon he needed to use often, but in this case it was ideal. Having pierced through his skin it had reached past his Magic Resistance and come into contact with his bloodstream. Already he could feel the Noble Phantasm's power at work purging the poison from his veins. His hand twitched, it was a small thing, but in the next moment his whole hand responded as it clenched into a fist.

Sakura!

His limbs trembled as the poison fled, and even through his exhaustion the strength of freedom flushed him. He was drained, both physically and magically, but that was nothing he hadn't dealt with before. His prana might be all but gone, but he had one way around that, he knew what to do.

Arondight answered his call, the powerful sword appearing in his right hand as soon as he willed it. As always there was no delay, no Tracing, and most importantly, no cost in prana, the sword of Sir Lancelot was simply there. As soon as his fingers closed around it he could feel its power flowing into him, strengthening his body and adding to his prana. The Noble Phantasm wasn't intended to refill near empty reserves of powers, but it was enough to give him something to work with. He forced himself to his feet, the heat of power flooding him, driving back the cold, fighting off the numbness. As the poison fled he could feel his Authorities responding, he had so little strength to use them, but the steely warhorse feel of Dragon Slaying Hero came easily despite his weary state.

Still not enough though, not if he wanted to be certain. The Dragon Slaying Hero with Arondight's boost of power was a powerful combination, but it wasn't enough. He needed more.

More!

His left hand clenched around empty air even as he came out of his slum and tore across the clearing towards his attacker. As he did so Shirou felt the connection to the distortion break as the drain upon his lifeforce stopped, but that was something he could worry about later. For now his entire focus was upon his enemy.

Enemy, the one that was an interference. Once he was out of the way then Shirou could claim the rift, use it, control it, return to Sakura.

But the enemy had to be slain first. No hesitation, no mercy, no restraint.

But they were separated by distance, a tiny distance to be sure, one that his enhanced speed could cross in less than a tenth of a second. Unfortunately his foe had seen him; had seen him rise and knew he would attack. Against any mortal foe that would be meaningless, but his enemy was a god, in the face of that a tenth of a second was too much. He could be gone with his Authority, out of Shirou's reach and back to playing cat and mouse in a game the King of Steel didn't think he could win.

More speed, more power.

Titan Knight wasn't an option; he simply didn't have the stamina to use the powerful Authority. If he tried he was liable to leave himself unconscious and helpless. The Armour of the Champion was something he might just be able to use, but it wasn't defence he needed, it was speed. None of his other Authorities could help, so that left Noble Phantasms

All of this passed through Emiya Shirou's mind so fast that it wasn't really a conscious thought. Options and notions were evaluated and dismissed without him registering them in his forethoughts. Instead he moved completely on instinct, responding to thoughts only half formed from the seething lightning fire at the back of his head.

His left hand clenched, and every spare scrap of his remaining prana flowed into a second sword.

A second Arondight.

His magic circuits screamed in pain as he Traced the second weapon. As was to be expected of a weapon of such power the Unfading Light of the Lake was a costly Noble Phantasm to Trace. Archer had possessed it in his Reality Marble but had never had the prana reserves to Trace it, consequently the only times he could wield it had been when he used his Unlimited Blade Works. Due to his far superior reserves due to being a Campione Shirou could Trace the one time holy sword, but even so it was far from an inconsiderable amount even when he was at his best.

Now the draw of it almost left him completely empty. Had it been any other weapon then it might well have been the death of him, even with the prana imparted on him by the first Arondight, but as it settled into his left hand the new blade also lent him strength and power, enough that he didn't fall.

Enough that his speed and strength increased again.

He made there in time. His enemy didn't have time to flee; all he could do was bring up the two golden Grecian short swords he now held and defend himself. Shirou threw everything into his attack, nothing was held back. There was no thought of defence only an all out offensive that aimed to batter down any defences. So far it had worked, his foe had been driven before him unable mount more than the barest defence. The problem was that Shirou didn't know how much longer he could keep this up.

Already he could feel his body tearing as he pushed it beyond the limits it could take even with his enhanced Campione vitality. His breath was ragged as it hissed between his teeth and rivulets of sweat ran down his skin as his body tried to shed the heat that was building out of control within it. His magic circuits weren't screaming at him any more, but that was because they had worn out their metaphorical voices, now he almost thought he could feel them start to die under the pressure that he was forcing upon them.

Arondight was one of the most powerful swords in his Reality Marble. It was the counterpart to Excalibur, what more needed to be said? Merely wielding it granted an immense increase to all of one's abilities, to say nothing of the other powers the sword had. But for all its blessings Arondight was no meek thing that submitted to any wielder. Lancelot had been the first to hold the blade because none before could use it, to command the Unfading Light of the Lake would have killed a lesser man.

Shirou had been able to get around that by using Tracing to replicate the skills of the sword's original wielder, but even so using Arondight had placed a strain on his body. Fortunately the enhanced body of a god slayer had been well suited to withstanding the burden placed upon it, making it far easier to wield than it would otherwise have been.

The problem was that he wasn't wielding one Arondight, he was wielding two, and he doubted that anyone in the world had ever had to experience something like that. The burden and stresses placed upon him didn't double with the second sword, instead it was far worse. The pressure upon him didn't increase linearly but rather exponentially as the swords seemed to feed upon each other. The power he was receiving was immense, so much so that at this moment his pure physical power most likely surpassed even that of Illya's Berserker during the Holy Grail War.

But at the same time it was tearing him apart. In fact if it hadn't been for the enhanced endurance the two swords lent him Shirou was certain that his flesh would already have been shredded under the stress, body of a Campione or no.

But that didn't matter, not when compared to what he was fighting for.

Upper right shoulder, left hip, right wrist, heart, left carotid artery, left kidney, right inner elbow. The attacks were so fast that the young red head was having a hard time keeping track of what he was doing. The swords lashed out again and again, each strike chaining into the next, sometimes aiming to wound, sometimes aiming to cripple and sometimes aiming to kill.

And the Heretic God continued to survive.

Shirou had him outmatched in every physical department; he was faster, stronger, more skilled and more aggressive. He had his enemy completely on the run, yet despite that he was unable to land a clean hit. For all the fury of his attack it was as though his swords couldn't do more than glance off the bearded god's skin. He'd manage to defend with his swords, turning the twin Arondights just enough, he would twist just enough so that the only wound inflicted upon him would be little more than a paper cut or it was as though blades simply couldn't reach him. Shirou would make a swing that should have gutted his foe, and yet somehow the stroke missed. He needed to do better if he wanted to win, he needed more.

More.

More!

MORE!

It was adrenaline pure and simple, no magic, no godly Authority, just the simple biology of a million years of evolution. More strength shot through his limbs, his grip firmed and his eyes cleared. It couldn't last long, but it had to be enough.

The two incarnations of the same sword cut through the air in dark blurs. The god's swords rose to meet them and more sparks exploded into the night like lightning during a storm. The divine weapons fought but fell, the force from Shirou's blows too much for them to turn, but even as the Traced sword came down the god was already moving to the side, the edge of the blade carving a shallow gash and nothing more.

But then the other Arondight was coming round, a horizontal slash aimed at the upper right torso at an angle that would sheer through lungs and heart alike.

But it wouldn't reach!

He was right there in front of him, his defences broken and his vitals exposed, but the sword couldn't reach him. It was as though space distorted in order to make contact between metal and flesh impossible. The Arondight's edge passed by its target, cutting the fabric of the tunic as it went, but failing to touch skin or blood.

But as it happened the eighth Campione felt something, a pressure in the air, a tightness in the atmosphere as though something was being pulled beyond its point of endurance. Behind him he heard a . . . not quite noise, something closer to a sensation really, as though huge gears were locked in place, straining against each other only for even more pressure to be applied.

Spatial distortion, this Authority that was keeping him from getting in a blow it worked via some sort of localized and limited alteration of spatial dimensions. However the fabric of reality was already torn and ragged here, so if he put more pressure on his enemy . . .

It all came together in an instant of almost mathematical perfection. One of the Heretic God's swords was knocked to the side, then his other was likewise battered away as it just managed to stave off a slash that would have taken most of his shoulder off. In that instant they stood before each other, both their arms spread outwards as the collisions of their weapons threw their limbs out, both of them wide open. In a single movement the King of Steel reversed his grips on both weapons and brought them stabbing down on his enemy. Even as he did so he could feel space warping to deny them their blood, but that wasn't all he did.

So Shirou didn't just use his swords.

Instead he used his head.

In the most literal sense of the word.

There was a brief moment of uncertainty, as though the world was trying to make up its mind as to just what was real. But Shirou gambled on it being harder to distort space when that space was being encircled by other influences. It could warp reality in one direction, but now it had to do it in two planes at once due to the double attack. If he added a third vector to defend against could it cope?

"GHAH!"

Apparently not.

The exclamation of pain was the first sound that the mysterious archer had spoken since this entire mess began, it might not have been the most articulate choice, but given that the eighth Campione's forehead had just smashed him in the face and broken his nose . . . Well, it was understandable.

Stars were clouding Shirou's vision as his head rang like a bell, but he grimly refused to let that distract him. Through the haze of disorientation and confusion he remembered the swords he held, he remembered his enemy, and above all else he remembered Sakura.

The Traced copy of Lancelot's sword fragmented into shards of light, but before the power it had imparted faded both of Shirou's hands clasped around the hilt of the Arondight that on some level he considered to be his. He had a tiny window, a miniscule grace period between the time the burden of the second sword faded and the moment at which the boost to his abilities that it had granted followed. It was barely more than a second, but it was all he had, he simply couldn't keep this up, this one strike was literally all or nothing.

