Hello there. I would like to say it's good to see you, but I come bearing only bad news. I'm putting this story up for adoption. I had already begun overwhelming myself with a lot of other story ideas by the time this had come out and to this day I am still somewhat paralyzed. I would like to get it off of my plate so that I can focus my energy on writing my other fics.
FFN technically doesn't allow you to post only author's notes as a chapter, so I will give you what I wrote already for the second chapter. Note this is unpolished, unworked on by any of my friends. I give it to you in the hopes you can do something interesting with it. You don't have to ask me for permission, just give it your best shot.
Two knocks on his door, soon followed by a third.
"Ani-ue," Reines called out, "are you busy?"
"Yes," was the quick reply she received. She looked back at Gray, whose eyes were anxious at the thought of disturbing her sensei, but shrugged and opened the door anyway.
"Well, you can't be that—"
"Reines, shut up or get out." His tone was so pointed that she wouldn't be surprised if he started growing spikes. He still hadn't looked at her, staring intently at the TV.
"Testy today, aren't we?" she said quietly, moving away from the door to allow Gray to hesitantly enter.
"Be quiet."
She turned her attention to his television as well, noting that it had been tuned to BBC News, currently displaying a pair of male and female anchors.
"Our Top Story of today: last night, Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi along with the entire National Diet was killed in what is being described as a freak terrorist incident that has shut down the island nation. We go now to our Asian correspondent, Dean Gallard, in Shanghai. Dean, what've you got for us?"
The image switched to a young man, brown-haired and worry painted in his green eyes, though he tried to hide it with his stern expression.
"Not much, I'm afraid. The Japanese ambassador has locked himself in his compound here in the capital, and notice has been sent out to all Japanese citizens abroad to extend their stay out of the country as long as they can."
"Last night," her adopted older brother said as the man continued to talk, "really yesterday afternoon, one of my contacts in the Orient sent me the following information."
He held out a printed letter to her that she took without word.
Veil torn. Send help.
"Veil...?" Gray asked.
"Something happened that broke the secret of magecraft," Waver said. "Something that has apparently crippled the government and closed the country off. I was already aware that the Holy Grail War was supposed to start early this year, but—"
He stopped as a crack of thunder rang out so loudly that his TV speakers strained and crackled.
"W-What?" The young reporter could not hold his shock back any longer as the sky turned red and cloudy. All the sunlight of the day was washed away as a thunderstorm of enormous proportions coalesced from nothing, and lightning rained from the sky, shattering the windows of every glass tower in sight.
Gray gasped as a bloody monster appeared out of thin air, causing both the cameraman and reporter to scream. The camera was quickly thrown to the ground as its holder began to sprint away, but it landed at the perfect angle to watch as the reporter was speared through the heart with a lanky, three-clawed hand. His death gurgle was cut off as the image quickly transitioned back to the news anchors, whose expressions were equally pale.
"We'll..." The female anchor hesitated, swallowing. "We'll be right back."
The clack of a lock being closed echoed in the silence, and Reines turned to see her brother closing a briefcase.
"Shishou, where are you going?" Gray asked before she could.
"Rome," he said, pulling out a cigarette from his desk drawer and lighting it. "I'll be negotiating with my contacts in the Church."
He turned to exhale away from them.
"I have a feeling that whatever this is, it will not be stopping at the East."
[GREATER THAN FEAR]
Shirou heaved, leaning on the empty barrel of the shotgun. Nothing was left in his stomach by now, so all he tasted was bile and spit, but he had to try anyway. An intestinal mass speared out of the earth before him, straight through old man Masamune's electronics store, and surrounding it was at least two and a half dozen bodies, their innards strewn about like dinners that toddlers had played with. Some had been there when the two of them had arrived, but others had fallen by his hand.
His white shirt had long since been painted red and yellow, and his skin was caked in blood and entrails. The constant sense of disgust haunted him for hours now.
He hadn't been prepared to kill, but it was kill or be killed, and the Slayer made a good argument for killing.
The soldier tore through their foes like wet papyrus, an unstoppable machine that both input and output violence. He was diligent in his destruction, and yet somehow he always left a few of the shambling zombies around for Shirou to practice his aim on. He would dig up boxes of ammunition in between the viscera and rubble, seeming to conjure them from nothing, and every other case of shotgun shells he found he would throw to Shirou. Small kindnesses that Shirou never would have expected from the imposing soldier kept coming.
