The Lily War Chapter 4: The Traumatizing Servant, a fate/stay night fanfic

I know people have been looking forward to new chapters. However, Telekinetic's Sword is on hiatus on account of struggling with a perspective point. I'll eventually be able to write that character right...

Also, not helping that I have been working on a new story. 12,500 words right now so it looks like I might have something new to put up sometime soon after I doublecheck some characterization.

Technician's Order is in the interesting puzzle of me working on the entire next arc all at once. In other words, chapter 18 is still in need of filling out while Chapter 20 is almost as complete as chapter 15.

And then there was life... FGO in July cut into my writing time as it was a lot of note taking from doing interludes and story line for Agartha. Got a better grasp of a bunch of character though so that will come in handy, I hope. June was me being burned out. August had the fun of getting a stigma in my eye and having to cut down computer time as a result. Still got a lot written despite that.

Chapter 4: The Traumatizing Servant

Beta-read by Pallan Minerva

"Okay," Shirou said as he materialized on the outside of Fuyuki's newest sinkhole. "Let's check: I'm alive, Sakura... let's call that a maybe, Zouken is mostly dead, and Rin is upset at me."

He nodded to himself. "All in a good day's work for a Hero of Justice."

"Hey, Faker!" a voice came from the bottom of the mansion.

"What?" Shirou yelled back.

"I can't hear you! I'm speaking through the original megaphone!" Gilgamesh yelled.

"Then how did you know how to answer me?" Shirou commented to himself.

"Clairvoyance and Shu Naqba Imuru!" Gilgamesh said. "Now stop interrupting me, it's rude!"

If you know what I am saying, then shouldn't you be able to converse with me? Shirou Lily wondered.

"There are just a few Crest Worms left now. I have them all lined up and dying, so go ahead and lift the barrier," Gilgamesh ordered. "After this, the only ones that will remain are the one in the Matou Master and a few pockets of worms. Take care of the ones in her and I'll finish off the rest."

Shirou nodded and turned to leave.

"Oh, and your Master's payment for basically doing nothing is another Command Seal to replace the one she has already used. She doesn't want to start at a disadvantage, right? We're basically in a new war now, anyway."

Shirou nodded. Rin would ask for payment. More out of the principle of the thing than feeling like she had to be bought off, but she would ask for payment nonetheless.

"And if she asks for more, tell her that I've already given her a free bit of information. That should be the extra she wants."

Shirou nodded and shifted his weight to take a step—

"And when she gets too greedy after that, I can always pay with a Noble Phantasm. The experience in setting up new Bounded Fields around her home would be good for her education."

Shirou acknowledged the threat to demolish the Tohsaka family Bounded Fields that protected their home if Rin pushed her luck.

Shirou lifted one foot up—

"Oh, and I would like a tub of ice-cream when this is done, thanks for offering."

"Anything else you want, your Majesty?" Shirou said as he waited for the next interruption.

"I already told you what I want, weren't you listening? Although, maybe a sugar cone would be nice…" Gilgamesh mused through his megaphone. "And it better be the good kind of ice-cream, the second from the left in the store. Yes, the Jeni's one."

"You're seriously using your clairvoyance for that?" Shirou muttered under his breath.

"Of course," child Gilgamesh answered the rhetorical question. "Ice-cream is important."

Shirou sighed but nodded, stepping aside for the rush of firefighters and police officers flowing onto the scene through the now open gate.

Rin waited next to her petrified sister, trying to look like it was natural for her to be here. Which meant buttoning up her jacket, pulling it down to cover most of her pajamas, retrieving her slipper, and keeping an unobtrusive eye on the Servant who had killed her sister.

Why, Rin was not too upset about it.

Why would she be upset about her Servant's sister killing her?

"Hey Rin," Archer greeted her, strolling out of the mansion with a bit of sweat dampening his hair. He wasn't covered in dust or rocks, though. The bastard came out of this looking way better than he should have.

Rin hastily shunted her feelings aside. She was upset, and no amount of good-looking hunk would distract her from that!

"'Hey, Rin,'" Rin placed her hands on her hips, her whole posture screaming irritation, apart from the pleasant smile on her face. "Is that all you have to say after going off on your own, breaking a treaty between the Matou and the Tohsaka that neither would ever attack the home of the other during a Grail War, and waking your Master up?"

And what were you thinking when you got Sakura involved!

"Um," Shirou Lily rubbed the back of his head. "Gilgamesh came by to see you this morning, and wanted to tell you, but we felt that you might not like being woken up."