The Heretic God saw the attack coming, but it was through eyes clouded by involuntary tears of pain, it was in mid stumble, it was too late.

Shirou had felt something break when his forehead had impacted on his foe. Not his nose, but something else. Whatever Authority his enemy had been using it had been overstressed. Arondight was a powerful weapon, not one to be easily turned aside. Two Arondights had been an even greater challenge, and the Authority had also had to contend with the pressures of operating in the presence of the distortion which had made things even harder. Then on top of that it had tried to turn aside a blow from the flesh of a Campione.

God Slayers were beings that became such by being able to warp the world, by being able to fight against the course of destiny and karma. The Authority had tried to warp the world even as Shirou's very existence had done likewise. In the end it had just been too much.

Something in the air ripped as it broke, then Arondight bit deeply into the god's flesh as the sword finally connected. Blood sprayed forth in a crimson arc, enough that for a moment the young Emiya thought that he'd dealt the fatal blow he needed.

No such luck though. His enemy had managed to turn his stumble into a retreat, an ungainly one, but it had been enough to turn a killing blow into a wounding one. He was hurt, he was bleeding enough that the ground beneath his feet was quickly turning red, but he was still on his feet and he definitely wasn't dead. One hand came up to try and clutch his chest closed, but the other still held a sword and looked ready to use it.

It was almost comical, if one were to see it from the outside. On the one had there was this Heretic God, cut open like a slab of meat and only alive due to divine vitality and the fact he was literally holding himself together. On the other hand was Shirou, wounded but mostly intact, the only problem was he looked to be more dead than alive, and he felt even worse. In a twisted way it was almost funny, but that didn't change that this was still a death match.

The thing was that it was no longer a case of one killing the other; it was now a case of who managed not to die.

Well, that's how it would have gone. That particular scenario was rather swiftly overturned as the dimensional distortion, which had been stuck by a few flying droplets of the Heretic God's blood, finally lost cohesion and expelled all the energy it had been slowly building since the separate energies that had constructed it came together. And it did so in the simplest method.

It exploded.


-()-


Odysseus had been in pain from the wound the young god slayer had inflicted upon him, quite a lot of it to tell the truth.

Now he was in a great deal more.

The blast had come as a complete surprise since his entire attention had been focused on his enemy. The travelling god had been standing with the knot of power behind him and to his left, so when the first pulse of power rippled away from it he was caught in the back and sent sprawling on his chest. Pain seared through him from his wound, and had he been a mortal Odysseus had little doubt that it would have been enough to finish him off.

The only comfort that he found was that his foe hadn't faired any better than he had. Emiya Shirou had also been struck and was now lying flat on his back, though he still grimly clutched the hilt of his sword.

That sword . . . even though they were now separated by a good distance Odysseus still felt wary of the dark blade. When he'd first been able to get a look at it and its twin he'd at first thought them to be some kind of Authority. There had been no other explanation for the sheer power and presence that the sword had exuded. But after a few more clashes with it a corner of his mind had noted that the feel of that power was . . . off. It hadn't felt like a divine power, at least not like any he'd ever encountered, the texture of the power was completely different, foreign really.

Whatever it was it was powerful in a way that surpassed any mortal creation though. For a brief moment that small part of his mind had considered trying to claim it as plunder after he killed the eighth Campione. Of course the vast majority of his mind had been more focused on not being bisected by those same blades.

Shaking his head to clear it of both wandering thoughts and the ringing left by the impact Odysseus heard a sound behind him that sounded like the unholy union of shattering glass panes the size of entire countries mixed with the wail of some sort of tortured animal. Rolling onto his back, even though the movement sent waves of agony running through him, Odysseus turned to see what was the source of the impact.

What he saw . . . could not be described. How could one give description to something that defied rational understanding? The knot of energies that had formed a distortion had come undone. Now there was something else there, not a hole, not a portal, not even a mass of energy. It didn't make sense; he was a god, a being with mental capacities that even the most gifted mortal could never hope to equal. He could understand and decipher divine mysteries that would have driven the finest magus alive to madness.

But what he saw before him . . . it was beyond his comprehension. Angles that wouldn't work, states of being that were contradictory and yet existed simultaneously, size warped so he was staring at a spot smaller than a man's head yet larger than the island upon which he now lay, colours and hues that could not, should not, exist. And behind it all, behind the impossibilities and irrationalities there was something else.

Infinity, he could think of no other term.

This was not the simple act of gazing out into the night sky and seeing the endless sea of stars. Though space might be infinite the eye, even the eyes of a god, could only see so much. The infinite might exist, but it could not truly be observed.

But now he could see it. Through the broken space of tortured existence lay infinity. He could see it all, a vast endlessness of nothing that was everything extending never-endingly in every direction, in directions without names in any human tongue. Everywhere, everything, it contained and was it all, yet it contained itself as it contained itself withinmorespacethathadnoendinginfiniteendlessnothingeverythingsomethingsomethingsomething-

No! It was too much, he couldn't comprehend it, it was just too huge, too alien to fit into his mind. And yet he couldn't bring himself to look away, how could he? He was a god, a being that existed beyond mortal fate. He had seen so much, done so much, heard of so much that the world itself had begun to bore him. Here was something new, something utterly beyond anything that he'd ever had contact with. How could he turn away? How could he abandon it?

The tear was showing him things now, things far beyond the glimpses he'd been treated to before. He saw a forest of crystals inhabited by a being of such power that a god would tremble before it. He saw a past where a being with the form of a man but with a nature utterly alien to the world dragged the moon from its celestial path and sent it careening towards the world beneath. He saw death given human form and looked into eyes of the most beautiful hue he could imagine. He saw a being that held all the hatreds, curses and evils of humanity nesting within a vessel of power beyond anything he'd witnessed before.

So much! Too much! He could feel the moorings of his mind creak and shudder as it tried to hold and understand all he was seeing. So many sights, so many wonders!

And such horrors, such insanity!

Even as the travelling god tried to hold his rationality together the same mind rending cacophony shattered the world as a second blast rippled out from the distortion.

Despite the gravity of the situation Odysseus was glad he was flat on his back. In his prone position the ripple of power went right over him and struck the nearby rock. There was a cracking noise as tonnes of stone broke apart under the impact and began tumbling down the other side of the small mountain. Sensing the distortion was building up to another burst of force the travelling god began to wriggle away from where he lay, trying to put more distance between himself and not just the distortion but also the downed god slayer.

For his part the young king seemed not to be moving, indeed to all appearances he'd lost consciousness. Even as Odysseus fought for more room he began to curse under his breath.

If Emiya Shirou were to die what would that mean? Would the power to escape this realm be forever lost, or would the distortion that had already been born serve to open the doorway he wished? He could feel a certain connection to the warp in the world, a sensation not dissimilar to the connection with one of his Authorities, though the differences were there. If that was true then there was a chance that he'd be able to harness this power without having to draw more out of the boy.

Another ripple washed over them, powerful enough to tear more stones from the cliff and to send both the god and the god slayer tumbling.

In any case it didn't look as though Odysseus would have much of a choice. His power was stabilizing enough that he'd soon be able to escape, but he wouldn't have enough strength or control to reach Emiya Shirou and take him with him. It would seem that he'd have to hope that what power he'd gained would be enough to-

A sound split the world, a crashing cacophony so vast and all encompassing that it made the earlier vast cracking seem like nothing more than the results of a child playing. Like the cracks in a pane of glass fissures in space spread outwards in a huge spider web pattern. Reaching into the sky, digging into the earth, stretching into strange angles and dimension that should have been invisible but which the distortion somehow forced into mortal sight. The purely visible form of the rupture went from the size of a car to the dimensions of a small mountain in the blink of an eye.

Odysseus could only stare, transfixed at what he saw. He didn't know how much time passed; all he could do was gaze into the maw of chaos.

So much, too much, and behind it all something more, something vaster than infinity and longer lasting than eternity. Not alive, not dead, not living, not inanimate. What was it? What was-

The distortion didn't ripple.

It exploded.


-()-


Illya had only a nodding acquaintance with the power of the Kaleidoscope. She had access to some of the memories of Justeaze Lizrich von Einzbern due to them being implanted in her, but even so it was little more than vague images and impressions. Zelretch had never really shown her his full power, merely some tricks that hinted at the true magnitude of forces he could tap into.

As she stared up at the huge distortion of reality that was swallowing the top of the islands mountain the Einzbern heir had a disquieting suspicion that she would soon be treated to a very clear demonstration of how destructive the Second Magic could be.

Still, she had enough of a grounding in the basic nature of the True Magic to be able to hazard a guess as to what it was.

"Wh-What has he done?"

The question was voiced by the swirl of light that still hung above the battlefield. Though it had no features with which to show emotions Illya noted that its spin was faster now and the 'arms' of light seemed a bit more ragged. The slight hitch in the voice was also clear enough to show that the Heretic Goddess was rattled by what she was seeing.

"That's a dimensional Rupture!" the white haired girl yelled, "And it's going to burst!"

In an instant she found herself the centre of attention as everyone turned their gazes on her. Even the divine creatures had ceased their struggles as all looked to her.

"Do you know what that is?" Manaka asked, her battle wands clutched tight in her hands.