"The local Gore Nest is now cleared," said Vega, the Slayer's AI. "I will mark a path on your HUD that will take you to the nearest proto-Hive."
"Wait, hold on—" Shirou coughed violently, but managed to speak. "Can we—can we please take a second to rest?"
The Slayer turned to look at him, or at least Shirou thought he did, and after a few moments he nodded and walked to a pile of rubble that was marginally less stained than any other nearby pile. As Shirou followed him, he sat down and pulled a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun from his hip, cleaning it with a grimy rag he dragged out of the rubble.
Shirou fell down beside him with a grunt, putting the shotgun to his side (barrel facing away, he had learned his lesson) and leaning back on his arms. The red sky was continuing to darken as what last amount of natural sunlight slowly faded over the horizon, replaced instead by an ominous glow that cracked with every peal of thunder. He could still hear—
the screams the begging the crying the tears
pleading for rescue pleading for saving
please let me live let me live I don't wanna die I don't wanna die
Shirou bit his tongue, forcing the flashback away with the taste of iron pain. Every plume of smoke on the horizon was a fog of memory that he had to fight through, and only terror and adrenaline proved to be strong barriers against it. He shook his head, throwing the last pieces of the nightmare away, and focused on his breathing until he started to relax.
"Vega," he said, "how far have they gotten now?"
A pause.
"Recent satellite imagery shows that 17% of the downtown district has been razed," the AI said. "A further 29% has been heavily damaged, with at least two skyscrapers having collapsed. There have been no official estimates of lives lost yet, but reports indicate that simultaneous demonic invasions are commencing in neighboring countries. At the current growth rate, Japan will fall within the week."
Shirou let out a shuddering breath. He was still trying to get a handle on the situation, and here it was escalating even further beyond his grasp.
"What are we going to do?" he asked.
"The Slayer believes that, as the first location of the outbreak, the source must be in the vicinity of this metropolitan. He will be searching for connections to it as we destroy more Gore Nests. You are welcome to accompany him."
"Of course!" Shirou couldn't stop now. Not when he was given the chance to do something with his life. Something immediate and concrete, that he could physically see the results of. He would help save his home.
The sound of rubble falling had him turning his head up, but the Slayer had gotten up even faster and pointed his gun toward the sound.
"...can't believe this stupid Grail War. First it was early, then I got Archer, and now freaking demons are invading."
He knew that voice.
"Actual, goddamn, interdimensional demons," said Rin Tohsaka from what must have been just a block down the street. He strained to look around the Slayer's legs. She was accompanied by a tall man dressed in black with a red overcoat, and instantly Shirou felt in his gut that this man was anathema to him. "What's next? Super AIDS?"
"Rin," the tall man said, "stop it. We still haven't fully gotten over SARS yet."
"How the hell do you know that?" She spun around to face him. "There's no way the Grail told you that."
"I—uh—I mean—look over there!" The man pointed over in their direction.
"Stop trying to distract—huh?" Rin finally noticed the two of them. "Who the—Archer, is that a freaking Servant?"
"Doesn't look like any kind of Servant I've seen..." the man said. "Wait a second..."
His face grew dark as he spotted Shirou.
"Oh, of course you're here." He crossed his arms.
"Emiya...?" Rin said, and Shirou gave her a hesitant wave, trying to smile even though he really wanted to punch that asshole in the face.
"Hi, Tohsaka."
"What the f—are you okay?!"
"Yeah, why?"
"Have you looked in a mirror lately?!"
He felt a wave of nausea come unbidden. "Thanks, I was trying not to think about that."
"Oh, uh, sorry." She fidgeted for only a moment. "No, hold the fuuuuront door, what are you doing here?!"
[GREATER THAN HATE]
Sakura wanted to scream.
Sakura wanted to cry.
Sakura wanted to run away.
Sakura wanted to die.
As she watched the lines of hundreds of people shamble through the collection facility (a barely-hidden euphemism that could have induced nausea in her), she begged for any deity that could hear her to end this nightmare.
The chapter was originally meant to be titled "Paradise Lost" after the song on the DOOM Eternal soundtrack, so I suppose that's your ending theme.
Again, thanks for reading.