"Oh, thank you for your consideration," Rin thanked her Servant with a smile. "Why, I do enjoy being rudely woken up instead only to discover that my Servant has declared open season on my home."

Shirou winced at her acerbic words.

"Gilgamesh is responsible," Shirou threw his fellow Servant under the bus of Rin's wrath. "He also said that he would give you payment for doing—I mean, for having loaned your Servant."

"Equivalent exchange, huh?" Rin crossed her arms across her chest. "What could be worth all of this mess?"

"A new Command Seal," Shirou said.

Rin paused.

"He can't give that," she pointed out. "He would need to be the Overseer to offer a Command Seal as recompense for intruding on the Grail War, and he could only give it for something that would threaten the integrity of the war or the secrecy of magecraft."

"Zouken was threatening the war," Shirou informed his Master, "and Gilgamesh took the position of Overseer before handing Kotomine over. He just didn't have the opportunity to tell you last night."

"I see," Rin distractedly said as her mind started making connections. Yet Archer was somewhat unnerved as, for some reason, he could just see money signs appearing in her eyes. He might have just figured out why Gilgamesh was so annoyed when they had parted ways. "But that's only for the loan of my Servant. The cost of breaking our long-standing agreement with the Matou and risking my family home and workshop is far greater than that."

"Well, there is also the fact that this is essentially a new Grail War so that indicates that similar changes has happened to the other Servants." Shirou theorized. "The only way it could be a new Grail War would be if all of us were made younger besides only me, Lancer, and Gilgamesh. So maybe all of the other Servants got changed too."

Rin was shaking her head. "The value of the information is insignificant to the safety that our treaty provided. That won't be nearly enough. But he is Gilgamesh, King of Uruk, right? Owner of a massive treasury known as the Gate of Babylon? Surely he has something of value that he can offer in reparation."

Archer winced. "Well, he did say that—you know, I'm going to quote him on this. These aren't my words so don't take it out on me."

"Oh?" Rin asked, the question slithering dangerously in the air like she, and not the Servant hovering protectively over Sakura, was the deity associated with snakes.

"Um," Shirou Lily swallowed before spitting out. "'I can always pay with a Noble Phantasm. The experience in setting up new Bounded Fields around her home would be good for her education.'"

Rin froze.

Considered it.

Started sweating.

"On second thought," Rin hid her nervousness well but her eyes were looking a little wild at the thought of rebuilding all of her family's Bounded Fields in the middle of a Grail War. "I think that the value of my real estate might just be enough to cover the price. And I can always renegotiate a new treaty between the Tohsaka and the Matou."

Shirou Lily's relief was palpable as the greed of his Master receded to an unhappy rest.

Until Rin hissed. "But that will mean dealing with Shinji."

She shuddered in disgust.

"Petrified," Lancer said with a faint undercurrent of satisfaction in her voice before she shifted and looked away, looking like nothing more than a child trying not to be caught lying and just being cute about it. "Accident."

Rin did not look impressed.

"Well, all's well that ends well." Shirou declared as he tried to move everything along before tensions sprung up again. "Zouken is mostly dead and soon will have gone onto his long-awaited afterlife. Sakura is—"

"Petrified!" Rin hissed as she pointed at the statue she was standing next to. "Which was something that she hadn't been last night!"

"Yes, well," Shirou acknowledged, shifting from side to side nervously. It was like a cute puppy trying to explain away the mess it had made. "She'll get better, right?"

The last was said to Medusa who nodded under her black cloak.

"Not permanent," the goddess informed.

"See, Sakura will be back to normal in no time at all," Shirou promised to his angry Master.

Rin ground her teeth without making any sign on the outside. It was a skill she had learned from having Kotomine as her guardian for the past decade. She wanted to be angry!

"And what about the Crest Worms?" Rin reminded them, her voice saccharine sweet in a way that made his teeth rot. "You know the ones that you said were inside of her and would kill her?"

"Oh, right," Shirou took on a trapped expression. "Give me a moment…"

"A moment!" Rin almost shrieked, only to bring her volume back down as she realized that she was in public and that they were still surrounded by emergency services. "And how will Sakura be 'in a moment'?"

"I'm looking, I'm looking," Shirou assured her as his eyes were far off. "I'm trying to see what I have that would help. Rule Breaker would remove the worms from Zouken but they would still be inside Sakura. Um, that sword wouldn't work, Avalon? Might work… but she would need a connection to that Saber and I don't know if she was summoned. I think she was but this is an alternative timeline…"

"You are hopeless!" Rin threw up her hands in exasperation. "This is why I told you to back off! We could always have done this later, after preparing—"

"Oooh," Shirou interrupted her, his face brightening up. "That might work."

