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.
Happy New year to all my readers. I hope this year treats you well and that it brings lots of excellent stories your way.
On a different note from normal I'd like to recommend the Fate/Grand Order anime movie that recently came out. All in all it was a most enjoyable watch. True it was a bit short for my taste, and the main character Fujimaru Ritsuka seemed to be a rather passive and unmotivated idiot for the most part, but these negatives were far outweighed by the positives. A really awesome Lancer Medusa, an even more awesome Caster Cu Chulainn and some really magnificent fight scenes. I highly recommend it and here's hoping that it might be extended, some time in the future, into a full anime.
I also have some good news; I recently saw a trailer for a Fate/Apocrypha anime, something else well worth looking forward to. I don't know about you but I am very keen to see the Fate versions of Mordred strut her stuff. I'm also keen to see how they depict Karna. All in all definitely an anime worth waiting for. There's also the Heaven's Feel adaptation coming, and the Fate/Extra one as well. All in all this year is shaping up to be quite Fate rich, something I'm completely happy with.
It seems like my Interlude went down fairly well with you guys, as ever that warms the cockles of my heart and provides further inspiration to write. On another note a fair number of readers have suggested that Sakura should use the journal that Shirou sent her as a catalyst to summon him. I do get where you're all coming from, but unfortunately, since I'm sticking to canon rules for the Grail, that wouldn't work. The Grail only summons Servants from the Throne of Heroes, and since Shirou, or at least the version of Shirou that Sakura wants to be reunited with, isn't dead he's not there. Since his legend has grown in the Campioneverse he isn't eligible for the Throne since it's only connected to worlds that run on the 'Nasuverse' rules. The afterlife of the Campione world is set up differently due to the Age of the Gods still continuing.
On another note, I once more turn to my readers for suggestions on possible future Servants. I've managed to get most of them sorted out, but I'm having trouble deciding on a Saver. Of course the Class requires a semi-messianic figure, but I'm having trouble thinking of suitable candidates. There are several examples in Christianity, Christ himself, Moses and the like, but they aren't quite what I'm looking for. So, would you like to make some suggestions? I would greatly appreciate it.
SPOILERS!
This chapter is another one that ended up growing on me more than I had originally planned. The plan was just to see about tying up a couple of loose ends, seeing to a little character development and generally moving things along in preparation for the next adventure. However, as tends to happen to me when I get engaged, things just grew on me. There were a few scenes that I could have made shorter, but when I did so they felt somewhat fake, as though I was railroading the characters along the plotline I had devised without regard to how they would normally think or act. Making their thought processes and conversation more realistic left things a bit bigger, but was generally more satisfying to my sensibilities as a writer.
I'd like to say right off the bat that I'm probably going to be more than a bit off canon when it comes to how the Nasuverse treats souls, their structure and spiritual damage. I do recall that things like spiritual surgery and attacks directly to the soul are a thing, but I found there was little concrete info on this. The source materials describe the soul as 'an invincible command structure' while the body can be described as a terminal that it controls. That said there are a number of examples of the soul being tampered with, predominantly by vampires that keep a soul going after the body is dead, or beings like Zouken, who mutilate their own souls to a degree that Voldemort would envy in order to survive.
In the end I'm not entirely sure that the kind of damage that Kaida's Soul Purification is possible under the Nasuverse rules, but since it's taking place in the Campioneverse I think it's alright if I play a little fast and loose with the details.
I also hope you folks enjoy my attempts to expand upon the personalities of Tiamat, Lancelot and Guinevere, it's not the easiest thing, but I think I'm doing an okay job. The way I see it the anime and light novels have always displayed the gods as being somewhat immature. As far as I can see they're kind of like children that never needed to mature or grow up since their power and immortality meant they never had to face any consequences for their actions nor ever face any real adversity. The same can be said of Divine Ancestors, though to a lesser degree. They know the adversity of not having their full power and have to push themselves to be more cunning and resourceful, but even so they don't really need to change or mature.
This is no longer true of those living with Shirou though since all of them are in a rather unique position as far as deities go. Quite by accident Shirou s acting both as a role model and a disciplinary influence upon them. because of their promises to him Shirou is keeping them from running rampant as they normally would, as a result all of them are having to act with more forbearance and restraint than they normally would, and the experience is making them grow in ways totally new to them.
I confess that when I got to writing, I had had absolutely no idea as to what I was going to do with the date between Shirou and Illya. When I came up with the general idea my thought was that I really should give them some time together in a relaxed setting so they could unwind a bit. The idea that she would try her hand at manga was one that struck me as strangely appropriate. It also struck me that the whole Holy Grail War would be simply too good an idea not to use. I'm not sure anything other than an omake or two will come of it, but I found the image too interesting to dismiss.
I am quite pleased with how the introduction of Ahriman turned out. I've been planning to introduce him into the story for more than two years now, but I was always a bit unsure as to just how I would manage it. Thanks to some suggestions from my Beta I now have several ideas and a solid plan as to how he's going to play into the final adventure of the current arch. Rest assured, there will be some unexpected surprises.
AS always I would like to thank my Beta for all his help in getting this chapter ready for you guys. I know it took a little longer than we would have preferred, but please remember that he has all thise pesky real world demands on his time. Until such time as I have taken over the world we shall simply have to bear with them. Still, I think his excellent aid is worth the wait.
Chapter Thirty Four: Commitments and Appointments
Shirou packed up his books as he rose from his desk. It was an oddly familiar set of movements, one that he'd been performing for years, but as he went through them once more he found a contemplative part of him marvelling at how ordinary it was in comparison to the rest of his life. So much had been happening lately, and it was only now that things seemed to have begun to settle down to any meaningful degree. Gascoigne was out of the country, and had been for a couple of weeks now. There had been a few more frantic correspondences between the Royal Arsenal and the History Compilation Committee, mostly to reassure the British association that the King of Steel wasn't preparing to descend upon them with fire and sword to seek their annihilation.
Somewhat understandably they had been concerned that any ire their king might have raised would end up spilling over onto them, and they had been willing to ship over a few crates of tomes and artefacts in an attempt to buy the mercy of the eighth Campione. For his part Shirou had been slightly nonplussed by the sudden influx of magical loot, but he supposed that his own crushing victory over the Black Prince had left his organization more than a touch worried about their standing with him.
Properly cataloguing the contents of the crates that had been sent had been difficult, but something that he'd been able to leave to the former members of the Circle that lived in the manor. What he hadn't been so easily able to delegate to them had been a couple of promises that he'd made. Promises that he'd done his best to keep as soon as he could.
-()-
Two Weeks ago, two days after the confrontation on the false Avalon.
"J-Just through here Shirou-sama."
The slight stutter in her voice was the only sign of Kaida's nervousness. In all truth the Hime-Miko was demonstrating admirable self control given the situation.
"Don't worry Kaida; onii-chan is sure to be able to help."
Illya's confident reassurances might have gone some way to settling Kaida's nerves, but sadly the same couldn't be said for Shirou himself.
Their small group, consisting of himself, his sister, Kaida and Manaka, were walking through the halls of a small hospital. It was in a different part of Tokyo to where he normally lived his general life, but it hadn't been so hard to get to that it had been a major inconvenience. Once here the Hime-Miko had immediately known where to go, and the security personnel had allowed her and the rest of them through with nary a word of question. All of this was hardly a surprise; after all she'd been coming here for years. She knew the route so well she could have walked it with her eyes closed, the guards and administration had seen her so many times that they didn't even think about it before they let her through.
This was where her comatose mother slept her endless sleep, so none of this was much of a surprise.
What was more of a surprise was the mounting sense of nervousness that Shirou felt building within himself. It wasn't anything so severe that he had to worry about it unsettling him, but at the same time it was a bit on the unnerving side. He had gone into battle with gods and felt less trepidation than this, as absurd as it was. On the other hand, maybe that was to be expected. At his most basic and fundamental level Shirou was a Sword, his mentality and personality shaped around that basic concept, and as a sword he was suited to going into battle. In the past such overwhelming foes as Berserker, the darkened version of Saber had been able to shock him, even paralyse him with fear, but never had it been the actual prospect of combat that had made him afraid.
No, in some ways this was worse than going into battle. At least there he knew what he was up against. Here though, here he felt a pressure that he hadn't had to deal with in the past.
The ultimate irony was that if he were to fail in the task before him then there would actually be very little fallout for him to deal with. The world wouldn't end, those he cared for wouldn't die, he himself would not be slain. Instead only one girl would be hurt by disappointment. Just one girl . . . who was his friend.
As his eyes flicked over to Kaida again the King of Steel felt uncertainty flutter around in his stomach once more. She was putting on a brave face, but at the end of it all even he could see that she was even more nervous than him. Well, that was hardly a surprise, not given the reason he was here.
On the island he'd told her that he would be willing to take a look at her mother, that had given her hope. After the whole mess with Gascoigne and learning that he'd brought back an immortal Divine Ancestor back from the brink of oblivion, it was so easy for her to hope, to think that this might be it. It was something he could practically see written across her face, despite her best attempts to keep it hidden. For his part Shirou knew that even with the skills that had been passed to him by Archer he was still pretty bad at getting a read on people, so the fact that he was so sure of how she felt made the whole matter weigh more heavily on him.
The simple fact was that he was worried he might fail. When he'd made the offer to help the Hime-Miko turned maid Shirou had been quite sincere in his offer, however he might have made that offer a bit more lightly than he should have. It wasn't that he didn't want to, he was more than happy to offer Kaida what aid he could. The problem was that he hadn't given the situation all the consideration he should have done.
The thing was that the wounds that were keeping Kaida's mother in her comatose state weren't physical ones, but rather were of a spiritual nature. That would be hard to deal with due to a number of factors. The first and simplest was that Noble Phantasms in his Reality Marble that could heal were relatively rare. Certainly Unlimited Blade Works had literally uncountable weapons within it, but the vast majority of them were tools of war intended to attack or defend. Noble Phantasms that healed were, more often than not, abilities intrinsic to the user, such as Berserker's God Hand being his very skin, or took the form of an amulet or artefact.
Unlimited Blade Works was a Reality Marble built up around the concept of 'Sword' as born from Shirou's matching Element and Origin. The concept of 'Sword' could be broken down so that it's most basic interpretation would be something along the lines of; 'a tool of war/battle/combat', a flexible concept that could be applied to all sorts of things. That was the reason why there were other weapons and items beyond swords in his Reality Marble, there were axes, arrows, shields, suits of armour, anything that was a weapon or tied to a weapon, anything that was touched by the concept of 'Sword'.
The problem with that was that the concept of a weapon did not lend itself easily to becoming a tool of healing. Oh, there were exceptions, Shirou had a number of weapons that would heal their users, but most of those weapons were predatory in nature, or perhaps it would be more accurate to call them vampiric. Such arms tended to feed upon the ones they injured, and then convey that stolen vitality to their wielder. Metztli Tliltic Maitl was an example of such a tool, but far from the only one that he possessed.
Unfortunately, though such a weapon could heal a broken body, or even a wounded immortal, it would be unable to mend the damage that had inadvertently been inflicted upon Kaida's mother. What had been done to her . . . was unusual in the extreme. Spiritual damage was always hard to get a grip on, but there were ways to shore up such injuries, life force could be shared or harvested, corrupted or dying spirit cut away and replaced. Some of the treatments could be painful, but in the end they could get the job done. He had some Noble Phantasms that operated at the spiritual level, but even so they were intended as weapons to purify malign spiritual interference and eliminate hostile astral entities.
Unfortunately Kaida's mother didn't suffer wounds like those. Instead she'd had portions of her spiritual makeup quite literally purified out of existence. It wasn't so much that she had been wounded as it was that parts of her had been erased wholesale. Even worse was the fact that since the portions erased had been the 'dark' aspects of the soul returning them was even more difficult. Put into terms of the physical body she hadn't so much been injured as she had been purged of all the beneficial bacteria and natural flora in her body. She could live without them, but she couldn't function properly. In the body this would have eventually led to death, in the spirit it didn't kill her, but neither could she continue to live.
And that was the problem, he couldn't casually think of any Noble Phantasms that would repair such damage. Thanks to his Reality Marble he was well aware of the power and function of every weapon stored in Unlimited Blade Works; however that was only their direct uses. Alternate ways to employ them, innovations and inspirations, those had to come from him.
"H-Here she is."
Dismissing his troubling thoughts for the time being the Emiya heir realized that the small party had finally reached their destination. The room they found themselves in was somewhat small, but it was bright and clean, the centre was taken up by a bed, but there was also a simple bedside table with a small houseplant on top. That combined with the light peach paint and the matching curtains gave the room an atmosphere of being more like a guest room than a hospital room. This was compounded by the form of the woman lying in the bed. At first glance she looked as though she was simply asleep; the look of calm peace on her face, but the impression was destroyed as soon as one noticed the small details. The IV running into her arm, the small pipe coming out from the bed sheets below her hips.
"Hello, ka-san," Kaida spoke quietly as she went to the side and took one of the woman's hands in her gloved ones. "This is my King, his majesty Emiya Shirou. He is the great King of Steel to whom I have sworn my service, and he's come to see if he can help you."
Wordlessly Shirou took up a spot across from her on the other side of the bed. Illya was with him, while Manaka had taken up a spot beside her friend, her right hand placed on the Hime-Miko's shoulder in a silent gesture of support.
Alright, he was here. Now what?
It was such a simple question, yet Shirou momentarily found himself unsure as to how he could proceed. Should he Trace a Noble Phantasm? If so, then which one? Should he try something else, see if he could help with one of his Authorities? Which one though? The Hero's Bride only worked if he saved her, and Steel for the Legion needed the target to acknowledge themselves as being under his banner, even if it was only in the privacy of their own head, so neither was an option here, not with her in this condition.
"Here, let me see."
Illya reached out and took the other hand of the woman in the bed. Her eyes closed in concentration, and Shirou could almost feel the power of her circuits lighting up. Yes, this was probably the most sensible option to take, at least as starting went. His structural analysis might be vastly superior to his sister's when it came to analysing weapons or artefacts, but when it came to dealing with anything alive she outstripped him easily. Well, that was hardly a surprise, even Rin had acknowledged Illya's abilities as extraordinary, so outside of his specialities it was pretty much a given that she'd outstrip him.
A minute passed, Illya didn't move, but her expression did change. To start with her face had been one of clinical curiosity, then her expression had narrowed in concentration, only to shift to confusion, and then to a sort of understanding. Still, even after that it was almost another minute before she let go of the hand and stepped back.
"I . . . I think I understand what happened."
"Illya?"
Shirou's question drew her attention away from the insensate form on the bed and back to her small audience.
"What . . . what was that? What did you do?"
Kaida was clutching at the sheets on her side of the bed, the crushing grip she had on them the only outward sign of her anxiousness.
"It called Structural Analysis," Shirou answered, drawing her eyes away from Illya, "It's what I use to learn new swords and weapons when I see them. Illya's much better at it than me though, at least when it comes to anything other than weapons. She should be able to give us a better idea of just what's happened to your mother, and what we can do to fix it."
"But we already know, I accidentally purified her too much, so she lost the drive to live, that's why she's like this, that's why she won't wake up."
The self recrimination in the Hime-Miko's words was audible to everyone, and Manaka's hand visibly tightened on the shoulder it still rested on. Kaida glanced gratefully at her friend, her own hand coming up to rest on the hand on her shoulder in a gesture of camaraderie.
"Yes, but I was able to make sense of just how that's effected her spiritual structure." Illya explained, her face and voice now confident as she faced the two representatives of the History Compilation Committee. "When you first told us about this I thought that it might be similar to some of the spiritual attacks that I've heard of. In those cases the spirit is so damaged that it spills over into the mind, the victims becoming irrational and insane as they approach a spiritual collapse. However that didn't match with how you described your mother's decline. Then you also said it was as though she was running out of energy, losing the drive to go on, so I thought that maybe it was as though her soul had been placed under some sort of burden that was being reflected in her vitality. Such a thing would explain the symptoms you described, and if key aspects of her spirit were weakened then such a result could be produced."
The red eyed girl paused for a moment, apparently suddenly conscious of the hawk-like attention that Kaida was fixing on her.
"I . . . I thought that if that was the case then it might be possible to perform a spiritual graft, add prana as a substitute for the injured parts and help in them healing over. It would be imperfect, but once the process was finished onii-chan would be able to use some of his Noble Phantasms to increase her vitality and complete the recovery."
Illya paused for a moment.
"It's not that though, what's been done to her . . . it should be impossible. There are whole sections of her spiritual structure that are simply not there anymore, but it's not like they were dissolved or torn out, there's no damage or tearing or anything like that. It's like . . ."
Again she stopped, trying to find the right words as she looked at those that were listening to her.
"It's like she's a machine, and someone perfectly disassembled part of her while the machine was running, and all without interrupting the machine's function."
The former Einzbern Master scowled slightly as she waved her arms in an exaggerated gesture of frustration.
"I really don't get it. Everything I know says that it shouldn't be possible, that removed sections like that should cause the victims soul to collapse and cease to function. Instead it's like it's still working, it's just doing it around the missing parts. The problem is that even though it's still working her spiritual structure isn't . . . flowing properly. Some parts are fine, but others are only acting enough to keep existing, not to perform their functions."
There was another pause, this time drawn out as Shirou and the two members of the Committee stared at her.
"I . . . had no idea that soul was so . . . mechanical." Manaka commented, breaking the silence as she looked first at her friend, then back to Illya.
"It's not that simple," The snow haired girl replied, a note of irritation in her voice. "It's just a metaphor to make it a bit easier to understand. Understanding spiritual structures is really hard, even for my family, and we're some of the best at it. Grandpa was very strict in my studies when I was learning, and even so I've still got lots to learn. Saying it's like a machine just makes it easier to explain, really it's more like trying to describe a rainbow to someone that's been blind for their entire life."
"So . . ." The one word from Shirou drew his sister's attention back to him as he looked down at the comatose woman, "Do you know how we can help her?"
"I'm not really sure." Illya admitted, "Something like this is . . . it's not something I've ever really heard of. The problem is that parts are missing, not cut out or torn or corroded, they're just gone and there's nothing left behind. And I really don't know how to deal with that."
"Well, let's try some things and see how they work." Shirou suggested, "I've got a few Noble Phantasms that can heal, I'll give them a small try and you can check to see if they help."
It was perhaps not the most methodical means to go about this, but Shirou felt the need to actually do something. Kaida had seemed to shrink in on herself as Illya had explained just how severe the damage to her mother actually was, and the young Emiya had no doubt that she was internally railing against herself for having inadvertently done this to her. She needed to see that something was being done, that something could be done. Quite simply, she needed hope, and Shirou was more than happy to be a bit chaotic in his approach if it meant he could provide it. It wouldn't be too hard to make up for it, and it would provide a starting point for their attempts.
"Trace, on."
Prana flowed through his circuits as he mentally accessed the blueprint in his Reality Marble. The power responded to his will as the steps of Tracing were followed and blue and gold light flared in his hands as the Noble Phantasm took form.
Moving with deliberate carefulness Shirou wrapped the fingers of the comatose woman around the hilt of Metztli Tliltic Maitl. As soon as he was sure that her grip was good he placed the tip against the fingertip of his left index finger and pressed down. A spot of blood welled up as the needle sharp point of the obsidian dagger punched through his skin, but it immediately vanished as both it and a trickle of life force were drunk up by the Noble Phantasm. Beside him Illya reached out again and pressed her hand to the woman's shoulder as she monitored what effect his sharing of life force was having on her.
The King of Steel waited for a moment, then disengaged Metztli Tliltic Maitl from the grip that held it and allowed the Noble Phantasm to fade away. He certainly had no plans to let that blade remain in the world for a moment longer than he had to. Its power might be useful, but the obsidian dagger had far too much blood in its past for him to be comfortable with letting it exist once more. There were simply too many ways that could go wrong, too many ways it could be abused.
"Did that help?"
Despite her eyes still being closed in concentration Illya shook her head in answer to his question.
"No. It did help her physically, it got rid of some of the atrophy that has set into her muscles, improved her circulation and a few other minor physical complaints, but it didn't do anything to the spiritual damage. Whatever we're going to do, it can't just be rooted in healing her vitality, that won't have any effect on something like this."
Shirou's eyes narrowed slightly as he began to mentally go over his options.
"Alright, let's try something else."
And so they did.
Again and again, over the next hour they tried one legendary tool or weapon after another, weapons of power to make kings covetous, tools of value that would have made any magical association on the planet salivate with desire at the mere sight of it. One after another he carefully Traced them out, each time filling them with the power of Steel from Dragon Slaying Hero in order to overcome their flaws. Again and again he did it, and each time the result was the same. He could heal her body, her spirit could be cleansed of curses, he could drive away ill fortune, he could even bless her with prosperity and strength in battle. However no matter what he did he couldn't seem to fill the gaping holes in her spirit that kept her trapped in her current state.
"I . . . I don't understand," Kaida hesitantly asked, "You were able to save Guinevere-sama after his majesty, Gascoigne, had wounded her to death. Why could you save her, but you can't wake my mother?"
"I . . ."
Shirou didn't know what to say. His own frustration at not being able to do anything was building with each failure, but as things stood he wasn't sure why he was failing. He had some ideas, theories, but without Illya's aid he was unable to determine if they had any validity.
"These methods aren't healing her because there's nothing there to heal."
Illya cut him off, frustration clear in her voice as she continued to press her hand against Kaida's mother's shoulder, but now her eyes were open as the snow haired girl looked back and forth between her adopted brother and the Hime-Miko.
"I don't get it, it should be impossible, but it's there any way. Your mother's spiritual structure, I said that there were parts that were missing, but it seems to have gone even beyond that. It's like . . . it's like her structure no longer even acknowledges that those parts are missing at all. We can't make her regenerate those parts because as far as she's concerned her spiritual structure is complete and in perfect health. Whenever we try something that might promote as sort of growth in her soul it just ignores the missing spots and focuses on something else."
Illya's other hand came up to rub at her face, the motion that of someone trying to find the drive to keep on going.
"The thing I don't get is that something like this should be impossible," she explained, "The type of damage itself is almost unbelievable, but after what you told us about your powers I can see how it might have happened. What I don't understand is how her soul has . . . I don't even know what to call it. It hasn't adapted, it hasn't healed, it's just . . . kept on operating, even though it shouldn't be able to. Her soul should have imploded around the missing aspects, but instead-"
"STOP! Please . . . please, just stop."
Kaida's almost anguished shout cut Illya's incipient rant off, before fall to little more than a whisper. The possessor of the Dragon's Roar just stood there, her head bowed and her hands clenched into fists.
"I . . . I know what I did to my mother was horrible, but please . . . don't tell me any more. I'm sorry, I . . . I just can't bear it, not all this . . . these things that I did to her."
"I'm sorry," Illya truly did sound repentant, her face a mask of shame as she stared down at the bed before her, "I just didn't get it, and then I started talking, and I was just saying everything that I thought. I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking about you or anyone, I was just trying to work it out."
Under other circumstances Shirou would have been quite pleased to see his adopted sister being able to be so open with someone else. She'd really made leaps and strides in the development of her social skills since arriving in this new world. Seeing her like this was oddly heartening. However right now he couldn't spare too much attention. Instead he was mentally combing through every Noble Phantasm and Mystic Code in his Reality Marble to try and find something that might be of use.
Avalon, why wasn't Avalon there? Out of all the Noble Phantasms that could heal the Sheath of Excalibur could be regarded as being the most potent, possessing not only the ability to heal the flesh but also the ability to repair spiritual damage due to its nature as 'the ever-distant utopia'. Honestly, he wasn't sure if it would have worked in this situation, given the perplexing nature of the spiritual wounds Kaida's mother was suffering, but it was still something that he would have put his faith in.
But now, like Excalibur and Arondight, Avalon was gone from his Reality Marble. He could remember the image, even recall something of its composition, but the once absolute knowledge that allowed him to perfectly duplicate them was no longer there.