"It's . . . it's like a break between dimensions," Illya explained, her mind flying back to the countless hours she'd spent reading the various books on the theory behind dimensional travel. What she was seeing matched a postulation made by a Greek mage at the start of the twentieth century, a theory Illya had expanded upon using her own knowledge. "When the barrier between worlds is broken by an incorrectly made portal the power released by the portal feeds back on itself to make the portal 'deeper' than it should be. It starts to access planes other than the one it was aiming for, planes 'higher' or 'lower' than those that should have contact with this plane of existence.

"Once that happens the incompatibility starts to release even more energy which causes the portal to reach further. It's a loop that keeps going until something gives. Either the portal can no longer maintain cohesion of any sort and simply dissipates, or reality itself can no longer take the strain and further fractures so that the pressure upon it can be relieved. Either way all the power that has been building up in the feedback is released in one go."

"And . . . just how much power are we talking about?" Kaida asked, her hair dishevelled by the recent battle, but her eyes sharp as ever.

"It could be anything; it depends on how far the portal has reached and how well it was crafted in the first place. The theoretical range can go from 'barely more than a firecracker' to . . . lots."

"Just what might you mean by 'lots'?" Tiamat asked, her head tilted to the side.

"As in 'this island won't be here any more and we'll all be dust in the wind' lots." Illya snapped back.

"But . . . that's not what Odysseus promised! We were meant to be free! We were meant to be able to-"

The voice of the goddess was cut off as a ripple of power spread out from the distortion, its force sufficient to scatter most of the mountain top into gravel in the wind.

Odysseus, that was who Shirou was fighting? Illya felt a small chill in her heart. The King of Ithaca was hardly the most powerful of all the Greek heroes, but he did have a reputation for incomparable cunning and trickery. It had been his wits rather than the armies of Agamemnon or the might of Achilles that had taken the invincible city of Troy. And in this world he was not merely a heroic spirit, he was a god in truth, a god that had taken the name of Odysseus.

In a straight fight she would be more than happy to place her faith on her adopted brother since his power, versatility and sheer stubbornness always served him well. But if he was up against someone like Odysseus then a straight fight might well be the last thing on the table.

"I don't know who Odysseus is," she lied, "But if he's been fool enough to mess with the Kaleidoscope without knowing how to properly control it then he's an idiot! Those kinds of powers can kill even a god!"

Well, she wasn't quite sure about that, but it sounded good and would hopefully dissuade the unnamed goddess from restarting the battle until something about the situation improved.

Then the distortion exploded.


-()-


The connection was growing stronger with every passing second.

The first connection had been struck with the sister blade rather than the sword of his former Servant. That had been an accident, a random chance that resulted in an instant of perfect harmonization between the desires imprinted upon the sword by its 'true' wielder and the desires of Emiya Shirou. For that brief moment the wills of the eighth Campione and Lancelot of the Lake had been identical, and the wish to save Guinevere had allowed something that could be called a miracle to occur.

An imitation became a reality, a fake became the original. The sibling swords called to each other and the first of the connections was forged.

And it was not the only one to exist. Shirou's heart, his magic, his life, was linked to other Noble Phantasms that rested in his Reality Marble; links forged both by chance and by friendships.

Excalibur was a blade without equal, Arondight might well be a powerful sword forged by the faeries to be as unbreakable as a sword could be, yet for all its power it was not the equal to a Last Phantasm.

Excalibur was not the creation of the fae, nor was it the creation of the vastly powerful gods that had once ruled the world. The sword of Promised Victory was something born of the planet itself, a crystallization of the wishes of all humanity. It was a fantasy given form that surpassed reality; it was the promise of glory given substance.

And it was a sword that Shirou had three connections to.

The second connection came from the Noble Phantasm that had been a part of him since he was 'born' amidst the fiery aftermath of the fourth Holy Grail War. Avalon had been placed inside him and had been a part of him for all of his remembered life. During the fifth Heaven's Feel its power had saved his life on several occasions, including the time Berserker had smashed a sizable chunk of his body into crimson mist. It had been a part of him for so long that, in theory at least, it was the one artefact in creation that he could 'perfectly' Trace without any degradation, no matter how small.

Quite simply Avalon was an artefact meant only for Saber, but if anyone in existence could claim to be its secondary user then it was Emiya Shirou.

Avalon had also been crafted as a scabbard for Excalibur. Though its powers in and of itself were immense, its primary function was to serve to contain the Sword of Promised Victory. And it was through that link that the connection ran.

The third and final was through Saber.

By the arm that had been attached to him Shirou had been able to access the memories of three other selves, Archer and two other versions of himself that had taken different courses in the Holy Grail War. In every one of them Saber had been his Servant. She had been his partner and his friend to Archer, the inspiration that had made him believe even more in the heroism of his ideal. In another world she had become his love, one that he released to return to her own place in the world rather than forcing her to remain. In the third she was his lover along with Rin, there she had stayed, chosen to live with him and the Tohsaka heir who refused to let her friend go.

For him Saber had been his dear friend, his Servant that he had let down when he'd led her into the situation where she had been consumed. Later, when she had been resurrected as Sakura's darkened and corrupted Servant, Shirou faced her again and, with Rider's help, ended her wretched existence. But even though he'd killed her with his own hands Saber had still been Emiya Shirou's Servant.

There were no Command Seals left, no physical marking that he had ever been her partner, but Saber was Shirou's Servant. They had been friends, they had been teacher and student, they had been lovers, they had been enemies, across all the lives he had touched they had been linked. And such a link remained.

Three links, all leading back to the sword that now stirred in Unlimited Blade Works.

Excalibur was not an existence that could be accurately defined. In the world that Shirou had come from it had been a Last Phantasm, the strongest of Holy Blades and the crystallization of the wishes of mankind. In the mind of Emiya Shirou it had been the strongest of all Noble Phantasms. Others might be faster or more destructive or more absolute, but no others combined such speed, power and authority to such great degrees. It was the last sword of King Arthur and the single most famous weapon in existence.

In the new world he found himself in Excalibur also existed.

Here it was the Divine Sword of Salvation, a weapon that was also an Authority, and an Authority that was also a weapon. It was the personal sword to the King Who Manifest's at the World's End, the greatest power of the Strongest Steel. It was a sword that drank the power of the Earth Mother goddesses and was linked to the Holy Grail which served it. It was the blade made to strike down the Devil Kings that usurped the power of Gods and overturned the fate of mankind.

The sword was more than 'just' an Authority, it was a unique existence amongst even the gods, a power that served, protected and destroyed beyond all others. It was an Authority that came close to being a god in and of itself.

The Sword of Promised Victory.

The Divine Sword of Salvation.

Excalibur existed in Unlimited Blade Works, but even so it was not the true Excalibur. It was a copy created by a magecraft that almost stepped into the realms of True Magic, but it was not the real thing. What existed in the Reality marble was a reflection, a blueprint, something to be accessed so that Shirou could Trace its fake.

However for the last few minutes, ever since the battle had begun, that copy had been drinking in vast amounts of prana from Shirou.

Arondight had emerged into the world fully formed, a creation of another synchronicity and the strength of its legend. Excalibur was a different matter due to its vastly 'larger' nature. But Excalibur was the sword of Arturia, and she had been Saber, the Servant of Emiya Shirou. Her feelings for him may not have been a part of her legend, but by the nature of Unlimited Blade Works the experiences of the sword were replicated, and that included the emotions of its wielder.

Arondight, Avalon and Excalibur, a trinity that existed within Shirou that should have been impossible, yet by luck and power they were there. Three creations of great power in a state of existence that was at once rock solid and fluid as water, a fact that stood while reality itself was being torn apart by the distortion near to Shirou. Under any circumstances it would have been a miracle that any mage would have been willing to surrender their arm in order to simply witness, but there was one final factor.

The crucible that this was taking place in was the heart of a Campione.

A Devil King was a being that defied rationality. A mortal that had slain a god, a mortal that wielded the power of a god, a being the equal of a god but that yet remained mortal. An impossibility that defied the fate of humanity. Quite simply an absurdity that existed in defiance of the hierarchy of life.

Impossibility upon impossibility, a fertile ground for a miracle amongst miracles.

Within Unlimited Blade Works the sword came free.

A Reality Marble uses the World Egg theory to impose an inner world upon to reality, thus what resides within it becomes reality by that substitution. Tracing was not drawing a weapon forth from Unlimited Blade Works; it was mere accessing the Reality Marble to provide the information, then using prana to forge a creation in accordance to that information. To actually remove a weapon from the Reality Marble and manifest it in the real world was a feat only one step away from the true Denial of Nothingness.

And yet, that was what was taking place, or at least something akin to it.

From his prone position Shirou was only semiconscious of what was happening about him. Exhaustion and injury had finally taken their tolls upon him and he was largely insensible to the world about him, the entirety of his remaining strength being used to keep him awake.

Had he been fully aware he would have been witness to an unbelievable sight.

The first to appear was the image of Excalibur. Unlike a Traced Noble Phantasm the sword was not solid but was instead an image, a ghostly likeness of the Sword of Promised Victory that none the less radiated a sense of solidity, as though this mere image was still more real that the paltry world about it. The phantasmal blade hung between the growing rift in reality and the downed Campione from which it had sprung. Like a sentinel it floated there, hilt uppermost, the point of its blade aimed at the ground.

The second to appear was Arondight, the dark sword snapping into existence only an instant after its sibling sword. It hovered to the left of Excalibur and pulsed with a power of its own. Unlike the other weapon Arondight was very solid, very real. It had been the trail blazer, the first to make the crossing from Noble Phantasm to . . . what it was now.

