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.

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas!

I'm happy to get this out in time for one of my favourite holidays, so I hope you'll all accept it as a gift from me. Be happy, be merry, and have a good time! All the best wishes from me to you all!

Now, on with the chapter!

Recently I went to watch Thor Ragnarok, a pretty entertaining film in my opinion, certainly better than the last Thor film. Anyway while I was watching it I couldn't help but take note of Hela's whole 'manifest countless swords' ability, and it occurred to me that this was something of a proof of concept to how a live action version of Shirou, Archer or Gilgamesh might look. In my humble opinion most manga haven't made too good a transition to western cinema, one need only look at Dragonball: Evolution for proof of this, but some have turned out better, though that's not exactly a high bar to get over. I think that the whole concept of Fate/Stay Night, namely the whole 'magical tournament using the reincarnated souls of ancient heroes as weapons in order to gain a wish' thing could translate quite well if handled by the right director. So, does anyone else think that we might be seeing a live action Unlimited Blade Works? I find myself both hoping I will, and dreading just how horribly Hollywood might be able to make a hash out of a character like Shirou. Oh gods, I suddenly have this mental image of them trying to turn him into some tortured teen heart throb in order to try to bring in more fan girls.

On a different note, I am pleased to see that my last chapter was well received. I understand that some of my readers are a bit unhappy with my choice of pacing, but I hope you will all understand that I'm writing this as I see most suitable. I've read stories where the main characters careen from one crisis or fight scene to the next with very little pause in between. Granted, there are some book or manga that can do this fairly well, (Bleach, Naruto, Dragonball Z for example) but this is normally dependant upon some plot device such as healing springs, senzu beans, or just ridiculous recovery abilities. Given that this story is meant to be told over a longer time frame I felt that things needed to be run out as they have. This isn't an excuse, rather it is an explanation.

On another note; WHOO HOO! I've broken through to more than six thousand reviews! I'd like to thank everyone that has given me a little time to let me know what you think of my fic. The vast majority of you have been very civilized about letting me know your opinion, even when you were letting me know that either the story or my style were not to your preferences. This is quite understandable since I know that it's impossible to please everyone, but I thank you for you politely worded criticism, and I like to think that I have tried to improve as the years have gone by. To you that have been rude or abusive, know that you have been ignored. To all others, once again I thank you for your time and assure you that what you have written has been read and noted. I haven't always agreed, but I have read and considered your words.

Spoilers.

This chapter I have finally tried to sort out that plot hole I made during the whole mess with Gascoigne in regards to Shirou's cell phone. For those of you that might have missed it I wrote that Shirou missed an important call due to his battery being dead. However, a couple of chapters later he used that same phone to record Gascoigne's surrender and his oath to leave Guinevere alone. This has been pointed out to me by readers before, and so I decided to finally get it cleared up this chapter. I'd like to offer my apologies to my readers for making this mistake in the first place, as an avid reader of fanfiction myself I know how irritating it can be when a writer makes that kind of mistake. I hope this wraps it up.

Mini City Guide makes a return to the story in this chapter, and as you can see Guinevere and Tiamat have some trouble with it. Now, I'm sure that some of my readers will think that this is a bit on the preposterous side. After all Guinevere is a Divine Ancestor with absurd magical talent, and Tiamat though not a goddess of magic has spent the last couple thousand years as a Divine Ancestor that has honed her knowledge of magic to a fine edge. Given these facts isn't it a bit strange that they're having trouble with Illya's work. Granted she is talented, but they are leagues above her, right?

Well, you're not wrong, but what you have to take into account is that the magic, or rather Thaumaturgy, that Illya used to create the Mystic Code is completely foreign to either of the two immortals. The Nasuverse and the Campioneverse are very similar, but many of the more subtle forces in the world operate on different principles. For example; technically speaking mages in the Campioneverse don't have Magic Circuits, since their magic is conducted more spiritually rather than through specialized nerves. What this means is that for all their power neither Tiamat or Guinevere have any idea of what they're dealing with.

Both of them are used to being able to command magic due to their divinity, something that won't work with Mini City Guide. They can't overpower it, or establish dominion over it due to its fragility, since it is a mortal creation rather than a divine object. Also it is tuned to Illya's prana, a safety measure she took, which makes it even less responsive to them. As such a big part of their problem is that if they push too hard they'll end up breaking it. The fact that they manage to overcome all these hurdles and make it work in the end is a testament to their abilities, which are quite literally divine level.

Once again I would like to thank my Beta for all his hard work. Without it you can be assured you would be reading a far less polished piece of work.


Chapter Thirty Seven: Searching in Shades

"I see. Very well, keep looking, I want everyone on this. Do you understand me? Everyone!"

Shirou tapped the button that ended the call, then looked about the deserted street for any sign, any hint of a clue that he might have missed. Seeing nothing his eyes were drawn back to his cell phone, his attention focusing on it more intently as if he could will it to ring with an incoming call of good news through pure will power.

Staring down at it he felt an odd note of disbelief creep in as he looked it over. The small clamshell style cell phone had been one of the first purchases the Yusuke had made for him and Illya after he had started to accumulate some ready capital. He'd gotten one for each of them and said that it might well be imperative to contact them while they were separated.

That had been back in the early days of their arrival in this new world. Back then both of them had thought that the magical associations of this world would be eager to catch and study them due to their otherworldly origins. Neither of them had yet come to understand the full weight of what becoming a Campione meant, so they had been understandably wary of potential dangers. Still, having arrived in Tokyo they had needed to acquire some supplies for Illya, and while they'd been out shopping his adopted sister had seen all the sights and people of the huge city. Fuyuki had been fascinating to her, as it had been so different from anything she'd ever seen before, but Tokyo had been huger in every way possible.

She'd loved it, and he hadn't had the heart to deny her wish to explore more. Since Yusuke had spent most of his time in their hotel suite working on the laptop they had bought him, so the cell phones had been a necessity to maintain communications. Illya had managed to lose hers only a week or so later, but he'd kept his on him at all times.

He could see the wear and tear he'd put it through. Even though it still worked the outer casing was scuffed and worn, even slightly melted in one spot. It was also a bit temperamental, as it had been during the mess with Alexander trying to kill Guinevere, working one moment and then saying it was out of power, only to work again, but he'd had one of the manor's staff look at it, and she'd said it had only needed a new battery. He'd followed her advice, and so far it seemed to be working fine. Still, that it was working at all was a strain on his credulity. He'd had this on him when he fought Mordred, he'd had it on him when he fought Alexander, it had even been in his pocket when he fought both Godou and Luo Hao, and somehow it had managed to get through everything without being broken into bits.

He supposed that in part it was due to his fighting style. Being in his left pocket it was down on the outside of his left thigh, and the way he moved and fought made that an area that was rarely in line for a direct attack. His style was also different from the one he'd inherited from EMIYA, modified to take advantage of the almost stupid level of vitality and endurance that he enjoyed as a Campione. He took hits that his other self would have needed to avoid, trading damage which he had the ability to absorb better than his foes. Granted, it was only a useful tactic against weaker foes, not one that he would employ if he were facing a Heretic God, one of his fellow God Slayers, or any other Servant level enemy, but it had bled into his standard style a bit. As a result the openings that he left normally centred around his shoulders and chest, areas he could defend quickly when his foe moved to take advantages of the perceived weaknesses.

Nestled where it was the small device had been largely out of the way of most of the attack he received in melee, and had been fortunate enough to avoid damage during the occasions when Shirou had been caught in blasts or explosions. Like him, it had been through so much, and yet here it was, still intact and still working.

Shaking his head he dismissed the path that his mind had gone wandering down and tried to focus. If he couldn't keep his mind on track then he wasn't going to be any good to anyone.

The night before last one of the former members of the Circle had been going to bed when they'd noticed that the door to Illya's bedroom had been left open, and that they snowy haired girl was not inside. Shirou had made sure that the manor's staff knew that his younger sister had a bedtime that he did his best to enforce. Eve since he'd found out that she'd gone for two nights without sleep while going on a marathon viewing of the entire One Piece series he'd made it a point to ensure that she got at least eight hours sleep a night, and had enlisted the rest of the residents of the Emiya mansion to help him enact it. Seeing that she wasn't in her room when she should have been the former Circle member had let him know of her absence before returning to their business.

Shirou had gone to the games room expecting to find his adopted sister engaged in some sort of competition with Lancelot, or maybe just watching some anime on the big screen television. When he hadn't seen her there he'd gone looking for her in other places, such as the dining room in case she'd wanted a late evening snack, or his office where most of their small library of magical tomes were kept. However she'd been nowhere to be found, and the more he'd looked the more the pit in his stomach had grown. This had become worse when questioning the rest of the staff had revealed that nobody had remembered Illya having returned from the festival at all.

The staff had been rousted from bed and everyone had been questioned to see if his sister had contacted them with a message that someone had failed to pass on, to learn if she had come home and then left again, anything could explain her absence, but nothing had been found. There'd been no messages, no calls in, not even any sign of her in her workshop. It was unlikely that she'd gone to conduct some late night experiment, or anything of that nature, but it had been investigated. It had only been about an hour after the alarm had been raised that Shirou had resorted to magecraft in order to find her. But there had been no success there either. He'd tried to detect the Mystic Code he knew that Illya always carried around. Granted, its main function was as a means to send a distress signal, but it could also be used to locate the holder as well. There had been no response though, even though he was sure he was using the Mystery correctly. He'd even tried to use some Traced Noble Phantasms, but again there had been no response.

It had been that, more than anything, that had driven home the severity of the situation. It was true that the tracking Noble Phantasms recorded in Unlimited Blade Works were on the same level of power as many of his more destructive weapons, but even so they were crystallized legends, weapons of enormous power. That meant that whatever it was that was blocking him was something of equal or greater power.

There weren't that many candidates as to what it could be. Another Campione, a Heretic God, a Divine Ancestor, or some sort of divine servant, those were the only possibilities. Well, he supposed that a mortal mage might be able to do something, but only if they had a massive source of power to draw upon, something like his Gem Sword or maybe an active volcano.

Whatever the case, magical means of finding her were proving to be unreliable, so he had fallen back on more mundane means. Finding clues, looking in locations where she might have been, and putting as many bodies on the task as he could. That last one had been made easier by the recent pledge of allegiance that he'd received from the History Compilation Committee. At his word they had deployed their own resources to look for Illya as well, namely dozens of agents, each of them trained in various mystic arts to enhance their tracking abilities. It was a formidable martialling of forces, one that should have quickly yielded results.

Should have . . .

It had been two days since then, and still there had been no luck, nothing that even hinted at where she was. All the agents looking for her had found nothing, all his own attempts had failed, even Godou had been unable to help, his own Authorities being unsuited for finding her.

Had he been a normal person, or even a normal magus, then his mid would have already begun to fray, given that Shirou hadn't slept since his sister's disappearance. As a Campione he was holding together better, but he was starting to feel the effects of pushing himself so hard. Intellectually he knew that he should take a short rest, even just three hours or so. Archer had known how to do that, while he'd still been mortal he'd almost turned the act of snatching quick naps when needed into an art, having once managed to doze restfully for more than an hour in the middle of an active war zone. Unfortunately, Shirou lacked the balance of awareness and detachment that his older self had been able to achieve. When he'd tried to sleep thoughts and worries had piled up in his head until any chance of drifting off was impossible.

Shaking his head again the King of Steel started to make his way down the street. At this hour most of the shops here were closed, but some were open, and that might be of use. This was one of the streets that Illya often frequented, since some of the shops dealt in rare minerals and crystals. Most of the objects sold here were little more than trinkets that were purchased by hobbyists or casual dabblers, but someone like the Einzbern heiress was skilled enough to be able to spot the occasional prize that would pop up amidst the chaff. She'd found it to be fun, only slightly less interesting than the anime and manga that had become her passion, so she'd always come here when she wanted to personally buy materials for her experiments. It was a bit of a stretch, but he was running out of options of where to look.

Taking a deep breath as he entered the shop he went over to the cashier and pulled out a picture of Illya.

"Excuse me, could I ask for your help?"

Maybe this time it would be different.


-()-


"So, there is nothing further to report?"

"No madam, I'm afraid not."

"Very well, proceed with further investigations based upon what you have already. The instant there are any further developments let me know immediately."

As the other end of the line went dead Seishuuin Ran put down the phone in its cradle and turned to look at the other occupants of the small room. There were three of them, the heads of the other families that had established the Committee, and now served as its principle leaders. At least in theory anyway, the recent turmoil that the organization had undergone, as well as their declaration of loyalty to the eighth Campione had left their situation somewhat tenuous.

"I am not entirely comfortable with this; will you now explain why we are following this course of action?"

The man that spoke was the current head of the Renjou family. He was not a young man, and the pressures of his position had only served to age him more than the passing of years had. It didn't help that his family was undergoing their own internal crisis at the moment, a succession dispute centred around the fact that his oldest daughter was incapable of using magic. Still, he had always been a competent and stalwart member of the council that ran the Committee, so she felt she should not ignore him.

"I do not mean to hide anything from our new King," she assured him. "All I wish is to delay informing him for a single more hour, that is all. Just a single hour, to give our own agents time to work."

"Ran, I'm also unsure if this is the correct decision. It seems too much like breaking faith directly after offering him our loyalty."

The cause of their dispute was the virtually liquefied remains of some poor human that had been found in a back alley a fair distance from their new King's manor. The level of force needed to reduce a body to such a state left no doubt that the cause had been of a supernatural type, so the discoverers had quietly warded the area and begun to investigate just what had happened.

This in itself might not have been related to the search for the missing sister of Emiya Shirou, but one of the investigators on the scene had noticed a small number of long white hairs having been caught on the rough masonry of the alley wall.

This discovery had been made just under an hour ago, but rather than immediately calling the King of Steel in regards to this finding the Seishuuin matriarch had ordered a delay, and dispatched the most capable agents the Committee had to offer to look over the alley. This had startled the other family heads, but she'd assured them that it was the best route. The claim had been met with scepticism, but they knew her well enough to put some faith in her judgement. What had followed had been a hurricane of calls and orders as she'd moved to set something up. The other heads had organized their own families to be ready to provide support, but as of yet they were still unsure of what the full plan was. With this final call out of the way there was finally time for her to stop and explain herself.

"We shall not break faith with our new King," She assured them. "We shall serve him with the utmost diligence and competence that he is due as one that defends humanity from the wrath of those that would wield the power of divinity against mortals! That said though, we, of the four families, find ourselves in an uncertain position."

She paused for a moment, and looked at the other heads.

"Our families have been the guiding force for the History Compilation Committee for the entire time since its founding, but with the recent internal disputes and the rise to power of . . . the younger members."

It was no secret that the recent turmoil in the Committee had come as quite the shock to the ruling council, who had come to regard their position of command as more or less set in stone. Granted, if ever a member demonstrated themselves to be incompetent or unsuited for their seat they would be replaced. But when that happened it was by another member of their family. This latest shake up threatened to remove at least some of them from their seats entirely. This meant that measures had to be taken to secure their position.

This desire wasn't motivated by a greed for power, as might have been expected. There was a certain level of familial pride, wanting to maintain the legacy that their ancestors had built, and not wanting to give that up to others, but for the most part their motivations were more altruistic. No matter what the case might be, each of them was far more suited for their position than any of the other contenders. Each of them had been trained from a young age to hold their seat, and the fact that Japan had held together without issue even before they had any God Slayers to aid them was proof of their skills in their roles.

"We need to show Emiya-sama our usefulness. Swearing the Committee to him has managed to settle the situation somewhat, but that does not mean that the underlying problems do not remain. The investment of money and resources that are being sent our way by our new liege will do much to open up new opportunities and options for us, but that does not mean that there are not those that feel they should occupy our posts. We need to take this opportunity to prove our value to him, to show that we are suitable for the positions we hold and that we should remain there."

"Would not simply finding the scene be enough? It is the first clue that has been located, and finding this lead for him should be enough to earn us much goodwill."

The question was asked by the head of the Sayanomiya clan, and it was a valid point.

"Maybe, but if we wish to solidify our position with him then we need more. As I said, I do not intend to hold back for long, I simply wish for our own agents to complete their preliminary investigations before Emiya-sama arrives. If we can offer him the more obvious details as soon as he arrives then it will leave him free to focus learning what we could not."

"I understand where you are coming from," The Renjou family head allowed. "But I feel that you are walking upon a very thin edge in this. Should we learn nothing and our new King learn of this delay then it will almost certainly result in the loss of faith that you fear. His highness is renowned for being reasonable and rational, but it is also known that his sister is one of the few things that can break his calm. After all, he killed his first two gods to protect her."

"It is a gamble, but it is one that must be taken!" The matriarch's voice left no room for hesitation or doubt. "We all know that if the Committee is to continue as it has, as this country needs it to, then major upheavals must be carefully controlled. Those that would force major change are not our enemies, but they are unaware of the full consequences of their actions. Whether we like it or not we must remain at the helm of our organization if we wish for it to survive whatever changes his majesty might impose upon us!"

Her words might have sounded a bit grim, but none of those present could dispute them. Japan was one of the best run countries of the Far East, at least as far as the organization and control of magic went, but that level of management was only possible due to the long entrenched nature of the History Compilation Committee. As the nation had changed they had changed with it, and affected some of those changes, almost like a helpful symbiote aiding the host. However the strength of the Committee was somewhat deceptive. Were they to face an external force then it was almost easy for them to close ranks and fend off any assault. It had happened a number of times in the last century, with ambitious organizations from the mainland of China, Russia and Korea each attempting to quietly conquer the magical side of Japan. Such attempts had always met with failure though, the Committee enjoying too much of a territorial advantage which they could leverage to potent results. Since Luo Hao had shown no interest in participating in these minor actions the Committee had always managed to endure and emerge as the victor.

However that same strength meant that they were more vulnerable to internal fracturing. That too had happened in the past, disputes within the upper echelons of the council leading to near splits in the organization. In the past it had always been resolved before things grew beyond the point of no return, but each of the family heads was aware of the lengths that had been needed in the past. Blackmail, manipulation, even murder on one occasion, all had been needed to hold things together and prevent the disintegration of the Committee.

This time, with a Campione in the mix, things could be magnitudes worse. The brash young newcomers, all eager to improve things, and to prove their worth, would run rampant over the carefully balanced web of forces and counter forces that the Committee had so carefully managed for centuries. Oh, she had no doubt that they could offer much needed new ideas, but things had to be implemented correctly, otherwise the knock on consequences could prove every bit as devastating as an internal conflict would have been.

"How are things progressing in that regard?"

The question was asked by the current head of the Kuhoutsuka family, a man in his advanced years, but still surprisingly vital. The Kuhoutsuka family had waned slightly in influence due to the loss of the Heretic God Sun Wukong in the wake of the collapse of the Keeper of Horses Spell. Their main shrine had lost the purpose for which it had been created, and the loss of that prestige had cost them a sizeable portion of their authority in the Committee.

That said they were far from a spent power. The Kuhoutsuka family was heavily invested in a number of major shrines around the nation, but they also had strong ties to a large number of shipping and construction companies. Though not the main sources of finance for the Committee they were still a major contributor, enough so that they remained a real presence upon the council rather than being reduced to mere paper tigers.

"Surprisingly well. Homura and the faction that he represented have settled down somewhat since it was announced that the History Compilation Committee would be swearing its loyalty to Emiya-Sama. They haven't ceased all activity, and if things remain unchanged then they will no doubt become active once more, but for the time being they seem to be satisfied with the current outcome."

Her reply was no real surprise to any of those present, as their own intelligence assets had kept them apprised of the situation with the pro-Emiya faction, but hearing it from the unofficial chairwoman of their small council served as confirmation that they hadn't missed anything.

"What is being done in regards to that? I have a small number of planned . . . restructuring to do in my own house, but on its own that will in no way be enough to satisfy them."

Glancing over at the Sayanomiya matriarch Ran nodded her own agreement.