He knew that the rest of Unlimited Blade Works was untouched; he could effortlessly bring to mind any of the countless weapons that rested there, anything from mundane daggers, to ingenious Mystic Codes, to Noble Phantasms that could spill out the blood of even an immortal god. They were all there, save for the three that had gone missing.
Working out why those particular Noble Phantasms were no longer a part of his Reality Marble was one of the main issues of Shirou's growing to-do list, but for the time being it wasn't something he could focus on. Avalon was unavailable, the why of it wasn't important right now, so what could he use in its place?
"So . . . the problem is that you can't heal up the 'empty' spots in Renjou-san's soul?" Manaka asked, speaking up for the first time since they had arrived in the hospital room.
"Yes," Illya replied, "they've just been erased, and now . . . now there's nothing left of what they should be in the soul, so it can't heal what's not there."
"When you say that there's nothing left, do you mean all the evils that Kaida-sama purified away?"
"Yes, the negative aspects of the soul. In excess they can lead to aberrant or insane behaviour, but they're also intrinsic to the spirit. It shouldn't even be able to sustain itself without them.
The witch fighter's brows knitted in focus as she looked back at the former Einzbern Master.
"So, you're saying that she needs to regain those natural evils, things like selfishness and greed, so that she can recover from this?"
"Well . . . yes. That's what Kaida already said. Her mother's in this state because she doesn't have them, they were purified out of her."
"Then . . . you shouldn't be trying to heal her," Manaka said slowly, her words drawing sudden attention from both Illya and Kaida. For his part Shirou just watched her attentively, he was sure there was something here, something that was important. "She's been purified, that's the problem. So . . . you should be trying to reverse it, fix what the problem is."
Manaka suddenly looked up, her face that of someone that had just had an epiphany.
"You shouldn't be trying to heal her; you should be trying to . . . contaminate her?"
It was a question rather than a statement, but it took both Shirou and Illya aback. It was a hesitant suggestion, more a vocalization of a rambling thought, but it had a ring of possibility to it.
"That . . . that could work!" The red eyed girl said, her head tilting slightly as she focused on her patient once more, then her eyes closed as she used Structural Analysis once more. "Yes, I can see how it might work. The missing spots are perfectly preserved; they're just empty, so if the appropriate 'filler' can be found then her soul will adapt what finds its way there to be a suitable fit."
She paused again.
"It's not a perfect solution, and it won't provide an immediate recovery, but it should be enough to begin her recovery. If we can find something suitable then the nature of her spiritual structure will handle the rest, since it's natural for the soul to seek to return to an optimum state. It's not ideal, but there should be enough leeway for it to . . ."
Her words drifted off into somewhat incoherent mumbling as she once more closed her eyes as she focused all her attention on her task.
For his part Shirou's mind was running at breakneck speed, his thoughts chasing each other so fast that they seemed to be piling up on top of each other. They had been coming at this from the wrong angle, that was now obvious. Whatever had been done to this woman's soul was clearly outside either of their knowledge. Still, they'd been able to work out some of it, enough that with Manaka's suggestion they now had at least something to work with.
The problem now though, was how to go about it. Sure, he had literally thousands of Noble Phantasms that could inflict evils and curses upon a victim, but those weren't designed to let the target of their curses survive the experience. He needed something that would press evil into her without harming or overwhelming her, the problem was that all his weapons were just that, weapons. They weren't designed or intended for minimal use any more than a katana was meant to be used as a scalpel.
He needed something else, something he could control, something-
Oh.
There were times that Shirou wanted to smack himself over the head. He knew that he was no genius, indeed, in some regards he fully acknowledged that he was a bit on the slow side. However at the same time he liked to think that for the most part he was a thoughtful and reasonably intelligent individual. The answer was glaringly obvious, and he should have thought of it the instant he heard the mention of inflicting evils upon her. Curses without End, His Authority that let him wield all the curses of all of mankind's evils; it was so simple, so obvious.
He supposed that there were a couple of reasons the answer hadn't sprung to mind, firstly was that it was an Authority rather than a Noble Phantasm. Thanks to the nature of Unlimited Blade Works the details and abilities of the weapons stored within it were always there in his mind, as easy to recall as the sound of his own name. By contrast his Authorities were thing he had to think about, powers he had to consciously bring up. The other issue was that he'd never really thought of Curses without End in that context before. The Authority was a powerful one, one of his strongest, but beyond that it was also unquestionably the most vicious one in his arsenal. Whenever he tapped into it he was always shocked by the sheer depth of its eagerness to lash out at anything and everything. In the past he'd managed to curb its bloodlust, and managed to use it for comparatively minor deeds, such as when he'd inflicted bad luck upon that boy that had been following Illya, but always it had been for a malicious purpose, no matter how minor. The idea that it could be used benignly was one that simply hadn't entered his head; it was like suggesting that a snake might choose to be a vegetarian.
"Illya, I think I have an idea." He said, turning his attention back to his adopted sister.
"Curses without End?" She asked, her mind clearly having come to the same conclusion as his.
"Curses without End." He confirmed.
"Um . . . what do you two mean?" Kaida's voice was hesitant, but there was also a note of hope there.
"Curses without End lets me employ all the evils of humanity in the form of curses and maledictions," Shirou explained, "The curses can be strong enough to hurt a god, but I can also make them small enough that they can be near to harmless. Illya, and I, think that if I make them small enough then they'll be able to slip into the gaps left in your mother's spiritual structure. We think that once they're there her soul will repurpose them to serve the functions of the parts that she lost, and in time they'll be absorbed into her spirit and become proper parts to her."
It was an oversimplification, and it was something that was only possible due to the uniqueness of the situation, but it just might work. Curses without End produced maledictions that were about as close to pure evils as you could get. They were simply masses of raw concepts wrapped in magic to give them power, something that it would be pretty much impossible for any magus to duplicate, regardless of their skill.
"Alright, I think I'm ready." The eighth Campione glanced down at his sister were she had remained unmoving for the last few minutes. "Try something small, but make sure it's a behaviour, something that is a part of her character. Curses like that should target her spirit, and that's what we want."
"A mother who sees her child die, a soldier who gazes on his killer, the beggar in the gutter who stares at the palace. From them I take their bile, their hate, their curses."
Deep in his heart he felt the power of the Authority awaken and stretch, even as he felt the absolute foulness of its power flood through his magic circuits. As always he felt a churning in his stomach as the instinctual revulsion and disgust welled up in him, but as he had learnt to do he forced them down. Instead he focused on the mental image that he'd constructed to understand the feelings he got from the Authority, the image of the battered and abused puppy that none the less responded with adoration for its new master.
Yes, there it was, the now familiar eagerness and barely pent up energy, all coupled with an almost childlike drive to please. Feeling its power join the disgusting flow running through him, Shirou turned his attention to his target, the comatose woman lying on the bed before him. Immediately the puppy was gone and in its place was a rabid dog, one foaming at the mouth and straining at the leash in order to bite, to claw, to rip, to kill. As always the Emiya heir found the sudden transition to be almost shocking, but as he had learnt to do he focused past his disquiet and on the task at hand.
Alright, the connection was made, and the target chosen. Now came the hard part.
The simple fact was that his Authority didn't want to be restrained; it didn't want to be moderated. It wanted to lash out; it wanted to let loose a flood of curses upon the target until she was buried beneath their weight. It wanted to curse her until her very existence collapsed beneath pressure of the mounting evils. With all his focus Shirou held back the tide of malevolence that wished to surge forth, instead only allowing a tiny trickle to flow through.
Ambition.
It was a minor sin, one that was present in everyone, it was the point where the drive to improve one's self grew towards becoming unhealthy, dangerous. In and of itself ambition was not evil, but it was entirely too easy for it to grow out of control, to become a fire that consumed morals and restraint as it fed upon itself to reach ever higher, to burn ever brighter, to be ever bigger. It was also a calculated choice. This woman had apparently existed for nearly five years without any of the natural evils that were a part of the human soul. Archer had known of some humans, dedicated ascetics and the like, that through years of mediation spiritual exercise and a host of other means had managed to purge their souls of those same evils, but they had done so slowly, and had given their spirits decades to adjust to the changes as they took place. This woman had had no such preparation; instead it had been forced upon her by the power of her unknowing daughter. As such he had no idea how introducing what had been lost would affect her. It could be that in the absence of other minor evils to offset it, and in a spirit that had not known such influences for so long, the introduced evil could swell to dominate the spirit.
That was why he had chosen ambition as his first test. It was an emotion that could be ruinous, but it was less immediately dangerous than rage or greed. By its nature ambition normally required some thought, though blind ambition could be foolish in the extreme. Still, it was potent enough evil that its effects would be easier to see, but at the same time if anything went wrong it would at least be somewhat mitigateable.
He felt the curse, the tiny bundle of evil and malevolence, slip into the comatose women. Had she been awake and aware then she would have been subject to a sudden surge ambition, a certainty that she was destined for greater things, and an accompanying desire to reach them. On its own it would not have been a bad thing; it might even have been beneficial to someone stuck in a rut who was not reaching their full potential. However the desire for elevation would also be accompanied by willingness to dismiss others, to use the crushed dreams of those in her way as footholds on her own way to the top.
"It worked!"
Illya's sudden exclamation almost broke his concentration, but he maintained the connection even as he turned his attention to her.
"How good a fit was it?"
"It's not perfect, but I could sense it sliding into place. Do it again, another one this time."
Alright. The feral wolf strained at its leash once more, but Shirou held it tightly. Instead he only allowed a sliver of a curse to escape, this time choosing a different evil.
Indulgence.
Once more it was not an evil that inspired action. Rather it was more passive, but also more insidious. It was the desire for just one more, to have something just a bit richer to let discipline and restraint slide just once, at least until the next time, then the temptation could be resisted, except that it wouldn't be. It was a low slide down that increasingly steep slope as more and more became acceptable, as indulgence set in. However like ambition it wasn't an evil that was immediate, rather it was on that built up over time.
"Yes! Yes, that worked, I can feel another empty patch being filled. Try another one, something bigger this time."
Bigger, huh? Alright, how about . . . this.
Cowardice.
Fear was a natural emotion, it was what let you weigh danger, told you when to run, how to be safe. It wasn't always right, it wasn't always meant to be listened to, but fear was by no means an evil in and of itself. To heed it at all times, to follow its advice even when it meant abandoning those that were counting on you, to leave all resolve and duty and simply scurry away to save yourself, that was cowardice.
As tied as it was to one of the most primitive and basic drives of human life it was a 'larger' evils than the one's he'd used before, even so he could feel it travelling along the connection his Authority had made and then slip into the victim.
"Okay, try two this time."
Intolerance. Resentment.
The two evils were loosely related, oft times feeding each other. As before they slipped in without any resistance that he could perceive, and Illya nodded her head again.
"Still no problems, keep going. Just don't be too fast, I'll let you know if you need to stop."
Lust. Anger. Hubris. Spite. Hatred. Gluttony. Greed. Sloth. Deceit.
Some of the evils are starting to overlap, emotions that draw from the same well, but which express themselves differently. In a way it was like a spectrum, there were many colours, but there were different shades of the same colour. Rage, wrath, irritation and hatred were all 'red', but they were different shades of it. Hardly a surprise really, humans were multi-facetted beings, so their drives and feelings could hardly be cut up into neatly compartmentalized sections.
Entitlement. Avarice. Apathy. Disdain. Jealousy. Antipathy. Dene-
"Stop!"
The flow was immediately cut off on that one word, and as the last one slipped in Illya released her hold on the woman's shoulder and stepped back.
"That's all we can do for now. What we've put into her is settling in, but if we use too many she might not be able to cope."
With a wordless nod Shirou cut the connection between him and Kaida's mother. In his heart he felt Curses without End snarl, incensed that the target of its hatred yet remained. Almost always before when it had been given a target it had been able to let free with all its bile. There had been some minor exceptions, such as that boy following Illya or some street hustlers that Shirou had used for minor experimentation when the Authority had been new to him, but aside from them almost all the targets the eighth Campione had employed it against had been enemies. Now it was unhappy that it had lost its target, and was reluctant to withdraw.
Sighing Shirou quietly backed away until his back was pressed against the wall of the small room. Nobody was looking at him; the attention of the three girls was instead riveted upon the woman lying on the bed. Well, that was fine; he'd prefer that they didn't see this.
With a deliberate effort of will the King of Steel released the hold that he'd been keeping on the Authority. Immediately the snarling wolf was a puppy once more, a sleepy puppy that was curling up and going to sleep. Shirou just had time to give a small smile at the mental image before the muscles of his face seized up into a rictus grimace. His use of Curses without End had been relatively minor, the curses small and the effects negligible, at least under other circumstances anyway. Still, despite that the Authority was still exacting its price from him, and the coin it was demanding was his pain.
It wasn't as bad as it had been sometimes. In the wake of battle, or after he'd made the curse beasts, then the pain had been enough to send him spiralling into the darkness of unconsciousness. This time it wasn't on that level, but it was still far from minor. Fire temporarily replaced his blood, his bones screamed at him as they seemed to melt into molten metal, his head felt as though it had been crowned with red hot barbed wire. It was intense, but the amount of power he had drawn was minor, so it didn't last long. Still, for those few seconds that it did last . . . well, pain had a wonderful ability to stretch time, at least as far as the victim was concerned.
Pain was something he was familiar with, intimately so. Pain like this couldn't break him; it couldn't even draw a cry from him. Instead he just clenched his jaw and waited for the pain to pass as it always did.
"Mother . . . ?"
Kaida's single questioning word, choked with so much emotion that is was almost unrecognizable, pulled his attention away from the last echoes of pain that were running through his body. With the price of the Authority paid his own superhuman vitality was fighting back the after effects, the healing that had saved his life on several occasions working to undo twinged nerves and strained muscles. But that was only of minor importance, what was of more pressing concern was the woman on the bed.
"Mama . . . ?"
This time the Hime-Miko whispered the question in an almost child-like voice. She probably wasn't even aware she was speaking that time, that single question had come from the deepest part of her, from the lonely girl that desperately wanted to once more be held by the woman that had birthed her.
And perhaps her tone was justified, given what was happening.
Slowly, oh so slowly that they might have been weighed down by lead weights, the eyes of the woman on the bed opened. Her eyes seemed to roll slightly, as though she didn't have full control of them, but as soon as their gaze touched Kaida they froze in place. They stayed that way for a moment, then the eyes drifted shut once more. To all appearances it seemed as though she had returned to her previous state, but there was something there, something indefinable but at the same time undeniable. Something that told him that something had changed.
And, it seemed to be something that Kaida wasn't seeing.
"What happened?! Is she alright?! Did you hurt her?! What did you do?!"
Normally the Hime-Miko representative of the History Compilation Committee was the very soul of politeness and decorum. As such it was rather jarring as her mental image contrasted with her current frantic state. The questions shot from her like bullets, and her eyes were flicking back and forth between her mother's form and the two magi. More than that though was her expression, she looked so lost, so vulnerable, but despite the softness of such there was also a brittle edge to the expression, something that said that it wouldn't take much for it to break into something uglier, something made up out of splintered and broken shards.
"It's alright, it's all right . . ."
Illya beat him to saying anything, which was probably a good thing now that he thought of it. He might have been the one that was doing the work, but Illya was the one that knew what was going on. Any assurances from him would be rather hollow, given that he wasn't entirely sure whether or not he was speaking the truth.
"She isn't hurt; everything looks like it went in just fine." His adopted sister's voice was soft and deliberate, as though she were speaking to a skittish animal she didn't want to spook. "She just needs time. Her spiritual structure has been incomplete for longer than it should have been possible for her to survive. What we've done will help, but she's still going to have to take time to heal, to fully integrate the evils into herself."
"So . . . she'll be alright? She'll wake up?"
There was such longing, such tremulous hope in Kaida's voice that it almost hurt to hear.
"I think she should be," there was something measured in Illya's response rather than an immediate affirmation, and the Hime-Miko must have picked up on it because she almost visibly tensed, almost as though she was readying herself for a physical blow. "But there's no way to be sure. Like I said; I've never seen or heard of anything like this before. Her having those gaps in her soul should have led to total spiritual collapse, but instead she's just been in a coma instead. What we've done should let her start to recover, but it's something I can only guess at."
The snowy haired girl looked up at the possessor of the Dragon's Roar with genuine sorrow and apology in her eyes.
"It's all uncharted to me, I'm sorry but I just don't know enough about spiritual manipulation to be sure."
There was silence in the room once more as Kaida once again looked back and forth between them and her mother. Then she wordlessly reached out and took her mother's hand in her gloved ones. For a minute or so she remained that way, everyone else respecting the moment and waiting upon her before continuing.
"It's alright . . ."
Her voice was still soft, but it had firmed up now, the brittle edge faded and her customary bearing returned.
"This . . . this is more than I've had for these past years, so I shouldn't be ungrateful. It's just . . . I don't know, his majesty has always done so much that's impossible, I just thought . . ."
The Hime-Miko shook her head, then let go of her mother's hand before stepping around the bed to face Shirou and Illya. Before either of them could say anything she bowed to them, a formal bow so deep that it conveyed the utmost respect and gratitude.
"Illya-chan, Shirou-sama, I don't have the words to properly express how grateful I am. Today I saw my mother open her eyes by herself for the first time in years. Today I felt her hand move with my own fingers. This is more than I thought possible a few months ago. You have said that she now has a chance to recover; I thank you from the deepest reaches of my heart for that mere chance. I swear upon everything that holds meaning that one day I will repay this act. I swear it!"
"Kaida, it's alright," Shirou wasn't quite sure just what he should say, but he tried to fumble through, tried to explain how he felt. Him, not the false king, just him, Emiya Shirou. "You're a friend, and your mother needed help. That was all I needed, you don't have to worry about debts or repaying. You've taken on gods to help me; this . . . this is what I owed you at the very least."
Slowly Kaida rose from her bow. Her eyes settled on the King of Steel once more, but this time she just . . . stared at him. It wasn't an intense stare, not the sort given by someone trying to glean his secrets or take his measure. Instead it was the flat slowly blinking stare of someone looking at something that that they just couldn't believe. Simply put, she looked stunned.
Of course, that only lasted for a moment, then her gaze sharpened, and a small smile spread across her face. That, Shirou had been expecting, it had seemed entirely appropriate for the situation. What caught him more by surprise was how the smile grew into a grin, then into a chuckle, and then into full blow laughter. Before he knew it she was leaning against the bed's frame to keep herself from collapsing from mirth.
"Uh . . . what's the joke?"
"Are you laughing at onii-chan? Even after he's helped you?"
Shirou was the one to speak first, but his confused question was cut off as Illya stepped forward, her expression visibly darker than it had been before. He knew that look, she worn it, or at least a version of it, back during the Holy Grail War. The sight of it had normally preceded her unleashing Berserker on her foe at the time.
This could be bad.
But even as the eighth Campione began considering just how to calm his increasingly irate sister Kaida held up a hand, the gesture a wordless request for patience. Illya paused, and Shirou took the opportunity to place a hand on her shoulder. He felt her tense slightly at the sudden touch, then relax as she realized who it was. As this silent exchange was taking place the Hime-Miko seemed to have gotten a hold of herself and brought her laughter under control.
"I . . . I'm sorry . . ." She said, her words still a bit unsteady with suppressed mirth, "I di . . . I didn't mean any offence. It . . . it's just . . . heh heh heh . . ."
For a moment her control broke and she dissolved into chuckles, but the dark haired Hime-Miko quickly rallied and got her laughter under control again.
"Heh, sorry about that. It's just . . . Shirou-sama, it just finally hit me just how great a king you really are."
". . . What?"
Alright, Shirou was now completely confused. What was she going on about, and what did that have to do with her dissolving into mirth?
"It's just . . . I've seen you do things that most people would consider unbelievable. I've seen you invite a Divine Ancestor into your home, I've seen you offer your protection to a weakened god, and now you've taken on a god as your retainer. In . . . in the Committee there's been a lot of speculation about you, people saying that you're some sort of brilliant strategist for gathering allies and forging alliances. You've managed to not only amass a large number of Authorities in a relatively short time, but you've also established friendly relations with three of the Supreme Kings, demonstrated you dominance over another, and even allied with or subordinated gods. In many ways you're the most powerful Campione in the world right now, at least in terms of the accumulated power that follows you."
She paused again, her hands squeezing into fists before relaxing again.
"I know that you haven't been doing it just to amass power, I know that you helped Tiamat-sama when she was vulnerable because you thought it was right, I know that you went to save Guinevere-sama because you saw her as a friend. You've been kind, but I've also seen what it has gained you. Those allies, that help, Guinevere-sama and Lancelot-sama saved you from Jord, Tiamat-sama has been of aid and helped you save Guinevere-sama, your kindness won you those victories.
"I . . . I think some part of me thought that at least some of that kindness was selfish, that you were being kind to them because you knew it was an investment that you'd be able to collect in the future."
Shirou could only blink at this. Was this how he was seen, as some sort of conniving mastermind manipulating others to build up his own power base? It was almost laughable really, the young Emiya knew where his strengths and weaknesses lay, and even with the memories he'd gained from Archer he knew that putting something that ambitious together was well beyond something he could manage. Seriously, him? Running a plot to gain that kind of power? If Rin had been present she'd probably have collapsed to the floor howling with laughter at the mere idea.
"But . . . that's not it, is it? You really, genuinely, don't care. You just want to help." Kaida shook her head as she continued, "All this time, and it's only now that I really get it. You really don't care about plans, or roles, or advantages. You just go ahead and do whatever you want, because you're really that kind."
She stopped shaking her head and looked him directly in the eyes.
"You really are that great a king."
It was at that point that Kaida's sense of propriety apparently reached its end, because both Shirou and Illya found themselves enfolded in an enthusiastic and very thankful hug.
Shirou said nothing, just accepted it. For now, this was enough.
-()-
Back to the present.
He was glad that he'd been able to keep his promise to Kaida. During the time she had been serving in his manor he'd honestly been surprised by her more than a couple of times. When she had arrived he had assumed her to be an emissary from an organization like the Mages Association, and so had been wary of her. He'd made the offer to her and her bodyguard to be maids because he'd been certain that it would be rejected. At the time he'd been fairly certain that Kaida held some kind of importance to the organization she represented, a fact backed by the presence of Manaka, a clearly skilled bodyguard to his eyes. He'd thought that she'd regard the position as beneath her, and would leave.
Instead she had accepted the post, and dragged her friend along with her as she did. This had surprised Shirou, but he had adapted and then worked under the assumption that they would be operating as spies in his home, certainly intelligence gathering at the very least.
Instead Kaida had turned out to be a positive natural at her job as a maid, and even stranger she seemed to be enjoying it. Even Asuka, a woman that handed out compliments as though they were gold bars, had said that she was an 'adequate beginner', high praise coming from her. He'd kept an eye on her, even enlisted Illya's help to monitor them, but never had either she or Manaka made any move to try and uncover any of his secrets. Oh, she had forwarded messages about what she'd learnt to the Committee, but that had been the simple surface details that anyone could have learnt by watching him go about his daily life.
Then there'd been the mess with Sun Wukong, and Kaida had been willing to follow him when he'd gone to battle a deity. She'd stayed by Illya's side when he'd been sealed away, and had even risked her own life to help her and the others get away from the Monkey King. After that viewing her with suspicion had become difficult.
He wasn't quite sure at just what point it had happened, but somehow she'd ceased to be a potential spy and had instead become a friend, and as before she'd somehow managed to drag Manaka along for the ride.
Well, that was fine too. The witch fighter might not be as outgoing as Kaida, but she was still someone Shirou had come to see as trustworthy.
Shaking his head he grabbed his bag and began to make his way out of the school. He had his 'date' with Illya later, but she had chosen a rather late hour for it, so that meant that he could make another appointment he had. Yes, today was a pretty busy day, but there was a certain satisfaction to fulfilling his promises.