Had any witness who had seen it wielded by the Berserker of the forth Holy Grail War been there to gaze upon it now they would not have believed the difference between them. Both shared the same form, but the Arondight that served Shirou had lightened in colour. Gone was that near black and dull red that had once tinted it, its colourings were now dark blue and grey. To be sure the sword didn't shine as it once had, but it had lost much of its darkness. However beyond that was the way that it had lost the air of malevolence that had once surrounded it. The madness and curses that had once tainted the blade were vastly lessened; their stain expunged by having protected the one its wielder had loved. Guinevere was safe, and the sword now served a king once more, its darkness was not gone, but its curse was shrinking.

Small wonder it now joined its sibling blade.

The last to appear was Avalon. Unlike the others the Ever Distant Utopia didn't spring into existence, instead it rose from Shirou's recumbent form in a mass of glowing golden granules. Like floating gold dust the particles that made up the legendary scabbard up coalesced into a single mass then fused together into a solid form. In the space of only a couple of heartbeats the blue and gold form of Avalon had completed itself, floating on the right side of the image of the sword it was meant to hold.

In many ways the sheath was the one with the strongest connection to the King of Steel, having been quite literally been a part of him for his entire known life. It had been with him when he had first tapped into the powers of his Servant self, it had been a part of him when he'd been brought to this world, and it had been a part of him when he had become a Campione.

For a moment the three Noble Phantasms hung there, a shield between Emiya Shirou and the unstable dimensional anomaly. Then, just as the distortion exploded, they merged. Three became one, and the one was something new.

To an outside observer it would appear as though Arondight and Avalon were drawn into the ghostly image of Excalibur. As they became a part of it the wraith-like form of the sword became more real, but even as it firmed into being the sword was changing.

Excalibur was not an ornate blade. It was beautiful, magnificent in a way that defied mortal definition, but in its mere form it had always been a simple weapon. It had lacked the embellishments that had made Caliburn a beauty, it had no engravings or decorations save for a few short faery words. Where the Sword in the Stone had been the weapon of a king, a blade meant to be seen in court and adored by the masses, Excalibur had been the weapon of a warrior. Its purpose had been to slay, to cut, slash and crush all that stood before it. Glory and victory had no need for ornamentation or decoration, all it had needed was strength and purpose.

Well, that was no longer the case.

There were similarities to its pervious form, in terms of size and weight, but now the sword was far more elaborate. The hilt of the sword was a bold royal blue with a pommel ending in a golden disk decorated by an eight pointed star formed by two squares imposed on each other. The golden guard of the crosspiece was now inscribed with faery letters and extended into a circled cross that ran onto the blade of the sword. Below that the sword was decorated with a pattern similar to the design that had adorned Avalon done in blue and gold. A series of golden diamond patterns decorated the rest of the sword down to its tip.

The sword seemed to radiate power and authority in a way that transcended mere visual displays of power, sadly with Shirou unable to fully understand what was happening there was but a single witness to the birth of the sword.


-()-


Odysseus could do nothing but stare at the sight before him in wonder.

In the past he had seen many legendary weapons, the arms of Achilles, the thunderbolt of Zeus, even the hammer of the Norse god Thor during his travels. He had seen all manner of Authorities belonging to gods from various parts of the world. But even so there were many that he hadn't had the chance to witness due to the centuries he'd spent resting in his Legend. Yet despite that only one name came to mind as he stared at the floating sword.

Excalibur.

The sword of Divine Salvation, the sword of the Strongest Steel, the Slayer of God Slayers, one of the mightiest Authorities in the entire world. This could not be it, there was simply no way that it could be, and yet its power, its very existence, thundered its name in a way that would brook no denial.

How? How could this be? He knew that the King Who Appears at the End of the World still slumbered. There might be ways by which such witches as Guinevere or other former Earth Mothers could borrow his power so as to allow one of his servants to temporarily wield his sword, but for a Campione to command that Authority it would have had to have been usurped from the King of the End himself.

There was no time for further thought; the distortion would not allow it. In a final surge something within it at last broke, some final barrier that had been holding on until this point shattered and Armageddon was let loose.

The world about Odysseus seemed to slow as he watched his own doom approach. Even though it vaguely resembled an erupting volcano he knew full well that the released force wasn't anything so simple as a blast of energy. Heat, ash, lightning, frigid cold, all these could slay his current self, but he would simply return to his legend and await another chance to return to earth.

But this . . . this was different.

The eruption wasn't anything as simple as a release of power. It was more like an expanding collapse. The world within the eruption was being consumed by the distortion, the rules of creation falling apart within it until all caught there was reduced to nothing as the rules of a hundred different realities met, clashed and annihilated each other. He didn't think it would spread to destroy the world, of that at least he was certain. The power he had unknowingly tapped and allowed to run rampant was great, but finite. In time that power would exhaust itself and the world would be able to crush this anomaly into submission and the dimensional equilibrium would regain its original form.

Of course, that would take a while, and in the intervening time anything caught up in it would suffer total destruction. Given the remote location of the island the travelling god estimated that the isle itself would be the only major loss. Well, it and everything on it.

Which included both him and Circe.

Frantically he tried to think of what he could do, what options remained to him, but everything he could imagine was useless. He was tired, wounded and the Authorities that could have carried him away from danger were being blinded by the waves of mad power that radiated from the distortion. He couldn't . . . he wasn't . . .

There was nothing he could do.

The realization hit him with all the force of a falling star. There was quite simply nothing he could do to save himself, nothing. He was going to die, the true final death that awaited all immortals in the end. No escape, no second chances, he was just going to die.

The enormity of the thought couldn't seem to fit into his mind, even as the eruption of chaos spread and began to approach him. He was a god, by his very nature he was immortal, eternal. He might change as the centuries passed, he might become other than what he had been, but he would always exist, he would always endure. He had all the time in the world for his adventures.

And now it was all going to end.

A mortal lives their whole lives with the certainty that they will die. In some cultures it's said that childhood ends when you realize that you will die. Yet despite that knowledge humans continue on, clawing and fighting for every second of sweet life. How much greater must the fear be for a being that has all eternity, one that thought he would never need to fear death? What kind of terror must it be for an immortal to realize that they can cease to exist?

Odysseus didn't feel any fear or horror, instead he felt oddly numb as he watched his doom surging towards him. There was nothing he could do, it was going to destroy him and that was all there was to it. The freedom he had sought would take its price from his existence and reduce him to nothing. In a way there was a certain freedom to be had in that, but it was not the one he had sought.

He tried to rise, tried to move away, even if it was only by a few inches, even such a tiny amount of space would buy him a fraction more time, more life. But he couldn't, even as he tried to move the wound in his chest surged with fresh pain. All he could do was lie there as the wall of power bore down on him, helpless, unable to do anything, waiting for it to roll right over h-

It had stopped.

For a moment he thought it was some trick of the mind, that his fear had sharpened his senses even further so that the last instants of his life were being dragged out even further. But that wasn't the case. Though it roiled like a bank of tortured storm clouds driven by a hurricane the vast insanity of the distortion had stopped expanding, as though it had run into a wall.

The sword, it had run into the sword.

Still floating before the insensate form of Emiya Shirou lying in the dirt the gleaming length of Excalibur stood unmoving before the storm. Like the blades of a chainsaw, the power of the distortion tore at the obstacle, but it could find no purchase, no grip upon the sword. Massive though the eruption was its growth was stymied, as though if it could not extend in one direction then it could no longer expand in any other. It strained, the pressure clearly building as the forces within the eruption thrashed about more and more violently, but Excalibur remained immovable and unalterable, as though it were simply too real for the distortion to tear apart.

Odysseus wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth though. He had no idea how this was happening, but if it gave him the opportunity to survive he had no intention of squandering it. Channelling as much of his magic to the wound in his chest as he could he slowly began to inch away from the halted eruption. As he moved he bit back several particularly vile curses. The wound stubbornly resisted all efforts to heal it, even though his power was dulling the pain and forcing the wound closed. The sword that dealt the blow had been powerful enough that the injury was costing him precious strength to close.

Reaching out to a half buried boulder he tried to use it as a hand hold to drag himself along, only to pause when a tiny firefly sized mote of golden light emerged from beneath the rock and started to float upwards. An instant later it was joined by another, and then another and another. Another flow emerged from a clump of grass that clung to a corner formed by two rocks meeting, and another stream of the mote sprang forth from the exposed roots of a tree that had been blown sideways by one of his exploding arrows.

Whipping his eyes left and right Odysseus saw more streams of the lights coming from everywhere he could see, the grass, the jungle like forest, the small stream that still flowed despite the battle that had blasted it from its bed. All the way down to the very edge of the sea, lights were emerging from everywhere on the entire island as the golden motes streamed forth. Those streams came together and formed into rivers, then the rivers flowed together as they were drawn towards the sword.

The travelling god could do nothing but stare at what he was seeing in open disbelief. He knew what he was seeing; it had become clear to him as soon as he saw the first light emerge. However he just couldn't accept it, such a thing was impossible; at least it was for a single Authority. A trio of deities working together might have been able to duplicate this miracle, but alone, unaided? That was absurd.