"Understood, and I am in full agreement. We cannot approach this piecemeal, but at the same time we cannot allow things to spin out of control. Perhaps it would be best if-"

whatever else she was going to say was cut off as the phone that she had hung up a few minutes before rang, the tinny sounds of its bell possessing an odd kind of gravitas that they would never be able to wield under normal circumstances. With a slight pause and a glance to the other three the head of the Seishuuin reached out and clicked the phone to speaker so that the other members could hear what was being said.

"Yes?"

"Ah, ma'am, this is Obata Randou. You wanted to be informed a soon as there was any development in the investigation, so I was tasked to call you with these results!"

The speaker sounded nervous and a bit breathy, clearly somewhat intimidated to be delivering a report to the managers of his organization. Still, despite that he was at least partly able to maintain a professional demeanour.

"So soon? I thought that it would be a longer before you were able to determine anything from the crime scene."

"Some of the preliminary work began before we found the evidence suggesting that Emiya-sama's sister had been here," the agent explained, his voice growing firmer as he found his mental footing. "As soon as the scene was discovered samples of the victim were sent to one of our faculties to be identified. We were expecting to have to match them to city hospital data, but a confirmation came through with surprising speed."

The four family heads nodded at that. Magic was good for tracing the origin and owner of blood or hair, but in a city as populous as Tokyo that identification could be meaningless without the data to put it in context. As such the Committee was careful to have access to all the data provided by both the healthcare and the law enforcement organizations of the entire country. Technically this was highly illegal, but a combination of back room understandings, bribes, intimidation, and memory modification meant that it wasn't an issue, and hadn't been for decades.

"The positive identification went through so fast because the identity was in our own records, there was no need to go to outside sources. The remains found in the alley have been confirmed as being of Kamiyoji Akino, one of our field agents. Given the amount of blood found, as well as the amount of pulped flesh and remaining organs I have to say that the chances of this being his actual body are very high. It isn't outside the bounds of possibility that this is some sort of fake death, as there are a number of spells and rituals that could lead to the creation of a duplicate body. However I will hereby state that I believe this to be a very remote possibility. The analysed samples show no hints of the residual magic that would normally be found in such creations, even if it was only a preliminary testing."

That came as something of a shock. One of their own agents had been there with the girl? What had he been doing there? What had killed him? What had become of the young Einzbern? Obvious questions, to say the least, but they were the ones that immediately sprung to mind. Alright, she mustn't let her imagination run away with her, she needed facts to work with, once she had them any speculations she made might run closer to the truth.

"When were agent Kamiyoji's actions last reliably known?"

"He was last reported to be investigating Shiokaze Koen Park to see if he could locate any mystic traces that might be related to the Prophecy of Darkness. His last contact was more than four days ago, without any sign of him since. I've had a quick look through his file though, and there is nothing there that would suggest any reason why he would choose to make contact with our King's sister. There is also nothing suggesting that he had any enemies or those that might wish him harm."

So . . . this agent had been there with the young girl, and his body had been reduced to nothing but a pulped mess. It was no secret that the snowy haired girl had somehow managed to bind some sort of divine spirit to her will, one with power enough to battle the divine servants of true deities on a more or less even ground. Such a being would be more than able to smash a man in such a manner, though if that was then case then the question became why she would do so. Illyasviel had a reputation for being dangerous and ruthless, a well earned one given how she dealt with the cult that had kidnapped her, but she was not known to be overly cruel, nor was she gratuitous in her violence.

Out of sheer reflex Seishuuin Ran began to mentally assemble the worst case scenario that could fit the facts. The sister of her King had gone missing in the early evening. Her hair had later been found in an alley with the annihilated remnants of a Committee agent. Said agent had ceased to check in some time before.

Well, the absolute worst scenario she could envision taking place was that this Kamiyoji Akino had been some sort of closet paedophile that had somehow lured her out to that alley using his connections in the Committee, maybe stating that he needed to pass along important information or magical materials. Somehow he managed to take her by surprise and . . . what? Given Illyasviel's own abilities it was highly unlikely he could do anything to her without catching her in some sort of comatose state. Still, it was probably shocking and enraging to the young girl, leading to his messy end. As for the girl, if it had been unsettling for her she might simply be taking some time to recover her composure before returning to her brother.

If that scenario actually took place then the History Compilation Committee would be in the most precarious position it had ever been in since its founding. There was no secret about how protective Emiya-sama was of his snowy haired sister, and if something like that had actually taken place then the results that might emerge could only be classified as 'apocalyptic'. In such a situation it might well only be Illyasviel's own intervention that could persuade him to not reduce the entire organization to a burnt out husk.

Fortunately that scenario was unlikely to the point of being unrealistic. She knew nothing of this agent, and she knew not why Illyasviel had been there.

In the best scenario she supposed that the young girl had somehow been lured out by hostile parties, and Kamiyoji Akino somehow stumbled across them and tried to aid her. Obviously it had not ended well for him, but the fact that he had tried at least was in the Committee's favour.

Of course, that scenario was almost as unlikely as the other, it was almost certain that whatever the truth was it was to be found somewhere in between them.

All of this flashed through her mind in the space of a pair of heartbeats, simple mental exercises that were a part of evaluating the situation, nothing more.

"Track his movements since contact was lost; use all resources available to you to find out why he was in that alley. If we can learn that then we will have something concrete to offer our King."

"As you say, ma'am."

There was a brief pause, then a tone as the line went dead. Replacing the phone in its cradle Ran turned to look at the other family heads.

"That is something. It may not be all we wished for, but it is something, and with luck we shall be able to gain more to offer."

Silence met her statement as they looked back at her, their stares mildly unsettling in the way they seemed to measure her.

"You are playing a dangerous game."

It was the Renjou head that made the quiet statement, but the others nodded in agreement.

"Perhaps, but the only way to win is to play. If we don't try then there is only failure."

Silence filled the small room as they waited to see when next the phone would ring.


-()-


Guinevere stared down at the . . . actually, she wasn't entirely sure what words to use to describe what she was looking at.

'Masterpiece', that was a good start. "Work of art' also sprang to mind, but didn't seem to quite cover it. What she was looking at was . . .

"Oh, that is a very good model. Look at all the tiny houses and trees, the detail is splendid. Perhaps I can find some tiny dolls to use, and we can create a diorama of a zombie invasion."

. . . Was going completely over the head of her beloved knight protector.

Perhaps it was a bit uncharitable of her to be mildly irritated by Lancelot's lack of understanding. Though she was a goddess of great power she had little interest in the intricacies of magic and enchantment. Her powers came straight from her Authorities, and those were manifestations of her divine will, the art of sophisticated management of forces to empower an effect through invoked influences was as foreign to her as the notion of skiing was to a desert cactus. She had no way of knowing just what she was looking at.

"I have known a considerable number of mages that would refer to you as a philistine for making that particular comment. What you suggest is akin to using a masterfully crafted sword to clean a cesspit!"

Though it seemed that honoured Tiamat had no problem with voicing her own opinions on the knight goddess's comment.

"Truly?"

Far from being offended by the fallen goddess's words Lancelot instead sounded intrigued. Well, at least that meant there was less of a chance of things turning ugly between them. That was a good thing. With only half an ear the Witch Queen of Britannia listened to them as she continued her inspection of the remarkable piece of enchantment that she was looking at.

"Indeed! If this working were a sword then it would be one of the legendary blades that mortals would go to war in order to possess. Those swords that the knights that serve Kusanagi Godou wield, it would be on par with them, probably even superior!"

"A proud boast. What might this creation of our host's sister do that is so impressive?"

Ah, so Tiamat had been able to pique the interest of Guinevere's protector. Well, that was probably a good thing. Sir Knight might not have any sort of malicious intent to her, but when she was bored she tended to be somewhat troublesome in regards to what she could get up to. That was part of why the Divine Ancestor had little issue with her developing an interest in mortal entertainments. They kept her out of her workshop when she chose to spend time on her personal projects.

"This model is a tiny representation of part of the city in which we live, but that is far from all it is. You commented upon the detailing of the buildings and the trees, well the reason that they are so accurate is that this model is directly linked to the natural flows of energy that move through the city. This link is so close that in many ways the model has become the city, a representation of it that changes as the city does! More than that, the connection runs in both directions! This model can be used to analyse the mortal city, its very structure acting as uncountable nodes to draw in information of any sort that could be wished for. Only the very highest level of mystic protection could conceal one from the sight of this creation! This . . . this is the closest I have ever seen a mortal can come to emulating the limited omniscience of an Authority!"

Guinevere was honestly surprised at how passionate the Babylonian goddess had become in her description. Still, she could sympathize, this miniature cityscape cast in gold was not the most powerful mortal creation she had ever seen, but it was in many ways the most sophisticated. Idly she wondered which was the greatest contributing factor in its creation, Illya's remarkable power, her clearly impressive talent, or the very system of magic that she was using.

"So what martial applications could there be to such a creation? If it is such a fine artefact then surely it has such potential, is this Knight correct?"

Oh? It would seem that Tiamat had managed to engage her protector's interest. As a warrior through and through it was hardly a surprise that she should be focussed upon how this tool could be used in war. Well, it was not as though it had no such applications.

"Most certainly! Though this is not a weapon in and of itself I am certain that there are many generals that would have been willing to sell their siblings, spouses, children, and both their eye teeth in exchange for it. With this they would be able to view the entire battlefield in real time, monitor the movements of their enemies, discern what hidden forces they might have, direct their own forces with precision. The practical applications upon a battlefield are immeasurable."

"Ah, this Knight sees. Is that why King Shirou asked you and the precious child to look at it?"

"Yes."

The single word caused Guinevere to start, banging her head against the underside of the large table that the model rested upon since she had been leaning over to take a look at the lines of runes inscribed upon its underside. It was hardly a surprise though, given that the voice that had uttered the word was that of her new King. Internally the handmaiden berated herself for being caught in such an undignified position. She was trying her best to demonstrate her value to him, not make a fool of herself.

"King Shirou, I was not expecting to see you join us so soon."

Of course Tiamat had to be the very image of calm and grace. It was unfair really; Guinevere knew that she was beautiful, stunningly so despite her youthful appearance, but the ocean goddess was in many ways the ideal of feminine allure made flesh. To be sure she was not of a type with Venus, but then she had stood out even amongst other deities of love and beauty. By contrast Tiamat was more tangible, more real, but even so her loveliness was something that was beyond the capacity of mere mortals. And she had the poise and grace to go with it.

Really, not fair.

Of course, becoming the handmaiden of the King of Steel had had unexpected benefits for her. For the first time in her life she was maturing beyond the childlike form she had always worn. Not by much so far, but at least not she appeared as though she was going through puberty, as opposed to the outright child she had been before. Idly the immortal girl wondered how she would appear if she were to grow up. She had vague memories of the goddess she had once been, of her 'mother' before she became a Divine Ancestor, and if she could inherit even a fraction of that beauty . . .

No! She mustn't allow herself to be distracted! This was the first true task that her King had set her since she had sworn herself to him, she had to put forth her best effort.

"Can you use it to find Illya?"

His voice was . . . unusual. Under normal circumstances her new King was a rather expressive young man, his emotions easy enough to determine, even when he was at his most regal. Now though it was strangely colourless, his normal passion gone leaving only a sullen tiredness. There was no surrender there, he was still pushing himself on, but his normal fire seemed to have banked down into smouldering embers.

As to his question; this was not an artefact that was meant to be used by just anyone, Guinevere could tell that from a cursory examination. When the young girl had constructed it she had keyed it to herself somehow. The Divine Ancestor wasn't entirely sure how though, not yet anyway. It might be through her magical signature, or maybe a key of some sort that she kept on her. It might even be something more personal, such as blood or physical contact. Regardless it was going to be a bit difficult to get it to respond to her directions.

"It shall not be easy," she admitted. "It is an intricate creation, and Guinevere is certain that there are safeguards to ensure it cannot be used by others."

She paused for a moment, then asked the question that had been niggling her.

"Why can Sir Shirou not simply use it himself? Surely your sister would have given you a key to employ should you need to."

The eighth Campione blinked at her, a look of mild confusion on his face before realization dawned. He paused for a moment, indecision clear in his posture, if not his face, then seemed to come to some sort of resolution.

"You know, that is a secret that I've been keeping, but I kept it for so long that I forgot it was a secret at all. Isn't that ridiculous?"

His words were so unexpected that both of the immortals exchanged confused looks before turning their eyes back to him.

"I do not understand your meaning, King Shirou." Tiamat said, shifting her arms so that the shawl that hooked over them rode a bit higher up her back.

The red haired teen sighed while rubbing his face with both hands, and as he did so Guinevere was struck by how tired he looked. It wasn't a surprise, not really. Two days was a long time to keep going for a normal mortal, but to a Campione it was far less taxing, their vitality allowing them to push themselves for longer with ease. However her King had not simply been going without rest, he had been pushing himself the entire time. He'd been rushing from one location to another, doing all he could to coordinate the search by those under his command, mentally pushing himself to think of something, anything, that could help locate his missing sibling. A Devil King he might be, but nobody could force themselves to operate at that level mentally and physically for long without wearing themselves out. He might have vast reserves, but like a bright and roaring flame he was burning through them far faster in order to maintain his intensity.

For a brief moment the Queen of the Divine Ancestors wasn't looking at her new King, but was instead staring at the memory of her former one.

Her memories of her life as the White Mother Goddess were fragmentary and jumbled, but some things, recollections tied to intense emotion on the part of her former self, shone through. In it Artus, the Strongest Steel, the King that Appears at the End of the World, had stood in the days after his battle with the last of that era's Devil Kings. It had been some days before Mordred had risen up in betrayal against him, and the weight of his battles had weighed upon him in an almost physical way. Artus had not been wounded or broken, but he had been exhausted in body and mind, the strain of so many battles against such powerful foes, all so close together that they had almost run into each other had been too much even for him. it had been in the way he held himself, in the slight hesitations that previously he'd never shown, the way he walked as though dragging along some cumbersome weight.

King Shirou seemed to be the same. Not exhausted, but definitely worn down, and for some reason her heart tightened in her chest at the sight.

"I . . . there's a lot that me and Illya have kept secret," he explained slowly, leaning against the rooms door frame as he spoke. "We didn't . . . our training, our magic, it's different from the type most people use, and when were taught, we weren't told anything about the rest of the world."

He vaguely waved a hand in a gesture that that indicated the general world around him.

"When we got out into the main world we . . . didn't know how things worked. We saw potential enemies everywhere, so we did our best to hide until we could learn more. You all know how well that turned out."

Well, that was an understatement if ever there was one. Her new King had exploded onto the world's stage in a manner that even fellow God Slayers would have had difficulty matching. He had come out of literally nowhere to fight and slay three Heretic Gods in the space of a week, a feat unequalled for more than a thousand years. That, and the mystery that had surrounded him as everyone tried to learn more about this new Devil King, had shredded any chances he might have had of anonymity into nothingness.

"It took us some time to understand what it meant for me to be a Campione, the authority and power beyond wielding Authorities. We did everything we could to make sure that nobody would see anything that could be counted as a weakness, and after we learnt just how strong a position we were in . . . we just kept doing it, out of ingrained habit I suppose."

He paused again, his mouth curling in a sort of rueful smile.

"I think that I can trust you with some of my secrets though, at this point it's kinda stupid to try and hold onto them when you need to know."

Again he paused, and to her surprise Guinevere found that she was holding her breath. Well, that wasn't too surprising, not when she finally was getting the chance to learn more about her new King. There were so many mysteries surrounding Emiya Shirou that it was actually a bit absurd. How did he have Steel in his heart, even though he was a mortal? How could he wield Excalibur when it was an Authority that belonged to her former King? What was that strange magic he possessed that actually could match the might of the Authorities of the gods? Who had raised him and his adopted sister to be able to break so many of the conventions that the world held as immutable as stone? Who was Sakura, and why did he love her so much?

Alright, that last one was perhaps more personal that practical, but just as with the others it was a question that the Divine Ancestor would dearly love an answer to. Perhaps now she was going to get such an answer, all she could do was wait.

"I'm not very good at magecraft. Actually, that's not true; I'm actually terrible at magecraft."

For a moment both of the immortals just stared at him, unsure of just what he had just said. The blonde Witch Queen glanced over at Tiamat and saw that her expression mirrored Guinevere's own confusion.

"I . . . King Shirou, just what do you mean by that?" The goddess of the ocean was the first to voice her thoughts, but the question she asked was the same one that the Divine Ancestor had been about to ask.

"I mean that I'm terrible at magecraft. Illya has tried to teach me things like simple element invocation, basic repair Mysteries, the basics of hypnosis to get people to forget things. I was terrible at all of them, the best I could manage was a basic ability in flow transfer of my internal prana, and even that was only possible due to the exceptional nature of my internal channels due to becoming a Campione."

What? That made no sense, what did he mean?

"Ah, Sir Shirou," she began, trying to be as polite as she could be. "Guinevere doesn't understand what you mean. Surely your highness is a great sorcerer of talent beyond all other mortals! Guinevere has seen you create weapons of great power using no Authority usurped from a god, but rather forged from your own power. How can you claim to be a poor user of magic when your accomplishments overshadow even the magic of those that were once gods, like Guinevere and her ilk?"

Pushing himself off the door frame the King of Steel nodded to her, acknowledging her query.

"No, Illya was quite sure of that. I'm a terrible mage, really. I have absolutely no affinity for any of the five great elements, and even in the lesser elements I'm next to useless."

The goddess and the witch queen were now just staring at him, their minds having difficulty fully comprehending what he was saying.

"But . . . but I have seen your magic, King Shirou!" Tiamat protested. "I have seen you conjure weapons that can slay gods out of thin air! I have seen you overwrite the world with a world of your own! I have seen you cut the lightning of the Black Prince from the sky with not an Authority, but with a weapon created by your magecraft! How can you possibly say that your magic is poor?!"

"What I can do, I do well," he explained. "If it relates to my Reality Marble then I'm good at it, maybe even the best. But anything outside of that . . . I'm next to useless."

He gestured towards the large golden cityscape.

"I can analyse that, tell you what it's made of, maybe even tell some of how it works. But it isn't a weapon, so I can't know how to use it like I do when I Trace the things in my Reality Marble."

"But Sir Shirou is so skilled in the creation of weapons!" Guinevere stated, knowing her confusion must be written on her face. "If he can create the swords and other weapons that Guinevere has seen him wield then using something such as this artefact must be well within his skills."

"For a while I also thought that my skill was using my magic to create weapons, but I was wrong. It's nothing so skilful as that; all I can do is give form to my mind."

There was something odd about the way he said it. Rather than being spontaneous it sounded almost as though he was reciting the words of another. Curious.

"That's why I need your help, Manaka already took a look, but she says that she'd need months with the aid of a talented team of fellow mages to learn how to use it. I'm hoping that you two will be able to surpass that, given your own skills and advantages. This . . . I really do think that it'll be my best shot at finding Illya. Can you please give it your best?"

There was an almost pleading note to his final words, and Guinevere found herself both thrilled and shocked by it. On the one hand she was happy to be able to help her King in some meaningful way. Between his own power, the wealth he had accumulated and the allies that helped him the handmaiden was beginning to feel all but superfluous in regards to being able to help him. Certainly, she could aid him in filling the Gem Sword with stored magic, but even that was only easing a task that he could complete without her if needed. This was something that she was NEEDED for, something he couldn't do himself, something in which she could support him. On the other hand she was shocked to see him so . . . in need. Sir Shirou was one of the strongest warriors she had ever seen, a Devil King without equal, as far as she was concerned, yet looking at him now she saw desperation and panic edging in at the corners of his voice and actions. It seemed wrong, something that shouldn't be, her liege was strong, he should not be cornered like this. She wouldn't let it persist, she would help him escape, she would help him overcome.

"You need fear no lack of effort upon my part," Tiamat declared, her voice coming just split second before Guinevere would have herself spoken. "I shall bend every effort to divining the functions of this artefact and using it to aid you in the search for your missing sibling!"

"Guinevere too, of that you need not worry, Sir Shirou! We shall have this deciphered in short order!"