"What?" Rin snapped as both her and Medusa's eyes pinned Shirou.

"I think I have something that might work," Shirou said with excitement. "It is from the experience of an exceptional hero, a true hero of justice. I can copy her skill and—No, the Crest Worms are part conceptual aren't they? Not purely physical."

Rin and Lancer both slumped slightly.

"Wait, I'm a Servant," Shirou as the spark of excitement leapt back to life.

"No kidding, Archer," Rin snarked. "Any other obvious points you wish to make? Like how Sakura is going to die because of you?"

"No, she won't die," Shirou said before wavering. "Well, she may still die. It is a risky procedure after all."

"But if we are going to remove Crest Worms from Sakura, then we need a Spiritual Surgeon, and the only one I know of happens to be puking his guts out." Rin countered. Medusa's face soured, and she took a few steps away from the twin-tailed tsundere.

"Not literally," the magus grumbled, looking away. "I haven't figured out to make him literally puke his guts out. That's the next set of experiments. I'm hoping that disgorging internal organs will actually get through his masochism so that he actually suffers instead of becoming happy...

"But enough about the mess that Archer will be cleaning up when we get back," Rin dismissed before laying her hands on her hips again and staring angrily at Shirou. "Now tell me about your 'risky' plan to save Sakura."

"Well, it is simple," Shirou said as he held a hand up. "I'll just remove the Crest Worms from her myself."

A beat.

"That's it?" Rin asked skeptically. "Sakura has Crest Worms inside of her and you are just going to remove them yourself?"

Shirou nodded, a light of hope still shining in his eyes. "I am a Servant. A being not wholly confined to the material plane. In a contest between me and any Crest Worm, I will win. And with these—" Shirou manifested a sharp British surgical knife in his hand. "and her teachings on medical techniques, I can even remove the physical traces of the Crest Worms without killing Sakura. And as I remove the physical traces, I can drag out the non-physical parts as well."

Rin wavered. Shirou was rather confident about it.

"Trust me," Shirou said with an ever-growing spark of enthusiasm in his eyes. "This will work."

It was another beautiful winter morning, Taiga reflected as she skipped down the street to her favorite udon store. It was Sunday so Shirou would be sleeping in from staying up late all night working on some project or another, which meant that having breakfast there would mean waiting a long, long, long time.

And she wanted breakfast!

And then she had heard the sirens and curiosity got the best of her and she was now walking down the street, rudely eating a few rice balls out in public as she wondered what disaster had happened in the rich foreigner's part of the town.

As she turned the corner to head down the hill to where the sirens were coming from, she saw an unexpected sight.

Shirou was out running with a stone statue of Sakura on his shoulder while a small child in a ratty black cloak held up her feet behind him as Rin Tohsaka ran beside them.

"Good morning, Taiga," Shirou Lily greeted her.

"Good morning," Taiga greeted back automatically as she rubbed her eyes.

She must be asleep.

She opened her eyes and looked back up the street.

Yup, Shirou was still carrying a life-like stone statue of Sakura, but now he was carrying it into Rin Tohsaka's mansion as she opened the gate.

Taiga pinched herself on the wrist and finding it to only hurt a bit, nodded.

And immediately turned around to march to Shirou's place, ignoring that her crushed rice ball was falling off of her wrist where she had pinched it instead of her skin.

She must be dreaming as she could have sworn that she had seen Shirou running with a stone statue of Sakura while a little girl with hair that must have come from the Matou family, carried the back half while Rin Tohsaka, the school's honor student, ran alongside them.

This is obviously just a dream which means that it will soon be time to wake up and go eat breakfast at Shirou's.

Oh wait, it is Sunday. Shirou won't be making breakfast anytime soon.

Oh, wait. This is a dream! Her dream. Which means that Shirou will not only be awake but also putting the finishing touches on a five-star buffet breakfast! With all of her favorites!

Taiga wiped some drool from her mouth and doubled her speed towards Shirou's dining room.

Home. She meant Shirou's home. She wasn't thinking only about the food.

Yeah, she was worried about him! That maybe the murderer with the bladed weapon who had been on the news had stabbed him!

Or worse, hurt his arm again and couldn't cook!