Idly, he wondered how the others were enjoying their own days.
-()-
The enemy emerged from its twisted cocoon, icor from its flesh flowing even as it hardened into chitin armour. Its multiple eyes glowed with internal power and great membranous wings spread out behind it. This was it, the final trial, everything that she had been working towards, her weapons were well chosen and her powers well trained. On previous occasions she had been forced to retreat before similar foes, but she had survived and grown stronger. Now was the time to overcome this hurdle, and once she had conquered this summit further glory would await.
There was no time for further thought though; having pulled itself free the newly freed abomination was hungry, eager for sustenance to replace what had been consumed in the course of its metamorphosis. A sickle-like claw, one easily as tall as she was, lashed out, but the warrior was already in motion, ducking and rolling beneath the attack, getting inside its reach. Before the insectile monster could compensate her weapon had flashed through the air, cutting deep into its vulnerable face. Several of its eyes were caught in the attack, and its scream of pain was sweet music to her ears. Once again it tried to catch her, but she was too quick, too skilled, and to prepared. A perfectly timed somersault got her clear, and then she was retreating, getting room for her next attack.
Her lips pulled back in a feral grin as she exchanged her light weapon for a heavier one. Her attack had been perfect, caught in its initial stages the abomination was still vulnerable, and more importantly its regeneration had yet to mature. Until it did those eyes would be out of commission, meaning that the beast would have a large blind spot that she could exploit. Her teeth bared in anticipation she went on the attack once more.
The battle was hard, long and nerve wracking. All too often she was almost brought low by a wild swing on the monster's part, but her reflexes were up to the task, and her luck also held. Little by little she was able to make progress, dealing small wounds to her quarry that slowly mounted as their number increased. At first the wounds were nothing, but before long they began to slow it down, this let her get in heavier blows, and after she severed one of the monster's legs the opening she had been waiting for finally revealed itself.
With a cry of triumph she dove in just as the insectile abomination reared up in pain and briefly exposed its vulnerable under section. It was only for an instant, but she had known it was coming and had prepared for it. Her weapon cut into it at a specific point, one learnt from her tireless research in preparation for this battle. Above her the monster let out a chittering screech and tried to crush her as it came down, but once more she was too fast for it and darted away before she was caught by its bulk.
The creature tried to come after her again, but it found that its legs no longer worked and its wings no longer beat, the blow having pierced a portion of its nervous system and severed the connections therein. In time it might heal, but she had not intention of granting it such a luxury. Dashing around it so that the claws it could still move were unable to reach her she attacked once more. This time her foe was helpless, unable to defend and unable to flee. In short order her weapon had dealt it too much damage for it to endure, and its head and claws sunk to the ground as its eyes went dark. Clambering off the corpse she let out a cry of triumph and exultation.
"Hah! Sweet victory!"
"Sir Knight? Just what are you doing?"
Lancelot was a goddess that had existed for millennia. She had fought at the side of legends and faced foes of equally legendary renown. She was an incarnation of war that had ridden across the battlefields of the world back before mortals had worked out that adding copper to their iron might be a good idea. She had faced down armies led by her fellow gods of war without blinking and left mountains of corpses in the wake of her combat.
She most certainly was not someone that would let out a startled squeak of surprise and drop her gaming console controller.
Not at all.
And anyone who said otherwise was a dirty, dirty liar.
"Sir Knight?"
Guinevere actually looked rather startled that she'd been able to get the drop on her protector. Most of the time the Knight of the Lake was supernaturally aware of her surroundings to the point where surprising her was largely impossible. The former Handmaiden to the King of the End was well aware of this, given how many times that particular talent had saved her life she would have been hard pressed not to.
"Ah, one was so focused upon the defeat of her current foe that one was most embarrassingly unaware." Lancelot admitted.
"Oh. Does that mean that Sir Knight has been enjoying the game she is paying?"
"Most assuredly," the war goddess replied, "There were a number that King Shirou's sister suggested this knight should sample, but of them all this one is the most favoured by this knight." She gesture towards a small pile of games that sat beside the console. "The games where one had to control a car were of some mild entertainment, but in the end became boring in short order. There were a number of games where one could take the part of a king, marshalling armies to battle against foreign foes and claim territory in order to build an empire, but those were not to this knight's taste either, since one has little interest in such strategies they were also abandoned. There were some games where one could control a fighter in some tournaments of martial skill, but sadly such games also failed to engage this knight, though the music was quite entertaining."
Lancelot gestured grandly to the huge television screen that sat on one end of the lounge she currently inhabited. The large display was opulent without crossing the line into overbearing, and was hooked up to several devices, including the games console that the goddess of war was now using.
"Then one tried this game at the recommendation of one of little Illyasviel's subordinates. The tale it wove was far more to this knight's liking, but the game was sadly effortless, as was to be expected from a game meant for mortals. Still, the method of it was entertaining, and one enjoyed seeking out new weapons with which to arm one's character."
Her face split in an exultant grin as she waved the control pad about in much the same way she might have gestured grandly with a sword were she on the battlefield.
"One voiced her complaints to the subordinate in the hopes that the might be a game of similar style but with a more challenging aspect. Much to this knight's surprise she said that the difficulty of the game could be increased so that the foes faced were faster and more cunning. This knight experimented, and much to her joy one found that the 'super torment sudden death' mode was suitable to granting this goddess of war an enjoyable challenge."
On the screen there was a sudden chime of music as the armoured avatar of the divine knight triumphantly held up what seemed to be the carved out liver of her foe.
"With this prize this knight may now brew the 'Bile of Forbidden Flesh' potion, thus allowing one's avatar to become invulnerable to all poisons, illnesses and charms! With this the defeat and harvesting of the Sirens is but a matter of time!"
Had Lancelot not been quite so enthusiastically going about placing her latest item in her storage, and allocating the bonus points she'd gained by defeating the monster, then she might have noticed the rather perplexed expression showing itself on Guinevere's face.
"Would the most precious child be interested in joining this knight upon her missions?" The goddess enquired, turning to look at her charge. "This game possesses the qualities needed for two to play upon it, and one would enjoy crushing foes with the aid of Guinevere at her back. Perhaps you could be a sorceress, using spells to support this knight's efforts. Or . . . mayhaps another class might be more entertaining to play. Could you stand as a knight at the side of your protector? Would such not be exhilarating?"
For a moment the blonde immortal handmaiden seemed to waver, her imagination apparently momentarily capture by the idea. Then she shook her head and with an almost visible effort of will dismissed it from her mind.
"Ah, Guinevere is most grateful for the offer Sir Knight, and at another time she would be happy to entertain it. However today she has come before you to ask if she may claim your company for a duty she must perform."
Well, that was of some importance. In a few short motions Lancelot had saved her game and turned off the console. Internally she was slightly disappointed that she couldn't move to use her new loot immediately, but she was not about to put her new entertainment before her duties to both her long time charge and her new king.
Her new king . . . the very notion was in and of itself almost unthinkable.
For century after century her only king had been Artus, he had been the only god to whom she would ever willingly kneel and offer her allegiance. He had been so grand, so noble, that at the time it had seemed like the only thing that could be done. Oh, to be sure she had fought him first, she was an amazon after all, and her loyalty was something she would only give to one that had demonstrated their strength, but even at the time there had been no real doubt in her mind as to what the outcome might be. She might have been one of the oldest gods of Steel in the world, but the one that she came to knew as Artus . . . he was the Strongest Steel of all. It was in his very nature, that strength, he stood upon a peak that she would never be able to reach, not even with a millennium granted to her to marshal every dreg of power she could muster. But beyond that there had been something else, an indefinable quality that simply told her clearly as day that he had been a king while she had merely been a knight, thus her fealty to him had only been natural.
And now, here she was, having accepted another as her king.
King Shirou . . . well, there was no getting around the simple facts; he was not the equal of Artus. This was hardly a great criticism though, after all though she was a goddess Lancelot knew of none that could match the King of the End. Even so, the King of Steel had some way about him that had called to her. He was a bizarre mixture of impossibility, naiveté, grandeur, inexperience, kindness, greed, and sheer bumbling good fortune that defied everything that she'd ever encountered before in any of the Devil Kings. Honestly, Lancelot had been of the opinion that he was important in some way ever since Guinevere had told her about her encounter with him during his battle with Mordred.
The simple truth was that Emiya Shirou broke all the molds that normally dictated the behaviour of the children of Pandora, but by now that was something that pretty much the entire world of mortal magic users knew. That had been enough to interest her in the first place, but things had continued after that. She and the young Campione had stood together against Jord, each saving the other from death. After her beloved charge had taken up residency under King Shirou's roof the war goddess had been able to observe him more and had come to respect the odd God Slayer as he struggled through the aftermath of his enslavement by Venus. They had raced against each other upon the island retreat, and she had grown grateful to him after naming her steed at his suggestion. They had worked together to save Guinevere from the trap that the Black Prince had prepared for them, and they had fought after she had lost the duty she had performed for so many centuries.
And now she was his sworn knight.
He was not the equal to Artus, but he was a king that she'd though she could respect long before he asked her for her oath of service. But then he'd asked for that oath, after defeating her, after she'd graciously offered up her life so he could gain another Authority to add to his arsenal, he'd demanded more of her than any in all of history had ever had the temerity to ask. Even Artus had only asked her to be his ally; she had assumed the position of his subordinate because such had been the natural place for a sworn knight.
King Shirou though, he had simply told her that she would pay her debts by becoming his knight. How had he put it, 'I shall take you in your entirety'? Honestly, it had almost been farcical, that he would show that level of greed and gall. Lancelot had wanted to thunder her incredulity, to shake the very vaults of heaven with the astonishment she'd felt at his sheer temerity, but she'd been unable to, that same audacity had embarrassingly robbed her of her voice.
In the end she had been convinced, though to this very moment she was still a bit unsure of just what either he or she had been thinking at the time. There had been a flow going, a current to their discussion that had possessed a force of its own that had swept her along. She didn't regret it, and she didn't think that her choice had been the wrong one, but it had been a choice made in the heat of the moment rather than one thought out.
Ah well, that was in keeping with her nature. Lancelot was a warrior, not a general. Far more often than not she listened to her guts rather than her head. Perhaps not the best approach, even she would admit that, but in the end it was the one that worked for her. And it had landed her with the opportunity to play these most entertaining games, so that meant she was doing something right, she supposed.
Dismissing such thoughts the honey blonde goddess of war brought her mind back to the matter at hand.
"So then, what duty must this knight's dear one attend to that requires her to be accompanied by our king's newest knight?"
The Queen of the Divine Ancestors ducked her head in apparent embarrassment.
"Though Guinevere is ashamed to admit it she has been most churlish to one to whom she owes a great debt."
That surprised the Knight of the Lake; normally Guinevere was civil to a fault. She might on rare occasions abandon her manners, but such only took place while she was in the grip of powerful emotions indeed.
"And what misdeed has the most beloved child committed that she feels this knight should stand at her side?"
The golden haired immortal dropped her gaze to the ground in embarrassment.
"After the battle with Alexander Gascoigne, Guinevere was so distracted by her new status as the handmaiden to Sir Shirou that she neglected to offer up suitable gratitude to honoured Tiamat for the aid that she lent against the Black Prince."
Lancelot blinked at that, her brow creasing slightly in disapproval. She could see why her charge would be ashamed of her conduct, to be so ungracious as to not give suitable thanks for such aid, and in the face of such a foe, it was most unbecoming.
"One can see why you would wish to offer both apologies and belated thanks, but why does the beloved child wish for this knight to be at her side when making such?"
"Guinevere . . . is ashamed that she let things go this long," the Divine Ancestor admitted. "I'd feel better if Sir Knight were there to lend her support while I offer up my apologies to honoured Tiamat."
Her face grimaced slightly before she continued.
"Guinevere doesn't think that she will go so far as to strike out at me. Though Guinevere has offered offence with her shameful tardiness honoured Tiamat has always abided by the rules that Sir Shirou laid down for those that reside in his home. There is no fear there, but even so, having her dear protector there as well would make this handmaiden feel better."
"Well, in the face of a damsel asking for aid how can this knight do anything but agree to lend her support?" Lancelot asked.
Guinevere didn't reply out loud, she just nodded and turned to leave, her trust in her long time protector completely evident in her apparent lack of a need to continue their discussion. Between any others the action would have been rude, possibly even offensive, but these two had known each other for longer than several nations had existed. Words and explanations weren't needed; they each just knew what the other meant. To be sure it wasn't a perfect thing, for all their long bond and friendship the two of them were simply too dissimilar for such to be possible. But for such simple things as this there was no worry.
It wasn't a very long walk. Both of them knew where the room they meant to go was, and in short order the pair of blonde immortals found themselves outside the doors to the chambers where Tiamat lived. A brief look was exchanged between the pair, then Guinevere's small fist came up to rap upon the door.
The door was somewhat odd, being a Japanese sliding door despite the fact that this portion of the manor was done in a distinctly western fashion. Still, that was hardly out of character for the rest of the house, given that the design tended to be a bit on the scattered side. The mansion combined aspects of both eastern and western style, but for the most part tended to merge them fairly well. Certain parts of the house, such as the dojo, the tea room, one of the lounges and the like, were of a clear Japanese fashion, while the main entrance hall, and other dining rooms and lounges, were in a western style. And come to think of it, why was she even noticing this at all? In the past houses, manors and palaces had just been dwellings to live in, a castle might have some military value, but these defenceless houses might as well have been large wooden boxes for all she cared. Why was she thinking about things architecture and eastern and western styles?
The sound of the door sliding open brought the Knight of the Lake out of her somewhat uncharacteristic thoughts, but she made a mental note to return to them later. There was something of significance there, and she was curious as to what it might be.
"Handmaiden Guinevere, Sir Lancelot, what brings you to my rooms at this time of the day?"
Had any ordinary mortals been present it was quite likely that they would have fallen to their knees at the sight of the ancient goddess that now stood before them. The Mother of Dragons was clad in the same sari-like garments that she had worn since she began living in the home of King Shirou. The war goddess could understand it somewhat, after all the clothing bore a slight resemblance to the garb worn in ancient Babylon, and so could be considered close to Tiamat's native garb. It certainly looked good on her, the red and gold of her clothing complimenting the red and blue of her hair in an oddly pleasing way. Gold and gems flashed at her wrists, throat and ears, just as her sea coloured eyes flashed too. All in all it was a beautiful sight, and divine though she was the Knight of the Lake couldn't help but feel her heart beat slightly harder. It was only a small thing, but it was significant in that it existed at all.
Lancelot was a goddess of war, but Tiamat was deity to something far more elemental and primal. The sea was part of it, but it was a face, a front that could be seen. At her deepest core Tiamat was a goddess of chaos, and that was something both fearful and magnificent. Her powers were rooted in that chaos, in the ocean and in her nature as the mother of a legion of beasts, including some of the first dragons to roam the world. She was grand in the way of a thundering storm and beautiful in the way of an erupting volcano. For a moment Lancelot could only stare and wonder at the vision before her.
Then she blinked, and her own divinity reasserted itself.
That was . . . impressive. It wasn't like the glamour of beauty that Venus had possessed, had it been that it would have been easier to resist. What the Mother of Dragons possessed wasn't something that was meant to enthral or captivate, rather it was something that was awe-inspiring in and of itself. This was simply Tiamat's nature.
Surprising, did this mean that the goddess of chaos had regained more of her lost power? Lancelot knew that she was no longer as weak as she'd been after her betrayal by Jord, but she had been unsure of just how much she had recovered. Likewise she knew that Tiamat was strong enough to have fought at Guinevere's side against the fourth Campione, so there had to have been some considerable recovery on her part. What was stranger was the difference between the goddess she'd found struggling to keep Guinevere alive upon that artificial island and the divinity she now saw before her.
"H . . . Honoured Tiamat?"
The Divine Ancestor's words were more of a question than they were a greeting. Still, it was hardly a surprise that her charge would flounder in the face of the deity before them. Lancelot possessed her full divinity, and even so she had been momentarily stunned by her presence. Guinevere, even without the aid of the Holy Grail, was probably one of the most powerful beings in the world that wasn't a god or a Campione, but even so her resistance to the aura of a deity was less than that of a true goddess.
"Indeed, were you expecting someone else?"
Truly Lancelot felt pride at how quickly her charge was able to regain herself. Any mortal, even a powerful one, might have remained stunned at the very least, assuming they didn't simply fall to their knees in worship, but Guinevere was able to dismiss the awe that had briefly taken her. In a practiced move, one more reflex than planned, she stepped back and then dipped in a perfectly executed curtsy.
"Guinevere apologies for her ill manners, she was merely taken aback by how much honoured Tiamat has regained her lost strength. Both I and Sir Knight Lancelot have come to ask if we might have some of your time; there is a matter that Guinevere must discuss with you."
The Mother of Dragons seemed to hesitate for a moment, her eyes roaming over them as though trying to determine if they were telling the truth or were attempting to deceive her in some way. In the end she must have seen their sincerity, because she fully slid the door open and gestured for them to come in.
"Very well, come in."
"Guinevere is most grateful."
Following her charge the Knight of the Lake stepped into the other goddess's rooms. It was an interesting experience, stepping from one cultural decoration style and into another, the hall outside had been largely what one could think of as 'classic Japanese', whereas the rooms they were entering were hung with cloths and fitted with furnishing that spoke of the Babylonian style of Tiamat's ancient home. Lancelot supposed she shouldn't be too surprised, King Shirou had told them that they could feel free to redecorate their quarters if they so wished. Guinevere had seen little need to since her own rooms had been of a European design, the furniture and décor all pleasantly familiar, and Lancelot herself had so far had little time or inclination to work on her own new chambers. It was something to think about in the future.
And there she went again, thinking about things that had never been of any concern to her in the past. Under other circumstances the war goddess would have frowned, but she knew the wisdom of not showing weakness in front of the enemy. Tiamat might not be a foe, but it was best not to show hesitation or frailty before her, if nothing else it would make a poor impression as a supporter for her charge.
Still, it was something that she'd need to analyse later, the fact that it seemed to be cropping up more and more simply proved that her initial concern might have been well founded. That would be later though, for now there were more pressing concerns to be dealt with.
-()-
Tiamat wasn't entirely sure why the other two immortals that shared King Shirou's hospitality were here, but she wasn't about to let it throw her.
As they entered she gestured to a small iron kettle that was heating upon a bed of glowing coals. It was one of the few menial tasks that she took pleasure in doing herself, even though such things as food preparation and drink brewing were normally beneath her. The slowly heating water contained a mixture of spices, fruit and herbs that would mix together most pleasantly once the water began to bubble. Once upon a time her worshipers had prepared such concoctions as part of the rituals in her praise, though they had added certain roots that had induced . . . additional effects, normally involving visions and the like. Such could not impact upon Tiamat, even if she had been in her most reduced state, but given that she disliked their taste she hadn't bothered to include them.
It was the scent and taste of the drink that had been precious to her, both of them taking her back to that time when she had reigned as one of the most powerful deities in the mortal plane, before the other gods had risen up against her, before the end of her dominion. As a Divine Ancestor she had learnt to brew this one drink so that she could enjoy those memories whenever she so wished. The fact that she was also fond of the taste was an additional bonus.
Kneeling down beside the small pot she took it from its heat with her bare hands. Had she been a mortal she would have suffered burns, but as it was her skins didn't so much as flush as she held the heated metal.
"May I offer you a drink?" She enquired, mindful of the rules of hospitality, even if she was uncertain as to why they were here.
"Guinevere would be most grateful." The Divine Ancestor stated.
"One would also be happy to taste your hospitality." Sir Lancelot stated.
Nodding in reply the Mother of Dragons carefully poured the concoction into a trio of clay cups. At first glance the tableware might have seemed primitive and crude, but a closer inspection would have revealed the truth. However if one were to pay closer attention they would see the careful varnish, the delicate pattern that had been worked into the clay, the subtle sheen that was the clear work of hours of dedicated care. They had been a gift imparted upon the then Andromeda by worshipers more than three centuries ago. She'd kept them all that time because she had a certain amused appreciation for what they signified. They were made of clay, simple clay that could have been found at the bottom of any of a thousand lakes and rivers around the world, however with time, care and skill a material that was only a trifling more valuable than mud had been shaped into something that was in ways more valuable than cut gemstones.
The set was worthy of being used by her, so it would be worthy enough to be used to serve her current guests.
She handed one to Guinevere, then to Lancelot. Under other circumstances this would have been rude, serving the Divine Ancestor before the goddess, but on this occasion she felt it was the right order in which to do this. The Knight of the Lake was not an overly prideful deity, and treated her in an odd combination of a knight caring for a princess and an older sibling looking after a younger sister. With both of them served she took the third cup for herself and raised it to her lips.
The taste was as sweet and spiced as she remembered it being, a testament to her skills preparing the drink. For a moment she was no longer in the home of the King of Steel, instead she was once more standing at the window of her ancient palace, the whole of Babylon spread out beneath her, a great jewel of civilization in a world still caught in the grips of barbarism. It was just a memory, but it was a pleasure to enjoy, especially now that she was returning to what she had lost.
She'd recovered more of her power, that much was certain. If she had to place a numerical quantity upon the sea goddess would estimate that she was just under seven tenths of her full power. Given her strong ego, one honed by millennia as a Divine Ancestor, that meant that she was now on par with many of the more 'average' gods, if such creatures could be said to exist at all. She was by no means a match for a strong goddess like Lancelot, but she would be able to hold even with the likes of Athena as she had last seen her.
Still, none of that was too relevant at this point in time. What was of more import was the pair of blonde immortals sitting across from her. Both of them had drunk from their cups, and both of them seemed to have pleased expressions upon their faces. Tiamat waited until they had finished their drinks, then set her own cup on the table before her.
"So, upon what matter did you wish to speak to me about?"
And, just like that, the somewhat comfortable atmosphere that had been developing disappeared. Truthfully the sea goddess wasn't sure why this was, but she was content to wait and see how the two before her acted. Actually, now that she paid more attention, it was only one of them that was visibly tense. Lancelot remained largely unconcerned, simply sitting back slightly in her chair as she clasped the cup in her hands. Guinevere, on the other hand, was visibly uneasy. She wasn't panicked or visibly restless, but there was something unsettled about her.
"Guinevere . . ." The Queen of the Divine Ancestors set her cup down and stood up; she took a few steps to the side to get a bit more room, then bowed deeply to Tiamat. "Guinevere wishes to offer her sincere apologies and gratitude."
She paused for a moment, then started speaking again, her words hurried, but not rushed.
"Honoured Tiamat came to Guinevere's aid, but you didn't have to. In fact, I think that it would have been to your advantage to have left Guinevere to meet her end at the hands of Alexander Gascoigne. But instead you came to help me; you fought at my side even when it seemed that it was a hopeless battle.
"Guinevere has been most reticent in expressing her thanks. Without you there, Sir Shirou would not have arrived in time to save me; he would have only found the remains of my end, and the smug victory of my slayer. Thanks to Tiamat, both in the fight and afterwards when you sustained my life after I was mortally wounded, Guinevere was able to survive long enough to be saved by her new king. This life I now have, it is only thanks to your efforts, and it is a terrible thing that Guinevere has taken so long to offer the sincere gratitude that is due to her saviour."
The golden haired immortal straightened up and met the Mother of Dragon's gaze.
"Thank you. Thank you for fighting at Guinevere's side, and for aiding me even after my defeat. She has been too caught up in her concerns with her new station as the handmaiden to Sir Shirou, and has been shamefully negligent in offering these thanks to you, and for that I must offer my most sincere apologies."
There was sincerity in her voice, enough that Tiamat was certain it was genuine, enough for her to believe what she was hearing.