Somehow the sword was empowering the land. Not just the vegetation, or the water or the earth, everything about the land was being . . . blessed? Empowered? There was no easy way to describe it. It was as though the very vitality of everything about the island that made it a living place rather than a wasteland was being reinforced, enhanced and made to grow. In any other situation such a vast increase in the vitality would have been disastrous as the excess power spilled forth and grounded itself though the life already there. Like a cancer life would grow beyond safe boundaries causing the land to degenerate into a verdant hell.

However that wasn't happening here. As soon as the vitality reached its limits of the land to hold it that same power was being gently drawn out and harvested even as further power welled up. Not one insect or blade of grass was being harmed in the slightest, yet huge amounts of energy were being drawn forth. Power enough that it even daunted a god.

He should be trying to escape; this was his chance since the same effect that was enhancing the land was also granting him a minor benediction as well. Already his wound hurt less and the edges were starting to ever so slowly pull together, it wasn't much, but it was enough. He could make some distance; he could gather his strength and cast himself back to his ship. He could escape.

But instead he lay there on his back transfixed by the sight before him.

The swarm of golden motes were flowing past the sword and encircling the distortion. Slowly, as more and more of the firefly like lights flowed in from the rest of the isle and joined their brethren as they formed a glowing cocoon about the roiling form of the warp.

No, it wasn't simply cocooning the disturbance. There was something else. The lights that wrapped around the perimeter of the distortion didn't simply stay in place or flow in a continual stream. Instead they . . . danced, that was the only word he could think of to describe it. The cocoon's face was a mass of the ethereal golden fireflies whirling about each other in brief but complex patterns. One instant a spiralling galaxy formed, only to scatter apart into several smaller dances that would then come together with other such fragmented groups to form a larger dance. And yet for all the seeming chaos of the whirling, seething mass there was some sort of order to it, as if all the myriad dances were at once following a larger dance that he couldn't see.

For exactly how long he lay there staring up at the twirling lights of gold he had no idea, it could have been seconds or minutes since time seemed to lose meaning. What he did know was that he was brought out of his fascinated trance by a realization that ripped across his mind in fire.

The distortion was shrinking!

It was on seeing that that he finally understood the reasoning behind the movements of the lights. They weren't dancing randomly, they were instead moving with the currents that lashed about within the warp in dimensions. Yet even as they moved with them they were doing so slower than the true currents, and also not matching it all the time. They weren't clashing with it though; rather it was as though they were slowly bleeding power out of it by letting it push against them.

Little by little, bit by bit, the distortion was being brought under control, and as its roiling and seething grew more subdued the size of the halted eruption shrank. It was slow at first, yet as it grew smaller and smaller the pace of its diminishment accelerated to the point were it was clearly visible to the naked eye. If this continued it wouldn't be long before the dimensional tear was completely suppressed.

No . . . no, it wasn't suppression. If the distortion was a wound upon the world then suppression was sealing the wound shut with some sort of adhesive like duct tape. Not the best way to deal with it, but one that could work, for a while at least. What was taking place though was completely different, the wound wasn't being simply taped over, it was being healed. This wasn't suppression, it was harmonization.

Instead of being forced the clashing dimensions were being brought back into alignment, the discordances and disharmonies that had led to the dimensional opening he'd created being so unstable and destructive were being smoothed out and eliminated.

What was so amazing about it was that such an action was magnitudes of difficulty beyond what he'd attempted in forcing the doorway open. Tears in space were not an unknown among Heretic Gods, every now and then a powerful deity in magic or some other area of dominion would try to use their strength to create an entirely new space within the already existing dimensions. However over time such alterations to the fabric of reality would begin to break down if the god that created them didn't maintain them.

When that happened the collapse caused a . . . poisoning of the general area as the 'wound' inflicted on the world grew putrid and sickened. In time the world was able to heal that damage and return the space, and the area in which it was wrought, to normal, but in the time it took to do soothe area would be dangerous to mortals. Spirits would not rest there, ill fortune and disaster would dog any that lived there, even plants and animals kept there would sicken or go mad. Such areas were blighted, cursed until the world was able to recover from the corruption of the spaces of reality fracturing.

What was taking place, this harmonization; it was something he knew could be done. However, such a feat was only possible to several of the oldest and most powerful of the Earth Mother goddesses working in concert. Only their power was 'in tune' enough with the world to be able to guide it to heal faster as they supplied the extra power.

Now he was seeing the same thing being masterfully done, but it wasn't being done by a group of goddesses, it wasn't even being done by a single deity. It was being accomplished by an Authority, an Authority acting on its own and for one to whom it should not belong. Impossibility upon impossibility, it simply continued to mount up in defiance of all that he knew.

The distortion had now shrunk from the size of a volcano's release to the dimensions of a large car. It seemed to have used up much of the power that had been gathered though, where before it had been completely enshrouded by the glowing motes there were now a number of large gaps in the cocoon. Through them he could see the distortion itself as it continued to grow smaller. It was different now, less chaotic as the raging flows within it grew calmer. In fact it was almost as if-

Odysseus' eyes widened as he realized what he was seeing.

The distortion wasn't being eliminated by the harmonization; it was being . . . the best word he could think to describe it was 'crystallized'. As it shrunk it was condensing rather than fading, but the energy wasn't taking on a solid form or anything like that. Instead it was thickening and hardening into another distortion, but this one was more controlled, more solid than the one he'd part created. It was small, and to his divine senses it felt 'incomplete', but none the less there was something unutterably huge about it, as though what he could perceive was only a tiny portion of it.

In fact . . . yes, as he extended his senses to the limits of his ability he could feel something through the distortion. Even though the pulse of the gathered earth power shrouded it and there was still the discordant shrill of the original chaos he could still reach beyond them. It was like listening for a specific noise in a room where several other people were talking, difficult but not impossible.

Yes, there it was. Beyond the distraction was a . . . gap, a hole in the world as he knew it. It didn't feel like a doorway to the Netherworld, nor did it feel like an opening into the world of Legends. It was deeper, so much deeper that his 'sight' could not see through to the end. Yet at the same time there was something just out of 'sight', so tantalizingly close that if he could just reach a little further . . .

The travelling God strained his power to the limit as he tried to reach further. He didn't know why this was so important to him; he just knew that he had to know. He had travelled to all the ends of this world. He had seen lost temples and forgotten cities. He'd seen things no mortal would ever know, civilizations lost before they made it into the history books. He'd seen so much that there was no longer anywhere to explore, no discoveries to be charted. This, this was the first undiscovered land that he'd found for more than a millennium.

Straining with all his might he tried to look deeper.

Deeper into the distortion.

Deeper into the abyss.

And suddenly, he realized that something was looking back.

Something. Nothing. Anything. Everything. Nothing, noth- nothi-Everythingtosomethi- anything nothing-nothi-noth-not-SOMEth-AnyThIn-evERytHin-EverYT-

Connection. Connection, connections, connections. Connectedconnectionsconnectionsconnnectedededededconconcon-

It was too much! Before what he'd seen had strained his mind, but this?! It was too much!

Suddenly his pain was nothing, not when compared to what he was seeing. Not compared to what was . . . was FLOODING into his mind. It-it was just too much! He-he had to run, he had to get away! Get away! Get away, get away getaway getawaygetawaygetawayyyyyyy!

He was weak, hurt, wounded to the point where his Authorities weren't answering with the speed they should have and the power of Sole Survivor had been broken by the wounds and damage he had taken.

It didn't matter.

Sea mists sprung from nowhere, enfolding him in a cool embrace. In an instant they thickened to the point of opaqueness, then came apart to reveal the figure they had enshrouded was gone.


-()-


The sword stood before the one it would protect. To say the sword thought in any way would have been an exaggeration. It had no thoughts, not plan, not scheme. It did have will and a certain level of choice, but at the end of it all it was still a sword.

It 'knew' that it had to protect its wielder, yet at the same time it didn't fully acknowledge the one it was protecting as its user. There was a bond there, a connection that was at once tenuous and strong. It was due to this link that the sword had acted, but at the same time there was a distance, a divide that hadn't been crossed.

Emiya Shirou was not yet fully recognized by Excalibur, not in the way that would have completed the bond between them.

But even though it was incomplete a bond did exist. The sword had been made by the fusion of five distinct factors, and one of those factors had accepted him as its wielder, Arondight. Another factor had been a part of Shirou for all his recollected lifespan, and had become so much a part of him that it had caused an alteration of his basic essence. Even after their sublimation into the new Excalibur those connections remained.

Yet the legend that dwelt in this world, a power that was that of a god, had no such connection to the young King of Steel. No, in truth that wasn't quite the case. Names had power and by laying a claim to the Strongest Steel and by being titled as he had by Guinevere herself Emiya Shirou had gained a tenuous connection to the Authority Excalibur.

Excalibur was the greatest sword, and only the Strongest Steel could wield that sword. This was a rule that was written into the very world, the names might change, the players might change, but the law, the absolute decree, remained as unbending as iron. And by that law Shirou did have a claim on the sword, it was fragile and vulnerable to challenge, but it was there, not quite a bond like the others, but a link none the less.

The Excalibur that had belonged to his Servant, the Excalibur that was a Last Phantasm, that one had never accepted him though. That word had belonged to Saber and Saber alone. A copy could be Traced and used by Shirou, but at the same time no matter how perfect these copies were they would always be lacking in comparison to the original, even if they were filled with divine energy to 'fill the gaps'. There was the memory of Saber's loyalty to her Master, but that was merely an imprint, not enough to forge a bond.

And lastly was the World, the massive and utterly inhuman spirit of the planet that had allowed the creation of something as impossible as a new Excalibur.