Well, she had given him her assurance, now all that was left was to actually deliver upon her promise. With a nod to her King she once more turned to the golden model of the city and leaned in close. She would work it out, that wasn't in doubt. Skilled as Illyasviel had been in its construction she was only a mortal, so in time a Divine Ancestor of Guinevere's calibre would be able to decipherer its secrets. Time was the issue though, she didn't just want to work it out, she wanted to do it soon.

Oh, and she wanted to beat Tiamat to it. That might be a small detail, but it was an important one.

Reaching out with her magic she carefully connected her personal power to the web of forces that she could feel moving through the model. Perhaps if she-

DDZZSSKK!

Ouch! She broke the connection as a tiny spark of power leapt along it. That had hurt, and she wasn't sure if it was a defensive measure on the part of the artefact, or if it was just a case of a poor interaction between its magic and her own.

Oh well, at least she knew that that approach wouldn't work.

Time to find one that would.

-()-


"Our thanks for your protection, oh wise and benevolent goddess. We accept your protection and pledge our lives to your glory and service. Merely ask it of us and it shall be accomplished."

Athena didn't sigh, but it was a close thing.

The Queen of Darkness stood upon the edge of one of the many buildings that made up the city and looked away into the distance as she felt the connection fade. Once again it seemed that fate had seen fit to derail her plans, but there wasn't too much she would do about it.

The city she was in was not the one that she had been aiming to reach. She had been trying to return to Tokyo, to face King Kusanagi in battle once more, but instead here she was in this mortal city upon the largest island in the northern part of the chain that made up her prey's nation. Sapporo, that was the name, or at least she thought it might be. Distracted as she was the goddess in the form of a child had little time to spend on such trivial details. Large though this city might be it was of no concern to her, were she not currently standing here she would not have even bothered to learn that it was there at all. She had been here for about a day and a half, and that was two days longer than she'd wanted to be here.

Her plan had been to travel directly to Tokyo as soon as she set foot upon the nation of her target. It would not have been a long trip, not if she was travelling on the wings of her owl form, or through the depths of the shadows. Using either of her Authorities would have allowed her to make the trip in a matter of hours, if not minutes, and she would never have needed to even pause in this city.

Unfortunately things had not gone to plan, though in truth she could not say that the developments that had held her up were entirely poor.

It had been centuries since she had been prayed to, but in the last few days Athena had been receiving a surprising amount of worship. At first in had been a small thing, the cult that she had offered her protection to had made it practice to offer her thanks at the beginning of their day, and then to do it again before laying down to sleep. It had not been much, but to a deity that had not enjoyed any sort of organized veneration for longer than some of the currently spoken languages had existed it had been a pleasantly nostalgic experience.

Prayer was not a necessity for the gods, but it did possess notable benefits for them. Mortal belief could shape the gods, and likewise that belief could serve to empower them. If a god was seen as mighty by their worshippers then their power would wax in response to that faith. Of course it was something of a double edged sword, especially if a deity came to rely upon that power. Mortals were fickle beings, and it was all too easy for the slightest sign of weakness or doubt to cause their faith to be lost, and once bereft of that power the deity would be less than they had been to start with.

This had become increasingly relevant to Athena because it was no longer just one cult that was praying to her.

No less than seven separate organizations were now holding her as their patron deity, a development that had caught her more than a bit by surprise. It seemed that the signs of the oncoming 'darkness' were more widespread than she had initially believed, not one hour after she had granted her protection to the first group another had beseeched her aid. The second cult had been marginally larger than the first, but had more or less been cut from the same cloth, so she had extended her protection to them as well. Word of her willingness to heed the pleas of those that reached her must have spread, because over the last two days she had been called upon several more times. Each time she had accepted their oaths of fealty as well as their promises to repay her in the future. In return each group had received some trinket of theirs being empowered to protect them from the darkness that they feared.

Under normal circumstances it would not have been wise for her to grant her protection to so many, not when her divinity was only just beginning to recover. Stretching herself thin in that way could lead to the patchwork of powers that she had assembled into her renewed mantle of divinity to come apart. However, the boon that was being asked of her was protection from darkness, and darkness was a force under her domain from the earliest time of her forgotten origin. Darkness answered her call, and so granting protection from it was far easier for her than it would have been had her supplicants been requesting protections from some other force, such as ice or fire. This meant that she could grant their entreaties at little cost to herself, and the benefits that she was reaping from the faith she gained more than made up for that loss.

At this point she estimated that at least half a thousand mortals were now sworn to her, and for the time being at least their faith was fresh and strong. That faith was already starting to trickle into her, and with a little time she would be able to use this new source of strength to begin to complete the repairs to her divinity.

Unfortunately, though the renewed worship was a welcome addition of power the effort and attention that she'd had to devote to preparing the protections she provided, as well as taking time to hear each petition and to reply, had eaten into a surprising amount of her time, hence her current situation.

She had originally paused at this city in order to answer the latest pair of entreaties, but she now was thinking finding a use for the oncoming night rather than simply travelling on. Darkness would soon be descending, and if she left this mortal city and entered the woods that surrounded it then her time would not be wasted. Those woods were old, having been there long before the mortals had begun to carve away at it to build their settlements. The old woods held old darkness within them, the kind that the early mortals had feared to enter, the kind where she had lived in the time before names.

She could use that; by bathing in what could be regarded as kin to the root of her origin she could accelerate her healing divinity.

Darkness.

That was what it all seemed to be centred about, all of the pleas, all of the desperation, all of it revolved around darkness swallowing all. When she had heard the first prophecy Athena had considered that it might relate to her, that once her full power was restored she might run rampant once again and be the source of the darkness that was being foreseen. However, after having heard several different perspectives upon the first prophecy she was no longer of that opinion. The fact that it had been foreseen by seemingly anyone with a gift for spying into the future was in itself worrying. Prophecy was never a precise art regardless of who employed it. Certain deities might have the gift of foresight, as might mortals of the correct bloodline or talent, but even then seeing into the future was a task of herculean proportions.

A poetic mortal, or at least one who'd thought he was, had once described it as staring at a broken puzzle through a kaleidoscope as the puzzle pieces moved around and changed colour. He'd then paused and commented that trying to do that while drunk was probably easier than trying to see into the future. Though Fate and Destiny were true forces that impacted the future random chance was also a very real existence. The future was at once immutable and ever changing, a contradiction that existed despite its absurdity. One could never be certain if what they were seeing was what would be, what could be, or what would never be. Gods, kings, mortals, fay, it mattered not what your race or origin was, the future was a treacherous realm into which to explore. What could seem to be an escapable future could become a self fulfilling prophecy. What might seem to be a rock solid certainty could emerge to be as ephemeral as a dream. Anything could become twisted, uncertain regardless of what was thought to be sure. As such the divination of the future was never a task to be undertaken lightly.

Well, that was the case normally. There were times when the rules changed. Every now and then something would come along, an event of such momentous importance that it thrust out of the river of time like a mountain. It was so huge, so vast, that those with the sight could see it coming from a great distance. Such events were rare in the extreme, and were often cataclysmic in how they came to pass. The eruption of the mountain of Pompeii was a fine example of such. So many with the gift had seen the destruction coming, seen it looming over them like an oncoming tidal wave. Some had fled, others had fortified themselves, and one group of reckless fools had tried to bind a Devil King to their will so they might use him to fend off the oncoming fate.

It was also a lesson that even in the cases of these clear events nothing could be taken for granted. In seeking a defence against the impending crisis they ended up drawing it down upon them. The Children of Pandora could not be controlled by the paltry magics of mortals. Even the divine powers of deities had trouble in subduing their wills, a fact that had been shown by the failed attempt of Venus to dominate the King of Steel earlier this year. The end result had been that Pompeii had become one of the most famous mass graves in history.

This darkness though, there was something about it that left her feeling wary of it. For it to be seen by so many it had to have a huge impact upon the world, and that only served to fuel her doubts.

Perhaps it would be prudent to delay her return until after she had taken some time to investigate this? If darkness was her domain then it behoved her to learn who it was that was to make such use of it. This was a sensible course of action, a well thought one, a responsible one.

The problem was that she was not a responsible being, if she was then she would have dutifully returned to her legend rather than tarrying upon the mortal plane. She was a goddess, one that had broken out of her legend in order to regain what had been lost. She had remained upon this plane because there were things that she had wanted to do, the recovery of her lost fragments of divinity, a battle with Verethragna, and then later a rematch with her most beloved prey. Restraint, responsibility, theses were not true aspects of her nature, merely behaviours that she indulged in because she knew not doing so would result in more trouble than it was worth. She followed her desires, not her duties.

And what she desired was to once more clash fangs with the Devil King that fascinated her, everything else could come later.

Her mind made up she turned to face in a general southern direction. That way was the city of Tokyo, that was where her dear prey awaited. That was where she would be going.

After she had once more bathed in the old darkness of course. Still, the question of where this foretold darkness came from nagged at her. Perhaps she would devote some time to it later, not out of responsibility, but rather to satisfy her own curiosity. That could wait until after her rematch with Kusanagi Godou though. After all, how important could it be?


-()-


"AH HAH!"

Tiamat looked up from were she had been working at the loud exclamation. Perhaps more surprising that the exclamation itself was the manner in which it was voiced. Guinevere tended to do her best to maintain the demeanour of a young noblewoman, and for the most part succeeded. Her outburst was out of character for her, enough that it was more attention grabbing than her exclamation had been.

"I take that to mean that you have met with success?"

"Indeed, honoured Tiamat!" the blonde haired immortal confirmed, her face breaking into a wide grin. "T'was difficult, but Guinevere has managed to decipher the spells that allowed the user to mentally interface with the artefact. By linking into them directly I think it possible to bypass the wards that King Shirou's sister placed to keep others from using it. It is difficult, but Guinevere has just succeeded! I think . . . this!"

As she spoke the goddess of the primordial sea watched as the surface of the golden table shivered, then rippled as though it were water rather than metal. The ripples faded, and a new cityscape formed itself, this time centred upon a familiar area. The Emiya Manor was right there, picked out in exquisitely tiny detail, right down to every tree, bush and flowerbed in the garden. Rising from the desk where she had been sitting, Tiamat drew closer, studying the artefact. She felt a small tinge of envy as she did so, directed not only at Guinevere for unlocking the artefact first, but also at Illyasviel for managing to create something like this in the first place.

Tiamat had never been a goddess of magic; her domains had been the primordial seas, the motherhood of both monsters and other gods, and the essence of chaos that was tied to them both. As time had passed she had changed, gaining new powers and extensions to her identity as her legend grew and changed. Her children had died, and younger gods had risen up against her, slaying her and using her body to fashion the world and the heavens, but as a goddess her death had not been a permanent thing. Through all of that the closest she had ever come to wielding the powers of magic was when the Tablets of Fate had been in her possession, and even then they had served more as symbols of status than they had sources of power.

Sorcery had been a talent she had forced herself to learn during her years as a Divine Ancestor, and it had not come easily to her. To be sure, she had possessed reserves of power beyond anything a mortal could hope to ever develop, and her immortality had lent itself well to certain spells and rituals that had strengthened her further, but that had not made up for her lack of natural talent. Unlike other fallen goddesses she'd had to force herself to learn how to command magic without the aid of her Authorities, learning the art from the simplest rules upwards. Oh, to be sure she had not been powerless, even as a Divine Ancestor she'd possessed natural powers that let her eclipse most mortal mages, but those powers had been inflexible, nothing but weapons. She had wanted tools that gave her options, and she had worked hard to learn them.

Her efforts had been fuelled by her resentment of Perseus. Her need for power, for freedom, for options, had driven her learning. She had gathered magical knowledge in the forms of tomes, artefacts, tablets, even earning the service of mortal magi in order to learn from them. It had been frustrating and difficult, so very difficult.

Her efforts had paid off though, and after more than a century of study she had gained the strong foundation in the magical arts that she had craved, and had begun to build her abilities up further. Her immortality had also afforded her time, and with the passing of millennia she had been able to advance to the heights that she'd enjoyed as Andromeda, one of the most powerful Divine Ancestors in the world.

But Guinevere had always been the Queen.

Tiamat felt jealousy pinch at her heart, but did her best to stamp it out. True, she might be a true goddess once more, while the handmaiden of her host was still only a Divine Ancestor, but that gulf in power didn't change the fact that in the use of magic the golden haired immortal outstripped her. It was galling to admit, yet Tiamat refused to shy away from the truth. Guinevere was masterful in the way she could feel and the forces of magic. Her touch was light and her control all but perfect. No doubt it had been that talent that had allowed her to bypass the protections that their host's sister had left upon her creation. Tiamat had thought to force her way past them, but her preliminary tests had shown that to be a poor idea. A more gentle touch was required, and it seemed the Guinevere possessed it.

"A most fine accomplishment. Shall I contact our host to inform him of your success?"

Tiamat absolutely refused to be ungracious in her loss. This particular competition may have turned out poorly for her, but there would be more to come, and her power would allow her to claim her own victory, she was certain of that.

"Not just yet, Guinevere would like to try to use this first. Perhaps I can find our host's missing sister first, then reveal her location to Sir Shirou when he arrives."

Stepping over to the golden model the goddess of the ocean watched as the scene changed. The miniature depiction of the manor they were in flowed to the side, the tiny streets and houses moving by as the depiction shifted its focus.

"How do you know how to operate it so?" Tiamat asked, leaning in closer for a better look. "Is there some manner of enchantment that makes its use easy?"

"Yes," Guinevere admitted, her face a mask of concentration. "Though intricate the means by which to direct it are surprisingly simple. Guinevere is easily able to move it about, all she need do is push a mental image of the area into it and the artefact will do the rest."

"Impressive."

The goddess allowed, a comment that was actually quite sincere. Artefacts that could be manipulated by direct mental control were quite rare. Oh, there were many that were partly mentally controlled, magic swords, shields, scrolls, the list was all but endless, but they all shared the same limitation. Chants, spells, rituals, or something of that nature was needed for all of them, serving in much the same way that reins would with a horse. It was possible to ride a horse bare backed and without additions, but that was the province of master riders. The use of reins and tackle made it vastly easier, and so it was with artefacts. It was all too easy for those entirely controlled by the mind of their wielders to react to stray thoughts or blazing emotions, not something one would desire in a weapon capable of laying small armies to waste.

As such the artefacts that responded directly to their user's will needed further enchantments to determine what the desires of their masters were, which were frivolous thoughts, and what was a decision with weight, none of which was easy. If Illyasviel had managed to create something of such an order then Tiamat might feel her pride somewhat salvaged at not being able to break her protections upon it.

"How shall you direct it to search for our host's sister?"

The question was an honest one, with no malicious intent. However, given the way that Guinevere froze for a moment, it seemed that it might have caught the golden haired immortal flat footed.

"I . . . Guinevere is not sure," she admitted. "I am trying . . . no, it is not working!"

The images upon the table seemed to judder and shake, the tiny streets and roads, falling back down into the gold, only for completely new ones to rise to take their place, only to in turn fall and then be replaced. The transitions were less smooth than before though, the miniatures not smoothly melting back into the gold as they had before, rather they fell into it as though the force that kept them solid had failed and left them liquid. They all but splashed back into the metal of the table, only rise again in a jerking manner that made her think of the twitchings of a spasming limb.

"No . . . I . . . no!"

The way that Guinevere ripped her hand from where it had been touching the artefact one might have been forgiven for thinking that it had suddenly turned red hot. However she quickly regained her poise and stared at the now still table.

"There is something . . . Guinevere cannot decipher it, not easily." She heaved a sigh, then turned to look up at Tiamat, her face slightly shamed. "Illyasviel is truly a magnificent mage; such work is intricate to a level that even this humble handmaiden would have difficulty in matching. The link through which the artefact is controlled is remarkably responsive, but I do not know how to use it. As I tried to force it it resisted, and then pushed me out. Does honoured Tiamat have any notions as to how it might be made to serve?"

"Let me try."

At Guinevere's nod the crimson haired goddess reached out and lightly pressed her hand to the artefacts table top. The contact was slight, but it was all that was needed to begin the connection. Through it she carefully reached out and let her magic touch that of the artefact.

Immediately the Mother of Dragons felt her respect for Illyasviel increase by leaps and bounds. The artefact wasn't powerful, well, that was wrong actually. It was quite powerful in its own right, but it was not powerful in the same way that those swords of the knights that served King Kusanagi were. However its power wasn't one of clashing steel or destructive power. This was a strength born of connections, of being tied to so many things that for a moment even her divine mind felt close to overwhelmed. As a practioners of magic herself Tiamat knew a number of ways by which an area could be monitored with scrying spells, but this . . .

The closest she could come to accurately describing this artefact was that it was somehow running hundreds of scrying spells all at once and all the time, all of them feeding into a central source that was compiling them into a single image of breathtaking clarity. With this . . . well, it wasn't an Authority of omniscience, but it was a step in that direction. That it had been constructed with purely mortal magic, without calling on any of the gods to lend aid or power, it was amazing.

Brushing off her surprise the goddess of the ocean turned her attention to that task at hand. As an experiment she focused upon the place where she had first met Emiya Shirou. Well, the first place she had met him when he wasn't a virtual automaton being controlled by Venus. That park area, next to the waters of that river, that was where he'd saved her from Jord, even though at the time she'd thought him an idiot for doing so. There was a rippling at the edge of her vision, and she looked up to see the golden surface of Illyasviel's creation flowing and shifting to show the edges of the river canal, the small area of grass and newly planted trees, the wide concrete footways that ran alongside the river. All of it was there, in perfect miniature detail. Idly she noted that the agents of the History Compilation Committee seemed to have done a most admirable job in restoring the area after the devastation of the Battle of the Three Kings. After the clash between King Shirou, King Kusanagi and her Eminence Luo Hao the area had been a torn and blasted wasteland, now it seemed to have returned to as it had been before the battle.

Still, regardless of how the area had been fixed it did prove one important detail, namely that the artefact was supremely responsive. If it worked so well with just that errant thought of hers then maybe . . .

In her mind she brought up a picture of the snowy haired form of Illyasviel as she had last seen her, wearing the uniform of her school and carrying that bag of hers, the one decorated with pictures of those bright and colourful horse things. Carefully she fixed every detail of the mental image, the red of her eyes, her slender body structure, even the slight sense of power that she emanated to those that could feel such things. As soon as the picture had fully formed she tried to push it towards the artefact, mentally commanding it that this was what she wanted to find.

She immediately knew that however the creation was meant to search for individuals this was not it. The artefact resisted, much as clockwork might resist against being wound up in the wrong direction. 'Gears' of ethereal force ground against each other, and the definite feeling that something might break began to grow.

Snatching her hand back Tiamat looked down at the golden table and frowned. That had been different from how Guinevere had described it, was it because she was stronger? The Witch Queen of Britannia was powerful, but she was not on the level of a true goddess. Might that be why she had been thrown out while Tiamat had had to retreat because she feared she might break the artefact? There was no way to get the answers immediately; testing and experimentation would be needed, however at the moment there was no time for that. They could worry about it later, for now . . .

"King Shirou might be able to help us in determining how to use it," she opined. "He may not be able to use it himself, but he must know at least something of how it is operated from having seen his sister using it. Perhaps with his aid we can make use of it."

Guinevere nodded in reply, then turned to the door to the workshop. Opening it she addressed the servant that had been waiting outside.

"Please inform his majesty that we have succeeded in unlocking the artefact, but we would like his aid in trying to make it work."

The young woman nodded, then quickly left to find the eighth Campione. As she did so Tiamat looked back to the miniature city cast in gold. The depiction had returned to the manor, and was once again showing it in crystal clear detail. Truly this was a splendid creation, one she was sure would help them locate its creator.

If they could get the wretched thing to work.

Well, with any luck their host would be able to help in that regard.


-()-


Shirou hurried down the stairs and made his way out to Illya's workshop. Normally he didn't like being interrupted when he was conducting experiments in Tracing Modification, but on this occasion he was quite happy to make an exception.