It was odd really, though the matter had clearly been of some importance to the Queen of the Divine Ancestors the honest truth was that the matter hadn't crossed Tiamat's mind at all. In the wake of the battle with the Black Prince she had been more concerned with the change she had undergone as her divinity seemed to be healing. Since then she had been devoting the vast majority of her time and energy to analysing what had happened to her, and working out what the cause had been.
She had taken some time off to spend some time with King Shirou, after all as a guest in his home it was only polite for her to spend some time with her host, but as pleasant as that had been her focus had been elsewhere even then.
In the end what she'd been able to determine was both maddeningly simple and horribly complex. Her divinity was indeed recovering faster than she had anticipated, but it was only doing so because she'd pushed it to the very limits. In hindsight it made a certain level of sense, in the past the increases in her power had come after she had pushed herself. Upon the island, after she had come to the decision to once more 'play god' she had exhausted herself in the creation of Snappy. Though he had been a weak monster when compared to the great beasts and dragons that she had once mothered in her war against the other gods his creation had left her severely drained. She had been able to recover after a night of rest and a good meal, her divine vitality potent enough despite her weakened state, but the effort had been the greatest strain she'd undergone since her betrayal by Jord.
It had been after that, during the journey to the lands that had once been Briton, that she'd realized her strength had grown. She hadn't regained any of her lost Authorities, that was going to be a task far more of a challenge, but her mantle of divinity, the power that had previously been torn and rent, had recovered to a far larger degree than she had expected. It had been enough that her foolish act of siding with Guinevere against a God Slaying King had been just that; foolish, as opposed to suicidal.
The process had repeated itself in the wake of that battle, but that was hardly a surprise given what had happened. The creation of her newest child had been a tiring and taxing affair, the battle with Alexander Gascoigne, on the other hand, had pushed her to her limits and beyond. She'd used every Authority that had been left to her, she had fought his servant deities in close quarters despite her vulnerability, she had even shared her own life force with Guinevere when she had been wounded. Exhausting hadn't even come close to describing how much the fight had taxed her.
Still, the effort she had expended had proven to be well spent. Her divinity had once more grown as it had recovered, and as a most welcome bonus she had enhanced her standing with her host since King Shirou had been most impressed with her standing alongside her fellow guest. She had been content with that, as well as the knowledge she'd been able to glean from the battle itself. She had never given any real thought to the Divine Ancestor at whose side she had fought.
Looking back on the last few days the sea goddess had to agree that the lack of gratitude that had been shown to her by the handmaiden was most insolent. Still, it appeared that she had taken note of her error before Tiamat herself had noticed, and since she was offering suitably heartfelt apologies the goddess of chaos decided that on this occasion she would show forgiveness.
She was about to speak, to gracefully accept the apology being offered and to then continue the conversation, but before she could so much as open her mouth the handmaiden to the King of Steel continued.
"Guinevere would be most pleased if honoured Tiamat would accept this small gift. It is by no means enough to balance the scales, but I hope that it will show my resolve to repay the debt between us."
Reaching to her side the Queen of the Divine Ancestors drew a small package from the folds of the elaborate black dress she wore. The package was brown paper wrapped around a long curved something with a length of about five inches, the exact form of whatever it contained was obscured, but the Mother of Dragons could feel an instinctive draw towards it. Whatever it was called to her, a . . . kinship, that was the best way she could describe it.
Taking it from Guinevere's outstretched hands she tore the wrapping off to reveal what was in it, her hands already tingling with power simply by being in contact with its wrapped form. In short order the paper was torn away to reveal the item it contained.
Tiamat was not, despite how recent circumstances might have suggested differently, a goddess that was easily taken by surprise. As a Divine Ancestor she had existed for almost two millennia, an extremely long time even for an immortal like her. Quite frankly, had not Guinevere possessed the support of the Holy Grail and Sir Lancelot, Andromeda might have been a candidate for the title of Queen of the Divine Ancestors. In that time she had seen much, enough that she thought she was beyond astonishment. To be sure King Shirou had a habit of stunning her with the sheer audacity he displayed in some of his gambits, but he was the exception as opposed to the rule. Once he was no longer a factor she was quite sure that there was nothing that could disturb her demeanour, short of a surprise attack by a powerful god or one of the other Devil Kings.
As it turned out she was wrong.
"W-Where did you acquire this?"
The slight hitch in her voice was shameful, but in the face of such a surprise any other divinity would have been in more or less the same boat.
"It is an artefact that was supplied to Guinevere by one of the mortals that serves her. It has been in her vaults for many years now, but despite its potency there was no call to use it. I thought that it might well be of some use to you though, given its nature."
Ah, that made sense. As Andromeda Tiamat had been familiar with such groups or cults, in fact she had even been served by a number of such herself. Mortals that had gained knowledge of the gods that walked the world tended to either honour the gods, serve them, or defy them. Most organizations, such as the knightly orders of Italy that the knights of King Kusanagi belonged to, saw the gods as natural forces that they could do little against. After all, even genius mages with spells able to harm gods were little more than irritants to those Heretic Deities that might descend upon the world. For all their talent and skill they lacked the spark that made a God Slayer, thus they tended to honour the gods they could not defy and hoped that they could be avoided or placated.
Then there were the mortals that thought they could defy the divinities that roamed the world, these were normally rare due to the fact that most of them got themselves killed in fairly short order by trying to stand against what Heretic Gods they might encounter. Like insects before the hurricane they were simply swept aside, and very few of them survived. Still, sometimes they thought to defy the gods in other ways, such as offering their services to the Devil Kings, or by taking steps to inconvenience the gods they could not face directly. Those of this group tended to be fewer and often somewhat unhinged, but they were noteworthy enough.
It was the last type that she was the most familiar with though. Mortals, when faced with something that they could neither stand against, nor escape if it chased them, tended to try to join it instead. A mortal writer had once written that it was best to be at the devil's side than in his path, and the same could be said of the Heretic Gods that descended upon the world. When faced with that power, and the hopelessness that came with trying to defeat it, submission to it became a far more appealing option. Indeed, many of those that tried to defy the gods, and didn't end up dead, normally became the servants of those they defied after the utter pointlessness of their efforts became evident.
Divine Ancestors weren't quite up there with ranks of true divinities, but in spite of that they were beings that very VERY few mortals could hope to stand against. This power alone would have won them eager servants, but there was also the fact that as former divinities they had the potential to return to that height of power. Leviathan, a Divine Ancestor that had operated in America and had been a foe of John Pluto Smith, had been one such former goddess. With the promise of her favour once she regained her full divine might a large cult had sprung up around her, one large and well connected enough that even the King of Los Angeles had experienced some difficulty in putting it down.
As Andromeda, Tiamat had possessed similar servants, mortals that had come to serve her either through worship or through greed. Over the centuries they had proven themselves to be of some use, helping her in acquiring, resources, dwellings and information, enough so that she had shared some of her favour with them in payment for their deeds. Even as a Divine Ancestor she had been capable of miracles that mortal mages could not emulate, so those that had served her well had been blessed with renewed youth or enhanced power. Brynhildr had followed a similar method, though in her case it had been more of a promise of a better afterlife for those that followed her, something that her nature as a 'valkyrie' granted more weight to.
When the two Divine Ancestors had entered into their alliance they had likewise merged the cults that had served them, thus resulting in a larger and more powerful network to support their endeavours. Still, despite its size both had been aware that it had not come close to matching the organization that served Guinevere.
Compared to either Andromeda or Brynhildr Guinevere had been a young Divine Ancestor. She had only been reborn about a century ago, while even the youngest of the pair had been a millennium in age. However she had found the beginnings of the cults that served her ready and waiting, and she had proven to be very skilled at building them up.
The thing was that even after all the centuries had passed the cults and religious orders that had known the true nature of Artus had endured. The once and future king of Briton was a much beloved figure for the salvation he had brought, and so many Arthurian cults had continued on. They had been quiet things, ones that faded into the background and had grown as the years passed, but they had grown all the same, keeping the legend of their saviour alive. Consequently Guinevere had gained access to vast resources when she had been reborn and unified them.
Ultimately the difference between them had been a matter of quality. Andromeda had needed to turn cults of newcomers to the magical world into something useful, and even after centuries of existence that cult had only been able to grow so far. The handmaiden to the King of the End, on the other hand, had immediately been served by trained wizards and knights that had been utterly dedicated to their goals of bringing about the return of their hero and had been preparing for centuries to do so.
Idly Tiamat made a mental note that she should get in touch with the cults that had sworn their allegiance to her. Aside from a brief message to them after the whole debacle with Venus and Jord she'd been out of touch with those sworn to her. In her weakened state it had seemed foolish to try to command them, there was little they could do to help her and her own pride had balked at the notion of allowing them to see her so diminished. Now though, with much of her divinity regained, she might summon them once more. She was in more of a position to repay them for their service now, and it was a poor liege that did not reward those that supported them. A few blessings, some returned youth, these were easily within her power and would be more that ample recompense for the service in her name. Though afterwards . . .
Hmmm, what could she do with them? There was little they could do to serve in the recovery of what remained of her strength. Not with the resources she knew they had at their disposal. Still, it seemed something of a waste to simply ignore them completely, as their goddess she should at least see to it that they prospered.
Ah, that was an idea, one that she liked. Yes, some time soon after she repaid them she would see to it that they contacted the undead servant that managed the financial matters of King Shirou. That servant was a veritable wizard with finances; at least that was what she understood from what little she'd seen of him. A partnership between the businesses sworn to her and the enterprises that belonged to the King of Steel would be sure to be profitable for all involved.
Tiamat blinked as she realized that she'd been so stunned by what she saw that her mind had drifted off on a tangent. Even so, her fingers were locked around the object she held, almost as though she was afraid that someone would leap from the shadows and try to steal it.
The item she held was a tooth, long, curved and white. Actually, it would be more accurate to call it a fang, given that it was eminently clear that it belonged to something predatory. It had clearly been polished with great effort, because in the light that came in through the window it gleamed like the finest ivory. More than that though, it practically radiated magic, deep, thick and old magic. This was a remnant of a fallen god, something that in some cultures was referred to as a Dragon Bone. In the world of magic users artefacts like these were worth more than ten times their weight in pure, flawlessly cut rubies since they held powers that mortal magic couldn't hope to match. In the past many of the great dynasties of history had been established with the use of such possessions, their power harnessed to lend them aid.
They were rare, oh so rare that it had been theorized by knowledgeable scholars that in the whole world they could not be more than a thousand of them at the very most. Any one of them would have been a treasure to a magic user, and even a god would have found one to be useful. All in all it was a most princely gift to give, one that went a long way to declaring the handmaiden's intentions and feelings.
However there was something about this one that made it even more valuable to Tiamat, even more useful. She could see why it would not have been of much use to Guinevere, its nature would have made that almost assured, but she couldn't believe that the Queen of the Divine Ancestors was fully aware of just what it was.
"Do you know what it is?"
At her question the immortal girl visibly frowned.
"It is a remnant of a goddess with similar qualities to honoured Tiamat, Guinevere was certain that it could be of use to you."
"You are wrong."
The Mother of Dragon's voice was hushed, her eyes never having left the large fang in her hand.
"What does honoured Tiamat mean?" the immortal girl asked, her voice audibly tinged with confusion.
"This fang . . . it is not from a goddess with similar qualities to me."
"I . . . Guinevere dies not understand," the handmaiden to the King of Steel now looked quite confused. "The mages that confirmed its characteristics were completely adamant, and Guinevere verified them herself. This fang is the remnant of a goddess of the seas with strong ties to dragons and the concept of chaos. I do not wish to appear discourteous, great goddess, but I do not understand why you might say such."
"Because this is not the fang of a goddess like me, this is my fang, the remnant left behind after my defeat at the hands of the hero god Perseus."
She could remember it clearly, even though nearly millennia had passed since then. She had fought the god of Steel in the form of a mighty multi-headed dragon on the shores of a part of Greece that had then been called Aethiopia. The battle had been a long one, but in the end her strength had been for naught. Alone she had been more powerful than her foe, her will and ego along with her age and power making her his superior despite his advantage of being Steel. However during the course of her rampage along the coasts of Greece she must have earned the wrath of Athena, because the goddess of wisdom had aided the god that came to be called Perseus by lending him one of her Authorities. In the end Tiamat had fallen, her immortality broken and her body turning to stone.
Strange as it might have seemed to any mortal that had been aware of her feelings the Mother of Dragons had felt no hatred for either of the gods that had played a part in her downfall. She had escaped her legend because she had grown tired of it, and she had rampaged because she wished to glory in her power once more. It was only natural for the younger gods that had dwelt in the mortal plane at the time to rise up against her in the defence of their worshipers. After all, what kind of god failed to protect what was theirs in such a way?
No, she had held no rancour for her defeat at their hands. It was what had come afterwards that had humiliated her as she never known before.
Perseus had not slain her, though she had been helpless before him with her power and immortality broken. Instead of slaying her he had instead broken something within her, some final portion of her divinity, and so brought about a change within her. Tiamat had disappeared, and in her place had been an innocent maiden, her memories and power sealed away leaving only a rescued damsel that had worshiped the one that had 'saved' her from the monster that had been ravaging the land. Adopted as the daughter of the local king this newly made princess had willingly offered herself up to the hero god as both priestess and wife, and for decades to come she had been Andromeda.
But this fang, it had been the last remnant of her old self, the part of her that had survived what Perseus had done to her.
"Then . . . it will be of use in honoured Tiamat's quest to regain her lost power?"
"Not easily, but it will be of aid," the sea goddess said, her finger tracing the lines of the old fang. "This Dragon Bone does contain a great deal of my old divinity, but taking it and adding it to my own will be a difficult task. There is so much difference between the me of then and the me of now that in some ways it no longer recognizes my rule over it."
Her face shifted into a smile that would have left any mortal on their knees in worship.
"But it will just be a matter of time, then I shall be able to reassert authority over it."
"Will it be able to restore the power that you still lack?"
The question came not from Guinevere, but from the knight goddess that had been sitting beside her and had remained quiet up until now. Lancelot's question seemed to give Tiamat pause though, because she tilted her head slightly to the side in thought.
"I am . . . uncertain," she admitted, "The power within this relic is considerable, but I am unsure as to what form it shall take. It may allow me to reunite my torn divinity or regain a lost Authority; there is no means to be certain."
"Either outcome would be a fine one to enjoy," the war goddess noted, "This knight thinks that the beloved childs gift has proven to be even more beneficent than she had thought it could be, is that not cause for good cheer?"
"Yes, yes I quite agree." Slipping the fang into a small pocket concealed in the folds or her dress Tiamat stood up. "This gift will be of great aid, consider any ill will between us cleansed by this aid, you are both welcome in my rooms, and in any other place that I may call my home."
A grand sounding declaration, but the sad truth was that aside from the rooms given to her by King Shirou she didn't have very pleasant dwellings in these lands. The cave system that she and Jord had painstaking warded and occupied was hardly a suitable place to live; indeed it could be called positively squalid. In the end it had been their need for secrecy that had led them to shelter there, and even their powerful magic had only been able to improve it so far. Were they back in Europe or the middle-east then it would have been a different story, there she had some truly palatial homes that had been gifted to her by the cults that had sought her favour. One day she had to show them to her host, it would only be fitting that he be a guest in her home after he had granted her shelter in his. Still, that was a thought for another time; right now she was still conversing with Guinevere.
The immortal girl had stood up as well, and now offered a deep and respectful curtsy.
"Guinevere is most thankful that honourable Tiamat has chosen to accept her apologies. As the handmaiden to Sir Shirou it would be most . . . undesirable for me to have any sort of ill will between myself and one of his most important allies."
Oh, so she was choosing to continue her position as the handmaiden to their host? Well, that was hardly a surprise. Guinevere was different from other Divine Ancestors in that she had been formed with a purpose to her. Other former goddesses became such by regaining their memories and immortality after having lived out an extended mortal life. They had to shake off mortality and regain their power and knowledge before they could become true Divine Ancestors. The Handmaiden to the King of Steel was different though, she hadn't been created by the defeat of a goddess, instead she was the product of a goddess willingly surrendering her life, one that had taken steps to ensure that the immortal child born from her death would have not only immediate power and knowledge, but also drive and purpose. Though that purpose had been lost with the revelation of her king's disposition the role remained. She had been shaped and intended to be a handmaiden to a king, it was hardly a surprise that her nature would lead her to seek a new king to serve.
"Also . . . would you be gracious enough to answer a question of Guinevere's?"
The question was asked with an odd combination of nervousness and determination. Whatever this question was she really wanted to have an answer. Could Tiamat leverage that to her own advantage? Almost certainly, however there was also the matter of if she wanted to try. As things stood there seemed to be a good sense of respect between them. The Divine Ancestor acknowledged the goddess's superiority to her, but at the same time she also asserted her own worth. To Tiamat's mind it was a good balance, and not one that she wanted to overturn simply to hoard some leverage of the immortal girl. No, for the moment it was best to keep things clean between the two of them.
"Very well, what do you wish to know?"
"When does honoured Tiamat intend to act upon her feelings for Sir Shirou?"
. . . Huh?
For a moment the Mother of Dragons' mind stalled as she tried to process what had been asked of her. Then, with all the subtlety of an oncoming avalanche, she recalled what Guinevere had said to her just before the battle against Alexander Gascoigne had begun. That . . . that had been something that Tiamat had been doing her best not to think about. Indeed, she'd been so successful at not dwelling upon it that it had actually slipped her mind entirely. These last few days she had been focused upon the restoration of her divinity, an all consuming task that had made it easy for her to bury herself in it without taking the time to worry about other details.
"I-I do not know of what you speak," even as the words left her lips it was all the goddess of chaos could do not to wince. Such transparent denial wasn't worth a thing; it hid nothing and only served to draw attention to what she was trying to hide. Damn it! Why was she so off balance? "I . . . for King Shirou I . . . that is to say my feelings are . . ."
Frustration ran through Tiamat like fire in her veins as she listened to her own stumbling attempts at speech. Why?! Why couldn't she just deny this and be done with it? Still, even as she asked the question to herself she knew the answer. Gods were not like mortals, there were similarities, but at their most basic foundations there were differences that could not be ignored. It went beyond such simple differences as power and immortality; it was in the very way that their minds functioned, the way in which they saw the world and in how they dealt with what they saw.
Gods could see the truth in a way that mortals couldn't. Oh, that didn't mean that mortals couldn't lie to gods, that had happened before, with mortals skilled enough in deception. However when a god saw the truth, that was another matter. Even more than that, mortals could lie to themselves in a way no god could. Oh, some self deception was possible, but at the end of the day a deities mind was tied too closely to their nature to allow for the kinds of self delusions that mortals were capable of.
The simple truth was that she couldn't say that Guinevere was wrong. She couldn't lie about it to her self or to the immortal child.
Was it love? Honestly she didn't know, despite the many many years of her life, both as a goddess and as a Divine Ancestor, she'd never really known love. The time she had spent as Perseus' wife, that was probably the closest she'd ever come, but the mess of devotion, worship, submission and adoration that had made up her emotional makeup during that period of her life was something she looked back on with scorn and hatred. She remembered it vividly, even though she would have dearly wished to tear the recollection from her mind. She recalled how he had been her entire world, how she had eagerly leapt at his every word, performed any duty he'd asked of her. He'd never abused her, never asked her to humiliate herself for his amusement nor debase herself for any sort of twisted lust. She had been his adoring wife and he had treated her as such, in a way she had been happy, but she was sure that it hadn't been love.
What she felt for King Shirou was too different from that, yet at the same time it was almost as compelling. She didn't worship him, but he was fascinating to her, the way in which he continued to defy expectations, the way in which he surpassed them. She felt no urge to submit to him, yet at the same time she intensely disliked the notion of doing anything to bring him pain or sadness. She didn't adore him, but she enjoyed his company. He didn't have her devotion, but he did have her respect.
Also, she knew she was attracted to him. She found him handsome and appealing, but for some reason finding these qualities in him didn't raise the same responses that she was used to experiencing in regards to them. As a goddess in ancient times when she found a mortal comely enough to engage her interest she had simply taken him and had her way with him. She was beautiful beyond mortal comparison, and what mortals did capture her attention had never shown any reluctance or unhappiness with the situation. Sometimes she had kept them in her palace for a time, but in the end she had found that one way or another mortals always died. Sometimes it had been time, sometimes their flesh had been unable to keep up with the ardour that she inspired in her lovers, sometimes they had simply ceased to live, their spirit unable to continue crushed in the face of her divine majesty. She'd always felt some sadness at the passing of these mortal consorts, but had never been given pause by it.
However, in the current situation she could not imagine acting in such a way with her host. King Shirou . . . he was more than a mortal; he was a god slaying devil king. But even without that the notion of acting so forwardly towards him was . . . shameful. No, that wasn't it, embarrassing? The idea of going up to the King of Steel and . . . and there her mind stalled. What would she do? Say that she wanted him as a consort? Pull him to her rooms and then simply expect her naked glory to make him forget all other concerns? Granted it had worked in the past, but that had been when her interest had been caught by ordinary mortals. King Shirou was anything but.
And aside from any embarrassment that came from merely asking the question there was also fear. Though she hadn't been present she had seen the end of Venus with the use of scrying spells. Tiamat knew that there was a woman whom her host already loved. One that he loved so much that even under the influence of an Authority of love from the goddess of love herself he had overcome her influence when Venus had foolishly threatened her. She had taken his heart, but as he had said, he had chosen this unknown girl over everything, and that included his own heart. In the face of that did she even have a chance for his love?
That thought made her blink. Yes, she really had thought it, she wanted his love. Whatever else her feelings might involve that was something she was certain of.
Aaarrrghhh! Why did this have to be so complicated? No! No, she must not give in to frustration and irritation, she had to think, be rational. She had been able to survive millennia in her quest to regain herself and exact vengeance upon Perseus; she had learned patience, and scheming. There had to be a path to what she wanted, a way to gain his affection without risking his ire.
However if that was the case then she couldn't see it right now. Under other circumstances time would have been on her side, after all King Shirou was as close to being immortal a mortal could come, and the girl that had his heart was still subject to all the frailties of mortality, including aging. Age would take her from his side and then Tiamat could offer her own immortal love in place of the mortal one that had been lost. The problem was that his possession of Rule of the Underworld meant that not even death could separate him from his loved ones. Even if time did steal her from him he could restore her to life and youth without any real difficulty.
For a moment she considered simply trying to seduce him and be done with it. To be sure he might love this girl, but she was a goddess, no mortal could compare to her beauty or her passion. King Shirou was a Campione, a King of kings, his body no longer subject to the frailties of mortality. Could a mortal lover be enough to satisfy him now, or might a goddess be a more suitable lover?
Even as the thought occurred to her Tiamat felt disgust with herself for having even contemplated it. What she was thinking, was she really so desperate to secure her host's affection that she would . . . what? Throw herself at him like some harlot? Hope that his lust would overcome him and that afterwards she could leverage that to force him into some sort of relationship? It was beneath her! She was a goddess of chaos and sea; she had been the one to birth the earliest dragons and beasts of nightmare.
. . . And she also had no idea as to how to handle the current situation. That was the truth of it, if she was in love with King Shirou then she wasn't sure how to gain his love, because it was his strange dedication to some girl he had never seen that acted as a barrier to her own happiness with him, and perplexingly it was that same dedication that was part of why she had come to love him at all.
"What can I do?" The question was asked more to the world in general than it was to her guests. "The thought of having King Shirou as a companion is an appealing one, he is strong enough to be my equal, even once my full strength is restored, and I know that he would be a good and faithful paramour. However we both know that it can't be, for his heart belongs to another. No, even more than that. Venus stole his heart in its entirety, and even that was not enough to turn him from this 'Sakura' that he loves. Do you think I should try to overcome that? Do you even think I would? Whatever my feelings might be I am also Tiamat, and I have my own pride."
She paused for a moment, gazing back at the immortal girl before her.