Unlike his home world this Earth didn't have a sentient sprit representing it such as Gaia or Alaya. This world had been less touched by the multitudes of humanity that lived upon it and the age of the gods had never ended here. This world did not act as he was used to, it didn't reject magecraft as readily, it allowed miracles to exist far more freely and accepted existences that would have been rejected in his own world.

Excalibur, both as it existed in this world and as how it had existed in his, was something that could only exist as long as the World permitted it. Its nature and power were all too intimately linked with the world for any other arrangement to be possible.

Arondight. Avalon. The Excalibur of his world. The legend of Excalibur in this world. The Will of the World. The five components that had allowed the sword that now hovered above Emiya Shirou to come into existence.

They had not all accepted him, but they had recognized the link between them. For now it would remain with him, but it did not yet accept him as its wielder. In time perhaps, but not yet.

As Avalon had done the golden and blue sword dissolved into tiny golden granules and flowed into the Campione's body. There was a brief moment of resistance as it encountered the defence against magic that was common to all god slayers, but then it slipped through. Avalon had been a part of him for most of his life, and had been a part of him when he became a Campione. With such intimate knowledge of his body even the defences of magic resistance could be slipped past.

As the sword entered into a merged state with its host the last of its energy began to run through him, mending his wounds and soothing his hurts. It was a final token from the sword, a sign that while it hadn't accepted his ownership of it, it none the less held him in regard.

All signs of Excalibur faded as it sunk into sleep once more. In the future it would rouse once more, the song of battle and the scent of blood would call it forth, but until then it would sleep in inactivity and obscurity, safe from prying eyes and searching minds. When it awoke . . . well, then it might see if it was willing to accept the King of Steel. But that was in the future.

For now, this was enough.


-()-


To say that Shirou woke would be an understatement of the struggle it was for him. To say that he clawed his way back to consciousness would have been a more accurate description.

For a moment he found himself wondering if it had been worth the effort, at least while unconscious he hadn't been plagued by the thousand and one messages of pain that his body was currently bombarding him with.

Well, actually it wasn't quite as bad as all that. Painful as it was it was all minor pains, shallow cuts. There was no longer any pain in his chest from the effects of the poison and the deeper wounds inflicted by the arrows seemed to have closed up. It wasn't a perfect healing, but it was a considerable improvement on his earlier condition.

However all of that was merely background chatter in his mind, the vast majority of it was instead focused on the . . . thing hanging before him.

In appearance it was rather like a pool of quicksilver held in a silver platter with a sort of frosted silver edging, and the whole thing had somehow been placed vertically in midair before him. However, even more than the appearance the thing that held his attention in an iron grip was the image that was slowly swimming into focus just below the surface of the mercury facing.

He could feel it in his head. Not intrusive like a thief, but rather like someone looking in a window. The . . . whatever it was could somehow see what it was that he wanted.

Sluggishly his body heaved itself to its feet, but that seemed to be without any sort of intervention on Shirou's own part. All he saw was the vertical pool of quicksilver, that and the image forming in it.

Sakura.

It was as though the liquid silver of the pool was somehow transparent and he could see another image beneath it. There was Sakura, a little older than he remembered, but definitely the girl he'd loved. She was sitting in his room, in the spot where he had laid out his futon every night. Her face was calm, but marked with a deep sadness, a melancholy almost painful to look upon. She was right there, so close he felt he could almost reach out and tou-

The instant his fingers made contact with the liquid silver surface he jerked back as though he'd been stung by a viper.

It wasn't pain that made him draw back, rather it was surprise. In the moment that he'd touched the . . . portal it had been as though it had forced all knowledge of itself straight into his mind. There had been no words, only concepts, but together they had formed a clear picture.

The portal, because that was what it was, was incomplete. It had originally been meant to be something far more complex and powerful than a mere gateway, but its creation had been interrupted and the stunted energies that formed it had gone out of control and created the unstable distortion. After having been calmed those same energies had collapsed into a more stable form, one that they had recognized as natural to them. Since creating portals had been a function of the original power it had been logical for them to fall into that pattern when they needed to use themselves, but they had needed a destination. That had been easily acquired from the mind that had been loosely connected to them at the time of their creation.

This . . . this was what he'd been seeking, a portal to Sakura. It was right here, and he couldn't use it.

The energies that had gone into its creation were largely spent from the wild exertions when they had been unstable. Though the portal was complete it had very little power to it, so little that it couldn't send him through.

His existence was just too 'large' to be carried through. As a human he had many qualities to him that would be too much for the portal to send through. Life force, thoughts, emotions, his own magic, all of these gave 'weight' to his existence, 'weight' that would split the portal apart in mid transition if he were to force it.

The other problem was that the portal wasn't going to last long; already the same power that sustained it was being eaten away by keeping even such a weak portal going.

Shirou's thoughts raced as he tried to fit everything together in his mind. Alright, he couldn't go through, that was a given. Well, that alright. He wouldn't have been able to do so anyway, no matter how much he'd have wanted to. Though he dearly wished to be reunited with Sakura he wasn't about to abandon Illya in order to achieve it. With that in mind then the next logical thing to do was to send a message. Let Sakura know that he was alive, that he was looking to return.

But what? For a moment he considered Tracing some paper and a pen, he might be exhausted but he still had enough prana to manage that at least. A stone? Could he carve a short message into a rock and then throw it at her? Even as the thought went through his mind he realized just how exhausted he was if he was actually considering it. Damn it, he needed to get his head together, this was his only chance to contact her, he couldn't just let it slip away!

He didn't even have a pen on him, if he had then maybe he could have used some leafs as paper and-

His frantically searching eyes suddenly saw and latched onto something.

Underneath a covering of loose dirt was the unmistakable red leather cover of his book. He'd lost it earlier, it having been knocked from his hands by the explosion of the first of his foe's arrows, and he hadn't really had much time to think about it. In some corner of his mind he must have given it up for lost, but by the looks of things it had managed to survive with only a few scratches. No sign of the pen that had been clipped to it though, that must have not had as good fortune.

Still, there was paper. He had no ink, but if he had to he could write something in his own blood.

But even as he reached out to grab the book he felt a shiver of something pass through the whole area. Spinning in place he turned to see the portal slowly beginning to crumble away. It was a slow process, but bit by bit the edges were falling away and dissolving into nothing.

Alright, that decided it. He didn't have time to write a proper message, he'd have to-

A sudden thought struck him. Why bother with writing a message when he didn't have the time. The journal contained all the letters he'd written to Sakura, so he should send them to her. It was all ready and written, no need for much more.

Tracing a knife he quickly scratched a few short messages into the cover in shallow cuts.

Sakura.

Shirou + Illya Alive.

Different world.

Found gate, too small, sending message.

Read book.

Love you.

It wasn't the most sophisticated of messages, but it would have to do. Praying to the universe in general that this would work Shirou dismissed the knife and pushed the book into the middle of the portal.

Unlike when he had touched it the journal sank into the quicksilver surface as though it had been as insubstantial as morning mist. There was a slight tug, then by some internal force the book was drawn from his hand and carried further into the portal.

What followed was like watching the bloom of a flower being reversed. As the book was drawn in the plane of the portal, it folded in on itself in an almost beautiful display. Yet even as it did so Shirou's eyes remained fixed on the image of Sakura as it slowly shrank and became more and more indistinct. His eyes remained locked on her image until the portal finally shrunk out of existence and there was no longer anything left to gaze upon.

Then, as though the image of her had been all that was keeping him going, he collapsed to the ground.

They found him there, once they managed to make their way up to the crater that had been the summit, unconscious and covered in wounds.


-()-


Circe had not chosen to continue the battle with the allies of the god slayer. As soon as she had seen the massive eruption of power that had almost swallowed up the isles summit she had recalled the divine beings that served her and retreated back to her ally's ship.

From there she had been able only to watch in awe as somehow the power of the land was summoned up in unbelievable quantities in order to bring the tear between worlds under control. She was a goddess of sorcery, a witch without equal among mortals and with very few peers amongst the immortals. She knew just how dangerous and powerful a tear in the world could be, and so she knew just how much power was needed to seal such a tear once more.

As such she knew that there was something very wrong here. There was simply too much power being tossed about, a god was a mighty being and a Devil King was a being on par with a god. A battle between such could indeed have laid the entire island to waste, but tearing the barriers between worlds? Summoning the power of the land in such a way? No! That was different, such a power was not within the purview of one or two beings, it was something that could only be done by groups of deities working in concert.

She abandoned her thoughts on just what had happened as a gust of wind blew past her, carrying the sense of divine power. The winds curled about each other and soon formed a misted cocoon. The cocoon then faded to reveal the wounded and shivering form of Odysseus.

"Odysseus? What has be-"

"I saw it."

He didn't speak loudly, but there was a strangely terrible force behind his words. As he turned to face her the sun goddess found herself almost taking a step back at the sight of his eyes.

"There was so much, so much more than I ever thought there could be! I thought it would just be a door or a tunnel, but it's so much more."

Those eyes, she'd seen eyes like that many times before, but always it had been the eyes of mortals. Mortals that had witnessed the glory of a god, that had come to realize just how tiny and insignificant they were when compared to the awesome power that true divinities embodied. Those were the eyes of a fanatic, a worshiper, a true believer.

"Next time . . . next time I shall have it under control. I'll be able to leave, to travel through it, to see it all. And-and THEY will be there as well. They will see, I'll show them . . . No! No, that would be wrong, I mustn't show them. It mustn't be seen, it must be mine, all of it, all mine!"