"So, what do you need, Archer?" Rin asked as she helped the two Servants get Sakura through the doorway to her home. "Anything from your house? Gemstones, Mystic Codes, rare Phantasmal parts?"

"Awfully generous of you Rin," Shirou remarked.

"I-It's for reestablishing our contract with the Matou!" Rin blurted, her face red as she turned away. "Anything I spend here, I can get paid back later after Sakura is restored to health. And it will provide an edge in negotiations too."

"Yup, as I thought. You are a good person, Rin," Shirou said with a pleased expression.

"Idiot!" Rin said, blushing up a storm. "It's all for the sake of negotiations, for negotiations!"

"Saying it twice doesn't make true, you know," Shirou shot back.

"Archeerrrr," Rin growled, holding up one hand with two Command Seals on it.

Shirou threw up the hand that was less necessary to hold Sakura steady in surrender.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop, just don't waste a Command Seal before Gilgamesh can give you a new one," Shirou capitulated.

Rin's command seals stopped glowing.

"You should have behaved in the first place," She grumbled as she put her hand down. "Making me waste it like that."

Ding-dong.

Rin paused and looked down the hallway to the front door which led to the gate outside.

"I'll go see who it is," Rin declared before squeezing past Shirou and Lancer in the hallway.

Shirou had to keep himself from shivering as Rin brushed by him, the scent of her hair rising up to his nose as he felt the brush of her arm and shoulders across his.

Lancer Lily tapped the floor loudly with her foot.

"Sorry," Archer Lily apologized for holding her up to deal with his hormones.

Rin just was attractive to him, and having her in such close proximity was distracting.

The pair carried Sakura into a greeting room that was out of view from the entryway. Carefully, the two Servants set down the statue of Sakura, whose hands were frozen in place, clutching at her heart.

Shirou regarded the girl who had been close to him as a sister sometimes. Or sometimes she had been closer.

He didn't remember. His Reality Marble was specialized in gathering, storing, and replicating swords but one of the easiest functions to master was reading them and their history. Archer Lily had millions of billions of swords, ranging from the humble butter knife fresh from the factory to Noble Phantasms who had thousands of years of experience.

And Archer remembered them all. The contradicting ones from alternative timelines. Battles against Medusa, battles alongside Medusa, battles in any of the Grail Wars, battles outside of Grail Wars, battles where Medusa had ended up as Shirou's Servant or battles where Shirou Emiya killed Medusa.

All versions of those weapons were there. Contradicting history or not, Archer remembered each.

Unfortunately, with so many memories that he could never forget as his Reality Marble would not let him, Archer couldn't remember what his life had been. Oh, he had some memories of it. He knew that Saber had been his Servant. He knew that certain Servants were particularly dangerous, that Saber was beautiful, and that Sakura's Shadow was practically a prelude to him getting called in as a Counter-Guardian—

Wait, that wasn't his mortal life's memory. Shoot. He was mixing them up again.

"All right, so what do we need for this plan to heal Sakura to work?" Rin said as she walked in, Gilgamesh trailing behind her.

Gilgamesh waved hello and said. "I've covered up the Incident at the Matou Manor. They now think that it was just a very old basement wall collapsing that cascaded into an explosion and then into a sinkhole."

"While true," Shirou commented. "That was awfully fast work."

Gilgamesh grinned, his eyes closed. "Eyewitness testimony from a charismatic and brave boy who rushed onto the scene at the first sound of trouble might have contributed to the quick wrap-up."

"While making our cover story straight is worthwhile, we have more important concerns," Rin dismissed impatiently. "Now, what do we need to get Zouken out of Sakura?"

Everyone turned to look at Emiya, except Sakura who was still stone.

"Well, I need a clean spot to work with. Preferably somewhere with an elevated table large enough to put Sakura on," Shirou answered. "Oh, and some plastic gloves would be good. Also, I'm going to need a lot of magical energy for a sustained amount of time. If the place is sanitary and sealed from outside elements such as germs, it would reduce the energy expenditure, but if not then I can do without."

"Sounds like we'll need to use my workshop," Rin mused out loud. Then she agreed with a sharp nod. "Fine, you can use it. I don't have plastic gloves in your hand size though, so you'll have to go out and buy some."

"I'll buy," Medusa spoke up before holding out her hand, palm up.

"What, do you think that I am going to—" Rin broke off as she looked around.

Archer shrugged, he had been summoned without a wallet, cash or card.

Gilgamesh smiled brightly, indicating that he is a young, cute boy, and you wouldn't make such a fair youth spend his well-earned allowance, would you?