"And what of you, Guinevere? You have asked me about my feelings, but what of your own? That you love your new king is as easy to see as the sun in the summer sky, do you not wish for his love for yourself?"
The goddess of chaos had to give the handmaiden credit, her face flushed red and her body tensed with nervous energy, but for all that the Divine Ancestor never broke her gaze with Tiamat.
"Yes, Guinevere would dearly love it if Sir Shirou were to grant her the privilege of his love. Guinevere also knows that Sir Shirou is faithful to the girl that stands in the centre of his soul. Perhaps this might change in time, perhaps Sir Shirou will find some love in his heart to spare, but it does not matter. I am the handmaiden to the King of Steel, and I shall stay at his side until life is stolen from one or the other of us."
In the wake of her declaration there was silence, a discontent sort that was uncomfortable to endure, yet at the same time difficult to break.
Then it was broken.
"Oh, do not be so dour," Lancelot's voice was almost jarringly cheerful when contrasted with the general atmosphere that had settled in the room. "Perhaps things are difficult, but it will not do for you to fall to despair. Honoured Tiamat, you have come to care for the king that spared your life and gave you aid and shelter, have you not? Well, that is hardly something to be ashamed of, he is a fine young king and one would have no objections had he been a knight at her side in days past. Likewise one's beloved charge has come to love him too, well that is hardly a surprise, this knight has seen it coming for a long time. Again, this is no cause for shame; he has treated you gallantly, behaved as a true knight and fought to keep you safe when needed, how could a maiden's heart not be moved?"
The war goddess paused for a moment looking at both Tiamat and Guinevere.
"Despair and discouragement is beneath either of you. This knight is no sage in matters of the heart, but even she can see that to meekly accept this obstacle will bring neither of you happiness. Yes, Sir Shirou has a mortal that already has sway over his heart. What of it? He is a God Slaying King; in the past such men have had many wives, dozens, or even hundreds. Who was that fellow, the one that gained his crown by slaying an incarnation of Zeus? Did he not have no less than a thousand brides? To my mind our host is a far superior king to him, though one thinks his appetites are somewhat more controlled. Do not hide your feelings and drown in melancholy, charge forward and trample hesitation and opposition before you!"
Both the Mother of Dragons and the Queen of the Divine Ancestors stared at the Knight of the Lake as though she had lost her mind.
"Lancelot . . ." Tiamat said, her words slow, "Are you implying that I should . . . accept a position as . . . what? A second wife? Me?!"
"Why not? Are you instead content to wallow in misery over a lost chance? If you have at least tried then you will know that every effort has been expended, but as things stand both you and the precious child are ready to surrender before the first sally is even made."
"Sir Knight . . . it's not that easy." In contrast to the goddess's outrage Guinevere was instead more subdued. "Sir Knight doesn't love Sir Shirou, so it is easy for her to speak of making such offers. Guinevere though . . . she doesn't wish to confuse things with her new King."
"Bah!" Lancelot startled them both with her short and most unladylike response, a sound accompanied by a gesture as though she were waving away a bothersome insect. "You both have feelings and desires, what more is there to question. Yes, you may be rejected, but our host and king is no mean spirited brute that would humiliate you for revealing such feelings for him. If it makes you feel better, dear child, then this knight will go with you and make her confession alongside you. Would that make you feel better?"
Tiamat didn't know about Guinevere, but she could honestly say that she had not seen that coming. Sir Lancelot was also in love with their host? When had that happened? It had taken Tiamat all the time since King Shirou had accepted her as his guest to work out her own feelings for him. The Witch Queen of Britannia had had even longer, given that she'd met him during the fiasco with Mordred. By contrast the Knight of the Lake had only met him briefly, once during the fight against Jord, that race around the island, and now after the battle with Alexander Gascoigne. When had she even had time to fall in love with him?
"S-Sir Knight is also in love with Sir Shirou?"
Guinevere's question came as more of a squeak than it did a coherent string of words.
"Of course not," the war goddess replied easily. "But he is brave, strong and noble, one would certainly be happy to take him as a lover for a night or two."
Ah, of course. Tiamat mentally shook herself as she recalled whom she was talking to. Lancelot was a war goddess, an Amazon queen. Her nature was that of the mounted warrior, the raider, the trampler, the champion, the knight. Her history, her legend, had never included paramours of any great note; to her men were comrades or enemies, nice and simple. She might revere some more than others, but even then romantic entanglement wasn't truly a part of her nature. If she found a man attractive then she took him, bedded him, and then left afterwards. If they met again she might smile in a comradely manner, maybe even offer him a second night if she liked him, but there was no real connection, no commitment.
By contrast Tiamat was a Mother goddess, before she had become the Mother of Dragons she had been the mother of gods and wife to a divine king who was never a mortal. Though her nature had changed after she battled against her children when they rebelled some things had remained cast in stone. Her love, once given or won, was not a whimsical thing. The mortals that she had taken to her bed had been little more than pleasant distractions, living toys to be enjoyed and then dismissed. Her love though, that was different. She had loved Abzu, for he had been her counterpart, the fresh water to her salt water, but after the rebellion of her children and the fall of the elder gods they had drifted apart, each of them existing in their own legend. If she loved, truly as she had back then, then a single night would not be enough, she would not be content with that.
She was a goddess, a mother of nightmares, a divine queen and, when she so chose, a calamity made flesh, but as part of her core identity she also sought to be the wife to one her equal.
In some ways it was the same with Guinevere. Though she was now a Divine Ancestor she had once been a deity, the white mother goddess of the lands once called Albion. She had loved and been committed to that love. She had loved her king so dearly that she had been willing to cast away her entire identity simply to see him returned to the world that much sooner. This had been inherited by her 'daughter', enough so that Guinevere didn't even think of taking lovers or entering brief trysts. Part of this was due to her physical age, but even without that Tiamat doubted such would have appealed to her.
It was this aspect at the core of their natures that was giving them trouble she supposed. Neither of them just wanted King Shirou for a night, they wanted him forever. The only problem with that was that he already had someone he loved.
It all circled back to that; he already had someone, and she knew that he wouldn't be turned from her.
Perhaps Lancelot was right, perhaps the only way she could have him was if she was willing to accept that he couldn't be hers alone. It was not a thought that she liked though. She was Tiamat, goddess of all the salted waters; she was not some lovesick harem girl that would meekly accept a place as just one among many! Her pride would not let her fall so low.
Idly the ancient goddess reached up to the side of her head and rubbed the short nubs that hid beneath her hair. They had been itching lately, a sign that they were getting ready to spring forth once more into the full horns that would be one of the final signs of her recovered power. For the time being she was suppressing it, preferring to maintain her mortal appearance, but later that might become impossible.
She needed time. Time to think about this, time to come to a decision, time to consume the fang that had been gifted to her.
"In many ways I envy you your purity of motivation, Sir Lancelot. It must make conundrums like my feelings much simpler to resolve."
Tiamat's voice wasn't hostile, but there was a slight resentment in there.
"Guinevere has to agree, Sir Knight's ability to simply choose a course and charge straight on is most . . . enviable."
"This knight knows that she is simple," the blonde war goddess acknowledged, "But one still feels that the precious child and honoured Tiamat are making things more complicated than they need to be. Go forth, strike out, take what grounds you can conquer and be content to hold them if you can gain no more!"
"You do realize that we are talking about King Shirou's heart, do you not? Not some country that we seek to dominate."
In response to the crimson haired goddess's question the Knight of the Lake simply waved her hand dismissively.
"One's words apply to both hearts and lands; all that is needed is the will to act." Her face lit up with a smile as she reached out and gently poked the Queen of the Divine Ancestors in the side "The precious child is in a better position to act than she knows, it would seem that the aftermath of the battle with Alexander Gascoigne, and her shift of loyalties to a new king, has agreed with her. She looks more womanly than she ever has before."
Hmmm, that was true. Looking at the immortal girl before her Tiamat noted that the clothes that had once fitted her most comfortably were now a little on the tight side. Yes, Guinevere was a bit taller than she had been, her features a bit more matured, her body showing signs of leaving childhood. When had that happened? She was an immortal child, such was the nature of the Divine Ancestors that had once been goddesses, they were eternal children, forever the same, unaging. For her to change . . .
No, this was just too much! Tiamat already had plenty to mull over, and she didn't want to add something else to the pile. Standing up she nodded respectfully to her guests.
"I thank you for you gift, Guinevere. I also thank you for your words, and for your knight's advice. I am unsure of how to take either of them, but I think that they were something that I needed to hear."
In response the Witch Queen of Britannia stood up, followed by her protector, and curtseyed in return.
"Guinevere thanks you for your time, and also for your kind words. Your acceptance of her apology and her gift were most gracious, and your indulgence of her . . . speaking of her feelings is also appreciated."
"Indeed," Lancelot commented from behind her charge, "And please let one know if you intend to follow this knight's advice in regards to Sir Shirou. Should you need an ally in your assault upon the borders of his heart then one would not be averse to lending her aid."
Honestly, what could Tiamat say in response to that? Granted, the appearance of not one but two goddesses intent upon his seduction might well be enough to overwhelm even so singular a man as King Shirou, but even so she . . . why was she even thinking this?
As the two left, the goddess of salt water collapsed back into her chair and stared down at the fang that was still clutched in her hand. Why was it that being gifted with a lost shard of her power that would take considerable effort to reintegrate into her mantle of divinity was the least complicated thing that this short meeting had left her with?
-()-
Homura sat in his chair and tried not to fidget.
This was it, quite possibly the most important meeting of his life, and he couldn't afford to screw it up. He had to present the correct image of both competence and humility, but not so much of either that he came across as either arrogant or spineless. It shouldn't be a hard balance to maintain, but he just kept on worrying that he was going to get this wrong.
On the table before him he saw that his hands had clasped themselves again, fingers interweaving while his thumbs danced around each other in a bale of nervous energy.
The room they were meeting in was in a hotel, one of those private conference rooms that could be hired by companies wanting to arrange some sort of meeting or seminar. Quite frankly the room, with its multiple chairs and its long table, was overkill for just two, but Homura had decided to hire it anyway due to the large windows with their magnificent view of Tokyo bay. Given what this meeting was about, it seemed right to have a view of the area where the recent battle had taken place.
Had that been the right decision? Was he trying too hard? Might he accidentally be insulting the one that was coming to meet him by choosing this venue? Rationally he knew that such was unlikely, but he couldn't help but conjure up scenario after scenario where disaster struck.
Taking a deep breathe he tried to centre himself. He had this in hand; he just had to be the professional he knew himself to be.
*Knock Knock*
The sound of a gentle rapping on the door brought him out of his thoughts. Alright, this was it! No more time to worry or envision the worst, just crunch time. The final swing, do or die, show 'em or fold 'em, best . . . And he was delaying again.
In a series of swift motions he was on his feet, had crossed to the door and had opened it to let his guest in.
"Emiya-sama, thank you for taking the time to join me."
Homura was somewhat proud of how he managed to keep his voice steady despite his internal trepidation. In response his majesty simply nodded and stepped into the room.
"As I said, your earlier service was most commendable, enough so that my taking some time to accede to your request seemed like a good idea."
As he spoke the former field agent was struck by how young his king truly was. It was a rather incongruous thought, but for some reason it just jumped out at him at the sight of Emiya Shirou. Rather than being clad in armour or some sort of combat outfit he was instead wearing jeans and a white jacket with blue sleeves. The entire look was so ordinary that it clashed with the knowledge that this was a young man that had faced and slaughtered deities, taking their power as his own. Even his demeanour seemed a bit different from what he would have expected, less domineering.
Well, whatever the case, now wasn't the time to become distracted by such things. Stepping back Homura courteously held the door open for his king as he came through.
"Thank you for your generosity. I hope that this won't take too much of your time."
Gesturing he indicated one of the chairs at the table as he moved to take the one facing it. As he did so Homura was once more reminded of how large the room was, and how strange it seemed for just the two of them to be the only ones there. Once again he cursed himself for choosing this particular room, a smaller one would have been more suitable, but he just had to go for something impressive.
Well, there was no changing the facts at this point, so he'd just have to make do with what he had to work with. Taking a deep breathe once again he sat down in his own seat and faced his king across the table.
"So . . . what exactly was it that you wanted to speak to me about?"
Emiya-sama's question wasn't forceful in any way. As far as his tone went he might as well have been speaking about the weather, but none the less the former field agent felt a press of urgency. Still, he didn't let it overwhelm him, if he was going to convince the King of Steel of his cause he had to present the facts properly.
"Your majesty, just how much do you know about the History Compilation Committee?"
Emiya-sama tilted his head to the side as he seemed to give the question some thought.
"Nothing too detailed," He admitted, "Kaida and Manaka gave me the basic rundown and I conducted a little research of my own to verify what they told me. It's an organization that was established back in the early years of the Meiji period by the four families. Since then the organization has absorbed every other supernatural organization in Japan, or at least confirmed its authority over them. For the most part your focus has been on the control of the supernatural so that the public can remain ignorant of it. You've also gained something of a reputation for the manipulation of the media and records; it was a large part of how your group gained their current name.
"Aside from that I haven't really dug any deeper, there didn't seem to be any real need. As far as I can see your organization handles things well, no-one is getting hurt, and the public remains shielded. I've had one or two dealings with your group as well, they've supplied me with several useful reagents, though they still haven't taken me up on the offer to let them speak to what revived souls they should choose."
Alright, that was good, that was the sort of opening he'd been looking for.
"Thank you, Emiya-sama," Homura said, "It was actually in regards to that which I wanted to speak to you about."
"What do you mean?"
The former field agent had to be careful in how he framed this. He had no desire to lie to or manipulate his king, on the other hand he did want to lead Emiya-sama to understand the situation in such a manner that he would see the correct path to take. It was a fine line to walk, but he thought he could manage it.
"The offer you made to the Committee was an excellent one; any one of the four main houses has any number of ancestors and subordinates that would be able to contribute immensely to all sorts of modern efforts. Lost artefacts could be tracked down, lost spells recovered, even such mundane things as knowing who the correct inheritor was meant to be, any one of them is a near priceless opportunity. And despite that the Committee hasn't availed themselves of your generosity, have you wondered why?"
King Emiya did not reply, instead his brow furrowed slightly and he gestured for Homura to continue.
"Please do not think that it has anything to do with distrust or ill intent," the former field operative assured him, "It's simply that the History Compilation Committee has found itself in a somewhat awkward position."
He paused for a moment. He'd gone over this dozens of times in his head in preparation for this very explanation, but now that it was time to get it done he once again found himself second guessing himself. Ah well, there wasn't too much more he could do. He thought he had this phrased the right way, but all he could do was his best.
"Japan hasn't had a God Slaying King for centuries. The last one to grace our shores departed for the mainland shortly after his ascension and so didn't impose his rule upon this land. In the intervening years the great magical alliances of the times used various methods to ensure the relative safety of our nation, and were generally fairly successful. Heretic Gods have descended on rare occasions, and their arrival has marred Japan with war and disaster, but the damage has at least been mitigated and the nation has survived.
"When Kusanagi-sama returned from his trip to Europe as a Campione it was seen as both a disaster and a miracle. Had he been a tyrannical Devil King then there would have been nothing that the Committee could have done other than attempt to serve him in such a way that the damage would have been moderated. Fortunately he proved to be a most kind and reasonable king, everything that we could have hoped for. Contact was made with him and one of our most promising Hime-Miko became his ally and friend. We had a friendly relationship with him, and were thinking of deepening it into a formal alliance.
"Then you came to Japan."
Homura leaned forwards slightly, trying to lend more emphasis to his words as he continued.
"I am unsure that you understand how rare a situation it is for two Supreme Kings to share a nation, let alone a city. Always in the past when two Kings are forced into the same area more often than not it leads to conflict. Sometimes alliances are struck, with one King moving to another area, but that was rare. Instead it was far more likely that the two would clash instead. It isn't too surprising, Campione are mortals that have overcome mortal fate, and it is only natural for them to stand above all lesser mortals. A meeting between them is like a meeting between supreme alpha predators, the desire for dominance is only natural. However the results of such battles are always great, sometimes even cataclysmic. The Committee has some experience in explaining such things away so that the public doesn't panic, but no-one wanted to see if our reach was enough to cover up Tokyo being reduced to a sea of flames.
"We were fortunate with you and Kusanagi-sama, so fortunate that it boggles the mind. To have not one King that was reasonable, but two? One can barely begin to even guess at the odds against such a thing happening. We were able to extend our greetings to you as well, and you took our representatives into your household. We were somewhat dismayed that at first it was only as servants, but in time Kaida-san and her bodyguard were accepted by you."
The former field agent to the History Compilation Committee saw that a slight frown beginning to show on King Emiya's brow again and realized that he'd begun rambling slightly. Best to get to the root of the matter before he pressed his luck any further.
"All of this has led to one issue that is now threatening to deal serious harm to the very framework of the Committee." He explained.
"What do you mean?"
"When Kusanagi-sama first returned to Japan it was decided that if at all possible the Committee would ally with him. after it was determined that he was a reasonable man it was further decided that it would be best if the organization swore themselves to his service, essentially subordinating the entire History Compilation Committee to his person. There were a number of reasons this path was suggested, safety, security, prestige, but in the end it was decided as the most prudent course of action.
"However Kusanagi-sama proved to be very different from what we were expecting. Yuri-san's reports showed him to be a young man most uncomfortable with the power he had gained and apparently lacking any desire to gain more or spread his reign further. That proved to be a most unexpected development, so the Four Families decide to take the matter slowly, since the situation afforded us the luxury of time. It was eventually decided that a slow approach would be taken, with Yuri-san and Ena-san serving as the 'faces' of the group to King Kusanagi while other agents would do their best to make things easy for him. Eventually, after we had built up our reputation with him, the Four Families would officially offer their allegiance to him, and it would hopefully be accepted. By that point the hope was that his majesty would accept the council of the Committee's leaders and that they would be able to at least guide him.
"Your arrival changed that, as did your lack of hostility with your fellow King. The Committee found that since neither King was making any move to take their service by threat or force it meant that they had a choice."
He leaned back, his back straightening as tried to appear as upright and professional as he could.
"It is the existence of this option that has led to the current crisis in the Committee," Homura explained, "Before your arrival on in Japan the majority of the effort was placed into forming good relations with King Kusanagi, Mariya Yuri's addition to his group was a major success, and later Seishuuin Ena was also able to be accepted as his woman. Both were good moves, but it left the Seishuuin family particularly invested in gaining an alliance with King Kusanagi. Your own arrival kept them from pushing forwards in this agenda, but they still intended to support it, however with your impressive victories in the months that followed this position grew shaky. After the incident with Venus it was clearly demonstrated that your own power surpassed that of your fellow King, meaning that in terms of sheer military might you were the superior option. That you were able to count Tiamat-sama and Guinevere-sama as allies in the aftermath only served to highlight this.
"The simple fact is that as this information became evident the members of the Committee have become more and more split in regards as to who they believe is the more suitable choice to serve. The arguments are that Kusanagi Godou is the more predictable and peaceful of the two of you. He also has greater connections to Europe through the knights that serve him and is on generally better terms with the other Campione than yourself. You, others argue, are the more powerful and battle hardened King and have immediate allies closer to home that match or surpass any that Kusanagi-sama can bring to bear.
"Initially the matter was something to take slowly, to tally up all opinions involved as well as take what new information came up into account. Unfortunately things have begun to escalate more rapidly than any had predicted."
Well, it was technically true. Perhaps his own actions in trying to persuade some of the more recalcitrant members of the ruling council had been a bit heavy handed, but their reactions had themselves been somewhat disproportionate. People had begun picking sides, and friction between those of differing opinion had begun to grow increasingly grating. That hadn't been his intention when this had all begun, all he'd wanted to do was ensure that the correct Campione was chosen, but things had sort of run away from him.
"The simple truth is that the matter has begun to polarize the Committee. People are taking sides and the hard liners are becoming increasingly hostile to those that disagree with them. To make matters worse other issues are being dragged into it, things that have been left on the back burner for a while. The different sides are taking stands on those as well now, trying to swing more support their way, but all it's doing is dragging more tension into the mix. For now nothing has happened yet, no overt hostilities have taken place, but some subtle threats have been made. There's a lot of tension, but it's still at a manageable level, but that's slipping away bit by bit."
He knew that the way this had all developed was his fault. He'd brought the matter up, had pushed it, had gathered support, had brought other issues into it in hopes of solidifying his position. But even though the Committee was now stumbling towards what could only be regarded as a civil war, Homura didn't think that he regretted it.
Emiya Shirou was the King that he had chosen to devote himself to. He'd seen the King's power, had witnessed it as he'd burst forth from that mountain that had tried to contain him. He'd carefully followed the actions of the Campione that came to be named as the King of Steel, and everything he'd learnt had only served to assure him that he had chosen the correct devil King to revere. Kusanagi Godou-sama was impressive, a King that Japan could be proud of, but Emiya-sama eclipsed him due to his sheer scale of power and influence. He was the Supreme Ruler that the Committee had to serve if it wished to advance in the world that was to come.
Of course, it could hardly serve anyone or gain any sort of glory if it ended up tearing itself apart, that was what this meeting was about, after all.
"I see," The face of the King of Steel was a carefully black mask, almost unnervingly so. "This situation is concerning, but how exactly do you hope I can help?"
"Your majesty, please end the debating and arguing by simply settling the situation. Demand the loyalty of the Committee and it will be given to you, even your detractors would not think of disobeying you. The only reason that things have reached this point is that neither you nor your fellow King have shown any interest in pushing the matter, should either of you show a desire for the group to serve you then the issue will be resolved immediately and disunity will likewise fade."
"I guess that you are one of those that support me taking the loyalty of the Committee?"
"Yes!"
Homura's answer was immediate and definitive. He might be unsure about a few things in regards to this meeting, but on that he was completely certain.
"Why?"
Unconsciously the former field agent licked his suddenly dry lips.
"Because you are the better King for the role. Kusanagi-sama has my eternal respect, but he has no need or desire to rule over the Committee. So long as they continue to provide support and information when he needs them then he has no issue with how the organization is run or allied. If the Committee did swear itself to him I doubt he would change anything, he'd just leave it to continue as it is and only contact it when the situation might call for it. You are different though, since your ascension to being a God Slaying King you have used your power to amass more power, but you haven't been reckless or careless with it. You could have used your Authority to flood the international market with gold and jewels, increasing your wealth but dealing the economies of several countries grave damage, but you didn't. Instead you sought out and raised a servant with the skills you needed and only sold a few artefacts to give you the starting money you needed.
"Since then you have slowly built up the range and influence of your properties, incorporating the conquests of your sister and using them to grow further. Your personal power is a mighty asset, but I feel that the manner in which you utilize that power is the most defining factor. Under King Kusanagi the Committee will continue, but under you it will thrive.
"I don't even see any conflict arising with your fellow King if this were to take place. You will not deny him aid from those who serve you, and you will not try to take Mariya-san or Seishuuin-san from him. By serving you the Committee will become part of you holdings, and that can only serve to strengthen us both to our mutual benefit. I'm certain that after a minor transition our relationship with Kusanagi-sama will remain stable, and it will only serve to deepen the accord that you already share."
King Emiya nodded slowly, his face still largely unreadable. Homura thought he saw some interest there, some thoughtfulness, but was that really there, or was he only seeing what he wished was there?
"I . . . understand where you're coming from," the Eighth Campione said. "Your points are good ones, but I hope you understand that this isn't a decision I can make on the spur of the moment."
"Y-Yes, of course!"
The former field agent cursed himself for the hitch in his voice as he replied. Still, this was good; this wasn't an immediate rejection, so his king had to be at least open to the idea.
"I will need more information before I can decide; can you have suitable documents prepared? And I shall have to gather some myself, I trust you understand why."