They were also the eyes of one that has stared to long into the sun. However sometimes when a mortal did that it wasn't their eyes that were burnt, but rather something in their minds. She'd seen that before as well, often amongst the mortals that had come together to worship her or her father.

"So much . . . so much more than I ever imagined . . ."

But they had been mortals, and Odysseus was not. He was a being with a mind that did not quite think as a mortal did, he could comprehend and control powers that would beggar the imaginations of even the most brilliant of mortal sages. Such was the nature of the world, such was its hierarchy.

In a movement almost frightening in its suddenness the travelling god suddenly rounded on her.

"I know where I went wrong; I underestimated just what he could do. I never thought that he'd be able to purge himself of the poisons so easily. But next time I won't be so clumsy. I saw it, I saw his flaw. He has Steel in him, Steel like you wouldn't believe, but the sword still isn't his to call, so his Steel isn't complete yet!"

Gods could not be insane, that was a mortal concept. To be sure such beings as gods of war or chaos could be seen as insane by humanity, but that was only if they were comprehended from a mortal perspective. Gods were not mortals, they were not collections of meat and bone that served as vessels for their souls, they were incarnations of concepts given the form of humanity. They were divinity wrapped about a domain and fashioned into the form and image of humans. They could love, hate, laugh and cry just as any mortal might. But in the end they were not mortals, they were beings that governed over the concepts and powers that made up the world.

Yet at the same time their natures made them somewhat static, as long as their legend didn't change then neither could they. A god of war remained focused upon war, he could love and laugh and enjoy himself, but he couldn't harvest a field or carve a statue, not unless it fell within his domain. To act beyond a domain wasn't impossible, but it could not be done easily and it could not be done for long. But at the same time that focus maintained their minds, allowed them to retain cohesion when a mortal mind would have crumbled into ruins. Gods could become caught up in a madness of joy when they became Heretic Gods, but that was merely a loss of restraint and an abandonment of caution, it was not a collapse of their rationality.

That no longer seemed to be the case with her companion. Before her eyes she was seeing something that she'd always thought to be an impossibility.

A god insane.

"But I'll need more power, no doubt about that. Even as he is he's strong, too strong. There needs to be more to beat him, more power, more advantages. Can't take it if I don't have them, can't win my freedom or the rest . . ."

He wasn't even seeing her anymore. Odysseus seemed to be lost in his own world, oblivious to her presence.

"Sacrifices? That might work, but there'd have to be many. How many? How many is enough? When is it enough? When am I strong enough to break his Steel? Steel . . . steel, steel, steel, so much steel, all those weapons, all that steel. But some of the steel is gone now, taken into the new sword, the sword that hasn't accepted him yet. But with enough sacrifices . . . but they'd have to be strong. Strong and young. Children? Young men? Women too, maidens are best. But which . . ."

That chilled her blood further. Odysseus was a hero god; in all his past incarnations he'd always been the hero, never a god that had demanded sacrifices, and certainly not human ones. During the War of Troy he had broken the gates and allowed the city to be sacked, but even then he hadn't committed any atrocity himself. Instead he had hastened to Helen's side and taken steps to ensure her husband would not take her life.

What he was suggesting, it went completely against his nature.

A sudden loud shattering noise drew her attention away from the muttering Odysseus and out towards the ocean. In the distance she could see the large and lavish ship that Emiya Shirou and his party had used to reach this isle. By the looks of it something had left the yacht, apparently smashing a window on its way out. Circe had only enough time to blink before the ball of grey light shot towards them and sank into Odysseus.

"Ah . . ."

"Odysseus?"

This was not turning out to be one of her better nights. So far it had been just one thing after another and as a goddess she was really coming to dislike the experience of being caught flat footed. She had seen ages come and go, and seen wonders and horrors that would break the minds of those mortals that witnessed them. Why was it that ever since her arrival on this isle she'd been faced with one situation after another that took her so unawares?

This . . . this she had at least some idea of what it was, even though she had never personally seen it happen before. Some sealed away portion of the god's power had been returned to him, though why it had been on the ship of the eighth Campione she had no idea. However it would seem that the recovery of it had had some beneficial effects. Odysseus was no longer ranting to himself but was instead just staring out into the night.

"Yes . . . this will help. But it's not enough, not for what I want." His head came up and his gaze focused out onto the moonlit waves. "Allies, that's what I need. Him! Yes, he'll help. And if he won't then . . ."

The boards and beams of the divine ship creaked and groaned slightly as power ran through them. Ropes uncoiled and the knotted themselves as the sails unfurled and then snapped taut as the winds filled them. Slowly, but with growing speed, the craft set out onto the night darkened waters.

"Where are we going?"

The sound of her metal feet stepping upon the wooden deck were easy to hear, yet despite that Odysseus paid her no mind at all. Indeed even his body language indicated that he wasn't acknowledging her existence.

Deep in her heart Circe felt the formation of a small knot of fear.


-()-


(My beloved child, are you unwell? You have not spoken a word since the battle ended.)

Guinevere didn't answer; instead she leaned against the railing of the deck and gazed out into the night as the yacht sped along. All about her the light of the moon and stars danced upon the waves in a scene that would have inspired many an artist to paint a masterpiece, however she saw none of it. Instead all her attention was focused on a memory.

She remembered looking up at the top of the isle and seeing the small mountain explode. She hadn't known exactly what it was, that knowledge had niggled at the back of her mind but had stubbornly refused to come to the fore. She had known that it was dangerous though, dangerous and wrong. It had not been something that had a place in the world, that had been the thought that had flashed through her mind in the instant she had seen it bloom from the tip of the small mountain.

But such thoughts had vanished as the explosion had suddenly come to a halt in mid-motion. She hadn't even been able to experience surprise before the wave of familiar presence had washed over her.

Excalibur, the sword of her most beloved King.

Twice before she had felt and seen the young man she had named the King of Steel wield the Sword of Divine Salvation. The first time had been when he stuck down the Black Knight Mordred. Back then it had only been a brief glimpse as the sword had only existed for a few seconds before fading away as Sir Shirou's strength had been exhausted. That had been her first hint that the eighth Campione was somehow connected to her King, and one of the main reasons she'd kept such a close eye on him from then on.

At least that's what she told herself.

. . . Repeatedly and often.

Then, while he was under the control of Aphrodite, she had seen him use a blackened and corrupted version of the sword of her King. She had wanted to deny it, deny that the magnificent weapon of her beloved liege could ever be tarnished and defiled in such a manner, but she'd been unable to deny the evidence of her own senses. It had been Excalibur.

And yet at the same time it hadn't been.

That conundrum had been the source of endless frustration for the queen of the Divine Ancestors in the months since she'd met Emiya Shirou. The swords she'd seen had been Excalibur, of that she had been sure; the knowledge had been as sure and deep as the very marrow of her bones. But at the same time they had been different.

The Excalibur that she was familiar with was less a physical weapon and more of a power given a form. The Sword of Divine Salvation could take the form of iron tipped lightning, lesser weapons such as a lance or spear, and a giant mandala that could summon an endless barrage of the weapons that her king had conquered in his past. It was an Authority of supreme power that existed to exterminate the Devil Kings that ran rampant over the world.

The swords she had seen Sir Shirou use were different, they were not Authorities. Yet at the same time they were Excalibur. Their identities as clear to her as the sun in the sky.

Excalibur and yet not Excalibur, the paradox was maddening to her.

The same could be said of her attempts to understand what kind of connection her host had with her King. She had assembled a number of theories that could explain how he was able to wield the sword of her king. They might also explain why he had Steel in his soul despite being a mortal rather than a god. Unfortunately, theories were all that they were. For all her careful observation of Emiya Shirou she'd been unable to find anything about him that either confirmed or denied her suspicions in regard to him.

On the other hand she had managed to make some progress in finding the location of her sleeping king. The information that Leviathan had stolen from Kuhoudzuka Mikihiko's mind and passed to her had shown that the Great Sage Equal to Heaven had been bound in order to keep a specific deity sealed away. Then there had been the strange power that the Monkey King had called upon when he'd faced all three Campione. It all tied in with the other information she'd been painstakingly gathering for years.

Her King slept in this island in the Far East.

Before this trip she had been all but certain of it, so much so that she was considering taking her leave of Sir Shirou's hospitality so that she could go in search of him. However every time she'd thought of it her stomach had knotted up and her heart had started to hurt. She was . . . what?

Ghhaagghh! She hated feeling like this! Centuries of iron resolve and now her composure seemed to desert her whenever the King of Steel was involved.

And now, just to make things more complicated, as if they weren't already a chaotic enough mess, he seemed to have gained Excalibur. Not an 'unknown' Excalibur as the ones he had wielded before were, this was an Authority that felt akin to the mighty Sword of Divine Salvation that she'd seen Artur himself hold all those millennia ago in the past. The feel of the power was utterly unmistakable.

And yet it still wasn't the same, not exactly.

This would all be so much simpler if she knew one way or another, but the mystery that was the eighth Campione continued to torment her by remaining tantalizingly out of reach.

(. . . so this knight was wondering if perhaps King Shirou would like to enjoy a night of torrid passion before we battle to the death the next day. To be sure it's been some time since this armour has been removed, but I think I recall how it comes off. Do you think he would be at all interested, child?)

Guinevere didn't reply, instead she simply absently nodded her head as she continued to try to understand how her Kings sword had been-

. . . What?

"SIR KNIGHT?!"