Sakura was still a stone statue whose purse was either buried in the ruins of the Matou Manor or stone in her pocket.

Medusa, Sakura's Servant, was in the same boat as her.

And then there was Rin. The only person here with a financial status that would pay.

Rin groaned as she brought out her purse from her skirt pocket and grudgingly handed over yen bills one at a time. "This better be paid back in full." She grumbled.

Medusa accepted the money and vanished as she went out to get the supplies.

"So, let's get Sakura down to the Workshop," Rin said as she turned to Shirou with a bit of a grumpy frown. "I'll stay home today so you'll have your supply of energy."

The red-headed Servant nodded and carefully moved to pick up Sakura.

"I hope this works," Rin muttered to herself as she hovered over Shirou, making sure that he wouldn't even chip her sister on a door or something.

Of course, it wasn't that simple. They had to clean up Rin's workshop, put the books and gemstones away in different parts, and make sure that everything was organized.

Gilgamesh was as much help as you could expect. Namely, he made great progress on his Gameboy game while sitting on a safe and kicking his feet, but not so much progress on moving stuff around. Yet, if you asked, he could tell you exactly where they had left the book that Rin was trying to find.

Archer did a great deal of moving stuff around. The heavier the better in Rin's obvious opinion.

Medusa did come back and she did help carry stuff around, but that was mostly scrolls and books and the like as compared to Archer's statues, metal objects, and occasional blocks of stone.

"Biased much?" Archer asked as carried a heavy and fragile case of gems into another room while Medusa got to take a scroll.

"I'm not into using child labor," Rin said dismissively. "The lawsuit claims would tie up more resources than I would like."

"Yet her strength is higher than mine," Shirou said as he left the room.

"Who was it who tried to get me to stop working on Kotomine last night saying that it wasn't ladylike?" Rin yelled towards the door.

"Forget ladylike, it wasn't humane at all!" he shouted back.

"Ignore him, dear," Rin said in a falsely sweet voice pitched to carry as she gave Lancer another scroll case to carry. "Leave the strenuous work to the lazy men folk."

Gilgamesh gave a friendly wave at the indirect dig and shouted out. "You'll want to move that three centimeters to the left, Archer! The ball you'll set there in 15 minutes will roll away unless you do."

When Archer came back in for the next load, it was to meet a smug smile from Lancer who was clearly enjoying being doted on, even if Rin was doing it for the sake of playfully arguing with her Servant.

He just sighed and pretended to be put upon.

And took the bundle of scrolls from Lancer when Rin's back was turned.

But finally, hours later, a room in the workshop was cleared and clean and a table large enough to put a girl on had been dragged out to the center of the room.

Gilgamesh turned off his game and dropped it into the Gate of Babylon, face getting serious now that the serious work was about to begin.

Rin watched carefully as the other two Servants carefully lifted and raised Sakura, who was still mostly stone but some hints of color had returned to her hair as the petrification slowly regressed.

"So how long until the operation will start?" Rin asked fretfully as she looked over the still stone statue. "Stone statues tend to be better suited for chipping than surgery so how long will Sakura be like this?"

"I can start it at any moment," Shirou said as he pulled the box of gloves to him and put two on. "The Noble Phantasm that will turn this room into the optimal environment for an operation will cure her petrification automatically. A partially completed petrification would be treated like a toxin and cured automatically."

Rin blinked. "Then why wouldn't it remove the worms from Sakura right away?"

"Because it negates all hostility and toxins while inducing recovery effects," Shirou responded as he closed his eyes in concentration. "The worms also count as lifeforms so it would heal them while healing Sakura too. But while the Noble Phantasm is active, the worms cannot harm Sakura at all. The only way around the enforced ceasefire is to be focused on saving someone to the point that you believe that your harmful actions are for their benefit and health.

"That said," Shirou hesitated. "You probably want to step out, Rin. This is still surgery and it will not be pretty."

Rin looked like she wanted to insist on staying but thought better of it.

"Alright," she agreed as she turned to the door. "Just know that if she dies, you better die trying to prevent it."

Medusa crossed her arms, conveying her intent to stay and be with her Master through it all.

"Don't worry," Shirou Lily said, his eyes still closed as he bent his will towards reproducing the Noble Phantasm.

"In that case, I'll take this out," Gilgamesh said as he pulled out a Noble Phantasm blanket. "As long as she is on top of this, she'll stay asleep."