Of course, there was no need to do anything other than nod. It would be foolish for even a Devil King to blindly trust a single source of information, especially one that had openly admitted to being on one side of the escalating situation. Emiya-sama had Kaida and Manaka; both of them were well regarded and connected in the Committee, so they would be able to get perspectives from both sides of the debate. He also had other contacts, minor ones to be sure, but ones that he could get in touch with. There was no doubt that it would only take a day or so for the King of Steel to get a fairly accurate picture of how things were balanced in the History Compilation Committee.
"I have a full dossier on all the matters that I felt required your immediate attention already prepared."
Homura was pleased that there wasn't as much of a stammer in his voice this time. Standing, he handed the folder across the table so that it was in front of the young red haired King. He took it and immediately flipped it open, his eyes flicking about as he took in the information it offered. The Committee agent simply watched, but his thoughts raced as he did so. The folder had contained everything he could think of that Emiya-sama might wish to know about the History Compilation Committee's past and current state. Membership, assets, past dealings, triumphs, failures, they weren't all in there, not when his level of clearance only went so far, but he felt that he was able to assemble a pretty complete picture, enough to give his hopefully future liege a good starting point.
"Do you truly believe this to be the best path?"
Emiya Shirou-sama's question caught him somewhat by surprise. How could he ask that at this point? Would he have set this up and explained the situation as he had if he didn't feel that way?
"Completely," he affirmed, "The Committee must swear itself to one of the Kings that now dwell in this land, and I am absolutely certain that you are the superior choice."
The Eighth Devil King nodded once more, then stood up.
"I understand. I won't be able to answer you today, but I shall have an answer for you as soon as possible."
He paused for a moment, then extended his hand.
"I thank you for bringing this to my attention. I was unaware of any sort of simmering conflict brewing in the History Compilation Committee, so I would have remained ignorant until something happened if you hadn't brought it out here."
Homura felt his heart swell as he took the offered hand. This was what he'd been aiming for, the chance to be of use to the great King he was certain was worthy of his loyalty. Enthused he shook the hand, careful not to let his enthusiasm spill over into the action. He wanted this to be an agreeable moment, not something made foolish by him pumping the arm of the eighth Campione as though it were some sort of machine. No, a firm and professional handshake, that was the way to go. He completed it, hoping that he'd made the correct impression . . . then found he couldn't let go as the fingers that held his own hand remained firmly in place. They weren't squeezing, they weren't crushing, but they were also as immovable as stone.
"If I am about to treat you harshly when you don't deserve it then I do apologize," Emiya-sama's voice was lower now, but not low as in soft, lower as in tensed, ready for violence if need be. "You've told me some interesting things today, and suggested actions that could have some far reaching consequences. If you're lying to me . . . if you are trying to manipulate me in order to advance some agenda of your own . . . then I will not be forgiving. Do you understand?"
At that moment Homura was acutely aware of just who he was being threatened by. Up until now he'd been partly dazzled by his King's grandeur, by the memory of him bursting forth from the mountain in all his glory. He had known his strength, had kept a record of it as he had faced and defeated foe after foe, but that knowledge had been in the same way as knowing that someone could speak a foreign language. It was a skill they possessed, one that could be admired and regarded as useful, but which had minimal impact upon the observer.
Now though, Homura was well aware that the hand that held him could easily have the strength to crush his bones into powder, lay curses upon him that could make his life a living hell, summon weapons that all his magic could never even come close to matching. He might be a fairly powerful and competent magic user, but in the face of one of the Children of Pandora he was an ant before the inferno.
"I . . ." he started to say, but was cut off as Emiya-sama held up his other hand in a stopping gesture.
"No, don't say anything." The King of Steel didn't raise his voice in the slightest, but in spite of that, the one-time field agent felt as though his words had been cut off by the blade of an executioner's guillotine. "As I already said; if I am misjudging you and you were sincere then I apologize, but if you have tried to manipulate me then I want you to remember this moment. Remember what it felt like to have your life in my hands. Remember that, and then think very hard as to whether pursuing this course of action is the best choice you could make."
He let go, and Homura collapsed back into his chair as his legs seemed to lose all strength.
"I'll see myself out. Please think on what I said."
All the subtle menace was gone from the Devil King's voice now, indeed he looked almost sunny. In short order he left the room, no further words being exchanged.
For his part Homura simply stayed in his chair for a few minutes, waiting for his heart to realize that he wasn't going to have to fight or run for his life, so it could stop hammering his blood around. After a bit it finally got the message, and the Committee agent felt less as though he was on the verge of a heart attack.
That . . . had been terrifying, but at the same time heartening. Emiya-sama had shown both caution and resolve, enough that it only reinforced Homura's already towering respect for the Campione. Still, it also made him remember of just where he and everyone else in the Committee stood in comparison to him. To any mortal magic user the History Compilation Committee was a bulwark of Japan, an organization that came down like a sack full of anvils on anyone foolish enough to cause trouble in this island nation. Cults and the like did spring up every now and then, ones backed by some real power, but even so they never managed to gain a foothold as the Committee quietly and effectively dealt with them before their roots could dig in too deeply. Simply put to most the Committee was almost a force of nature, something to be accepted in much the same way that gravity was, it was simply too big, too well connected, too rich in resources to be taken down by normal mages.
In a single gesture and with a few words Emiya-sama had reminded him all too clearly that he was no ordinary mage, he was a man that had transcended mortality and now wielded the powers of a god. If he wished to face or destroy the Committee there was nothing they could do to stop him, save for pleading for mercy or entreating Kusanagi-sama to aid them. Simply put, the Committee might need him, but at the end of the day the Committee would simply make things a bit more convenient for him, he could do just fine without them if needs be.
Well . . . that was alright. He hadn't been lying, and he hadn't tried to manipulate the Eighth Campione to his own benefit. Granted, Homura might have been slightly creative in his presentation of the truth, after all it was him that started the schism in the Committee, but that was a minor detail at most. All that mattered was that he was now aware of the situation, and the opportunity.
Now . . . if he could just get his legs to co-operate again.
-()-
Shirou stood by the ticket kiosk and debated whether or not to take his jacket off. It was odd really; the trip to the island had only been a few days ago, barely more than a couple of weeks, but in that time the climate had cooled noticeably. It wasn't exactly cold yet, but the balmy warmth that had made it so easy to lounge around on the beach in swimsuits was gone. Summer was coming to a close he supposed, autumn was on the way in now.
That thought made him consider just how long he and Illya had been in this new world, it had been early winter in Fuyuki when they'd left, but it had been spring when they got back to Japan in this world. It had been months since then, enough time for the seasons to continue their inexorable march. He wondered how much time it had been back in his own world, had it been more, or less, would he come back to find he'd only been gone for a few minutes, or would everyone he longed to see be dead and gone?
He shook his head, trying to dispel the worries. Those were old thoughts, ones that had been dogging him since he'd realized they were a possibility. They'd haunted him for weeks on end, then he'd realized that there wasn't anything he could really do about it. All he could manage was to get home as soon as he could, once there he could deal with whatever might be true. He knew this, it was a conclusion he'd already come to and he was comfortable with the resolution he'd arrived at, so why was it bothering him now?
Actually, that was a stupid question, he knew damned well why his thoughts were falling back on old issues, it was because a new one had been dropped into his lap.
He'd done his best to remain as stoic and closed off as he could, but he wasn't sure whether or nor Homura had realized how rattled he was by the news that had been delivered. Though he hadn't had too much contact with them Shirou had found that he liked the History Compilation Committee. Kaida and Manaka had been his first points of contact, with some distant meetings with Mariya Yuri adding on to them, and they had made a good first impression. He'd had further interactions after that, and had done what covert fact finding he could, and all of it had confirmed his initial impression, that this was a far kinder and more moral organization than the magic associations Archer had been used to dealing with. In many ways his older self would have regarded them as naïve or out of touch with reality, but that would have been in his world.
This world was different, magecraft wasn't an art that was fading, and as such its users didn't have to resort to such inhuman means to hold on to it as they had in his world. Of course, they had to deal with their own problems in the forms of Heretic Gods and Campione that didn't restrain themselves, but in spite of that this world seemed to be . . . kinder than the one he hailed from. It was probably because of that that the Committee was able to conduct themselves as they did.
Taking them over though . . . now there was a dilemma and a half.
"Oniiiiii-san!"
Shirou was brought out of his thoughts by a purple and white missile coming straight at him. It took a certain amount of control not to instinctively retaliate at the perceived attack, fortunately for all his battle hardened skills and the reflexes he gained both from his other self and from his hours of training some things went deeper than simple ingrained responses. Case in point, Emiya Shirou loved and cared for his adopted sister, and he was more likely to cut off his own arm than he was to raise it against her.
As a result he took her charge full in the stomach as the height difference and her own ducked posture resulted in her head impacting him just below the ribs even as her arms wrapped about him. The force of the impact was enough to send him stumbling back a pace, but he was able to get his foot underneath him to catch himself before he completely lost his balance.
"Illya!" His voice was just a tad sharp as he looked down at the girl that had cannoned into him. "What have we said about this before? I don't care how many anime might show it, a flying tackle is not an acceptable way to greet someone! At least not for a girl as big as you!"
"Ah ha! Not this time onii-san! You still owe me for leaving me behind in London, so that means I get to treat you any way I want for this date, so you have to bear it"
As she said this the Einzbern heiress released her hold on Shirou, backed up a few paces and then stood pointing at him dramatically.
"But why a flying tackle?" the Campione asked, his tone almost plaintive, "Why?"
"It was in all the manga and anime I watched in preparation for this date!" Illya proudly declared, "I did a lot of research, but I think I have the formula for a great day out. Starting off with a flying hug sets the tone for the rest of the day, relaxed and humorous!"
Not for the first time Shirou began to wonder if letting her get into anime had been the best idea.
"Anyway, come on Shirou, I chose the time carefully so that we could have a special date!" His snowy haired adopted sibling declared as she took his hand and dragged him towards the kiosk.
"Isn't it a bit late though?"
His question was a valid one. The days were getting shorter as the year drew on, and it was already quarter to four in the afternoon. If he was right then light should start fading at around five or five thirty, with night falling by about six. Since that was barely more than a couple of hours he couldn't help but wonder what Illya was planning.
"Nope!" She declared as she handed some money to the kiosk operator and received a pair of tickets in return. "We've got just enough time to have some fun on the main rides before they close down for the day, then we can start enjoying the night time attractions."
"Night time attractions?"
"Mmmm hmmm," She replied, pulling him through the gates and into the amusement park as she did so. "Tonight this park's going to be having a whole bunch of things going on! Stalls, rides, even a couple of haunted houses. Then, later in the evening, there's going to be a big fireworks display. I bought the extra expensive tickets so that we can ride the Ferris wheel while it's going on, that way we'll get an awesome view!"
Ah, that explained that then. Well, he didn't have any real problem with it. Actually a relaxed evening might be just what he needed. Things might have gotten a bit quieter since the whole mess with Gascoigne, but the past few days had still been pretty busy, a nice night out with Illya might be just the opportunity he needed to unwind a little bit.
"Okay, so which ride shall we try first?"
At his sister's question the King of Steel glanced around. There were a couple of restrictions on where they could go, since some of the rides had that whole 'height restriction' on them so that the too young couldn't ride them. If they ended up queuing for a while and then were stopped from riding the attraction because Illya was too short . . . it could get messy. The snowy haired magus had shown considerable improvement in her moderation and restraint, so he didn't really think she'd summon up her puppet Berserker to smash the ride, but it was probably best not to tempt fate.
"How about that one?"
It wasn't one of the larger ones, and the queue for it didn't seem to be too long. That should make it suitable for a starting point, right?
"Oooo, the Rolling Thunder? That's one of the more intense ones, good choice!"
Maybe it hadn't been the best choice.
-()-
Onii-san made the best choices EVER!
The Rolling Thunder ride had been awesome! Though it initially looked fairly small that was due to most of the machinery being underneath the ride, which only showed itself once things got going. In the end it had been one of those centrifugal rides that used the force of it to stick you to a wall, then the ride would lift and tip over until the room was almost upside down and the only thing keeping you from falling out was the force of the spinning. All in all lots of fun!
Honestly, she'd been afraid that she wouldn't be allowed to go on the ride. When she was confronted by one of those measuring things, the ones that you had to be taller than if you wanted to ride the attraction, she'd been worried. Illya knew that she was still physically very young, even though she was older than Shirou. She had begun to develop slightly since coming to this new world, but even if she knew it intellectually on an instinctual level she still thought of her body as that of a child. As it turned out though, she was just able to clear the height requirement of 136 centimetres.
It was a small thing, or at least it would have been to other people, but to the Einzbern heiress it was momentous. Seven years ago her physical development had ground to a stop; she'd carefully measured herself, so she knew her height was almost exactly 133 centimetres. That was it, as far as she knew that was as tall as she was ever going to be. It was the height she would live with for the rest of her life, and it was the height that she would die with.
At that moment, after being informed that she was apparently 3 centimetres taller than she'd ever been before, Illya had been struck by a mad desire to punch her fists up into the air and loudly declare that her grandfather should 'suck it'. Perhaps not the most elegant of responses, but given her history it was understandable. Instead she'd contented herself with grinning from ear to ear and holding onii-san's hand as they were loaded onto the ride.
After that they'd gone from one ride to another. The rollercoaster had been fun, and so had the Pendulum Galleon, Illya had screamed in delight as she rode them, her hair flying in the air as she hurtled along. For his part Shirou hadn't seemed quite as enthusiastic about them as she had, but he had laughed along with her, and she was sure that he'd found them fun too. Well, given that he sometimes rode a divine winged horse through the air at speeds that modern combat aircraft would have trouble managing she supposed it was only to be expected that he wouldn't get quite the same thrill as her out of it. Still, he seemed to be enjoying it, and more importantly he was enjoying it with her!
The past couple of months had been tough, especially after the mess with Venus. The trip to the island had been a couple of days of much needed relief, and Onii-san had managed to get out of his black mood, but even that had been cut short too early. Hopefully things might settle down a bit, but she doubted it. Shirou had found what he'd been looking for, a way back to their home world, and she knew he was going to chase it down. And if he did it, then would they be going home again? Home, back where the rest of the Einzbern family were, the family that had lied to her and told her that her Onii-san had stolen her father and made him betray her. Home . . .
No! No, she was not going to let her mind go wandering down this path again. It was true that the thought of going back to their home reality opened up a whole can of worms as far as her feelings went, but right here and now she wasn't going to let her trepidations for the future spoil her present. She could go back to being worried and angry later, right now it was time to have some fun and let off some steam.
And to enjoy carnival food, she mustn't forget about that.
"Illya-chan . . . you really like that, don't you?"
The former Master might have answered her adopted brother, but her mouth was currently occupied with the task of munching a mouthful of donut into a consistency that might be swallowed without risk of choking her. She could also have made some gesture to try and communicate her opinion, but unfortunately both her hands were also occupied, one with holding a stick of almost worryingly pink candyfloss and the other with an elephant's ear. Both of the delicious treats were fragile, so she couldn't risk waving them around.
Something must have shown on her face though, because Shirou smiled and leaned back.
"Well, I don't think you'll need to worry about supper, not with all of that," he commented, indicating the rather sugar heavy food that was still waiting for her to tuck in. "In fact I think you might want to spend a bit more time exercising, if you don't want it to stick around."
Hah! As if she had to worry about that! Magecraft might be a dangerous art that could lead to your death if you were ever careless with it, but one of the benefits it provided was that you could burn off unwanted calories with minimal difficulty. Of course not all magi used such an approach, indeed some families actually regarded a ready store of excess chemical energy in their bodies as a good thing, but she at least could use it to maintain her slim and girlish figure.
But not too slim of course. As she swallowed the mouthful of dough and sugar she furtively glanced down at her chest. Was there any improvement there? She'd been making sure to drink plenty of milk and do those exercises that she'd read about on the internet, but so far she'd not seen too much sign of her chest developing any further. Still, she held out hope for the future, one day she would have a sexy and curvy body just like Mama had, she was sure of it.
But that was a ways off in the future yet. Right now her energy had been restored by calories and sugar, which meant she was ready to embark upon the next phase of this outing. Hmmm, they'd already been on most of the interesting rides, but it was still almost an hour until the sky would be dark enough for the night stalls to begin operating, where could they go until then?
Ah ha, that would do!
"Let's go there next!" Illya declared, nodding towards her new objective even as she seized a fluffy ball of candyfloss in her mouth and tore it off the main body.
"The Castle of Mirrors?"
"Mmmm hmmm." The affirmation was said around a mouthful of elephant's ear as she alternated between high calorie foods.
"Okay."
The attraction turned out to be one of her better ideas, odd as it was to find out. Illya was a powerful magus, a magecraft user that tampered with the functions of reality, and yet the sight of her reflection being distorted by a series of warped mirrors was enough to bring both her and her brother to fits of laughter. It got so bad that the lower half of her cotton candy became a casualty as it fell from her shaking hand.
"Oh . . . oh gods, look at this one!" she stammered, her frame shaking with mirth.
"I . . . I think this proves that I was right," Shirou declared, holding his sides, "y . . . you really do need to lose weight."
Illya stared at her reflection, the curve of the mirror just right to make it look as though she'd been struck by a sudden and severe case of obesity. Oh, oh it was just too much. Tears of mirth ran down her eyes as she looked at the mirror in front of her adopted brother. Unlike her his refection was distorted in such a way that his hips and chest were engorged while his legs waist and arms were unnaturally thin. It was a strange effect, but it made him look almost a parody of femininity, no doubt the effect that the makers of the mirror had been going for.
That thought set her off again, and she had to set the remains of her elephant's ear down before she dropped it. Fortunately she'd eaten enough of it by this point that the remains could be wrapped in the plastic wrap she'd been using to hold it to keep it from getting dirty.
"It's good to laugh like this," Shirou commented. "The way things have gone lately . . . I don't think we've taken enough time to laugh."
His voice was still light, but underneath it the former Einzbern Master was sure that she could hear some self recrimination.
"It's alright; I know that there's been a lot going on."
He just shook his head in response to her attempts to reassure him.
"Maybe, but I still should have made time," he looked up at her, "I haven't been making as much time for you as I should have done Illya-chan, I've been too caught up in . . . in everything."
He sighed, looking to the next mirror, but not really seeing it.
"Getting us secure, getting us resources, getting us a way home, I've been so focused on it all that I haven't been there for you. I mean, when was the last time we just went shopping together? When was the last time we just fooled around and had fun? The island only happened because you literally dragged me out of my study. I . . . I just haven't . . ."
He trailed off, words failing him as he made a vague waving gesture at the air, as though trying to fan inspiration of what to say into being.
"You know what you need?"
Illya didn't let him continue; instead she stepped up next to him, her expression grave.
"What?
"You need a hobby Onii-san, all this work, all your training; you need to do something to unwind as well."
It was the simple truth, and she was going to make him accept it, even if she had to hammer it into his stupid stubborn head.
"A hobby?"
"Yes, Onii-san, a hobby. You know, one of those things you do for fun? You need one."
"A . . . hobby?"
Shirou said it slowly, as though trying the word out for size.
"Right!" Illya agreed, "When was the last time you did something just to relax? I mean, I know that you enjoy training and some tinkering. Even when you're doing something you enjoy, you're always doing it so that you can do something else. You're not having fun; you're just doing it because it's part of the 'plan'."
The snowy haired girl waved her arms around as she spoke, gesticulating her frustration at both her own difficulty in putting her thoughts into words and with her adopted sibling for making this situation an issue in the first place. In response the eighth Campione just blinked at her, his thoughts apparently taking a little time to catch up with what was going on.
"What kind of hobby?"
"I don't know," Illya admitted, "I like anime and manga and games, so I spend time on those. I've even joined the manga art club at school, so I'm going to try to draw my own manga."
That seemed to catch his interest. As the two of them continued walking, stopping to look at their reflections in the twisting mirrors, but both of them were now more focused on their conversation than they were upon the amusements about them.
"You're writing a manga? I didn't know you were that good at drawing." Shirou admitted.
"Well, I do use a bit of magecraft to cheat," Illya admitted in return, stopping to look at herself as she did so. This mirror made her look as though she were wearing an oddly coloured bell instead of a dress. "I can use some alchemy and reinforcement to increase my control over my muscles and their responsiveness so that I have an easier time getting what's in my head down onto paper. It works really well, the club head was really impressed with what I did, so much so that the club is working to make a proper printed version of my manga."
"That's great!" Shirou enthused, "You've got to show it to me when we get back to the manor."
"Ahhh . . . sure, alright." The one time Master of Berserker agreed, already beginning to wonder if mentioning her little hobby had been a good idea. Well, so long as he didn't ask-
"So what's it about?"
And he'd gone and asked.
"Errr . . . well . . . I . . ."
Perhaps it was her hesitation that had been the most damning, maybe it was the undoubtedly guilty look on her face. Whatever the case Shirou turned to look at her, eyes slightly narrowed and eyebrows a trifle raised.
"Illya . . . ?"
"It just sort of grew on me," she tried to explain. "I wrote down some notes at school and Saori saw them and asked me about it. I couldn't tell her the truth, so I said that it was an idea for a story I was working on. She liked it so she managed to talk me into joining the manga club, and that's when I started having fun with the drawing. Anyway, I started on a new manga about magical girls, but nobody liked it, they said it was too dark and bloody."
The Einzbern heiress's face crunched up in annoyance as she recalled that event.
"It wasn't that bad! I based all the magic on real thaumaturgy and magecraft, but they kept on telling me to 'make it cuter' and saying that 'magic girls shouldn't be in danger of being killed by their own magic'! I tried to make some alterations, but they still weren't happy. They said that the bit where a bystander got hit by a stray spell was 'unnecessarily gory'. Well, what were they expecting? When someone is hit by a blast that can shatter concrete then obviously they're going to come apart, just like those wolves that Berserker hit. But no, if I just show a little bit of their spilled intestines or blood then it's all 'too much' or 'over the top'. In the end I got fed up with the whole thing and scrapped it all. I think I've still got the first issue that I got finished in my room, I'll show it to you when we get back."
There was a pause.
"Sooo . . . what happened next?"
It suddenly occurred to Illya that during the course of her short rant about how her first attempt at a manga had been unfairly, in her mind anyway, torpedoed she'd forgotten the reason why she started talking in the first place.
"Well . . . nobody liked my original idea, but they all thought that my art was so good that I should really make a manga."
"You mean the drawing you were using your magecraft to cheat with?"
"Yeah," She agreed, without the faintest trace of shame, "Anyway Saori said that the story she saw me writing down seemed like a good bet, so she offered to help me get set up. At first I said no, but Masashi said that if I didn't get an official work going soon then I wouldn't be able to make their next full printing run, so I got all rushed because I really wanted to make it so . . ."
Her voice trailed off into indistinct mumbling, but Shirou was having none of it.
"What was that, Illya-chan?"
"I said I might have . . . used some of the . . . stuff that happened back home to come up with a rushed story line."
". . . What?"
Shirou's voice was oddly flat, toneless. He didn't sound angry, which was a plus in her books, but on the other hand he didn't really sound much of anything else, which was slightly creepy.
"Well, after I wrote the first chapter everyone in the club kept on telling me that it was an awesome idea and wanted to know what was going to happen next, so I wrote out another chapter. I was going to leave it there, but then Hiroshi kept on saying that he was going to continue it on his own, but all his ideas were so horrible, so I wrote another chapter to shut him up. Then Saori thought I should try to draw some pictures, and because of my magecraft I was able to get it done super quick it sort of grew into a full manga. Everyone was really impressed that I was able to do it in a few days, so they asked me to do it for the next chapter. And then the next. So before I knew it they were talking about making a volume out of all the chapters I'd made. Eh he heh, it all sort of . . . ran away with me?"