Truthfully he hadn't wanted to be doing such, but the fact of the matter was that there was nothing else he could do at this point. He had already searched everywhere he could think of, had contacted every organization and circle in the entire city that he could, and had even set his house guests to working on trying to her Illya's Mini City Guide mystic code to work. Having been reduced to doing little more than pacing in his office he had tried to do something constructive by seeing if he could achieve any sort of progress in his Tracing Modification work. It hadn't been much, but it had been something, and if he could get it to work then it was something that might well be a major asset in the future.

Tracing Modification was arguably one of the highest pinnacles that Shirou could theoretically achieve in his personal style of magic. Archer had been venturing into it at the time of his death, and as such had not been able to devote any further research into the notion. He had found some success in it, with his ability to alter swords into arrow forms that were more easily fired from his bow. There were a number of logical progressions of this ability, such as the transformation of offensive weapons into defensive ones, or the modification of their application, such as turning a weapon that neutralized fire with a swing into a tool that prevented fire from existing within a specific area. However the branch that he had been following was the concept of merging aspects of one blueprint into another, allowing him to take the powers of one Noble Phantasm and add them to another.

It sounded fairly simple, but it was by no means so straight forward. Noble Phantasms derived their power from their legends, so it was impossible to simply 'cut and paste' aspects of one weapon to another. Well, it wasn't impossible, it just never worked, the conceptual framework couldn't maintain stability and the hybrid Noble Phantasm would simple shatter an instant after coming into existence. To make things harder Unlimited Blade Works would not record these hybrid weapons he created, perhaps because they weren't 'real' enough. And those were only the simpler problems that had come up so far.

Still, all of that was something he could consider later; at the moment he had other concerns. Namely; that the hunt for Illya had shown no developments.

Shortly after he had left Tiamat and Guinevere he had received a call from the History Compilation Committee letting him know that they'd found some traces of Illya, but that they hadn't been able to follow them from that location. He'd been angry that they hadn't informed him immediately, but the file they'd sent him had been exhaustively comprehensive considering the time that they had been working with. Even though he had scoured through them he had been unable to find anything that hadn't been investigated to a superior degree than he was capable of. Magical, mundane, both of them had been scoured thoroughly to the point of near absurdity. Some part of Shirou had wanted to go there to look at that alley himself, but his more rational part had stayed his hand.

He was advanced in the use of his Reality Marble, and had managed to integrate a great many of his older self's skills into his own, but that didn't change the fact that Emiya Shirou and the Archer EMIYA were distinct beings. Their skills were shaped by not only their experiences but also by the resources available to them. Archer was his older self, had possessed a body matured by time and honed by experiencing years of training and conflict. Shirou had been honed by the divine power that had been gifted to his by his new adoptive 'mother', his body strengthened to an absurd level by the divinity it now held. With less power at his disposal EMIYA had honed his more subtle abilities, such as structural grasping, and it had been to a degree that Shirou had yet to equal.

His inherited memories let him know how to do it, but unlike his Reality Marble it wasn't a skill he could gain by synchronization with his temporal counterpart, rather it was something that needed time and many years of repeated use. Structural Analysis was something that he personally had experience with, it being one of the few mage crafts that he'd been able to employ back before he'd learnt how to open his Magic Circuits, but it wasn't something he'd had much time to work on since he'd arrived in this new world. Most of his magecraft practice had been spent perfecting his reinforcement and working on refining his Tracing.

Archer had been different though, and he'd spent a great deal of time refining his supposedly useless Structural Grasping into something useful. He'd been able to turn it into an almost effortless action, one that he could employ at any time and at a moment's notice. Back before he'd died and become a Counter Guardian it had been one of his more useful tools when dealing with more mundane threats. It had let him know when people were armed when they shouldn't be, it had let him know how to disarm bombs, fix weapons, even perform improvised surgery. It hadn't been as though he'd had any sort of Mystic Eyes, but with his skill in the art he'd been able to fake it to a degree.

It hadn't been a skill that had seen any use in the Holy Grail War, but in this current situation it would have been invaluable for gleaning just that little bit more information from the crime scene he'd been informed of.

Shaking his head the eighth Campione dismissed such thoughts. Yes, it might have been useful; he might have been able to spot something the Committee had missed. However, by the same token it might well have been pointless. He didn't know the limits of what the magecraft of this world could do, at least not in regards to investigating a crime scene, since all his own studies had been into finding a way home. He'd have to trust in what they could do, and hope that Illya's Mystic Code would let him find her should they fail.

Opening the doors to the workshop Shirou stepped in and took a look about.

There was the Mini City Guide, and on either side of it stood his two immortal guests. Guinevere looked distinctly pleased with herself, but Tiamat seemed to be almost completely focused upon the large golden table-like Mystic Code, so much so that she didn't seem to notice him coming in.

"You were able to make it work?"

It might have been a bit rude of him to simply demand the answer of them immediately, but under the circumstances he didn't have the patience for courtesies. Mentally he made a note to make it up to them later, but for now he had to focus on finding Illya.

"Guinevere was able to create a spell that allows for a connection to your sister's creation," Tiamat said, offering a very shallow nod of acknowledgement to the blonde Divine Ancestor. "It allows us to filter the magic that we use to connect to it, soften it so that it matches the signature that your sister has left upon her other work."

Shirou was careful to keep his facial expression unchanged, but internally the goddess's claim took him aback. Individual magic signatures weren't something that either he or Archer had possessed any great knowledge of, since even with the vast arsenal at their disposal very few Noble Phantasms could alter them, and those that could normally only did so as a side effect of another ability. Since it wasn't something they could reliably use they had not studied it in any great detail, even so Shirou was aware that perfectly matching another's signature was no easy feat. He wasn't sure why or how it could be used, but he was pretty sure that if Rin had been here she'd have been haranguing him about not knowing something so elementary.

"The spell needs a certain level of power to sustain it though. It is amusing in a way; it requires a great deal of power to be as soft a touch as is needed. Guinevere would be able to bear the spell, however as a full deity I can hold it for longer than she could manage with greater ease. It would not do for our host to be rushed in his search, after all."

Guinevere nodded her own head, though there was some clear reluctance there.

The King of Steel felt hope surge inside him.

"Can you use it to find Illya?!"

Any hope he might have felt was swiftly crushed as the pair of immortals shook their heads.

"As soon as the spell was complete that was the first thing that we attempted." Guinevere explained. "The artefact cannot find her no matter what we tried. We used the spell to convey her likeness, her magical signature, even the sound of her voice. These methods worked with others when we tested them, but when we tried them with your sister they produced no results. Either young Illyasviel has been taken beyond the reach of this artefact, or some power has hidden her so that it cannot find her."

"Such is not impossible," Tiamat said, "This creation of your sister's is magnificent in its scope and detail, but in terms of power it is far less so. If one knows that it needs to be hidden from then doing so is no great task for any deity with some knowledge of magic. Your sister was wise to keep its existence a secret."

Shirou couldn't keep the disappointment from showing on his face then, not as bitter anger touched his tongue. He'd known that it was unlikely that anyone able to kidnap Illya despite all her defences and precautions would not have taken steps to hide her and themselves, but he had been hoping. Still, he couldn't fail at the first hurdle. The information that he had was a starting point that he could work from.

"Alright, bring it up, please."

At his request Tiamat nodded and pressed her palms to the side of the Mystic Code while Guinevere turned to face him again.

"Where do you want honoured Tiamat to begin? A starting point will make the initializing of the artefact easier, otherwise it begins at this manor, and it becomes difficult to make it shift its perspective."

Guinevere's question wasn't unexpected, and Shirou had come prepared. Out of his pocket he drew a basic map of the city, one of the cheap ones that could be found going for free in most of the tourist shops that were dotted around the city. It wasn't a map that could be used for much, but for this purpose it served. One specific area on the paper was ringed in red marker, namely the area that the missing Committee agent had last been assigned to investigate before he had disappeared.

"Here please, I'm hoping we can find something here."

"Very well."

Shirou watched as the table top once more rippled, this time to depict the Shiokaze Koen Park area. Though he'd never been there himself he had seen a number of pictures of the place, mainly due to Illya having made a list of places that she wanted to see and having presented it to him with attached printed pictures. He recognized the mini Statue of Liberty as well as a few of the other attractions. However it wasn't any of that which caused his eyes to narrow in surprise.

That honour belonged to the . . . groove that ran through the raised images. It was as though there was a line in the table that refused to rise when the rest did.

"Go in closer."

At his instruction Tiamat pushed the 'view' in, tiny trees taking on size and definition, smaller details becoming visible as the small strip of beach flowed into greater size. Yet even as everything else grew, so did the portion of the display that refused to change. It wasn't a flaw in the artefact itself then, the missing portion of the display grew in proportion to the closeness of the focus, so that meant . . . what? Illya would have known immediately if she had been here, but given that she had created the Mystic Code that would hardly be a surprise.

No! He couldn't think like that. She wasn't here at the moment, but surely he could work something out. She'd spent countless hours trying to teach him something of how the magecraft she used let her create her Mystic Code, surely some of that managed to sink in.

Alright, think about this logically. The problem wasn't with the Mini City Guide itself, what did that mean?

". . . Can you go in closer?"

He asked the question slowly as he kept his eyes on the image of the park beach that it was depicting. Equally wordlessly Tiamat took the focus in closer, until the beach took up much of the table-like artefact. This close Shirou was getting a better idea of what he was looking at. The portion of the display that was refusing to show up was straight, but not completely so. It wove from side to side slightly, meandering here and there for reasons he couldn't immediately see. Just how big it was was a bit harder to pin down, but as the 'view' got closer he began to get a better sense of proportion. Using the trees and bushes that were also displayed the young Emiya heir guessed the 'missing' portion of the display to be about a metre and a half wide, maybe even two metres.

Still, he wasn't too sure of just what the line was. It started at the shoreline, then went into the park area, heading deeper into the city as it did so. It wasn't straight in the way that the passage of a line of energy would have been, so it probably didn't have anything to do with such things as ley lines or anything of that nature. The same could be said of the gas pipes and power lines that might have been lain down by the more mundane element s of the city. Though it was unlikely it wasn't outside the realms of possibility that such things as lead pipes or unusual wiring might have had some sort of effect. But his instincts led him to dismiss the idea.

Straight though the line may be it had something about it that told him it was more . . . than something like that. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. It was maddening, like a word on the tip of your tongue but just out of reach.

Maybe he should look at this from a different angle. Rather than worrying about the shape of this missing area he should instead try to work out just what it was, why it wasn't appearing as it should.

"Closer, please."

He said it without really giving it much thought, but Tiamat heard him and wordlessly responded. The image, before so sized so that were a person to be standing there then they would have been about an inch or so tall, 'zoomed' in further. The image swelled, the line now a large groove across the depicted image. Shirou focused upon it, trying to see what it might be. At first it had looked as though it was just a cut away line, a missing area where there was nothing, but as he looked at it he noticed that his initial assessment hadn't been quite right. The edges of the missing area, they weren't as clean as he'd thought. In the smaller depiction they had seemed to be clean cut, as smooth as glass, but that wasn't the case.

"Closer, as close to the missing part as you can manage."

Mini City Guide was a large Mystic Code, at least in terms of simple construction. The table that it was could have safely seated at least a dozen people in relative comfort. The surface of it was almost as large as a king sized bed, and Shirou knew for a fact that Illya had spent a lot of time crawling all over its surface on all fours as she'd painstakingly inscribed every line and rune a perfectly as she could. The fact that she categorically refused to wear any sort of trousers had made things a bit awkward when he'd tried to help her. He wondered if her seeming uncaring of the couple of times her skirt had hiked up a bit was simply further proof of the corrupting influence that anime seemed to be having on her.

Anyway, that was neither her nor there at the moment. What was important was that the Mother of Dragons had fulfilled his request. Before his eyes the missing portion of the depiction grew and grew until it reached what must have been an exact one to one display. The edge of the missing area was in much greater detail now, enough that Shirou could lean in to examine it.

Yes, he'd been right! The edges of the empty space might have seemed smooth at a lesser clarity, but up close like this the eighth Campione could see that the sides were rough, ragged. It made him think of a piece of paper that had been violently torn in two, the edges had small extensions, like splinters left behind. More than that though, the tiny shards weren't just sitting there, at least it didn't look like it. They were moving, it was very slow, but if he concentrated and reinforced his vision he could see it. The tiny edges were slowly growing out, joining together and then sprouting again. It was a slow process, one that meant it would be months, maybe even years, before the missing portion was completely . . . repaired, healed.

Yes, that made sense. The missing portion of the display wasn't being missed or mislaid, it was torn away, broken, scarred. It was also healing, which meant that whatever had done it wasn't something natural, it was something that the world was correcting.

This was another piece, he was certain of it. The problem was that he still couldn't see how things were fitting together. There were still parts missing, parts that would make the completed picture clearer. What else did he need to know?

"Tiamat, could you please bring it out again?"

"Have you been able to learn something?"

She asked the question as she completed his request, the scene returning to the point where the gold of the table depicted the small stretch of beach upon which the missing line had appeared.

"I'm not sure," Shirou admitted as he moved around the table so that he could look directly along the empty spot in the display. "There's something here, but I'm just not sure what it is."

His frustration was clear for the world to see. This . . . this wasn't what he was good at. Emiya Shirou wasn't stupid, not by a fair margin, but by the same token he wasn't any sort of natural intellectual. Unlike Rin, who could take a look at something dissect it in her mind and then analyse it from a dozen different directions all in the span of a couple of seconds, he wasn't suited for stuff like this. Shirou was a more . . . action oriented thinker, able to improvise and adapt well under high stress conditions. He was good at working out the rhythm of a fight, and devising counter tactics and the like, but that didn't mean he couldn't apply himself.

His eyes narrowed as he noticed something. Right there, the line of the missing portion bent to the side a bit, then came back and continued on. Why had it bent just there? Was there any special significance to that particular spot? Keeping his eyes on it, as though it would somehow run away if he wasn't paying attention, he rose up so he could look down at the display from above once more.

"Out a bit more, please. But slowly, do it slowly."

There was no question this time, she simply responded to his command. The view slowly drew out, the beach giving way to the trees, then the park beyond them, its various attractions picked out in miniature perfection. Wordlessly Shirou raised a hand, Tiamat stopping as soon as she saw it. He didn't take his eyes off the missing line in the depiction though. Carefully, forcing himself to be slow and deliberate, he ran his eyes along it, taking in every detail he could observe as he did so.

There, the line bent again after entering the trees. It wasn't much but . . .

No, not a line. A path, that's what it was, a path!

It made sense, the way that the path bent was in keeping with someone walking along the easiest point of passage over the small dunes that the beach's sand formed. Then in the trees the path bent again where the walker moved between the vegetation for easy passage. It wasn't immediately obvious, due to the large size of the line and the amount of space it took out. It wasn't just where someone had passed through; it was the area around as well.

Alright, he now knew what it was, but that brought him no closer to understanding why it was there. Why had someone's passage left an area that Mini City Guide could no longer reproduce?

The eighth Campione's brown knotted as he evaluated that thought. Did he really need an answer at this point? He knew that there had been something suspicious at that spot, and now he had what was essentially a clear cut path for whatever it had been. Did he really need to know more? Wouldn't it be more sensible to follow the path instead to see where it might lead him?

"King Shirou, have you learnt anything?"

Tiamat's question brought him out of his thoughts.

"I think that the missing section is the path that whoever arrived there left behind. I want to see where it goes."

"Ah, I see."

With a nod of agreement the Mother of Dragons drew the display out further until it was less a miniature cityscape and more of a map of the district. The missing furrow in the display had shrunk now, since even with its size the greater scale had made it more like a hairline crack than anything else, but it could still be seen.

Its path was oddly meandering, going from one place to another without any apparent rhyme or reason. More than that though, it wasn't unbroken. Shirou could see spots where it suddenly stopped, then began again elsewhere. Whatever was leaving it could move to another location without having to pass through the intervening distance, that was how it seemed to him at any rate.

And . . . there! There was the alley where the remains of the body had been found, where a hair of Illya's had been found.

Well, it didn't require a deductive genius to put the available facts together. There was some being that had arrived at the beach that was somehow breaking the Mystic Code's ability to display the area through which it had passed. Not only that, it was able to teleport itself to areas at least a few blocks distant if it so wanted. And then they had somehow lured his adopted sister to that alley in the dead of the night. Maybe that dead agent of the Committee had stumbled across the kidnapping, maybe he had been there for his own reasons, regardless it had cost him his life. Illya had been taken, there wasn't another outcome that fitted the facts, and it had been in spite of her own magic and her false Berserker, which she had used since it had left footprints in the concrete when it manifested.

So the culprit was either a god, or wielded the power of one, the puppet Berserker could only be overcome by such a force, which left a very limited number of suspects.

The number of Campione in the world was limited, very limited, and of those several were on friendly terms with him while only one of them could be regarded as an enemy. Gascoigne couldn't be responsible though, Shirou had already checked on his location, fearing that the Black Prince might be attempting to exact some retribution for his earlier loss, but the Committee had assured him that the fourth Campione was currently in South America. Shirou supposed it was possible that he had somehow faked his presence there and had actually returned to Japan, but that was edging towards paranoia.

No, more likely this was the work of a Heretic God, one that he had yet to encounter if their effect upon the Mini City Guide was anything to go by. If something like this had happened before then Illya would have been up in arms as to who would have been messing with her favourite project.

"King Shirou."

He looked up to see that even though Tiamat had addressed him she wasn't looking at him. Instead her attention was upon one of the lines of missing scenery in the miniature depiction of the city, one that ran rather close to her. Despite himself Shirou couldn't help but notice that the way she was leaning over to inspect it closer was doing . . . interesting things to her chest, and his view of it. Doing his best to ignore the entrancing vista before him he instead tried to focus on her words.

"I believe I now understand what has happened to your sister creation so that it is displaying these missing lines." She explained, tracing one with a finger as she spoke. "Your sister's artefact works through sympathetic magic with the area it is trying to display. Did she create it by procuring samples of stone, soil and buildings, am I correct?"

Shirou nodded, Illya had confirmed that when she'd explained how the Mystic Code worked. In those early days after they had arrived in Tokyo, just after he'd recruited Yusuke, the three of them had gone all over the place as Yusuke got in touch with slightly shady people who'd bought the treasures that Shirou created with his Authority. After that it had been a case of setting up false identities, new bank accounts, making trails where there had once been none, laying down the marks of a life that had never existed. The resurrected soul had been a true marvel, knowing all the tricks, and where he had not known what to do he had known those who did. Much of the work had been done using his small computer, sending emails and slipping in data where it needed to be, but not all could be done that way.

Several meeting had to be set up face to face, money exchanged for services, all sorts of things. Looking back on it Shirou couldn't help but feel a small amount of wry amusement. Back then he'd had no idea of the level of authority that being a Campione granted him. All that work by Yusuke, all the illegal deals and false histories, it had been largely unnecessary. At any time he could have just called the History Compilation Committee and they could have done it all for them, most likely in a fifth of the time and with a good deal less shady characters involved.

Regardless, they had ended up going all over the city, since Shirou went with Yusuke to act as protection, and Illya refused to leave Shirou. That was when she'd begun to collect the samples she'd needed, something she'd continued to do even after their identities were established and the trips slowed to simple tourism on her part.

Seeing him agree with her theory Tiamat continued.

"If I am accurate in my assessment then your sister was able to connect her artefact to various points about the land, then use that connection to empower her artefact which allowed her to widen and strengthen the connection. She repeated this process several times, until she was able to scry the area for vast distances."

The ancient deity of salt water paused for a moment, then shook her head in apparent disbelief.

"King Shirou, your sister is a wondrous mortal, of that there can be no doubt. This artefact of hers is something that even a goddess such as myself must respect, since it approaches being a match for a minor Authority."

Once again she pointed at one of the lines on the map.

"I believe that whatever passed through these areas has somehow broken the connection between the land and this artefact, that is why what has been in the passage of this being cannot be shown. Since the artefact can no longer connect to that area then it is impossible for it to re-create what is there."

"That makes sense," Shirou agreed, staring down as the Mystic Code. "Do you think that we can use it to track them? To find my sister?"