Her cheeks flaming the queen of the Divine Ancestors whirled about to stare into the reflection cast in the glass of the window behind her. There was the image of her protector, and though she could not see 'his' face she had the distinct impression that the visor of 'his' helm was concealing a broad grin.

(Ah, so now you choose to pay attention to this lowly knight's words. Really dear one, you should not allow your burden of thoughts to so dispel your manners.)

It was all that Guinevere could do to keep from gaping at the image before her. She had grown so used to her dear guardian's character over the years, 'his' exhaustion tinting 'his' every action and had sapped the energy from 'his' character. 'He' had remained her dear fiend and diligent protector, but even so 'he' hadn't had much in the way of initiative in their interactions.

This light hearted teasing, that and the increased vitality that her dear knight had been enjoying these past weeks, it was not unpleasant, but at the same time there was something slightly jarring about it.

"Sir Knight should not tease Guinevere so." The child like immortal declared, her cheeks slightly puffed in an irritated pout.

(Well, this knight would be happy to refrain from such, if his most beloved child would answer him when he speaks to her.)

"You know why Guinevere is so caught up in her thoughts!" She protested, feeling slightly ill-done-by given that she felt she had more than adequate reasons to be mentally preoccupied. "Sir Shirou has once again used Excalibur, and this time it was closer to our king's blade than ever before. Can you not see how this is of paramount importance?!"

(No.)

It was all Guinevere could do not to gape at the image of her knight like some slack jawed halfwit. No, on second thoughts she had failed, she could feel her lips parting as all the strength seemed to leave her jaw. Had she actually heard what she thought she'd heard? Surely not, it went in the face of all she knew of her beloved Lancelot.

"How . . . how can you say that?! Never did Guinevere think to hear her knight speak so of our king!"

The head of the image before her tilted 'his' head slightly in apparent puzzlement.

(What does this knight's sweet charge mean? I mean nothing against Artus.)

"But . . . what . . . why?" The golden haired immortal child was at a loss for words.

(Emiya Shirou is Emiya Shirou, and Artus is Artus. What does it matter if the young king can hold Excalibur? Does it make Artus any less worthy? He is my king and it will take more than that to make me swerve in my service.)

The large form of the armoured knight leaned forwards 'his' helms face drawing closer to her.

(Do not get so caught up in what is without import my dear child. King Shirou can wield Excalibur, that means only that he is a worthy ally and might be a worthy foe and nothing more.)

That . . . that was right. For a moment Guinevere felt like sapping herself across the face for making such a simple mistake. Yes, it was an amazing and unprecedented thing that Sir Shirou had Steel in his soul. Yes, it was equally astonishing that he could wield the legendary sword of her king. But in the end Sir Knight was right in that it didn't really matter. She sought to find the sleeping place of her king and awaken him from his slumber. It was for that task that her divine self had given her life up to create the Holy Grail and had allowed herself to be reincarnated as Guinevere.

Yes, she had a task to perform. Sir Shirou had treated her kindly, far more so than she would ever have expected from a Devil King such as him. But even so her first loyalty must always remain with the King Who Appears at the End of the World.

Even if it did make her heart ache.

Her moment of resolve was interrupted as she heard a sudden disturbance from within the ship. People running, someone shouting that Sir Shirou needed to know something.

Her interest piqued the queen of the Divine Ancestors opened a door and stepped in to see what all the fuss was about.


-()-


Shirou ached all over, but at least he was conscious and no longer bleeding. That was a definite improvement from his condition a couple of hours ago. It had been only a few minutes since he'd come back to the world of the living, but it had been pretty busy.

After he'd passed out his companions had found him and taken him back to the yacht. All in all he hadn't been too badly off, he'd been badly beaten and blasted, and had been punctured a few times, but as far as Illya and Tiamat had been able to determine he hadn't been in any danger, not after the poisons in his body had been purified away. The only real cause for concern had been his state of absolute exhaustion, which had been somewhat baffling in and of itself.

Shirou's reserves of prana were enormous since he'd become a Campione, vast in a way that even Servants would have regarded as unusual. The only other times that he'd managed to exhaust those reserves had been when he'd fought Mordred and during the Aphrodite incident. Both times he'd used Authority after Authority in a constant stream as well as Tracing many powerful Noble Phantasms. This time though, he'd only used one Authority and had only Traced a few Noble Phantasms, and they had been of low rank. The question of just where all that prana had gone had been irritating him, but for now it had been mentally shelved.

Instead he was more focused on what really mattered; namely that he'd found a way back to his home world.

To be sure he still wasn't entirely sure of just what had taken place, he didn't even know the identity of the god that had attacked him, but it was a starting point. He hadn't mentioned it to the others yet, not when he didn't have any proof. He was actually a bit afraid that they'd tell him that it had all been a hallucination; some sort of fever dream brought one by the lingering effects of the poison and his spent state. Once he was recovered and all his energy restored he'd go over it all carefully. He'd probably go back to the island to see if there were any residual energies he could analyse, or have someone else analyse if he was to be honest with himself.

Once he had proof, something he could show to Illya to prove it had really happened, then he could-

"Shirou-sama!"

The door to his cabin slammed open as Kaida came bolting in. Off to the sides Illya and Tiamat tensed in the seats that they'd been occupying. Both had been tired, but even so they'd both insisted on staying with him in case anything happened. He'd tried to tell them that all he needed was a bit more rest, but they'd simply glared at him until he realized that he wasn't going to win this one.

"What is it?" He asked, sitting up in his bed despite his muscles screaming in protest at having to work rather than simply rest.

"We just got word from home! They say that they've been trying to contact us since yesterday evening, but something was blocking them. They were just getting ready to send another boat after us when we finally answered."

"Is something wrong?" Illya asked, a slight frown creasing her brow.

"It's the mansion. While we were gone it was attacked."

Shirou felt a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that had nothing to do with the other aches and pains that were plaguing him.

Why did he just know that things weren't going to get easier from this point on?


-()-


Asuka stood in the ruins that had once been the main hall of her kin's home and surveyed the wreckage.

In truth the intruder hadn't meant to be as violent as he had, unfortunately the defences that her king and his sister had built for the mansion had escalated every time that one had been overcome. As a result the attempt to quickly and quietly sneak in had turned into a miniature war.

Barriers, spell traps, curse monsters, even some undead guards that Shirou-sama had left behind, none of them had been able to keep the intruder out or stop his escape. It had only been few minutes after he left, barely enough time for them to put all the fires out, that a car had driven up and delivered a man who said he was from the History Compilation Committee.

He'd told them that they had suffered from a similar incident, though since their security hadn't been on par with what Illya-chan and Shirou-sama had thrown together the damage done during the theft had been far less severe. In their case it had been a recently dug up artefact that had been stolen, and this Sayanomiya Toshiaki had arrived to see what had been taken from the eighth Campione's manor.

"This . . . this is beyond anything I was expecting."

It seemed that the sight of the trail of destruction leading from the main gate, down the drive, through the main entrance and then along the corridors of the mansion and out into the gardens was enough to draw the awed comment from the Committee agent.

"Shirou-sama had formidable defences in place, but in this case they weren't enough."

"Formidable . . . ? Was his highness expecting an attack from an army?" Toshiaki asked as he took in the huge pair of stone arms that were reaching out of the ground.

That had been one of Illya's traps if Asuka remembered correctly. The girl had made it a hobby to add new traps to the mansion's defences every time she was inspired. Each trap was powered by a small reserve of prana and had a very sophisticated ally/enemy identification method that the snow haired girl was quite proud of. She'd once tried to explain it to the head housekeeper, but Asuka had found herself baffled by the increasingly technical explanation.

Ultimately what it boiled down to was that the manor grounds were littered with a variety of traps ready to fry, freeze, cut, smash or enact a wide range of dangerous effects on any that tried to breach the grounds. Even an army would have been hard pressed by them.

"Yes, I believe that when he first set them up he was preparing for something like that." Asuka took a certain pleasure in the obvious incredulity in the man's face as he stared at her, but her good mood didn't last long as they arrived at the thief's goal.

Sadly in the face of who had committed the theft they had all been useless. This was made quite clear by the path of craters, broken stones, scorch marks and, in one case, a pool of still bubbling acid, all of which led to the outbuilding that Shirou-sama used as a workshop, and all of which had apparently done nothing.

The door to the workshop hung from a single hinge and the lock had apparently been blasted from its place with enough force to have left it half melted. The inside of the outbuilding was surprisingly undamaged, Asuka had expected it to be a ransacked ruin but it seemed the thief had known exactly where to go.

A sharp intake of breath by the Committee agent drew her attention back to him. He was staring into the workshop with an expression of dread clearly written across his face.

"So it was taken."

It wasn't a question, rather a simple statement of fact. The resurrected housekeeper didn't need to know ask what he was referring to, they both knew that there was only one object in there that could have been the target.

A vessel of power so great that it was regarded as the peer, if not equal, to the Holy Grail. A mystery that had sprung from nowhere and yet still was regarded with all the fear and respect accorded a centuries old artefact.

The Gem Sword.

There was no need to ask who had taken it, after all how many individuals existed in the world who were not only able to break through the mansion's defences but who also didn't need to fear the consequences?

Actually, there was no reason to ask, the thief had left a note stuck to the edge of the doorway. A bright red note that couldn't possibly be missed. One it was written a short and simple message.

This was interesting, so I'll be taking it. I'll return it when I'm finished with it.

Alexander Gascoigne.