At some point her explanation had ceased to be merely talking and had become a ramble, then it had further mutated into a sort of desperate confession that had taken off under its own power and completely escaped her control. It was in no way dignified or graceful, but at the moment those were secondary concerns. What was really important to her was the looming feeling of doom that seemed to be gathering over her like a thunder cloud getting ready to unleash a deluge of rain.
"So . . . just what is this manga called?" His tone was still eerily calm.
"H-Heaven's Feel War?"
To her shame Illya's reply came out as almost a squeak.
"And what is it about?"
"A-A young magus summons a heroic spirit to enter a war so she can find out why her father a-abandoned her so many years ago."
"So . . . you've turned the Holy Grail War into a manga?"
"Y-Yes."
"And you're the main character?"
"Ah . . . yes."
Shirou took a deep breath. Then let it out again in a long sighing exhalation.
"And I suppose I'm in it too?"
"Errrr . . . yes."
Again her adopted brother took a deep breath, then let it out again.
"Okay, okay," he seemed to be talking more to himself than to her, but at least he didn't seem to be mad with her. "I'm not angry Illya; I'm just a bit surprised. I really wish you'd let me know you were doing this. Finding out like this is . . . a bit of a surprise."
"Sorry?" she apologized, "I didn't really plan it. It sort of just happened."
By this point they'd made it through the long hallway of warped mirrors and had reached the end of the attraction. The pair of them stepped out into the light of a sunset that was just beginning.
"Are you enjoying it?"
She nodded at that, glad that he was asking a question that was so easily answered.
"Mmm hmm, it's lots of fun!"
That drew a smile from him. Together they turned and started to head towards the spot where all the night carnival stands had been set up. Now, as the sun began to fall, they were starting to open up, and Illya couldn't wait to see what they had to offer. Already she could see such classics as a shooting gallery, goldfish scooping and ring tossing. It was funny, she'd seen all of them so many times in shows and anime, but she'd never tried them herself. Well, today that was going to change.
"So . . . how have you changed what happened?"
Shirou's question caught her a bit by surprise. Honestly, she hadn't been expecting him to show any real interest. Irritation at such an important event in their lives being made into a source of entertainment, that she had been prepared for. But simple interest and curiosity? Not so much.
"Well, I'm writing it from my perspective," she explained, suddenly feeling slightly self conscious about it, "It starts off with me seeing papa off to fight in the Fourth War, then grandpa telling me that he betrayed the family and caused mama's death to be meaningless. Then it jumps to me summoning Berserker and the two of us getting along. That was so much fun to draw and write, all I had to do was work from memory and it was better than even the best I could have come up with on my own.
"Anyway, I wrote the next part to be about how we go to Japan and how I'm planning to hunt down the boy that stole my papa. Well, not 'me' me, the character's called Amelia, of the Hasillar family. Anyway, she goes to Japan for the War for the Holy Grail and tracks down her brother, but then learns that she's been lied to and saves him after he becomes the seventh Master. Then they team up to fight the rest of the Masters."
Alright, she admitted it, she was basically folding everything good that Rin had done for Shirou into her own role, thus making 'Amelia' the heroine of the story from the get go. Oh, Saber had been magnificent in her story, but she was more of an 'Onee-sama' than a romantic interest. She also didn't mention that she'd originally planned for the main villain to be an evil yandere that was out to claim the heroine's brother and destroy the world. In the end she'd decided to drop that idea. It might be true that Illya had never really approved of her adopted brother's choice in regards to his love life, but she knew enough about what the Matou Master had endured that casting her in that role felt . . . cruel. Not to mention that Shirou probably would have disapproved as well. In the end she'd folded Sakura's evil role into that of a female Servant called Gilgamesh that had survived the previous War.
The character had been inspired by the alternate time lines that Shirou had told her about. Even though she'd never encountered the so-called 'King of Heroes' he'd come to feature prominently in her nightmares. While he'd been telling her about him her adopted brother had gone into a sort of fugue, drifting off into his new memories that had not yet properly settled. He'd described what had happened as though it had taken place before him, and Illya had experienced a horrible sensation of disconnected reality as he told of her Berserker fighting Gilgamesh and his endless arsenal of Noble Phantasms. The sick feeling in her stomach had only grown as she heard of her counterpart being blinded, of her Servant's heroic but doomed struggle, of how the blond Servant had literally torn the heart from her chest as that version of Shirou watched helpless.
She hadn't told him about it afterwards, when he'd snapped back to normal. Illya didn't know much about the Kaleidoscope, but she did know enough to guess that absorbing the lives of his alternate selves couldn't have been easy for Shirou. Aside from the simple influx of knowledge and experience there was the simple matter of him trying to maintain his own identity rather than allowing it to be submerged in the new personas that were now a part of him. She didn't want to make it any harder for him by giving him something else to worry about, so she had endured it on her own. She might sometimes play up her 'little sister' status, but for all her physical appearance she was a powerful magus and a former Master. Some nightmares were nothing compared to what her own family had put her through.
So yes, Gilgamesh had been transgendered and made into the primary antagonist in her manga. She had plans for how things should go, since this wasn't simply going to be a retelling of the Fifth Holy Grail War. Berserker was going to live, Saber was going to have a much cooler end than being eaten by the Shadow, Rider was going to have a part as well, and Sakura's idiot brother was going to die in a humiliating and amusing way.
It was just a hobby, a bit of harmless venting and wishing, but it was oddly satisfying. She hoped that Shirou liked it when she showed it to him.
"Sounds like it could be a fun read."
His comment brought her out of her thoughts and back to the present. One day, she would show it to him, for now best to concentrate on what was in front of her.
"Yes, Onii-san," she agreed, then grabbed his arm and gestured at the stalls. "Now, why don't you show me which of these is your favourite!"
-()-
Shirou adjusted the mask that was hanging from one side of his head to make sure that it wouldn't fall onto his face. The mask had been a prize from one of the stalls, one that he'd won by throwing some balls and knocking over some bottles. If he'd wanted to he could have won one of the bigger prizes, but honestly he hadn't felt like lugging around a blue ray player all night, so he'd deliberately flubbed a couple of the throws and only made off with one of the minor prizes.
Oddly enough the mask he currently had on wasn't the one that he'd initially meant to take. Originally he'd meant to take one of the Kamen Rider masks out of a sense of nostalgia. Back when he'd still been in primary school his desire to become a hero of justice had led him to try to 'research' existing examples so that he could prepare for his future attempts. The Kamen Rider series had been something of a favourite of his for a time, so much so that for a while he'd privately begun to practice his poses for when he gained his superpowers. Growing up had been enough to disillusion him on the notion of dressing up in spandex and armour in order to fight the forces of mysterious organizations, especially after Taiga had come across him practicing his poses one day. Her reaction had been . . . interesting, but in the end he had decided to abandon that particular avenue of the future.
Taiga's impassioned requests for him to return to reality and not to let himself be swept away by the fantasies of the media had been too fervent to ignore. Plus the whole situation had been really embarrassing.
Anyway, he'd begun to reach for it when Illya had paled for some reason and then thrust another mask into his hand. He didn't really get it, but she'd been quite insistent so he'd gone along with it. It wasn't a bad choice after all, one of those American heroes, 'Spider-Boy' or something like that. When he got back to the manor he'd have to spend a little time looking it up.
Oh well, that was just something for the future, right now he had other things to worry about.
With the mask secure so that it wouldn't obstruct his view he leaned back in his seat and took in the sight before him.
The sun had set some time ago, and from his seat upon the slowly turning Ferris Wheel he had a splendid view of most of the amusement park as it spread out beneath him. Further off he could see where the park gave way to the city, but even from his elevated position that was a fair ways off. His eyes flicked from minor detail to minor detail as his mind instead allowed itself to drift.
This had been nice, somewhat short, but nice. Once again Illya had seen what he needed, even when he hadn't been paying enough attention to notice. Once again he'd been getting ready to run himself ragged, only this time she'd managed to get him to stop before he properly started. He sighed at that, it was so easy to let himself be consumed by his search. He wanted to return to Sakura so much, to return home and see everyone, and he finally had some idea of how to do it after the mess with Odysseus. It would be so easy to let that search consume him, to focus on it to the exclusion of everything else, but if he went that route then it would be similar to Archer, he'd end up dragging himself along until there was nothing left.
He should follow her advice, take some time to relax, maybe even get a hobby.
A hobby.
It had really taken him by surprise to learn that Illya had taken up producing a manga. He knew she spent a lot of time in her room and workshop, but honestly he'd though she was just indulging in her passion for modern entertainments and working on her magecraft. Learning that she was doing something as complicated as drawing a comic, and one based on their own experiences of all things, was unexpected to say the least. Well, she was cheating a bit by using her magecraft to help her, but did that really matter?
FWOOSH!
He watched as the first of the fireworks reached up into the sky and bloomed into a great flower of giant sparks. The air crackled as the sparks then burst into a haze of smaller lights, which in turn faded away, only to be replaced as another explosion took their place.
"Ooooo!"
The eighth Campione glanced to the side to see that his adopted sister was staring up at the display with a look of utterly innocent wonder on her face. Ah yes, how could he have forgotten? This was her first time ever seeing fireworks for herself. She'd seen images of them on the television or on her computer, but this was the first time seeing them with her own eyes, hearing them with her own ears, feeling the force of their boom and crackle upon her own face as she gazed up at them.
Well, at least this wasn't something he was ever going to be confused about. Illya, his adopted sister, she deserved to be able to live her life, to be able to see and enjoy everything that the world had to offer to her. She should experience all the joys and sorrows that were a part of life. He didn't know too much about what her life was like back with the rest of the Einzberns, and he had made it a point not to pry about it, but he had the impression that it had been somewhat lacking in freedom at the very best.
Freedom, that was something he had as well, but was it something he was exercising as much as he should? As a Campione he could do almost anything he wanted and the number of people who could stand in his way could be counted on one hand, at least as far as Japan went. Yet despite having that privilege he spent a great deal of his time voluntarily locked away. Certainly returning home was an important goal, and he wasn't giving up on Sakura, but really, did he have to force himself to this degree?
Damn it! There he went again, his mind running around and around in circles despite his best attempts to break free. He wanted to just enjoy the present, not regret the past and fret over the future.
"Hey, Onii-san, are fireworks always this fun?"
Illya-chan's hand tugged at his sleeve, even though her eyes didn't leave the night sky display.
"Oh, they can be even better," he assured her, "This one is good, but I've seen bigger ones put on before, ones with loads of rockets going off at once. Those can get so bright that for a moment it looks as though the whole sky is turning red!"
He could remember that particular display, Taiga had dragged him along to see it back when he'd been thirteen. He might have been unenthusiastic about going, but once he'd been there the sheer scale and energy of the event had been more than enough to captivate him. Idly he wondered how Illya would have liked that one; most likely it would have captivated her.
"Can we go and see one?" She begged, even though her eyes still didn't leave the pyrotechnical display before her.
"If we can't find one, then I'll hire a crew and put one on specially for you!"
As he finished his declaration Shirou wondered if perhaps he was once again spoiling his adopted sister. Then he realized that in this regard he really didn't care, and dismissed it from his mind. Instead he just sat back and watched the fireworks go off as the Ferris wheel continued to turn. It was a restful experience, a pleasant one.
Sadly, it didn't last too long.
All too soon the pair of them were disembarking from the ride and once more on the ground. Above them no more fireworks lit the sky, and no booms of explosions shook the air.
"That was fun!"
As she spoke Illya stretched, enjoying the freedom of no longer being in the Ferris wheel's confining chair. She had an aura to her, a general feeling of satisfaction that seemed to be rolling off her in waves.
"Yeah," Shirou agreed, "It was."
There was still a fair bit of the outing to go, after all they still hadn't seen even half of the attractions that were open yet, but at that point Shirou felt oddly fulfilled. Oh, there were things to worry about, that whole mess with the History Compilation Committee was still hanging over his head, and he might need to ask Illya for her advice on it. Then there was the matter of tracking down Odysseus and seeing if there was any way to recreate that portal that had opened up on the island, though preferably without risking the world's destruction. And of course there was the question of his household guests, at least if they even qualified as guests anymore. At this point he almost considered them something along the line of housemates, even though he was the one that owned the house. Two goddesses and a Divine Ancestor, that wasn't a situation he could just ignore.
Actually, that wasn't true. He might not be able to ignore it for long, but he could at least ignore it for the next couple of hours.
And he was going to get a damned hobby; Illya was right about that too. Maybe he should get back into tinkering with mechanics and electronics, that had been something he'd enjoyed before the Holy Grail War had started. Now that his magecraft had improved so much maybe he could use that as well, it was a thought that brought a small smile to his lips.
"Come on, onii-san!" Illya declared, tugging on one had, "Lets see what the haunted house is like next."
All of that could wait though, for now he was otherwise engaged.
-()-
"Why dO youcoMe hERe?"
The voice that spoke was beyond description, a mad cacophony of chaos and contradiction that seemed to echo to the heavens with all the might of a dragon roaring its defiance.
Circe was a goddess. True, her body was gravely injured and her power cracked and chipped, if not outright broken. Still, her immortality remained intact and the might of her Authorities was undiminished. She was a divinity with the power to raze nations from the map of the world if she so chose. Her mind contained knowledge and secrets that no mortal had ever known, and her will was of metal, unbending and unyielding. She was a goddess, and the world acknowledged her divinity.
And at this very moment she was trying hard not to shiver in terror.
"How long have you been here?!"
Odysseus's voice sounded strangely puny in comparison to the massive chorus that had just sounded. It echoed throughout the cave that his ship had come to harbour within, and yet it did nothing to grant it greater strength. There was something in the air, in the very atmosphere of the place, that seemed to swallow it up so that what should have been a resounding rejoinder was so much less than it should have been.
"How long has it been since you came here? How long has it been since you chose this isolation?!"
The travelling god wasn't letting himself be deterred though, despite the vitality being leeched from his words he still continued with his reply, casting his questions out into the darkness at the end of the great cavern.
"AnD why wOuld I lEave? I have taKEn my revenge; I have haD my fIll of destRUction. In time I migHT thirst for more, but nOw I have no qUalMs with waiting hEre, I hAVe entertaINments enough to rEMain amused."
Circe almost flinched as the voice spoke once more. The more she heard it the more repelled she was by it. It no longer sounded like just one voice, now it sounded like a chorus, dozens of different speakers voicing the same words in perfect unison that somehow created an echoing discordant effect. It was like an itch in her mind, a feeling that she'd have to crack her own skull open to get at.
Madness, that was what it was. Even being here was madness! This being, this god, was too different from them, too simple, too basic, too primitive. And yet, because that simplistic nature, it was layered, layer upon layer upon layer.
After all, evil is never a simple thing.
"You will be leaving soon," Despite it all Odysseus did not sound cowed or intimidated; his voice was still being broken as it tried to reach out, but he wasn't, he continued. "I am here to tell you something that will make you want to leave. You will hear it, and you will leave with us."
It was at that moment that the silver haired goddess came to a realization. In this cavern, at this moment, she was the only sane individual present. The one that had been here the whole time, it had never had sanity to begin with. Indeed, its very nature precluded sanity as a possibility for it since sanity couldn't exist in a mind such as it. Her companion, the one she had come with, he had lost his sanity upon the isle where he had battled the newest Devil King. She was currently in the most danger that she'd ever been in in her entire existence.
"You sEEm so certAIn of YourSelf, peRHaps YoU will aLso proVIde me witH sOme amuSEMent."
The darkness around the outer edges of the cave seemed to ripple. Here, standing in the light of the lantern that hung from the prow of Odysseus's ship, Circe could see all about her. Until now there had been no movement in the huge cave, nothing to indicate there was anyone here. There had just been the voice that scratched and picked at her mind. Now though the darkness was moving, and it wasn't any natural movement. Despite the light not dimming the shadows were still growing deeper, the edges of them creeping towards the spot where the ship was beached upon the dark grey sand.
No, the light wasn't dimming; the darkness was eating it though.
At that moment it was taking all of her self control not to summon the full power of her solar Authority in an attempt to force the darkness away. She could not afford to give in to her fear, not here, not now. Had she been at the height of her power it would still have been a gamble, given just whom it was that was threatening her, but as she was it would be a losing proposition. She would only anger the one they had come to speak to, and she well knew what the price of that might be. No, all she could do was keep silent and hope that the legendary cunning of Odysseus had not deserted him along with his sanity.
"What I'll tell you will mean more to you than any enjoyment you could derive from the suffering of me or my companion."
The travelling god still sounded calm, sure of himself to a degree that itself seemed insane. Even as the edges of the shadows drew closer he didn't move, instead he remained in place and stared out into the hidden depths of the cavern.
"So brAve, sO cerTAin," The voice almost crooned the words, but that didn't make its voice smoother, instead it was like a caress from jagged glass, and her jaw tightened as it held in a tiny whimper of her growing panic. "My othEr plaYThings were onCe so bRAve, they were once so cERtain. They're mIne now, my dEAr toYs to help Me while aWaY my tiMe here. Why sHOUld I wiSh to leaVe wHen I hAVe suCh fIne enteRTAinmENts here? EspeCIally when neW toys haVe cOMe to furtHer my coLLectiOn."
Circe heard a strange noise coming out in the dark. At first she couldn't place it, but as shapes began to emerge from the concealing murk the realization hit her with all the force of a falling star.
Steps, they had been steps.
There were three of them, and their forms could only loosely be considered human like. The figures, and such was their disfigurement that she could not tell whether or not they had been male or female. They were grotesquely thin, almost to the point of being skeletons. However their skin held, stretched taut as drum skin across their frames, and the tightness of that skin outlined the organs and muscles that still remained beneath. They were shrunken and shrivelled, but they were still there, still visible, and still moving. The three horrors tottered forwards, their steps unsure and gangly, like scarecrows that had somehow managed to learn how to walk. Their movements jerky and uncoordinated.
Puppets, the thought drifted into her mind as her fists tightened. These things were alive, but only in the loosest possible sense of the word. Their hearts beat, and their blood moved, but there was no real life in there, no thoughts, no vitality. All that remained was the body that was now the toy of the horror that waited in the dark even as it sent its playthings towards them. Idly the sun goddess wondered who these poor unfortunate souls might have once been. Most likely they were mortals that had been unfortunate enough to fall into this abomination's clutches, tragic, but there wasn't much she could do about it. Still, it did mean that for all their repugnance these monstrous toys were of no threat to them. They were just a scare ta-
Her thought was cut off as she suddenly sensed the power hidden within the desiccated forms before her. It was deep, buried beneath the rotten, decomposing thing that might have once been where a soul resided, but it was there.
Power.
Divinity.
Immortality.
Bile rose up in her throat as once again realization struck her. These things before her, they were no unfortunate mortals; they were the remnants of beings that once wielded the power of Authorities. Gods, they had once been gods.
It took all of her self control not to let her horror show upon her features, but despite that her metal hands closed into fists once more, her nails scraping against her palms with enough force to score steel. How could this be? The bodies of Heretic Gods like herself were not things of mere flesh like mortals. Oh, their bodies did have blood, they bled, sweated, hungered and tired as mortals would, though to far lesser degrees, but they were ultimately constructs shaped and held together by the power of their legend. Once the animating spirit left due to the body no longer being able to act as a vessel for it the body would crumble back into the divine power it was shaped from and then dissipate back into the atmosphere. This was common knowledge, a fact that her own divine wisdom confirmed as being true.
So then how? How was it that the bodies of her ilk were being puppeted about by this . . . this thing?!
A thought struck her, a loathsome and terrifying thought, but one that might just be true. What if the bodies weren't dead? What if the spirits of her fellow divinities were still in there, keeping the bodies intact but themselves trapped in them, suffering unendingly? Were it any other being that she was dealing with then she would have dismissed the notion, but with this one it was a possibility, one that she could see as being within its power.
She had to know! It might be dangerous, but she needed to know if it was true, if other deities really were trapped inside their own bodies, eternal victims and toys to this abomination her insane companion had sought out. Finding her centre she carefully reached out with her power. Any mortal that had wished to do the same thing, regardless of their skill or power, would have needed to use spells or artefact to guide their magic in this way. What she was doing was no mere pulse of her power, nor was it opening a mystic sense so she could take a better look. What she was doing was extending a tendril of her magic to link her directly to one of those grotesqueries, a tendril forged by her sheer divine will and nothing more.
As the tendril made its short journey Circe had to bite back a grimace of disgust. The very atmosphere of this cavern was thick with the vile power of its occupant. The nature of its divinity had tainted the stones, the sand, the very air and water. To her reaching out through it was akin to being forced to swim through a pool of human offal. It couldn't taint her extension of power, but sense of it, the feeling; it turned her stomach in a way that she hadn't thought possible for a divinity such as her. Still, she had to know, so she gritted her teeth and continued to reach out.
There! Finally her tendril made contact with the one on the left, and immediately she wished she had not.
Where the atmosphere had been awash with vileness, touching this . . . this thing was fouler still. As soon as the connection was made she could feel the sheer corruption within the form as though it were something she could taste. Almost she recoiled in pure disgust, but her need to know just what this monster's 'toys' were would not let her give up. Instead she set her jaw and pushed her mind deeper into the miasma of filth and vileness that seemed to have replaced the natural life force of the three things.
Deeper she went, her touch of magic slipping into the flesh covered skeleton with as much resistance as a blade into water, but resistance was not the problem. The power that ran through them, it was something completely outside her experience. Outside their forms it had been repugnant; within them it had been worse, so much so that even through her divine immortality she had begun to feel unwell. What she found at their core, it made the earlier vileness seem as mild as calf's milk.
Corruption, complete and absolute. That was the only way she could think of to describe it. Where their souls should have been could only be found a roiling mass of miasma and curses that somehow forced the bodies to continue to live despite the lack of any true life force. At once she felt both relieved and horrified. Her relief stemmed from the discovery that the bodies weren't prisons for the souls that had once inhabited them. There were traces of suffering and fear there, but they were only remnants that her magic was detecting, the lives of these fallen had fled long ago. Her horror came from the realization that the souls in these things had been replaced, something that should have been impossible. Some gods could use their Authorities to call back the souls of the fallen, they could create bodies for them or power or material. Some gods could make the bodies of the dead serve them, even after the souls had fled, but that was more a case of puppeteering the flesh by threading power through it and forcing bone and muscle to move.
This . . . this was different, something so impossible that had she not personally sensed it then even as a goddess she would have called it undoable.
The mass of seething malice and viciousness that made up the curses was beyond anything she'd ever encountered. She had herself employed curses in the past before, the spells that allowed her to transform mortal men and women into swine and cattle with ease had been a minor form, one tied to the Authority that had to do with the animal sacrifices she had once received. This though, it was a curse in the same way that a blood crazed shark was a fish. There were basic similarities, but in scale, power, complexity and sheer potency there was no comparison.
And somehow these vile creations had taken the place of the souls that had once existed in these divine bodies. Their pollution seeped through every part of their forms, but even as it ruined them it also forced them to live on. Another thought struck her, could there be some sort of mind in there? The soul was gone, but the brain still remained, and as far as she could tell it still functioned in some way. Could it be thinking? Could it be suffering? Could a consciousness exist without a soul? Could it exist with this abomination in place of one?
She withdrew her tendril from the shambling figure she was studying and flicked it over to the one next to it. Yes, this one was the same, a body forced to continue a repulsive parody of living even though no soul resided there any more. She withdrew once more and then reached out to the last one. Again she felt the soul-deep corruption, the subversion of what should have been. However this time there was something a bit different, the flesh felt distinct to the other two, both weaker and stronger. What was it . . . ?
Ah, the answer came to her as she withdrew her tendril. The first two had been fallen gods, their bodies preserved despite the gods having died. The third one was different, it had belonged to a being that had wielded the power of a god without being one, in other words, it had once been a mortal. Her eyes widened as she looked at the three in a new light. They were not merely victims, they were trophies. Two gods and a Campione, preserved and forced into eternal damnation by their defeater.