"We can try, but it will be hard. If we are to assume that your sister is still within the reach of the artefact then they are concealing her from it. If so then it likely holds true that they are also concealing themselves. However, it may be that they are unaware of this damage that they leave in their wake. If so then we may well be able to use it to track them once they appear once more. When we find a new . . . void being cut into the awareness of the artefact then we can immediately tell where this kidnapper is. With that knowledge perhaps you can fall upon them and force them to reveal what has happened to your sister."

It was a rough plan, but at least it was something, and that was more than he'd had before he'd stepped into the workshop.

"Is there no chance that you could use the grooves that have been left to track this god?" He asked. He knew that it was unlikely; after all if they could then they would surely have told him. It wasn't a hard idea to come up with, and neither of the immortals could possibly be considered foolish or stupid. Still, he had to know, even if only so he knew why it wouldn't work. "If they follow their trail then can't you just follow them to see where they lead?"

"Would that it were so easy, Sir Shirou," Guinevere answered, her tone soft. "The god or goddess that leaves this trail makes it hard to follow by the way in which they shift locations, then double back upon themselves, or even retrace their steps. Deciphering the route they have taken would be an arduous task for Guinevere and honoured Tiamat, and even then it might not help. This deity has concealed themselves, so if we were to succeed in tracing their path we might end up only at the point at which the masked themselves. Only a true fool would remain at the spot at which they concealed themselves in such a fashion, so they could be anywhere else. Guinevere is sorry, most beloved King, but such is not a method that could aid in this search, not unless our quarry is a true dolt, and Guinevere fears that no dolt could ever have taken Illyasviel prisoner."

He'd been expecting such a reply, but it was still hard to hear.

"I understand. I shouldn't be surprised that it wouldn't be that easy. Will you be alright to do monitoring like that? How about you, Tiamat? Will you be alright with continually operating Illya's Mystic Code? You did say that it was draining."

"Have no worries in that regard," the Babylonian deity assured him. "The greater cost of strength is in the initial creation of the spell. Once it has been completed maintaining it is much easier. It would be possible for me to sustain for days if it were so needed."

"I . . . Can I ask you to do that?"

Even as Shirou asked the question he noted that he wasn't slipping into his role as the 'faker king', as he thought of his more regal persona. Normally he would have naturally slipped into it as soon as the need for it became clear, but for some reason that felt wrong, like lying or something. Arrrggghhh! Why did this have to happen now?! Didn't he have enough on his plate without having to worry about unexpected emotional developments?

"King Shirou," Tiamat's voice was suddenly much more serious than it had been a moment before, her eyes having left the Mini City Guide and were now meeting his directly. "This, staying here, holding the spell, watching for hours on end for any change, for any hint, it is something I have never done. I am Tiamat, goddess of the Primal Chaos from which all things are born. I am the untamed ocean; I am the mother of monsters and dragons. I have slain kings, devoured princesses, reduced nations to ruin for having crossed me. I have blessed civilizations, brought peace to war, and usurer in joy and harmony, and I have done so because it was nothing more than my whim. I am all these things, and you are asking me to stand vigil like some mortal guard, to not move, to not leave, to not get distracted. Do you understand what it is you ask?"

He should have seen this coming! Tiamat wasn't a mortal, a mage, or even a Servant; she was a deity only a few steps removed from a Heretic God. She had been so well behaved during her recovery and stay at his home that he had sort of ceased to think of her as a god and instead treated her like he had Saber or Rider, as a being of immense power, but one that was . . . safe? Familiar? Trusted? He couldn't put it into words, not even in his own head, but he understood the general sentiment. He had forgotten to take her pride into account. Every day her power was recovering, already she was almost as powerful as some of the lesser of the gods he had faced and her recovery was not yet complete, so it was hardly a surprise that she would no longer be as . . . meek as she might once have been.

Damn it all! He did not need this right now, not with all that was going on. He should have suggested that Guinevere take over the task, then given her the Gem Sword so she could draw the power she needed from it, then set the task to her. It might be a bit tyrannical to drop it on her out of the blue, but he could make it up to her later. What was important was making sure that any possible confrontation between him and Tiamat was delayed until this mess was dealt with and Illya was safe.

But just as he opened his mouth to offer something, be it apology, demand or rebuke he had no idea, Tiamat cut him off by continuing.

"Of course I shall do it, of that you need not worry. This task shall be accomplished, even should this shed burn to cinders about me."

Whatever Shirou had been thinking of saying was cut off by her statement. Instead he just found himself staring at her with his mouth hanging open, his voice currently lost to him as he struggled to switch mental tracks in the face of this unexpected development.

"Uh . . . why?"

The goddess paused for a moment, then gave a snort of laughter that was oddly out of character for the normally self possessed ocean deity.

"King Shirou, this task, this is but the tiniest portion of what I owe you. You took me in when I was weakened; you gave me shelter, friendship, resources to once more build up my strength. So many others would have slain me to gain another Authority, to increase their power, to simply have another triumph to call theirs. Others would have taken advantage of my weakened state to try and imprison or enslave me, something that was within your power as a Devil King. There was so much that you could have done, but you never even considered them, did you? Instead you have treated me as an honoured guest and ally, and allowed me to regain more of my lost divinity than I would have thought possible in the short time since my betrayal. You saved me when I stood with Guinevere against one of your fellow Kings. All this and never before have you asked for anything other than the most minor of favours."

She paused for a moment, then shook her head.

"King Shirou, with the amount of obligation I have incurred with you it would be well within your rights to ask me to serve you as a courtesan and have me dance for your pleasure if you so chose. Certainly you could have had me in your bed."

Shirou . . . made a sound that was vaguely similar to an engine that had suddenly found itself flooded with water as opposed to the proper fuel. This was somewhat appropriate, given that his mind was in more or less the same condition as the aforementioned engine; the image Tiamat's words had evoked essentially causing a momentary stalling.

"As it stands, this task is but a tiny tithe of what you could be asking of me, so it is by both gratitude and honour that I agree to see it done. Continue with your own investigations, King Shirou, I shall make certain that if the kidnapper of your kin should appear once more you shall be made aware within instants."

"I . . . thank you."

Shirou felt that he should say more, but for the life of him he didn't know what to say. What Tiamat had just dropped on him, it was big, huge even. he'd always been a bit worried about what might happen with her once she regained her full power, or even just a substantial chunk of it. Hearing that she felt this obligated to him . . . it did go some way to assuaging his worries. Heretic Gods weren't known for their ability to show much in the way of patience or self discipline. The only exemption to that which he knew of was Athena, with her willingness to wait months before fighting Godou again, and that could be due to her not being a typical Heretic God by any stretch of the imagination.

Tiamat, well, he had only seen a small fraction of her full strength when she had appeared before him in the wake of his battle with Godou and Luo Hao. She had only had a short time to wield her power before she had been betrayed by Jord, but that had been enough to give him a sense of it. Mordred's power had been hard and sharp like a weapon, Hades had been all facets and edges like a cut gemstone, Perseus had blazed like a beacon of incandescent brilliance, but Tiamat, her power had just felt huge and formless as the ocean itself.

Knowing that he wasn't going to have to face her in a fight any time soon was a weight off his mind.

"Are you alright with this, Guinevere?"

His mind settled on whether or not the Mother of Dragons would be willing to help, he turned his question to the Witch Queen of Britannia.

"Sir Shirou need have no fear; this humble Handmaiden is perfectly content to remain here in order to aid her liege in his attempts to find his sister's kidnappers!" She replied, conviction easily heard in her words.

"Thank you! Both of you, you have my sincerest thanks."

"Sir Shirou has no need to offer such thanks, this is Guinevere's duty." The blonde immortal replied.

"Indeed," Tiamat agreed, "This is a task we have undertaken on our own. Now, you may leave us to it. Continue your search elsewhere; you need have no fear of failure in this quarter."

Not sure of what more he could say Shirou just nodded, then turned and left the workshop. As he did so he couldn't help but think that things had managed to become a fair bit more complicated that they had been earlier, but right now he couldn't let himself get distracted.

Plenty of time for that later, once this mess was sorted out.


-()-


Circe had long ago come to the realization that the gods she found herself allied to were insane.

This was not a decision that she'd come too lightly, especially given that such a thing should have been impossible for a deity. However, both Ahriman and Odysseus were . . . wrong, warped, not as they should be. With the traveller god she had some idea of what had caused him to change, that being whatever it was that he had seen at the isle where he had fought with the Devil King. Ahriman though . . . had he come into existence this way? As a creature, a deity, meant to be the original source of every human evil was there any way for him not to be such a monster?

"Circe, have you completed your divinations?"

Odysseus' voice held none of the respect or courtesy that it once had, now he spoke to her as though she were a servant. No, it was even worse than that, he spoke to her as though she were something that simply existed to complete the tasks he assigned it. Less than a servant, less than a slave. Did he now see her as nothing but some sort of automaton for his convenience?

The task that had been assigned to her was to locate a battlefield that would be advantageous for them. They were three, and Ahriman might be terrible, but the forces arrayed against them were formidable to say the least. Emiya Shirou was backed by no less than three immortals, two of them full fledged goddesses, and could also call upon a fellow King to aid him if he felt he was pushed far enough. Kusanagi Godou might not have deities as his allies and servants, but the mortals that had sworn themselves to him were of respectable power, and he himself was by no means a foe that could be overlooked.

If they wished to succeed in their endeavour they needed to weigh the scales of fate as far in their favour as they could. Fortunately their possession of the sister of their target meant they could pick the time and place of the battle so it would suit them. Location and time, they were such simple things, but they could make all the difference in dealing with this King and his allies.

The problem was that even as she worked Circe knew that she no longer wanted her allies to triumph.

The decision had been one she had made shortly after seeing what had been done to the girl. Her possession by Ahriman had not been the most terrible thing that she had seen, nor had it been the most fearsome, but it had been the final straw that had broken the camel's back. Until that point she had been held to them due to her fear of what might happen if she turned against them. All interest in what Odysseus had offered her had long since fled; she had no wish to find a beloved in some far off world if it meant spending more time with them.

However, even though she had made the choice to leave, the practicalities of the choice were less easily dealt with. If she were to leave now she had little doubt that they would come after her, if not immediately then at least as soon as they were able to. At the height of her power either one of them would have been difficult to deal with. Odysseus might be more vulnerable to her Authorities, but he was cunning enough that there were no guarantees in a fight against him. Ahriman was even worse, his nature being such that even if their power was equal he was still the antithesis of the Dawn that she represented. His power would eat away at hers, breaking it and leaving her vulnerable.

And that was only if she was at her full strength, something that she was most certainly not. Her battle with the Black Prince had left her severely weakened, even if she had been able to replace the lost portions of her body with metal facsimiles, her Authorities were still lessened. As things stood her divine knowledge of magic might allow her to close the gap more than another goddess in her situation might have been able to, but even that was not enough.

If she wished to escape she would need allies, that was the simple truth of the matter, allies to aid her and protect her from retaliation.

And the best allies she could hope to gain were the very foes she was helping her current 'companions' prepare for. The irony was both painful and absurd.

"Ahriman, how fare your own preparations?"

Odysseus' question brought her out of her thoughts and pulled her attention to the other end of the warehouse in which the trio of deities currently resided. Circe loathed having to wait here; this was beneath her, this skulking about like a thief or a rat. She was the Dawn, she should blaze with light and reside in palaces or temples not scurry about in the dirt and the shadows. Still, it wasn't as though she had much of a say in the matter.

"I continue to claim this vessel, but my progress is slow, she is proving to be . . . difficult."

That voice, it still put her on edge, despite having heard it several times now. It was all too easy to imagine her own voice being overlaid in that manner, all too easy to think of what it would be like for her to be trapped within her own flesh, unable to do anything but scream inside of her skull.

"I have learnt some things of our target though, and I believe I have found a way to assist in our efforts."

Her tone was not pleased or helpful, the words instead spoken as though delivering a promise of torture with relish and satisfaction. Her voice also carried clearly across the floor of the warehouse, seemingly uncaring of the distance separating them. The possessed girl was currently standing in the shadows cast by a stack of empty crates, their shade unnaturally dark as it fell across her. The paleness of her hair stood out, but all other details of her form seemed to be hidden, giving her an almost ghostly appearance.

To make matters worse there was the distinct impression that there were other things in the darkness with her. Circe had divine sight as a natural ability, so she could be certain that what she was seeing was the truth, rather than some trick of her imagination, and even so all she could see were brief glimpses and impressions. For a mortal the effect would have been far worse, with them unable to tell whether what they saw was reality or a result of their fears and imaginings. When one coupled that with the sheer horror of what she suspected to be hiding in the darkness the end result was something that could gnaw upon the sanity of any mortal that saw it until their mind snapped.

"Oh? And what have you been able to come up with in those shadows?"

The travelling god's voice wasn't harsh, but there was an edge to it that under other circumstances might have been intimidating, here it was simply another drop in the bucket.

Rather than answering there was movement in the shadows as Ahriman stepped out. Seeing 'her' like this Circe couldn't help but take note of the changes that had been wrought upon the young girl by the being she was being forced to act as host for. Her clothes were darker in colour now, as though stained all over with something that had long since dried upon the fabric of her garb. Likewise her hair seemed to have lost whatever colour it might have once possessed, and also having lost some of its lustre as well. The white was no longer that of fresh snow, instead it was that of bleached bone, lifeless and dead. Even her eyes were different now, blood red irises floating upon pitch blackness so dark it threatened to suck in the surrounding light.

Were these physical signs of her corruption? Circe knew she had little knowledge of divine possession, such had never been a part of her domain and she had not sought to expand her knowledge beyond what her nature granted her, but she could guess that even a strong mortal could remain inhabited by such power for only so long. Ahriman was deliberately refraining from consuming the soul of his host, but even so his presence within her was corrosive, something that could only end in her destruction if left there.

"I have been creating some playmates for our foes."

The darkness behind the girl's form moved, no, boiled for a moment. In that instant the shadows seemed to take on physical substance, moving independently of anything that might be casting them. There were many, but they moved about so fast that the Goddess of the Dawn couldn't track them, regardless of her divine senses. One seemed to slip into another so she couldn't make out where one ended and another began. There could have been as few as a handful, or as many as hundreds. She could make out hints of long serpentine bodies, insect-like legs, feathered wings and slavering jaws, but it was impossible to see what belonged to which as the writhing forms blurred together into a cauldron of madness.

The seething came to an abrupt end, the sudden stillness a shocking contrast to the former chaos. Most of the forms slipped back into the darkness like monsters disappearing into the ocean's depths, but one remained.

Not much could be seen of it, as most of its form remained hidden in the darkness. All that stood out was the head and neck, but even that was enough to make the wounded goddess shudder. The head was a great barrel sized thing, in appearance it was little more than a giant dog skull, but light burned within its empty sockets, a terrible hungry light that shone with clearly malevolent intent. The fleshless jaws were opened slightly, and Circe could see the thin strips of rotten meat that still clung to them. The skull was attached to a long serpentine neck, one easily as thick as a man's waist and composed of what seemed to be black tar. Its surface glistened wetly, but underneath it there was the impression of something hard and strong. Whatever this . . . this nightmare was, it wasn't weak.

"I have made many playmates, and they are very eager to play."

Even beyond the aura of hatred and malice that Ahriman always emanated there was something distinctly eerie about seeing this childlike form smile with such malicious intent. Again the goddess of the dawn only just contained a shudder.

"How strong are they? Will they be of any use to us?"

Odysseus' question was slightly softer than his previous one, his clear interest removing some of his bite.

"Indeed they will," Ahriman assured him. "Though I have not been able to pry all of her secrets from the depths of this girl's soul I have been able to wrest some of her memories from her. Among them were her recollections of what her brother has been able to accomplish with the Authority that he stole from me."

The possessed girl paused for a moment, then gently rested her right hand upon the skull of the monster beside her. It was no gesture of affection though, the motion was possessive and harsh, that of a master showing off a slave.

"He has used it to create creatures of his own, curse beasts that are close to being divine servitors. They are weak, but they can feed upon the evils about them to grow stronger. It is an interesting method, and I think that it might be of use. The only weakness is that he has not pushed his creations far enough."

Her hand lifted, and the monster retreated back into the darkness.

"There is so much in this city, so much fear, hatred, frustration, despair, hubris, cruelty, greed, and all of it so ripe for the harvest. If he had wanted to he could have set his beasts free, let them gorge themselves upon the evils of this city and let them grow into beings that even gods would be wary of. Instead he let them languish in his household, guard dogs so tightly leashed that they have never been able to bare their fangs."

He face twisted, and the expression there might have possessed all the features of a smile, but it was far too hungry, far too cold, and far too merciless to ever be considered one.

"I shall not make the same mistake; I shall not leave such a harvest to rot. When we are ready I shall let my own beasts slip their leashes and send them out to reap all the evils that wait for them. How well will the allies of our foe be able to support him when they have to defend their city against more than a dozen attacks? How many will stand with him if it means that elsewhere his mortal subject are being slaughtered?"

The features of her face twisted once more, but again the expression they formed was a smile in name only.

"He has come to their aid before, the weak mortals that cower beneath his protection. When they begin to panic, when they begin to claw and tear and kill each other in an attempt to escape my pets, will he leave them to their fate? Will he remain behind his fortifications and husband his strength? No, I have seen him in this girl's memories, and he is far too weak for that. He will cast his strength to the winds. He will send out each of the goddesses that have become his allies so that he can save as many of his cattle as he can. He will leave himself, moving to save what lives he can.

"That is how we shall deal with his allies, even the other King of this land. All of them will scatter to deal with my pets, and when they are spread far enough apart, that shall be our opening."

Circe had not thought that the evil god could be more horrifying than he had been in that cave by the sea, but in that moment she felt fear's cold hand squeezing about her heart. What he described, unleashing his monsters into the heart of the city and allowing them to run rampant, it was not the cruellest or bloodiest action that a deity had ever undergone, but this was not an act done in the passion of anger or the venom of spite. This was a cold and considered action, and done not merely for practicality, but also out of sheer maliciousness. Even were Ahriman not faced with the enemies, that she was she would have most likely done something similar for no other reason than that she wished to do so.

"And how will that serve to let us draw Emiya Shirou to where we want him?" Odysseus asked, his voice hard as stone. "If he is storming through the city in search of the monsters you unleash then how are we to direct him to the battlefield of our choice?"

"With ease," the possessed girl replied. "One of my pets can easily lead him where we wish, or they can deliver a message telling him where he can find his lost sibling, there are any number of ways he can be led to a location of our choice once his allies have been scattered."

The travelling god tilted his head to the side slightly, his expression considering, then slowly nodded his head.

"Yes, there are options open to us. We can . . . yes . . . yes, that will work. Circe!"

His words had all but trailed off into mumbling directed towards himself; however that final address to her cracked like a whip. Though it shamed her to admit it the named goddess visibly tensed at suddenly being the focus of his attention. The display of fear was beneath her, yet she could not ignore the terror that she felt as those mad eyes settled upon her.

"Yes?"

Her voice, at least, remained steady, and she took some pride in that. It was a small thing, but she wrapped herself in it like armour, using it to remind her of who she was, who she had ever been. Yes, she was afraid, but she would not cower, she would not break. Fear was acceptable, cowardice was not. Yet even as she told herself that, some dark and treacherous part of her mercilessly reminded her of how she had held back when first the mortal agent and then this young girl had been taken by Ahriman. Had she not already surrendered to cowardice?

"Have you found a battlefield for us? Do you know where we should draw our prey?"

That was the task that had been given to her; however the goddess of the dawn was still unsure of how successful she should be. She knew that she would have to complete this task; there was no way around it. Though she had resolved to try to escape she knew that no opportunity would be available until this labour was completed for them. Once it as done then hopefully there would be a chance, but until then she had to provide them with some results.