And they had willingly sailed into this monster's resting place? In that moment Circe had never been more convinced of the insanity of Odysseus. And yet . . . she could see why he might have come here. Though monstrous the actions of this abomination proved that it was powerful, powerful enough that it might grant them advantage enough to overcome the eighth Campione and his allies. However that didn't change the fact that this . . . thing, it didn't reason in the way a god normally would, it was a paradox incarnate. Its nature denied it the possibility of sanity, yet that same nature required sanity for it to be. An irreconcilable clash, and yet here it was.
"DomY toYS intERest yOu, dAuGHter oF tHe suN?"
The question dripped into her ear like honey mixed with acid. A croon filled with such hatred and malice that her head momentarily swam.
"THsE two, thEy stOOd agaINst me, wHEn I wAlKed the reALm of morTAls they cAMe aGaiNSt me aNd decLAred tHemSElveS my eneMieS," the three scarecrow like figures came to a halt, their limbs almost rattling as they did so, "ThIs otHer one, hE hAd the temerERity to cHAse me whEn I leFt the mOrtaL plaNe to coMe hEre. I do nOt rECall wHat his reASon wAs, perHAps I haD sLaiN a loVed onE of hIs, peErhaPs he tHOUght to gaIn pOweR or gloRy by slAyinG me. WHAteveEr the cASe, he bEcaMe anoTher one of mY toYS."
The outer ring of shadow that marked the edge of their light had now become pitch black. No light penetrated it, and its depths could have easily been concealing an army and the two gods would not have been able to see it. For her part Circe was acutely aware of the thickening atmosphere, it choked her magic, stifling it as it extended beyond her. What she had done before, it wasn't an option any more. Now she was blinded, at least upon the magical level.
"HaVe no feAr, you sHAll soOn becoMe mOSt faMILiar wiTh tHEir eXistEnce," the chorus of distorted voices assured her, "AfTEr alL, it wOuld be pOOr sPort not To plAy wIth the toYs tHat enTEr my hoMe, doyOu nOt aGreE?"
Circe's heart tried to climb up her throat as she began to gather power. She was not mortal, so fear was not something that she had much experience with, but at this moment, yes she was afraid. This thing that her mad companion had sought out . . . it promised something more than death or simple pain. What it threatened was defilement on a level that she could scarce imagine. Her body, her flesh, perhaps even her mind; all of them would be polluted and stained beyond anything she had ever been able to conceive of before.
No! She would not allow it! Weakened though she might be the sun goddess possessed enough power to ensure that at least her own flesh would be reduced to cinders and ash if the need arose. It was be a sad and ignominious end to her time upon the earth of mortals, but she was willing to surrender the chance to find another hero to be her love, if it meant that she would deny this abomination the chance to corrupt and defile her flesh. Odysseus could fend for himself, if he got himself trapped after having led them into this insane situation then it was his fault. Normally she would not think so harshly of him, but at this moment her nerves were fraying in a way she had never experienced before, and it was eating at her.
"No, you will not," The travelling god spoke once more with that eerie calm, as though he could not see what was coming for them. "You will leave here as our ally."
"SuCh surETy. VEry weLl, spEAk, I am cURious to knOw what yoU thiNkwill sWay me. I aLSogroW cuRIOus as to wHAt expResSion you sHall weAr wHen you reAliZe it wIll not stAy my hoSpitaLity."
This was it. Circe could almost feel the noose tightening about her throat as though she were some petty mortal criminal. She should have simply abandoned her companion as soon as she had realized that whatever he had seen upon the island had driven him insane. But she had hesitated, unwilling to give up on the chance to find a hero worthy of her love, one that wasn't a god or a Campione, but something new, something fresh. Well, now that reckless curiosity had led her to this, and she was more than willing to immolate herself than she was to submit to this monstrosity's whims.
It would be any moment now, Odysseus would speak whatever delusion he might harbour, then, after it failed, the darkness would come rushing in upon them. Well, she was ready, her Authority awaited her calling, all she needed to do was-
"The curses of mankind's evil have a new master now. They serve the newest of Pandora's children."
Just as before the words of her companion were calm, unhurried and spoken without force, yet as he spoke them it seemed as though everything, every dancing shadow, the tottering bodies of the living skeletons, even the few flickers of light reflecting off the water, all of it froze in place. For a single instant it was as though time had stopped.
"YoU lIe!"
The whole cavern rumbled with the two spoken words, the response not thundering, but bearing all the quiet force of an advancing glacier.
"ALl thE eVils of mORtals arE miNe! ThEir maLedictIons, thEir curSes, tHey aRe alL miNe as wELl! NoNe have taKen them fROm me, aNd no othErs haVe tHem to bE taKEn. YOu liE!"
"And yet the eighth Campione wields them," Odysseus replied, "I have seen the aftermath of his battles, I have felt the venom of the curses he wields as it has soaked into the very ground. When he calls they come, when he chooses a target they attack, and when he lays low an opponent they rejoice."
He paused for a moment before continuing.
"It would seem that the curses serve him most gladly."
For a moment there was once again silence. Then a noise began to fill the cavern. It began small, sounding rather like water rushing down a stream, but then grew into a wordless roar that swamped the goddess's senses and seemed to shake the very rock of the great cave.
"WHEEEEEEEERE!!!"
There weren't any words to accurately describe it, but Circe felt something vast, huger than any Authority she had ever encountered before, reaching out. It moved not merely through distance, but also through the planes of existence, maybe even through time itself, she could not be sure.
"They'll not be so easy to find," Odysseus shouted, his voice raised to be heard over the vast rumble of the abomination's demand. "They live within him now, and there they're sheltered from your sight. They are no longer your evils, they are his, and they love him for it!"
Internally Circe screamed at him not to antagonize the monster, but the words refused to pass her lips. It was as though there was a spell in place something that was keeping the thing from turning its full attention upon them, and only the mad god's words could maintain it.
"YOu! YoU wILl tell mE wHerE thEy arE! You wiLl tELl me wheRe hE is! TELl me, noW!!"
Oh, it seemed the spell was broken anyway. The goddess felt the strength start to leech out of her as the darkness before her seemed to focus upon them. In fact, horrifying as it was to contemplate, she thought she could see eyes starting to form in the shadows. Had they been a light shining forth then no matter how malevolent it might have been it would have been better, it would have been understandable to her. Instead twin spots of the darkness started to grow darker. Had a mortal been present to see it Circe had little doubt that the sight would have shattered their psyche, after all the mortal mind wasn't equipped to deal with sights that usurped the normal order of the world.
The blackness of the shadows had been absolute, and that was the limit that it could attain in nature. After all, when no light escaped then there could be no darker blackness. Here though, that rationality was being conquered, usurped and overturned. The eyes that formed in the darkness did not merely not allow light to escape, in some eldritch way they dragged the light in, leeching it from the air about them and pulling it down into oblivion. Yes, that was a good way of describing them, she wasn't looking at darkness, she was looking into oblivion.
Her leg finally gave out beneath her, the strength drained from them by the stare of those impossible eyes. Inside her she still kept her magic ready, still held her Authority prepared, but in her heart she wondered if it would be enough to save her from . . . from this nightmare before her. Despair was a foreign emotion to her, something that had never touched her heart, but she feared that soon she might know its cold touch.
And yet, even as she collapsed to her knees, Odysseus did not bow or fall or even flinch. Instead he stared back up into those eyes and shouted his terms.
"Come as our ally! Come as our comrade and I will tell you! Help me cut the power I need from his flesh and spirit and I will lead you to him and fight at your side! Swear it upon your name! Swear it upon your power! Swear it upon the root of your being!"
"YOU DAAAAARRREEE!?!?!?"
The question was a force that threatened to bring down the whole cavern. Circe felt the ship shift as the water churned as the rock shook. Thin streams of powder fell from the unseen roof of the cave.
"SWEAR IT!" Odysseus roared back, his voice somehow rising above the roar of the monster and the rumble of the very earth.
"I wILl rIp tHe kNowLEdge frOm yOUr bRoKen mINd!"
Whatever pseudo friendliness the monster had been entertaining itself with before was now gone. There was no restraint, no quiet menace. All that remained was a hurricane with a soul as black as the void between stars preparing to descend upon them.
"NO!"
Odysseus's single word held a power and authority that Circe had never heard in it before. She had known him in several ages, back in the time of myths, then later during the time when mortals were still charting the world, and now in the modern age. His nature was that of a rogue, a wanderer, a trickster. Even when he had been a king it had been more as a diversion, a way of trying out something new, than it had been anything else. He had commanded men, but he had never been a ruler over vast armies as some other hero gods had been. Yet now his voice clanged with the ring of swords and chains.
In an instant his bow was out and he had loosed shafts, not at the encroaching darkness, but rather at the ground before it.
Two, four, six, ten arrows in total. As soon as they sunk into the dirt the shafts, once simple wood and steel, blazed up with light as brilliant as the sun itself. Through the glare Circe could see them, no longer of the common materials they had been before, now they were golden, shaft, head and fletching all. Her eyes widened as she saw the shadows shy away from them. No, they were radiant like the sun, they were the sun. As a goddess of the sun herself she could recognize the nature of celestial solar power, and the arrows before her radiated that force.
This . . . this didn't make senses, or did it? She knew the origins of her companion; she knew the names he had gone by before. Once he had been a god of many things, the sun, travel, protection and meetings. He had been a fighting god, and so had possessed the quality of Steel, though it had been less pronounced than his other qualities. As he had become a hero and taken part in the Trojan wars, one of the few wars of mortals where gods joined upon both sides, that nature of his Steel had grown stronger and his older characteristics had fallen to the wayside. To see them now revived was a surprise, though it was a pleasant one, given that his blazing arrows seemed to be holding the darkness at bay.
Though it seemed it would not be for long. Already the light from the arrows was being eaten away, consumed as the darkness ceased its retreat and renewed its advance.
"Circe! Here! Add it to your own fire, and if he passes my shafts ignite them all!"
What Odysseus thrust into her hands was an arrow, but there was something strange about it. The length, the design, the ornamentation . . . no, this was not an arrow, or at least it had not always been one. Once, in days long past, it had been a spear made from a god. However time had changed it, just as time had changed the god that wielded it, and its new form was smaller, more compact. Even so it still brimmed with the sun fire that was the destructive nature of a god of the sun.
Yes, she understood what he meant for her to do. As they were both deities with ties to the sun this incarnation of one of his Authorities could be shared with her. Under other circumstances she might have been tempted to try to steal it, to add its power to her own, but at this point in time she had other concerns to worry her.
"Yes, you can overcome my light!" Her companion shouted out into the darkness, "But can you do it swiftly enough? With her power and mine added to it Circe can call upon enough sun fire to immolate us and send our souls back to our legends! After that, do you think you'll be able to find your prey from this side?! Do you think any others will aid in finding him?!"
The shadows recoiled as though struck. For her part the sun goddess could only stare at him in a sort of horrified awe. Audacity and madness, they seemed to make for a potent combination, but it didn't change the fact that he was literally gambling with their lives. If she wasn't fast enough, if the shadows were able to take them . . . the thought didn't bear imagination. However it seemed that the abomination that loomed about them was unwilling to take the chance.
"Tell mE! TeLl me wHo haS taKen thEm! TELl me wHere I can fiNd him! TeLl me aNd my wRaTh sHaLl be saVed fOr hIm, anD yOu maY depart in pEAce!"
The words were the screams of a multitude, every one of them demanding blood and death. The sheer pressure of them bore down upon her with such malice that she recoiled, despite her iron hold on her fear.
"Swear to be our ally! Swear that you will abide by our terms and let us take what we want from him before he dies! Swear to deal us no harm and to let us go in peace once our alliance is done! Swear it and I will take you to him, I shall fight his allies for you, I shall bleed for our victory!"
And still Odysseus remained unshaken in the face of the unfaceable.
"YOu daRe to bARGain wiTh ME?!"
Circe heard a drop of liquid hit her metal hand and instinctively glanced down despite the situation. Normally she wouldn't have. Normally her attention would have been riveted to the spectacle before her as the clash of wills continued. But there was something that made her look down even so. And so it was that she saw the small splatter of blood that marred the bronze of her artificial limb.
Blood, her blood! Reflexively she reached up to her face, and then stared in horror as her fingertips came away stained with red. Blood was running, not only from her nose but also from her eyes in a cruel caricature of tears. She blinked at the sight stupidly, her mind oddly unable to connect what she was seeing with any sort of rational response. She had been injured, the wounds she still bore were terrible, but never had she encountered anything like this . . . this breaking on the inside.
Her hand wavered, and she almost lost her hold on the arrow she held and the power it represented. It was just too much. Perhaps if she had been at her full strength she could have endured more, but as things stood something was going to have to give under the pressure that was building here, and as things stood it seemed that she might well be the weakest link.
"DO YOU WANT TO FIND HIM?!" Odysseus's voice was a full bodied shout now, his effort to be heard over the roar of the abomination's rage. "DO YOU WANT TO RECLAIM THE EVILS OF MANKIND?! SWEAR IT! NOW!"
The roar of pure rage that shook the cavern cause spots to dance in Circe's vision. Her head swam, and it was all she could do to keep hold of the power she had readied. No more, she could take no more! If this continued she would lose her grip and the sun fire she held would escape her control. After that . . . well, it was an even guess as to whether the loosed solar might would fizzle out or erupt into destruction worthy of a volcano. In truth the part of her that remained rational was hoping for destruction, because if the fire did not destroy her body then it and her would be the playthings of this abomination until it had wrung all it needed from them and had grown tired of their pain.
"CURSE YOU!!"
"SWEAR IT!"
It was as thought he world around her was tipping, unable to endure the clash of forces. No, that wasn't right, it was something else. To her shock the sun goddess realized that rather than the world tipping over she had instead fallen on her side. She tried to move, but neither her flesh nor the metal replacements she had made responded to her will. Instead she felt her hands maintaining a death grip upon the golden shaft that she still held. That, at least, was still responding to her, but nothing else did. She still held the power, but that was all she could do. Never in her life had she ever felt so helpless.
"I sWeaR!" The voice echoed through the cave, a chorus speaking at once, but lacking the earlier thunder that had shaken the cavern. "I sWEar thAt I shALl be yoUr alLy! I sWEar tHat I sHAll allOw yoU to taKe wHat yoU wANt frOm oUr pRey beFOre I slAy hiM! I swEAr I shALl maKe no moVe agaiNSt you duriNg our huNt, nor uNTil seVen mOOns aftEr it conCLudes! I swEAr it uPon my naMe of AHRIman! I sWEar it upOn my diVInity as tHe SpIrit of DESTrucTion! I sweAr it uPon mY wISh to obLITeratE yOu anD eveRy otHEr beINg in exiSTence!"
The pressure fell away so suddenly that Circe was left gasping for breath, even as life surged back into her. As soon as she could move once more she forced herself to her feet and took in the scene within the cavern once more.
Odysseus was still standing at the end of his ship, though now he was holding onto the back of the figurehead on the prow in order to steady himself. Looking closer she could see that thin tear tracks of blood ran from his eyes as well and his skin was oddly pale. Clearly despite the insane courage he had shown bearing the weight of the abomination's ire had not been an easy thing for him. Still, he was unbowed; despite having been subjected to all the crushing weight of its malice the travelling god had not been broken.
Turning her eyes from him she looked out into the cavern. In many ways it was the same as before, but at the same time it was utterly changed. Not a rock had moved, and the sand was largely undisturbed. There was no sign of the cracks and breaks that had formed earlier when it seemed as though the entire cavern might be ready to come down. Instead the stone ceiling of the great cave looked as smooth and unbroken as it had when Odysseus's ship had sailed into it.
What had changed was that there was now no obvious sign of the one that had inhabited it when they had arrived. The three living skeleton toys were gone now, no sign of them remained, not even a footprint left in the sand. Also, the darkness was now gone, the tide of shadows that had seemed ready to swamp them and drown them was nowhere to be seen. Instead the light of their lanterns reached out into the cave as it would have done anywhere else, the light remaining undisturbed.
For a moment Circe could only wonder where the monster had gone. The cavern seemed to be empty of Ahriman, all trace of its presence gone. But she knew that the malignant divinity would not have simply left, it had sworn its oath, so it would not leave without gaining what that oath had been the price for.
"I so wish that I could tear you apart and burn what remains."
The voice was no longer the chorus of before, but instead it was a single tone that spoke with the venom of a thousand enraged vipers. What was a great deal more worrying though was that it came from behind her, from amidships of their vessel. Though she still felt weak the sun goddess none the less spun in place, seeking the one who had spoken.
The figure she saw surprised her. When she had thought of Ahriman taking on a semi mortal form she had imagined it as either some sort of blood crazed savage warrior bedecked with weapons and trophies of battle, or some stooped and scheming old crone with curses and malice at her fingertips. Instead the incarnation of the destructive impulses of mortals had taken the form of a young child, one of only eight or nine years of age. The young boy had a sweet face that had yet to lose the chubbiness of youth, and was framed by softly curling black hair that was a bit too long. He was clad in simple robes that were almost monk-like in their cut and coloured the grey of an overcast afternoon sky. All in all he had a strangely normal appearance, at least until one looked into his eyes.
Circe knew that it was a myth among mortals that the eyes were the windows into the soul. As a goddess who also knew the secrets of magic she knew this to be both right and wrong. One could not simply view the soul of another by looking into their eyes, not without considerable preparation and training, but at the same time it was possible for even an inexperienced mortal to be able to catch glimpses of the true nature of another by seeing into their eyes.
These eyes were the same eyes that she'd seen glaring down at her from the darkness when Ahriman had raged at them for their defiance. They were a black that surpassed blackness, the eyes of oblivion and destruction. She knew what that said of the soul that dwelt in the child-like body. She knew and she shuddered.
"Maybe," Odysseus replied as he passed her, still leaning on the ships railing to support himself. "But you have made your oath now, and we both know that you will keep it."
"When your death comes it shall be painful and humiliating!" the boy hissed, his black eyes locked upon the travelling god with such hatred it was a wonder that the wood of the ship near him did not catch fire. "I shall keep my oath, for I shall not foreswear my nature and name, but never think that this insult shall be forgotten, or forgiven."
"Forgiveness is not in your nature, so I never expected any," Odysseus replied, "Simply keep your word, and that shall be enough. You shall have sole dominion over the curses or all mankind once more, and I shall have the freedom that I want. From there we can part ways and you can fulfil your wish of annihilation once more if you so desire, it will mean nothing to me anymore by that point."
"Oh?" the child-like form of Ahriman took a step closer to the other god and tilted its head slightly to the side, "Well, this is interesting. Tell me o mighty god, what did you see that left you so broken? What nightmare have you witnessed that has so twisted you from what you once were? I would delight upon seeing such a thing; anything that could drive you to this must be a magnificent sight."
Though she made not a sound Circe found herself agreeing with the words of the incarnated abomination. She dearly wished to know just what it was that Odysseus had seen upon that isle, if only so she could do her best never to see it herself. That he was now a god insane was in no way deniable, yet the part of her that treasured the knowledge she had of the inner workings of magic and its mysteries found the notion of knowing what could drive a deity to madness to be strangely tantalizing. What could it be? What horror had he witnessed upon the isles summit while he had battled the King of Steel? She had not asked him, she had not been able to muster the courage to question him during their voyage here.
There had been much to fear, his anger, his reaction, there was even the possibility that he might simply answer, and that the very answer would be enough to drive her into a similar state. Did she really want him to answer? Did she really want to know?
"I saw beyond the walls of our world?" Odysseus replied, "I saw what could be out there, I saw all the possibilities, I've even seen the things that aren't possible, and yet it was the tiniest shard of what there was left to see. I've seen the kaleidoscope of the worlds Ahriman, and after seeing that nothing can make me afraid again."
'The kaleidoscope of worlds'? Frantically Circe went over all that she knew of travel beyond the planes of the world and she tried to make sense of it. There were ways to move between the planes, and there were Authorities that granted even greater freedoms of movement. One of the current generation of Pandora's Children possessed such a power, one that let her travel through not only space but also time. But that was travelling within the world, though moving through it in a most unconventional way. To travel 'beyond' the world though . . . that wasn't something she fully understood.
Oh, she had known of what Odysseus was offering when he came to her island, but she had thought that it would be a case of being able to journey to the worlds that might have been. The worlds where Troy emerged victorious in the Trojan Wars, where Heracles had not fallen to deceit but had instead ruled his kingdom as both king and god, where Zeus had failed in his rise to power and had instead been relegated to becoming a minor god of the weather. There were so many possibilities, and she could see the appeal of trying to journey to them. The heroes she could find, the loves she could enkindle, that was what she had wanted.
But to leave the boundaries of the world? That was something of an entirely different nature. Her knowledge, drawn from the netherworld and harnessed by her divine wisdom, suggested that something like that could happen, but to attempt it was akin to a mortal trying to walk up the side of a vertical wall. Authorities simply did not function in that manner; they were a part of the world, so leaving it was like trying to open a bottle with a bottle opener that was inside that bottle.
But . . . she had felt the world buckle and strain upon that isle where he and the King of Steel had fought. There was something there, something that had done something she couldn't quite understand, and she knew it was somehow connected to the eighth Campione. But if so, then it meant that whatever he had seen during that event was what had driven him insane. Did that mean that if he succeeded and found a way to open a path beyond the world that she might be courting the same madness if she followed him?
As she looked at the latest 'ally' to their little group Circe could not help but begin to wonder . . . no, that wasn't true. This wasn't something that has occurred to her just now, this was something that had been growing in the back of her mind for days now. This moment was simply when the realization had finally struck her.
She was on the wrong side. It was that simple. Emiya Shirou might be the natural enemy of Heretic Gods like herself, but what Ahriman was, and what Odysseus had become, they were wrong on a level that defied description. Ahriman was by its very nature something that was inimical to all other existence, but at the same time its existence was required. Its ideal state had been the one they had found it in, dormant, distanced, separate. But Odysseus had stirred it up, given it impetus, motivation, direction, and the sun goddess could only imagine the destruction that could come as a result. Ahriman was one of the oldest named gods in the world, and unlike many others he had not been tainted by the passage of time and the alteration of its legend. Ahriman, Angra Mainyu, the destructive spirit of all the evils of mankind incarnate, that was all there was to it, and all there ever would be.
And Odysseus . . . he was just as wrong, but in a different way. She had seen he was insane, had seen it since the moment they rejoined after the battle upon the island, but it was only now that she was coming to realize just what he had become. She knew his past; she knew what his past identities had been, so she knew that this kind of behaviour should have been no more possible for him than it was for a wolf to live by cropping grass. Yet here he was, setting loose one of the oldest evils in the world, one of the gods that came closer to being a devil.
By the Rays of the Sun, that was it. She wasn't riding a tiger, that would imply that she had at least some control, she was walking side by side with the devil, and if she ever faltered then she would no longer be at his side, she would be in his way.
"Oh? Well, perhaps I shall see such myself one day," speak of the devil and he shall speak, Circe felt a small bubble of hysterical laughter rising within her, but crushed it down ruthlessly, "For now let us be about the matter at hand. You shall take me to the one that has gained possession of what is mine. I shall break him, you shall take what you wish, then I shall tear his soul apart and reclaim the evils that serve him."
The child's features shifted into an expression that no boy of that age should have been able to produce. It was combination of hatred, greed, lust and anticipation that sent a chill down Circe's back, as though a thousand spiders of ice were crawling down it.
"And by then it will have been best if you had run far far away, because I shall not forget your temerity, and as soon as the oath between us has expired I shall come looking for you, and I shall be ready for our fun together."
The goddess of the sun did all she could to restrain a shudder.
She had to escape, it was that simple. Right now she was the only sane one here, but if this continued for too long would she remain so? Would they drag her down? Or would they decide she was no longer needed?
It didn't matter, all that was important was the realization that she'd come to. Her alliance with Odysseus had been a mistake.
Now she had to find a way to escape.