The problem was just how successful she wanted to be. If she gave her best efforts then it would provide them with as close to an ideal battlefield as she could find. That would hopefully give her a better chance to get away from them; with her part of the battle plan completed they would feel no need to chase her if she fled. With any luck they would regard her as unimportant, a tool that had served its purpose and could now be discarded. It galled her more than words could describe to be reliant upon their dismissal in that way, but if it allowed her to get away from them then she would be willing to take it. The downside to such an approach was that it was unlikely to engender any good will with either of the God Slayers that would be caught in it. They were her best chances to gain protection from her mad companions, and she couldn't afford to curdle it before they even met. To be sure, she could lie about it, cover up her part in it, but such truths had an uncomfortable habit of rising to the surface.

The alternative was to deliberately fail at her task, or at least to not complete it to the best of her ability. If she were to sabotage the efforts of her 'allies' then it was something she could lay before whichever of the two Campione she approached as proof of her sincerity. That would put her in a better position to gain their favour, but it also put her in a worse position with Odysseus and Ahriman. Mad though he might be the traveller god had lost none of his cunning, and it was all too likely he'd be able to discern any attempt she might make to under perform in her task. If he did then it would not take long for either he or Ahriman to come after her, and the thought of what that monster might do to her was enough to give a deity nightmares.

She had to find a balance, some way to satisfy those she was with now, but also gain something to take to those that she wished to ally with later. It was not an easy balance to find, but . . .

It would seem that the pressures of her situation had forced her to draw upon greater levels of resourcefulness than she normally possessed. Her magic cycled through the impressions that she had drawn from her scrying, quickly pulling up one that seemed to be just what she needed.

"Yes . . . yes!" She waved one brass hand and an illusion of the intended area appeared before them. "This area will serve our needs well. The land is well soaked in magic, but not saturated to the point of unsuitability. The area will accept traps and wards with ease, and the magic that has sunk into the earth can be harnessed to strengthen whatever we choose to place there. That means that I can place stronger workings there than I would have been able to create with my own power in my current condition."

"But what of the Devil King, will he not also be able to tap into that power?"

She shook her head in reply to his question.

"There are ways to ensure that he cannot. Ways that I know how to place."

Slowly he nodded, his eyes now upon the image before him. She could see him evaluating it, his pupils flicking about the projection as he estimated sizes, mentally plotted his lines of attack, trap points, possible escape routes that needed to be cut off.

"Yes . . . yes, this might well serve." His Eyes cut back to her, and once again she only barely contained the impulse to flinch back. "And the other matter?"

Ah, that was the other task they had set her, using her Authority of Hero Confinement to weaken either of the Campione by stealing what Authorities she could from them. Odysseus himself knew how effective her power could be; after all he had himself fallen under its influence before. To be sure, he had escaped her, but he had left behind a potion of his divinity that she had continued to wield for millennia. For a time she'd considered simply using it on him again, wrenching away as much power as she could, throwing it at Ahriman and then trying to flee in the issuing chaos. It might have had a decent chance of working too, oath or not if the demon god was to see Odysseus wounded and weakened he might not be able to help himself from attacking, an act that would result in repercussions for him after having broken his oath. It was a plan that would have had a fair chance of success, save for one detail.

Odysseus was no longer a hero.

The thought horrified her, but there was no denying it. A part of her Authority allowed her to feel the presence of heroes, to know which Authorities she could pull from them. Such was her nature, she was the daughter and priestess of the sun, both ruler and servant to the dawn. She was bride to heroes, but also their captor, the princess they saved but also the witch they feared. Once, Odysseus had landed upon her isle and he and his crew had faced her. He had overcome her then, winning his freedom and escaping her. Now though, now he was no longer a hero. She wasn't entirely sure what he was, but his core concept had warped so much that it no longer fell under the purview of her power.

With that option closed to her she could not move against him, but it did leave the option of her moving against the Campione, and that wasn't something the traveller god was willing to overlook.

"I . . . I do not believe it would be wise to go against Emiya Shirou. Though I might be able to steal some of his Authorities his strength is also in the weapons he can summon through his magic, and those are not an Authority. Should he succeed in using one to kill me then the captured divine powers shall be freed. It would be wisest to turn my attentions upon the other king Kusanagi Godou. He relies more heavily upon his Authorities, and should be the more suitable foe."

Well, it was the truth. Of course there was the other factor, namely that she feared to face the red haired King at this point in time, because with his sister missing he was far more likely to resort to lethal force if pushed. Kusanagi Godou was by all accounts a more reluctant man to go for the kill, and that was something she was looking for at the moment.

"Yes . . . yes, that could work in our favour. Ahriman will be taking care of our target, while I and his pets see to it that the handmaiden and the goddesses allied to him do not interfere. You can see to the other King and his women, your Authority would be a splendid counter to his own principle Authorities after all."

Odysseus's voiced musings made a surge of hope shoot through her, but again the goddess of the Dawn ruthlessly buried it to keep it from showing on her face. She couldn't let her eagerness show, couldn't allow any hint of what she wished to leak. Mad though he was her one time lover was still every bit as cunning and canny as she had ever known him to be.

"Do you think that you can endure against him? You are not yet recovered. Will you be able to last long enough to serve the plan?"

The absolute calmness with which he asked the question was chilling enough to send a bitter chill along her spine. He was in no way concerned as to her ability to survive a hostile encounter; his only worry was whether or not she would survive long enough to be useful. Granted, she was a goddess, no matter how reduced she may be by her wounds. Her immortality insured that even if Kusanagi Godou were to cut her down then she would still return to her legend rather than die as a mortal would. But in its own way that was bad enough. Odysseus . . . he no longer saw her as a partner or an ally, he now saw nothing but a tool. By this point it was possible that he had all but forgotten that she might have opinions and agendas of her own. It was a terrible thing, but at the same time it might work to her advantage.

More and more it was becoming clear that the seventh Devil King was her best chance at escaping the trap she found herself caught in. If she could convince Odysseus to send her against the young God Slayer then it would give her the chance to plead her case, entreat him for his protection. Ideally she hoped to find herself in a similar situation to the one that Tiamat had enjoyed with Emiya Shirou when he had sheltered her during her weakness. If the so-called King of Disaster would grant her that request then Circe would be happy, but if it meant gaining his protection then she was willing to accept a more . . . subservient role, if such was demanded of her.

"I . . ." She needed to word her reply carefully if she wanted Odysseus to send her where she wished. "I believe I will last longer against him than I would against any other enemy that we might face. Guinevere I shall be able to overwhelm, but in my weakened state she might use her mastery of her arts to delay me, so it would be best for her to be faced by one of Ahriman's creations. Lancelot or Tiamat though, they would be too much. Were I at the height of my power I might be able to defeat Lancelot, her nature is that of a hero after all. But Tiamat is the worst card that I could face aside from Emiya Shirou himself. Her strength is not tied to Steel or to heroism, indeed, in many ways she is the monster that would snatch away beautiful priestesses such as this goddess and hold them until the hero comes to save them. Were I to face her it would be a certain defeat for me.

"Kusanagi Godou, though . . . he is a different matter. We both know that he has spared Athena in the past, even though he could have bolstered his power by slaying her and claiming another Authority. This kindness, this weakness, would work well for my benefit if I face him."

Circe felt her tongue curl in distaste at the words she was speaking, referring to kindness and heroism as weakness. Even so, she needed to appeal to Odysseus' . . . altered point of view. If that meant disparaging the heroic qualities that set her heart to fluttering, well, that was something she was willing to do.

"Yes," Again the travelling god slowly nodded in agreement. "Your injuries could work to your advantage in that regard, leaving him reluctant to fully move against you. Yes, especially if you appear to be coerced. If there is some way to make you think that you are being driven to fight him that may well further stay his blows."

Once more he nodded to her, but it was obvious that he no longer saw her, his attention instead turned inwards. Turning away he made his way to another part of the warehouse, one that he had claimed as his own. There wasn't much there, aside from some cloths and furs that he had formed with his Authorities, but he tended to sit there, sharpening his weapons as he lost himself in thought. Circe was perfectly content to see him there; it meant that he was no longer pushing her with his demands.

"It is such a fine sight, is it not?"

It took every iota of self control that the Goddess of the Dawn possessed not to let out a scream of shock as the distorted voice of Ahriman's new host spoke from just beside her.

"W-What?"

She hated the slight quaver in her voice, but it slipped through despite her attempts to remain as unmoving as iron. It was a small thing, but it was a sign of weakness, and judging by the shark-like smile that spread across the face of the girl that the god of evil was possessing it had not passed unnoticed.

"Once he was so righteous, so noble, so heroic. At the fall of Troy he pled for Helen, even though it had been her infidelity that had led to the war and all the horrors it unleashed. Upon your isle he chose to face you rather than abandon the companions that had earned your ire and been turned into swine. Such heroics, such spirit, and now see what has become of him."

There was a horrible satisfaction in the voice which made Circe's insides roil in disgust. Had she been a mere mortal then the sensation would have been enough to drive her to her knees, as a divinity she simply endured it and kept staring at the possessed child.

"Now he is like a moth, dancing close to the flame which fascinates him, but which will ultimately consume him. Already he has fallen, fallen further than either you or he can see. I am almost tempted to hope that he does succeed in his plans, that he does retrieve this key from the corpse of the thief. I would dearly love to see whatever it was that has changed him so. For it to have driven him as it has . . . what a sight it must be."

Those eyes looked up at her, meeting the gaze of the goddess of magic.

"Do you wish to see it? Do you wish to know what it is that can drive even a hero god such as him insane?"

Then she was alone, the dark god leaving as suddenly as 'she' had arrived. Movement at the edge of her vision drew the goddess of magic's attention back to the spot where Ahriman had been standing before. 'She' was back there now, her form mostly concealed by shadows, but her pale face and hair hanging in the darkness like some sort of phantom drifting in the dark.

"I do! I wish to see what it was that broke him so. I want to see what possibly could have driven him to stray so far from what he once was."

Circe didn't answer. She knew no answer was expected or wanted, she knew that the dark deity was simply using her as an audience for 'her' musings. Just another example of how low she had fallen in the eyes of her 'comrades'.

She did not shake her head; she could not allow herself such an obvious sign of her feelings.

But she wanted to. Oh, how she wanted to.


-()-


Yamada Yusuke didn't consider himself to be any great authority on the matter of issues of the heart. Oh, he had managed to live his life with a relatively happy marriage, and he'd managed to raise two sons into decent enough young men and something close to productive members of society. Exactly how he'd managed it was still something he was a little unclear on, but as he'd stumbled through his duties as a husband and a father he must have somehow managed to get something right. By the time he'd gone to his death bed he'd been more or less satisfied with how he'd left the world, his regrets few and his good memories many.

Still, that didn't change the fact that he knew he was better at getting people to dance to his tune than he was at helping them deal with whatever was gnawing at them. He could manipulate them, get them to do what he wanted, send them where they needed to be to make the business run smoothly, slot them into place for the business like well oiled cogs into the machine, that was no trouble. Smarts, instincts and leadership, those he had in abundance, but for all that he'd never been so good at the touchy feely stuff.

That said, even he could tell that his young King needed some help.

He'd seen Shirou after the mess with Venus, and that had been hard to watch. It had been so clear that his liege was suffering wounds of the heart, but Yusuke had been clueless as to how to help. Setting up the island holiday had been Illya's idea, but once she'd suggested it the undead accountant had done all he could to make it reality. He'd rented the island, bought the yacht, hired the crew, set up everything that he could think of. In the end it had worked, and the black haze that had been following Shirou around had vanished like morning mist before the sun. But this, this was different.

"Shirou . . . look, you need to take a break."

His King looked up at him from where he had been tapping away on his laptop, his eyes blinking for a moment as they adjusted from the brightness of the screen to the shadows that filled the rest of the room as the sun began to set.

"What?"

The question wasn't angry or curious, it was more bewildered than anything else, and hearing it only convinced Yusuke that he was right to take the stance that he had.

"You've got to take a break! Get some rest, get some food! Right now you're just spinning your wheels. Everyone else is doing their part, now just trust them to do it right."

The eighth Campione didn't reply immediately, instead he just closed his eyes for a moment, then looked back up at his trusted servant.

"Yusuke, Illya's missing. I don't know who took her; I don't know why they took her. All I know is that whoever did it left a man splattered across most of an alley that I know my sister was in. That's all I know, and you want me to take a break?!"

Shirou didn't shout, he didn't even raise his voice, but the resurrected soul could hear the anger and frustration that danced on his tone. More than that though, he was suddenly keenly aware that this young man wasn't just his boss, he wasn't just his king. Shirou was as close to being a god to Yusuke as was possible. This young man had sovereignty over his very soul, a sovereignty that he'd accepted when he agreed to allow the God Slayer to bring him back to this world. He'd never used the authority he had over Yusuke, but at that moment the undead business manager could feel it looming behind him, like a massive wave just waiting to come crashing down.

Still, he couldn't allow himself to be frozen by intimidation. He was loyal to Shirou, and a part of loyalty was telling the person you were loyal to when they were acting irrationally.

"Shirou . . . I get it, I really do. Illya's gone, and you need to do something, anything, to help find her. I was the same when my oldest son went missing for a couple of days. We found him in the end, and it turned out that he'd gone drinking with his friends when he shouldn't have. That was all it was, but while I didn't know that, I was a mess."

Yusuke paused, then stepped forwards to put himself closer to Shirou's desk.

"You've done what you can; you've mobilized the people who are best at what they do to the tasks at hand. The Committee are using everything they've got to try and find her. Every other magical association in Tokyo, no, in the whole of Konshu, are doing their best to help. You've got goddesses and immortals on the case, using some of the best magic equipment that Illya could make. And you . . . what are you doing?"

Before Shirou could answer Yusuke stepped around the desk and was looking at the screen of his laptop. On the device was a map of the Shiokaze Koen Park area, something the resurrected soul could easily tell, given that he'd seen his King pouring over three other maps of the same area.

"Look at this! All you're doing is going over the same thing again and again!"

He paused, then gently but firmly pushed the laptop closed, then spun Shirou's revolving chair until the young Devil King was facing him. Shirou made no move to stop him, but there was a definite crease to his brow as he came face to face with the undead business manager.

"Shirou, you've got the best on the job. Right now there's nothing you can really do to add to the search. I'm sorry, but the truth is that your magic and Authorities just aren't suited to it."

Well, technically Yusuke wasn't entirely sure of that. Like the rest of the world he was somewhat in the dark as to just what the King of Steel was truly capable of, but since he was sure that if Shirou had possessed some relevant ability he would have used it by now he felt safe in his assumption.

"You aren't doing yourself or Illya any favours by going on like this. Trust others to do what they can, take some time to get yourself in order. I mean, you haven't slept or eaten since Illya went missing."

"I don't need to!" Shirou's answer was sharp as it came out, followed by him standing, forcing the undead soul to back up a bit. "I can go days or weeks without food or sleep, Yusuke, you know that!"

"Yeah, I do. The trouble isn't that you're just not eating or sleeping, you're rehashing what's been done by you and others! Yes, you can keep going, trying to check over what's been done, but if you keep pushing yourself like this then you're going to make mistakes because you're so tired. Is that what you want, to set things back because you'll end up misreading a couple of lines? Because that's what's going to happen if you keep going like this!"

Yusuke knew that somewhere along the line his use of metaphors had degenerated into a senseless mess, but he ploughed on, unwilling to give up the point.

"Look, you think that you've got to be doing something to help with Illya, but that's not the job you should be doing." He paused for a moment, trying to get his head in order, to line up the words that matched up with what he knew in his guts. "This, what you're doing, it's just . . . just make work, and it's not even useful make work. You can't help find Illya, not at this point. I know it's hard to accept, but that's the truth, deal with it and move on. What comes next, what we all do when we find her, that's where you need to be ready!"

Dismissing propriety, or even what could be called common sense, the undead accountant stepped forward and grabbed Shirou's shoulders. Them coming close like that, it highlighted how tall the young King was for his age, and how Yusuke was a bit below average, even if his advancing years hadn't managed to bend him.

"When we find her, and we will find her, there's going to be a god to fight. That's when we'll need you, that's when you've got to be ready for."

"I'm already ready." Shirou insisted, but his servant heard the lack of conviction in his voice.

"Yeah, I know you are. But are you at your best? Can you honestly tell me that if the call came, right now, that they'd found where Illya was and that they needed you to fight a strong god that you'd be able to give it your best effort?"

That one went home, he could see it. Just the slightest flinch back. Has Yusuke not known his King as well as he did then it might have gone amiss, but he'd been the first servant that Shirou had recruited, he'd been there since the beginning when the King of Steel arrived in Japan. He'd learnt about his King, learnt his habits, learned his preferred way of doing things. Seizing the opening he continued.

"Shirou, get some food in you, fill up the tank so you're at your best, then have a bath and get some sleep. Yeah, I know that you don't need them, but we both know that a fight is almost certainly coming, so it's your job to go into it as well prepared as you can."

He paused for a moment, then decided that maybe a joke would be in order, if only to break the tension that was filling the room.

"I don't think that Illya-chan would like her Onii-chan to be smelly when he rescues her, do you?"

For a moment he was worried that he might have pushed things a bit too far, then a smile creased his King's mouth, and a chuckle forced its way out.

"No, she wouldn't, would she?"

Yusuke returned the smile with his own, one tinged with relief that he hadn't overstepped himself too far.

"No. I can just imagine it; you having defeated some terrible god to save her, going to hug her and then her pushing you away, and saying something like; 'Onii-chan, just because you've got a Heretic God to fight it doesn't mean you can forget to shower'."

The undead soul had spoken in falsetto as he tried to imitate Illya, and the image was so ridiculous that both of them went from simple chuckles to actual laughter. That laughter was suddenly cut off by a distinct grumbling noise. The resurrected soul and the God Slayer both looked down as Shirou's stomach let out another impressively loud growl. The Campione's face reddened at the voluble demonstration that though he could last far longer than any mortal without food his belly wasn't happy about him trying to.

"Go have a quick shower and get a change of clothes," Yusuke suggested. "I'll tell Asuka to whip something up for you that you can eat as soon as you're finished with that. Trust me, after a wash, some food and a rest you'll feel much better."

"Well . . . 'hunger is the enemy' I suppose."

That sounded like a quote, but not one that the undead business manager recognized. Still, it did sound sensible, he could remember any number of long nights back in his youth when he'd worked extra shifts at his business and found hunger dragging him down.

"Right, you get going to your shower, I'll make sure that Asuka has you properly armed against hunger. Then you can see about getting yourself ready for your next enemy."

Seeing his King nod in agreement Yusuke turned and began making his way to the kitchen. If Asuka wasn't there then she wouldn't be too far from it, she guarded the kitchen more fiercely than a dragon would its hoard after all. The undead business manager wasn't entirely clear as to just who she was guarding it from, but he had to admit that she was dedicated in her vigil. Well, regardless of what perfidious presence she might be guarding her domain from he was sure that she'd have some food ready, or if not then she could prepare it at a moment's notice. Lancelot tended to be a big eater, and liked to have snacks at odd hours, so it was almost guaranteed.

Behind him he heard Shirou closing the door behind him as he came out of the study, and a quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that he was heading towards his room.

Good, things were beginning to look up.


-()-


The sun was setting, a fact that was proving to be extremely annoying to Takeya since it meant the sun kept on getting in his eyes.

Damn it! He knew he was right! He knew that the trail was leading here, but his group's leader had decided to call the search off over an hour ago, the gutless asshole. Alright, Takeya knew that his search method wasn't as . . . precise as he could have wished it to be, but he knew that he was onto something this time!

Saotome Takeya was not a member of the History Compilation Committee, but that was not due to a lack of trying. The young occultist might work most of the time as a chef at a seafood grill, but the mystic side of the world was where his passion really lay. The Committee was the premier magical association in Japan, their pre-eminence completely unchallenged, their resources immense, and now they were the official servants of a Campione! Was it any wonder that he regarded joining their ranks as the goal he'd always striven towards?

Unfortunately, the Committee had a number of standards that were required for their members, and Takeya had failed to meet them. Oh, they hadn't been cruel in their rejection, and he had managed to become an 'associate consultant' to the Committee, but that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted to be part of the group, to be able to feel that he was a component in the apparatus that had managed to keep his home nation from descending into ruin and chaos. He knew it was a rather egotistical reason to try, but it was his reason, and he was faithful in following it.

However, of the normal paths to gaining that membership, all were closed to him. The simplest, namely magical talent, had been his best bet, but his particular talent was frustratingly unreliable. Aside from that specific trick he was an enthusiastic amateur at best, not up to the level of being any use to the Committee. Likewise he didn't have any connections to get him in; no did he offer any resources that might have won him entry. Those that had taken his application attempts had not been unkind, they hadn't been cruel, but they hadn't let him in either.

But this . . . this was his chance, and he wasn't going to let anything screw it up for him.

Takeya's talent, the one that first led him into the world of the mystic arts, was a weird combination of divination and probability manipulation. When it worked as it should he could use it to get the results he wanted, such as dropping a stick and it pointing in the direction he needed to go. Or if he wanted to know how many people would be at a place he wanted to be he could roll dice and the number would come up. On the face of it his talent was an enviable one, one that should have left him able to coast through life with ease.

Unfortunately it was nowhere near reliable enough for that.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, and what made it worse was that most of the time he couldn't tell whether or not it was working, this had led to him having some disastrous false positives in the past, and the reason he was working as a chef rather than making a fortune by playing the stock market, or something of that nature. It had also cost him his chance to join the Committee, having failed him when he was asked to demonstrate it to an agent for evaluation.

Today though, today he'd been on fire!

It was hard to describe, but just in the way that a gambler might have a sudden massive run of good fortune so was Takeya having a good run on his gift. He knew he was, but the results it had been produced had been strange, so much so that his group leader had lost faith in them, but Takeya knew he was onto something.

When the call had gone out for any who could help with finding the lost sister of the eighth Campione the amateur occultist had jumped on the chance. His ability had been documented and researched by the Committee members that had met him, so its potency was known, along with its unreliability. The group he'd been told to join had been mainly composed of others like himself, peripheral associates to the History Compilation Committee as opposed to full members. All of them had possessed some talent that might conceivably be of use, but most of them had proven to be ineffective in the first few minutes. Hardly a surprise really, if he'd been the one to kidnap the beloved sibling of arguably the most dangerous Campione on the planet Takeya would have made damned sure that his location was as warded as was possible without the end result being that the ambient magic killed him.

His talent though, it was a different matter. Rather than trying to find the target it instead altered his own luck to put him on the right track, a method that it had been hoped was indirect enough that it might be able to bypass the methods the kidnaper was using to remain concealed.

Takeya had brought the most powerful mystic casting tools that his modest resources had allowed him to acquire, a number of casting bones used by Persian soothsayers hundreds of years ago. Getting them had cost him a large chunk of his savings, but he'd found that he generally got better results using the carved bull bones.

They had served him well today, and it had been amazing. Takeya had known in his guts that each time he rolled the bones had connected with his talent, that he was getting true results, not the false ones that plagued him so often. Again and again he'd rolled the bones, letting them tell him where to go, and then following them. He'd been absolutely sure he was right, certain that they weren't playing him false.

The problem was that the results they'd been providing hadn't been clear. The divinations provided by the bones had led the team from one end of the city to the other, meaning that they'd had to spend hours in cars, buses, or on the Tokyo train service. At first the others had been willing to follow, since Takeya seemed to be producing results, but as the hours mounted and their paths began to backtrack and cross over themselves doubts began to form in their minds. Several more hours later their group leader had called the search off, calling into the main office to inform them that the effort had yielded no results. Takeya had tried; he'd tried to get them to continue on. He knew, just knew, that he was on to something, that his talent, his divination, was on a roll.

He had no idea if it was something special, if he was somehow fulfilling a need to get it to work, but he knew it was. It had momentum behind it now; success after success was pushing him on to more success with it. Like a snowball tumbling down hill, gathering mass until it was an unstoppable avalanche. He could do this, this time, here, now, he could do it! He could find the Campione's sister.

So he had kept on going. Even after the others left, even after he was alone, he'd continued to roll the bones and follow their directions.

And now, here he was, and he was getting close to the kidnappers, he was completely sure of it.

The problem was that he was largely running on empty at this point. True, his talent wasn't taxing in terms of how much magical energy it took up, but he'd used it more today than he had in the entire past year. And that was on top of the physical exertions he'd pushed himself into as he'd gone all over the city. Granted, much of that had been using some form of transport or another, but even so it hadn't been easy by any stretch of the imagination. He might be closing in, but in danger of running empty as well soon.

Pausing he took out his water bottle and gulped down the last of the water it held. All he needed to do was hold out a little bit more. That was all, just a little bit more and he was sure he'd be able to find his quarry.

His divination had led him back and forth, and he had no idea as to why, but this latest trip, one which had led him to the Tokyo Industrial area. He'd actually passed by here earlier in the day, but that had been some distance off. Now his latest casting of the bones was leading him deeper into the area, past shut down machinery and among lengthening shadows. Around him were the whistles of wind blowing through machinery that stood idle, birds cawing quietly, litter tumbling about in the breeze. It was actually eerie to be here; to hear it so quiet when normally there should be . . .

Takeya came to a halt as he finally took full note of his own thoughts. Yes, it should be louder, even if this was a Sunday there should have been some work going on. Instead the place was quiet, deserted, dead. Up until now the amateur occultist had been so focused upon the readings of the bones and the sensation of his talent working that he hadn't paid any attention to his surroundings, not really. He'd been peripherally aware that he wasn't having to avoid people as much, but it hadn't been something he'd paid any great heed to.

Now? Now he was definitely paying attention, it was hard not to when all the warning in his head had decided to provide a musical accompaniment to the chills that were now waltzing up and down his spine.

This wasn't right; this place should not be anywhere near this quiet. Looking about him he could see that the machinery was new and in good repair. The buildings were clean, and through an office window he could see furniture about, a desk, even paper and pens on it. This was no shut down business or abandoned worksite. There had been people here only days ago, they had been working, so where were they now? Had they just left? Had they abandoned their workplace? Or had they not come back because . . .

Had anyone been watching then they would have seen Takeya's eyes widen in realization as he looked around again.

Had they been driven off somehow? Yes, that made sense! He was looking for the kidnappers of the Campione's sister, and it was generally accepted that if she had been taken by anyone then it was most likely a god that had done it. If that was true then it only made sense that she would be hidden by powerful wards, wards strong enough to make attempts to find her all but impossible. And such wards would need a large area to be set up, an area where you couldn't have ignorant mortals just blundering into you at inconvenient times.

Takeya might be overly ambitious and perhaps have a slightly inflated opinion of his own talents, but he was no fool, not when he got his brain in gear. He immediately turned and started to make his way out of the industrial area. And as he did so he reached into his pocket to fish out his cell phone. He'd done it! He'd been the one to find where the kidnappers were, HIM! Oh, to be sure his talent had led him on a rambling journey all across the city, but in the end it had managed what all the other mages in the Committee had not, it had succeeded where even the Campione themselves had failed!

"I think not."

He didn't have time to react; he didn't even have time to register her approach. It was as though her form arrived in the same instant that his mind understood her words.

Then there was pain.

Takeya fell to the ground, his legs seeming to lose all strength mid step. For a moment he tumbled, then he struggled upright again, wildly looking around as he tried to spot the small figure that had come out of nowhere. Again he tried to reach for his phone. He'd had it a moment ago, and he was sure he hadn't dropped it so . . .

He stared in mute incomprehension at the stump where his right hand had been. Oh, so that was how he'd dropped it. His thoughts were moving like cold treacle, his mind unable to fully grasp what he was seeing. His hand was gone? Where did it go, had it wandered off somewhere? Well, that wasn't too important, he could always find it later with his talent, he'd been having such success with it lately after all. No, what was of more import was that he'd spotted his cell phone. It was lying next to some sort of dried up old husk, but that wasn't important either.

What mattered was sending off his message, letting the Committee know what he'd found. Once they did then he was sure they would let him in. Hell, the Campione himself might be the one to offer the invitation if this helped him find his sister. Takeya could already imagine it, the glory, the recognition, the future opportunities to further his studies and become a true mage. All he had to do was reach the phone and send his message.

Except . . . he was feeling tired. So very tired. Well it had been a long day, all that dashing around, all that use of his talent. When you looked at it like that it was hardly a surprise that he would be feeling exhausted. Yes, maybe he should just sit here for a minute or two . . .

Or lie down. Yes, lying down was probably a good idea.

. . . Damn, he really was tired. Maybe a short nap. After all his phone would still be there when he woke up.

Yes, just . . . a short . . . nap . . .


-()-


"That was far more merciful that I would have expected of you."

Odysseus stared down at the corpse of the mortal magic user that had stumbled across the area they were staying in. Already the body was drying out and desiccating, as though it had been left in a desert for years beneath the burning sun. As he watched it the dried flesh cracked and split, then crumbled into a fine powder. In a matter of moments all that was left of the foolish mortal was a pile of clothes filled with the dusty remnants of his body.

The travelling god had not been surprised by what had been done to the man. His maiming and death had been foregone certainties as soon as it became clear that he was suspicious of their presence. Ahriman had claimed the right to deal with him, and given 'her' preferences it was all too likely that there would be no clean death for the man. No, what was more startling was the relative gentleness with which the man had died. Yes, taking his hand off to keep him from contacting anyone was brutal by mortal standards, but given Ahriman's inclinations Odysseus was surprised that 'she' hadn't gone on to hack his limbs off one by one, all while keeping him awake and aware of what was happening.

Instead the dark deity had taken one hand and applied a curse that acted as poison and destruction. Even more strangely the curse did not inflict pain as it worked; instead it had lulled its victim to sleep before slaying him. That was strange, out of character, and Odysseus didn't trust it.

"The man was but an ant in my path. At this time the vast majority of my curses reside elsewhere, growing stronger as they prepare. The curse I used to slay this mortal was not the one I would have taken the most pleasure in using, but it was the one more readily to hand."

The possessed girl gestured with the . . . thing in her hand, and god though he was Odysseus found himself disconcerted by what he saw.

In his life as a hero he had seen many weapons being wielded by himself and others. Swords, spears, axes, clubs, knives, daggers, shields, bows, all those and a multitude more had been in his hands or those of his allies. They had possessed many shapes and forms, but in the end they all had the same purpose, to reap the life of their targets. The implement in Ahriman's stolen hand was . . . different. It wasn't so much a weapon as it was the bastard offspring of some torturer's hook and the blades of a surgeon. The thing was a blade, but it formed a wide hook that almost made it a sickle, but which was fitted with further hooked blades extending from the outer side of the curve. The inside was as smooth and sharp as a razor, so much so that it had cut through the mortal without any effort on the part of its wielder.

This wasn't simply a weapon meant to kill, but it wasn't some mindless torture implement either. This was . . . cruel, that was the only way he could think to describe it.

No sooner had the thought run through his head that he saw movement upon the smooth inner curve of the blade. As his eyes flicked along its length he could see a smaller hook extend from the curve near the tip. It sat there, like a tooth or fang that had just grown. It was a small thing, but it did reveal more of the weapon's nature, something that grew crueller as it tasted more blood.

Well, that wasn't of any import at this point, the matter of the mortal, on the other hand, was something more pressing.

"Perhaps slaying him was not the wisest move, now we know nothing of who he contacted and informed of this place."

"The mortal was playing with his communication tool before I took his hand, but he had not yet been able to send a message. And even if he had it would have been meaningless since your pet goddess' magic conceals this entire area from the notice of those that might seek us." the possessed child said with absolute confidence. "Had he succeeded then his words would have been caught by her spell work and silenced from any chance of revealing us. Not that it matters, his being here on his own means little in the end. My preparations are near to completion, as are your own. Our need to remain concealed will soon pass, and we may move against our quarry with all odds in our favour."

'She' said those last words with relish, as though gleefully looking forward to her battle with the Campione when all his advantages and allies were stripped from him. Actually, that probably was the case, such a feast of broken hopes and despair would be a delicacy for the god of evil.

"Will they be enough though?" Odysseus questioned. "This wretched God Killer seems to gather allies like rotting meat does flies. Tiamat, Guinevere, Lancelot, all of them answer to him, and the other Devil King of this land will also take up arms to aid him if called upon. Will your creations be able to keep them from interfering when we deal with Emiya Shirou?"

"I have wrought rage, envy, greed, fear, madness, hunger, despair and lust into monsters that would make Tiamat's own children cringe away in horror," Ahriman boasted, 'her' free hand running through 'her' long pale hair in an oddly feminine gesture. "Corruption and destruction remain with me, as do all their attendants. Have no fear in that, when we hunt the thief his allies shall be unable to come to his side, and my strength shall be more than ready to tear what is mine from him. Then you may take what you wish and be gone on your own little expedition while I enjoy tormenting what remains."

The travelling god once more had to suppress a shudder as he looked upon the creature he had been forced to ally with. Well, in the end it didn't matter, not in the face of what he hoped to gain. What did this Campione matter? What did his allies matter? What did this entire city of mortals matter, when placed on the scales against his freedom? Yes, all would suffer, as what Ahriman was preparing to unleash upon them was a horror not seen upon this world for centuries. But it was all . . . so tiny, so meaningless.

"Will they be ready in time?"

"They are as grown as they can be now. Once their leashes are removed and they can feed freely then they shall grow further, grow until they can swallow even a god."

Ahriman smiled as 'she' answered, a smile that cut like broken glass.

"And what of our other accomplice? Has she seen fit to complete her side of the plan?"

Odysseus knew that the god of evil was trying to sow dissention. Even as he was allied to them 'she' could not help but try to pick apart the bonds of common cause that allowed them to ally. It was one of the reasons 'she' had so few allies in 'her' legend, 'her' very presence was corrosive.

Well, it wasn't as though that would matter for much longer. Things were coming to a head, soon battle would be joined and the bonds of comradeship would be irrelevant. As for Circe . . . he honestly had no real feelings in regard to her. If she completed her task and did her part to ensure the fall of the Campione then he would be willing to keep his end of the bargain he'd made with her. He would drop her off on some world, one where she could find heroes or gods to love, and then he'd leave her there. If she fell in battle with their foe he'd just leave her, he had no intention of waiting once he had gained the power he sought.

Soon, all that was needed was a bit more time.


-()-


"Of course Kusanagi-sama. If you'd be so kind as to wait here I shall inform Shirou-sama as to your presence."

"Errr, thanks."

Godou was never going to get used to being addressed like that. He was a high school student, for goodness sake. Regardless of what Erica or Yuri told him, he just didn't feel like a King. Yet, here he was, walking into a mansion that probably cost more than his parents could make in a lifetime. And, now that he thought about it, if he wanted one just as big then he could just ask for one and the History Compilation Committee would arrange it. Unless Shirou ordered them not to, of course, but that probably wouldn't happen.

. . . Hmmm, did he want a mansion?

No, best not let his thoughts go down that path too far, if he did then he might end up doing something he would regret. He'd been able to avoid abusing his authority as a Campione, mainly because he thought the whole idea of him having near unlimited power over others was more than a bit absurd, but that didn't mean he couldn't fall into bad habits.

Dismissing ridiculous thoughts of owning massive mansions, or sports cars, or his own baseball team, Godou followed the . . . what was this guy anyway? He wasn't anyone Godou had met before on his few trips to the Emiya manor, so he guessed that he must be one of Yusuke's assistants. Still, he was dressed up differently from the others, less 'higher class office worker' and more 'butler'. Well, it didn't matter; the seventh Campione knew that there were more people here than he'd met before.

As the butler-like fellow left Godou paused to take a look around the room he was waiting in. It seemed to be a western style conservatory, one of those outside rooms where most of the walls were made of glass so that it had a great view of the garden. It was quite the luxury, given how small most estates were, and was just another demonstration of how large the manor's grounds were. The room had a number of comfortable armchairs and couches set about it, giving it a less than formal air. He could see why it had been set up as a room to let guests wait in, since it served to show off the grounds while also being an example of luxury, a cunningly subtle move.

Illya, he decided, was probably the one that set it up. Shirou . . . well, Godou was having a bit of a hard time getting a grip on his personality, but he was growing increasingly sure that the more formal and king-like persona that Shirou adopted on occasions was just that; a persona. His snowy haired sister on the other hand, she was a good deal more conniving than her innocent appearance would suggest. Setting up a room that delivered a subtle message like this one did was something he could see her doing

That thought led him back to the reason he was here. Illya was gone, and Godou knew how much Shirou cared for her. He'd been there when that message from the Circle had arrived, he'd seen the rage that had seethed within his fellow King at the thought of his sister being hurt, and Godou did not want to get caught in its path.

Besides, Illya-chan might be a bit of a creepy kid, but she was also a pretty nice girl. Shizuka wasn't quite the easiest girl to get along with; even though she had a large number friendly acquaintances she had surprisingly few friends. It wasn't that she was unpleasant or unfriendly; rather it was that her combination of assertiveness and capability that lent itself to being a bit intimidating to others. They could respect her, they could like her, but children her age had a hard time getting close to her. Illya-chan though, she had no such feelings of intimidation, hardly a surprise for a girl that when kidnapped by a cult proceeded to seize control of it over the bloodied corpse of its previous leader. The snow haired girl was absurdly smart for her age, and was becoming a good friend to his own sister.

Godou was willing to lend any help he could to aid in finding Shirou's sister, but sadly at the moment that wasn't very much, aside from good wishes and emotional support. His Authorities, sadly, weren't suitable for this situation. If Illya-chan had sworn herself to his protection then it might be a different matter, then she could just call for his aid and his Wind Authority would let him travel to her side. However no such convenient option was available as things stood. Erica and the others were already out, trying to use their own skills to aid in the search. Erica and Liliana were using their respective crafts to see if they could find anything, while Yuri was working with her own sister and Ena to se if they could use a ritual to entreat the gods of Japan for aid. That had left the seventh Devil King with nothing to do, so he'd come here to see if there was anything his fellow King could suggest. And if not, then at least he could offer his support.

". . . ust through here, sir."

Godou glanced over to the door as he heard voices approaching. Realizing that he was still standing he sat down in one of the armchairs and waited.

He didn't have to wait for long, because just after he did so the door swung open to admit Shirou. The eighth Campione was dressed in his usual attire, blue trousers, white sneakers, and a white sweatshirt with blue sleeves. Idly the Kusanagi heir wondered just how many of those Shirou actually had, given that it seemed to be all that he wore apart from his school uniform. Well, that and his jackets, he supposed.

"Ah, Godou, what brings you here?"

The King of Steel didn't look at his best. He looked tired, but given what Erica had told him about him not having stopped for a moment since Illya-chan had been captured it wasn't nearly as bad as he'd been expecting. For a moment Godou wondered if that was just due to his Campione vitality. Did that mean that Godou could do the same thing? Well, it wasn't something he was eager to try, but it would make the option of cramming for finals a bit more practical.

"I . . . I came to see how you were doing."

It was the truth; he was here, at least partially, out of concern for his fellow God Slayer. Of course, he was also here because he couldn't really think of any other way to be of any use, but he didn't have to mention that.

"I'm frustrated," Shirou admitted as he slumped down into an armchair. "Illya's out there, and I have no idea what they're doing to her. I don't know if she's been kidnapped as bait, if she's going to be used as some sort of sacrifice, or if she's going to be chopped up and used as food!"

Alright, that was a bit darker than Godou had been expecting. In his experience Heretic Gods, regardless of how wild they were, weren't generally cruel towards mortals. More often the case was that they were uncaring of them, much as a charging bull would be unmindful of ants crushed beneath its hooves. Actually kidnapping someone was out of character for the ones he'd met, but he'd have expected them to use her to play out a performance of their past heroic deeds, or something of that nature. Actually hurting or even killing her deliberately, that seemed unusual from what he knew.

Still, he freely acknowledged that he was no great authority upon the gods, so he supposed it was possible. Most of the gods he'd faced already, such as Verethragna or Athena, had possessed heroic natures in their legends. There were gods that hadn't been anywhere near as kind or noble in their lives on earth, he knew that from the research he'd conducted in his own spare time.

"Hey," he said, trying to draw his host out of those dark thoughts. "I know that it's a pain, but we've got to trust that our allies know what they're doing."

He waved a hand in a vague gesture that took in most of the room and the rest of the world in general.

"You and me, we can fight, we can slay gods, hell, we can level cities. But all that means is that we're strong, it doesn't mean that we're all powerful. There's stuff we can do, and there's stuff we can't, that's why we've got friends and allies, so they can help us where we need them."

Godou knew he wasn't saying things as clearly as he wanted to, but he was having a bit of trouble coming up with the right words. Still, he struggled on, hoping that he'd hit the right note if he tried hard enough.

"I'm sure that Illya-chan is . . . no, actually I don't know that she's fine, but I think the odds are good on it. If anyone did kidnap her then they would have wanted her for something, killing her just wouldn't make sense."

Again he paused, his mouth having run ahead of his mind, and his thoughts now needing to play catch up.

"Look . . . is there anything else you can do at the moment? Anything to prepare or something like that?"

His question was something of a stab in the dark, trying to find something else to talk about, but it seemed to do something as Shirou's face grew somewhat contemplative.

"I'm going to get something to eat. Would you like to join me?"

The statement and the question caught Godou by surprise. When he'd asked he'd been expecting something like the King of Steel unveiling some strange mystic weapon that nobody had ever heard about, or for him to uncover some complex contingency that he'd prepared months ago. This was the same guy that had planned for the eventuality of his own will being usurped after all, such possibilities weren't that impossible. So an offer for a meal was . . . somewhat underwhelming, if he was being completely honest.

On the other hand, he still remembered just how delicious the food that had been served at his famous Feast had been. And it would be rude to turn down such a request, right? As a gracious guest joining his host for a meal was only polite, after all.

"Sure."


-()-


Asuka was glad that her King was sitting down to a decent meal. What she had served him earlier had been essentially reheated leftovers, nothing that she considered to be a proper meal. Granted, it had been better than the few small snacks that he'd had over the last couple of days, but even so it wasn't what she had regarded as suitable sustenance.

She had seen the logic of it though. Get some food in him, then make sure that he rested for a bit, that had been the essence of Yusuke's plan. Nothing complicated, just making sure that their monarch had some fuel for his body and a chance to rest himself both physically and mentally. After the way he had been pushing himself the undead housekeeper agreed that he had needed it, but she still felt that a proper meal would have been better than the slapped together affair that she'd been forced to produce on short notice.

Now, it had been a few hours since her King last ate, and he had spent most of that time asleep, and apparently he had woken up hungry. His meal had been slightly delayed by the arrival of Kusanagi-sama, but in the end that had simply resulted in another mouth to feed. And that was fine with her. Given her near unlimited food budget, excellent utilities, and her own talents Asuka preferred to make large meals. Given how many people now called the manor their home there was always someone that wanted something to eat, so there was no danger of any food going to waste.

She'd been preparing a special meal for her King though, and she had to admit that she felt a certain level of pride in that it was going to be served to another as well. The dining hall was currently empty, so she was setting one table for two as though it were a casual business meal. And she had the food ready for when Shirou-sama and his guest arrived, the table was prepared, she'd even gotten some freshly made fruit juices ready.

". . . roblem is that I don't want to put any limits on her freedom. Yes, I want to make things safer for her, but if I take things to far then it'll only make her unhappy."

"I get where you're coming from, but I think you're underestimating her a bit. Sure, she might not like it, but I think she's smart enough and mature enough to understand why it would be needed."

"Yeah, I think so too, but I don't want to, y'know? Illya's had a very hard life until recently; I don't want to be the one that has to make her . . . hold back, not when she's free now."

Asuka was rather startled at the casual way in which Shirou-sama was speaking with his fellow God Slayer. Always before he had been formal and regal when he had talked to other Campione, so this change was unusual. Though, now that she thought about it, it made sense that he would become more casual with his fellow Japanese King. He was the only other Devil King that her liege ever had regular interactions with, given that the others lived in other countries while Kusanagi-sama attended the same school as him. The two of them had to interact in a setting where Shirou-sama couldn't use his more formal manners without raising suspicions with the normal students, so it was hardly a surprise that they'd grow more comfortable with casual talking.

Well, in her opinion that was all for the best. Her King was a most admirable young man, one who had not allowed himself to be corrupted by the power he possessed, but who instead conducted himself as a king should. He was a kind and just master to the souls and living that served him, and he was a gracious host to those that lived here that were his equals, but he didn't have any . . . peers was the closest word she could think of.

Shirou loved his sister, and she clearly loved him back, but close though they were there was also a slight distance due to a separation in who they were. She was younger than him, still maturing and learning what she liked, he was older and already knew what he like. There were even more basic differences, such as him being a boy and she a girl, him wielding the power of a god and she simply being a very skilled magic user. They were family, they loved each other, but they were not on an equal footing.

The same could be said of the divinities and immortals that had come to live in the mansion. Guinevere was now clearly devoted to her new King, but that very devotion kept her from being his equal. Tiamat and Lancelot were closer in that they were being that were on a level footing with him in terms of sheer power, but for all that they weren't like him, they weren't mortal. As deities they might be close to human, but the way that they thought, the way they lived, it was different enough that there was little common ground to be found in that regard.

When you got down to it the power and prestige of being a Campione could be quite isolating. Kusanagi-sama was able to avoid it due to not allowing the supernatural aspects of his life to spill over into his mundane ones. That and he had those girls who quite clearly respected him but were unwilling to be less than him, but even so there must be a slight gap there somewhere given the gulf in power between them.

Really, the two young God Slayers of Japan were somewhat absurdly lucky when you thought about it, two young men of a similar age acquiring such power, and both of them being sensible enough to be restrained in its use. And on top of that they lived so near to each other, close enough that meeting up was a largely casual matter. What were the odds?

When you looked at it from that perspective it was hardly a surprise that the two young men would become friends, after all it was human nature to wish for peers.

Shaking herself from her thoughts the housekeeper stepped around her kitchen counter and respectfully nodded to the Devil King that had called her soul back from the veil of death.

"Shirou-sama, the food is prepared. I trust that you and your guest are hungry?"

It must have been at about that time that the scents from the kitchen reached their noses because with an almost eerie synchronicity both of their stomachs growled at the same time. The two of them had the grace to look embarrassed, but she just smiled in response.

"That sounds like a 'yes', so why don't you sit down and let me serve you?"

She watched as the two young men seated themselves, then went to fetch the first course.

"Here you go, Shirou-sama, Kusanagi-sama, this is a cheese and mozzarella salad, served with freshly cut basil and a light olive oil salad dressing. Please enjoy."

"Thank you, Asuka," Shirou-sama stated as he reached for his fork. "This looks delicious."

"Yes, thanks." The other Campione agreed as he reached for his own cutlery.

As they began to eat the housekeeper allowed herself a private smile. Of all her duties cooking was definitely the one that she took the most pleasure in, and that wasn't just because she liked to eat her own food.

A good meal could do so much to improve one's day. You could be tired, exhausted even, burnt out, in despair or fuming with rage, and in all cases a good meal was often an important part of getting back onto an even keel. If you knew what to make then you could help a person get back to their best, and that was something that she liked doing.

The fact that it was damned tasty didn't hurt matters either.

The meal that she had planned for her King and his guest was one that was fairly simple, but had hidden depths. The salad they were enjoying was going to be followed by steak meal, but not just any steak. This was going to be a quality steak that she had had delivered within hours of the bull it came from having been slaughtered. She'd salted and aged it herself then fried it to perfection. It was now sitting on a bed of potatoes and shallots in her oven, which was just hot enough to keep it nice and warm without drying it out. When the God Slayers were finished with their first course she would cut it in two and serve it up to them with the vegetables that had soaked up its juices. It was a simple dish, but one that she knew could be delectable if done correctly.

As an added bonus the rich protein was also good for filling her King up with fuel in case he was going to have to fight soon. With Illya-chan having been taken it was almost a certainty, but Asuka continued to hope that it would turn out to be another group of idiotic ambitious fools. If that was the case then it wouldn't be so hard to deal with them, indeed Illya-chan might deal with them by herself once more. However the longer she was gone the more likely it seemed that the one responsible was a deity of some kind, and if that was the case then her liege was going to have to fight.

Asuka knew that she was no warrior. She knew she wasn't a coward, she'd died saving those children, and she'd braved the flames of a collapsing house to do it, but in the end she had no strength to back up her courage. She could not stand at her King's side if he marched to battle, so in the end this was the best she could do, make sure that if he had to fight he wasn't going to do so hungry.

Turning around she headed back into her kitchen.


-()-


"All preparations are complete."

Circe was surprised that Odysseus did not shout the words in triumph; rather he spoke them in a flat and neutral tone. Over the past few hours he had become increasingly insistent as she had placed the last of the wards that he had ordered her to create. The last ones had been a particular nightmare as he had hovered over her shoulder, watching with ill concealed impatience as the glowing lines of her magic had inscribed the last of the runes that completed her preparations.

His quiet was actually more disconcerting than a cry of exultation might have been. That she could have understood, this sudden absence of the emotions that had been running high not a few moments before was much harder to comprehend.

"Oh? Does this mean that it is finally time to move upon our target?"

There was no disguising the naked hunger in Ahriman's tone, regardless of how distorted 'her' stolen voice might have been by her possession and power. The evil god was eager for this, knowing full well what was to be unleashed this night. Pain, death, chaos. All of them were going to be set loose soon, and the goddess of the Dawn knew that she would have a hand in the devastation that was to come.

"Yes," Odysseus gestured to the large sheets of cloth that Circe had been working on for the last few hours. "These will see to allowing your creations to remain hidden for a short time. Concealed as they will be they shall spread out across the city; take the positions that we had chosen for them. Then they can be unleashed when we want them to be."

The goddess of magic had no idea why Odysseus was repeating himself like this. Both Ahriman and her were aware of the plan already, but even so their nominal leader continued to speak his plan as though he feared they would forget it if he didn't repeat it to them.

"They shall have to spread out, one to each of the monster at the very least. Maybe more? More than one, would they do that? Maybe, maybe if the monsters are strong enough, if they have fed enough. If they grow too large then they would need two, two, one immortal and the other a mortal? Which two would they be? Tiamat and who? Lancelot and who? Those knights that follow the other King? That priestess and her defender that serve him?"

He turned and stalked over to the table where a map of the city was spread out. Circe disliked the map, disliked the way it was a collection of twisting lines and dots. Disliked the way the lines were of different colours and yet seemed to follow no order that she could discern. The maps she was familiar with had had lines for roads, outlines for hills and mountains, colours to differentiate between land and sea, rivers and fields. Those were the maps she knew, and she had always found a slight delight in the art that mortals could put into their creation. This map though, it was an ugly mess of lines that seemed to be little more than an incomprehensible mess.

Yet Odysseus seemed to be able to read it easily enough, for he had stabbed small daggers into it at different points to mark the locations where Ahriman's monsters should begin their rampage. A single golden coin also sat upon the map, representing the home of their target.

"What is there left to consider?" the possessed form of the young girl stepped up beside the former hero and waved her hand at the map. "My beasts are ready, your traps are set, your followers' enchantments prepared, and your weapons are sharp. Why do you hesitate? Are you concerned about what you will be unleashing upon these poor mortals? Does the thought of their tiny lives being snuffed out hold you back?"

Circe knew that it was not that which caused Odysseus to hesitate, but even so she hoped that there was some element of it in his choices, some hint of his former heroism fighting to push through. Such thoughts were shattered though, when her one time lover threw his head back and guffawed with mirth.

"Do you truly think that I hold back for the sake of these mayflies Ahriman?" he asked as he drew himself back under control. "Their lives are meaningless, gone in a short time and leaving no meaningful impression upon the world as they depart. I could slay them by the legion and it would be as inconsequential as stepping upon an ant! Do you know how meaningless they all are in the face of all there is? Hah, for the first time in eternity you have actually made a fine jest, old evil."

There was no mistaking the utter fury that crossed Ahriman's stolen face as Odysseus continued to laugh, and Circe felt the ichor in her veins begin to chill as she wondered if this was the moment that her former lover would push things too far. The old god of evil was dangerous for many reasons, but one of the worst was 'her' unpredictability. Yes, 'she' had sworn a mighty oath upon that which as dear even to one such as 'her', but spite and cruelty and viciousness were as much a part of the old deity as their name. If 'she' was mocked, if 'she' was taunted, then there was a chance that 'she' would lash out at Odysseus regardless of the cost that it might entail.

The moment ended though, and Ahriman made no move to lash out. Instead the possessed child turned back to the dark corner of the warehouse where 'her' creations swam in the unnatural darkness that choked that part of the building.

"Then what is the delay, Traveller?"

As 'she' asked the question a serpentine form briefly emerged from the obscuring blackness, licked at 'her' hand and then fell back into the unseen black. Circe twitched ever so slightly as she saw this. It would have been so easy to mistake the little exchange as a display of affection or perhaps as an acknowledgement of dominance, but she knew better. Her magic was ever active, and among the spells and charms that she always had upon herself were those that ensured she was aware of the forces at work in her surroundings. That creature had not been doing anything so harmless as trying to show regard or affection, it had been tasting the body that had come close to it. It had tasted, but it had tasted not prey but rather the miasma of curses and evil from which it had been born. It had fled back into the darkness rather than remain in the face of that which had forged it.

"Why not send out my creations now?"

"There are still missing parts, like the other King, not the one we hunt, but the other. What will he do in all this? Where will he be? Where will he run? We can determine the path and actions of the other one, the one we hunt, because we have what he wants. We can dangle the bait before him and he shall charge in the direction that we choose, but the other one, he is a problem."

"If you have doubts as to what the other Demon King shall do then simply bait him as well."

Ahriman's response was dripping with contempt as 'she' stated the solution to the problem.

"Bait? What bait? We have nothing that he wants, nothing that we can draw him with. What bait do we have that we can use?"

"Is he not a God Slayer? Is he not a mortal that gained power through the slaughter of a god? What finer bait could there be for such other than a god, or goddess?"

Odysseus paused, then looked over at Circe. In turn the goddess of magic felt her body grow heavy, more so than could be accounted for by the metal limbs that she was using in order to overcome her wounds. Was this it then? Was this the moment when her former ally decided that her death would be more useful than her life?

Well, if that was the case then she wasn't going to go quietly into the darkness. She knew that she was easily the weakest deity here, but she also knew that her mastery of magic lent her a flexibility that her 'allies' lacked. If they did move against her then the first thing she would do would be to break the wards that she had set up, then channel as much power as she could into the spell circles she had prepared. If they were so eager to be rid of her then she would rob them of any chance at stealth as a payment.

"No," The traveller god said, his words making her pause in her plans as she looked at him. "Circe is too valuable to be so carelessly spent, not in such a manner."

Well, at least he still seemed to have some regard for her value as a resource, if nothing else. Also it did not escape her attention that he had made no mention of the promises that had been exchanged in order to secure her aid. Nor was there any mention of her being too valuable to use at all.

"However there is something to your suggestion. Alone she would be too weak to hold a Campione for any length of time, not through strength alone. However she does have her Authority of Hero Confinement might make her a more formidable foe for the older King than we think . . ."

His voice trailed of as his gaze upon her grew more considering.

"There should be more though, if she were to slay the King rather than merely delay him then it would be far more ideal for us. Perhaps . . . can you command some of your creations to serve her? If she can control them after they have strengthened themselves by feeding then they may aid her in her own battle. Even if her full strength has not yet been restored with the aid of some of your monsters she might be able to hold the other King long enough for us to each achieve our objectives. Then she can leave them while she escapes and joins up with us."

That was somewhat encouraging, to a degree. The plan he'd come up with was one that at least had some chance of her coming out of it alive. Unfortunately it also involved her commanding those monster that Ahriman was creating, and that thought appealed as much as the notion of bathing in the offal of beasts, at least that way she would feel cleaner.

Those monsters were created from the darkest emotions and curses that the god of evil had dominion over. They weren't like the mythical beasts that Circe could call into being to serve her, nor were they like the dragons that Tiamat could birth with her Authority. Instead they were incarnations of some of the darkest aspects of life, the cruel, the twisted, the shameful aspects of mortal existence that even a goddess such as herself did not like to think of, much less be near.

"Oh, I am certain I can spare a pair of my new children to accompany her. If she is to face the Seventh of the Devil Kings then our ally should be guarded by the strongest of my new children. Destruction and Terror should be fine choices for this role, once they have fed well they shall prove a challenge even to one that wields the power of Verethragna."

Ah, the old devil knew full well how 'her' offer of aid was being received. It was clear in 'her' stance, the way 'she' smiled as the offer was made. Ahriman was well aware of how Circe felt about allying with 'her' creations, and was taking pleasure in the solar goddess' discomfort.

No, more than that. Circe had no idea how she was going to sever her ties with her two 'allies' but she had already determined to do so during their attack upon the eighth Campione. She had no plan, but she had been certain that she would be able to find some sort of opening that she could take advantage of. Maybe she could offer information in exchange for sanctuary; maybe she could manipulate them all into fighting each other, then make her escape as the battle went on. Whatever the case, Ahriman had just placed a leash about her neck by agreeing to place his monsters under her command. She had no doubt that they would obey her, but she also had no doubt that they would turn upon her at the first sign of her moving against the old devil's own plans.

Damnation, she had been cut off before she could take even the first step towards her freedom from this pair of mad deities.

No! She had to remain calm! There had to be some way out of this, she simply needed to find it. All she needed was a little time in which to-

"Now!" Odysseus' voice cut her off before she could think of anything else. "It shall be now. Ahriman, release your beasts! Garb them in the veils that Circe has prepared and send them to wait at the spots that I have chosen. Keep the two you spoke of though, they shall serve as an honour guard for our fair goddess."

"Ah, finally!"

There was a distinct note of satisfaction in the dark god's voice as 'she' turned to the spot where her creations were gathered. At a single gesture from their creator the monsters burst forth.

It took every bit of the self control that she had been carefully cultivating over the last few weeks to keep Circe from recoiling in disgust. The creatures that Ahriman had created were revolting to look upon. They flittered through the air and scurried along the ground in ways that made her think of carrion birds on a battlefield or insects feasting upon corpses. They all had an unfinished look to them as well, as though what she was seeing was not their true form, but rather an incomplete state as though they had crawled from a cocoon too early.

Another gesture from the possessed girl and the ill formed monstrosities began to make their way over to the part of the warehouse where Circe had been working. Internally shuddering as the creatures drew nearer to her the goddess of magic made a gesture of her own, causing all the sheets of fabric she had been working upon to rise into the air. Another gesture from her sent them flying at the creatures, each inscribed sheet wrapping itself around one of them like a cloak. As soon as the creatures were so clad they turned away from her and instead made their way out of the warehouse.

Some of them ghosted through the walls as though they were no more substantial than a dream, others smashed into the walls of brick and mortar and clawed their way through. Their ferocity was not unexpected, but it still made Circe shudder inside once more.

"Good, they shall soon have taken their places. Now we should prepare to take our own."

The Goddess of the Dawn hadn't realized how close Odysseus had come to her, and again it was only due to her self control that she was able to keep from recoiling.

"Soon, soon it shall be time for our assault. Revenge for Ahriman, freedom for me, and you shall finally be able to find the hero that you can love."

He sounded oddly gentle, as though some trace of the old hero had returned. And in that moment a tiny spark of hope flared up in Circe's heart. Then she looked into his eyes, and that spark was extinguished. So deep, so hungry, so uncaring. Those were the eyes of a mad beast, not the hero that had traded his own freedom for the lives of his companions. There was no hope to found in them.

Turning away from him the Goddess of the Dawn instead turned to look out of one of the warehouses few windows. Outside the sun was beginning to go down. Soon night would arrive, and with it all that Ahriman and Odysseus were planning to unleash.

Darkness was falling, and deep inside her she wondered if a dawn would ever come after the night that would soon be here.