"Oh, oops," Shirou said, opening his eyes again. "Yeah, keeping her asleep during the surgery is a good idea."

A minute later, blanket underneath Sakura, Shirou Lily closed his eyes.

He had to get into the right mentality to use this sword. The sword was just a symbol, not even a real thing, just an image.

But, the image took the shape of a sword and it attacks all toxicity and aggression in its range.

And that was enough for Archer to copy it.

But without the proper mentality, it was useless as its strength came from the mentality of a woman who devoted her entire life to healing the sick.

But Shirou could read her attitude and spirit from the various knives she had used as a battlefield medic. Every knife she had used in surgery, every blade she had used to cut a tourniquet, every saw that she had wielded in an amputation, all of her efforts to save just one more life.

"Trace On. Judging the concept of creation. Hypothesizing the basic structure. Substituting the composition material. Imitating the skill of its owner. Sympathizing with the experience of its growth. Reproducing the accumulated years. Synchronizing the mentality of the wielder. Excelling all processes."

Shirou's eyes opened, his golden-brown eyes now with a tint of red in them.

And behind him, a giant glowing sword appeared with a far fainter white gowned figure behind it. The image was too faint for anyone to determine who it was, whether male or female and the light of the sword drowned it out.

"I will purge all that is toxic, all that is harmful!" Shirou declared as the sword hung behind him in the air. "For as long as I have this power, I shall lead everyone to happiness!"

Gilgamesh lifted an eyebrow up at the Noble Phantasm.

"Nightingale Pledge!" Shirou declared boldly.

And the sword struck down into the ground, purifying the room and making it sterile.

Sterile enough for Shirou to operate in.

"I will save you, even if I have to kill you!" Shirou declared as a pair of surgery knives appeared in his hand. "Commencing medical treatment!"

With that, Shirou stepped forward and brought the knife down on Sakura.

Rin paused as she passed a room and heard an odd trembling and sound.

She cocked her head, listening before opening the door.

The room was empty. Except for a closet which was rattling on its short stubby legs.

Rin carefully walked up. She didn't know what was inside it. But it probably wasn't a robber as she had only let the 3 Servants and Sakura's statue in.

But that didn't mean it couldn't be another magus, although such a magus would be extremely skilled to slip through her defenses without her knowing.

Or it could be Assassin.

But, what kind of Assassin would fail so utterly at hiding that someone could find them?

However, Rin reminded herself, Heroic Spirits got onto the Throne for being famous and inspiring humans. Assassins were supposed to be unknown.

An Assassin that got onto the Throne was probably an incompetent Assassin for being too well known at their job.

So Rin carefully opened the wooden closet, ready to leap back if her instincts thought she was in danger for even a second.

But it wasn't an incompetent Assassin.

Instead, it was a small purple haired girl wrapped up in black and violently shivering while the golden-haired boy next to her was rocking back and forth as his teeth chattered on his thumbnail.

"Not the shots, not the shots, not the shots," Gilgamesh muttered to himself, not even noticing Rin.

"No needles, no needles, no needles," Lancer shivered incessantly, her eyes looking blank as she gazed into a distant beyond.

"What could have possibly traumatized a pair of Servants this badly?" Rin wondered as she put one hand on her hip and another on her chin.

Medusa Lily watched as Tohsaka's Archer brought out a new Noble Phantasm, the Nightingale Pledge.

Unfair. He could just pull out a new Noble Phantasm to fit the situation. It was unfair. But, he was doing it to protect Sakura. He was doing it to save Sakura. And that was her goal right now. To save her Master, a girl who was like her younger sister. And Medusa was used to being the younger sister instead of being the older one. She could see why her sisters liked being the older ones so much.

Then a pair of knives appeared in his hands and the boy stepped forward with an iron-cast expression that seemed familiar.

The other Heroic Spirits in there with him involuntarily stepped back as nightmares about a psychotic nurse flash through their minds.

Nightingale left… strong impressions on Heroic Spirits. Strong enough for them to remember her even counting the fact that remembering experiences from previous summonings was extremely difficult for the Servants. It was impossible to forget the woman who bluntly told the most powerful Servants that they were sick and needed to be healed and then promised to do it even if it killed them. And meant every word.

Shirou yelled "I will save you even if I have to kill you! Commencing Operation!"

And then he brought down the surgical knives into Sakura.

Medusa tensed and leapt forward to save her Master from the madman—

Only for a flash of memory, a fragment from a previous summoning—a Grand Order?— of a red-clad woman with white hair drenched in blood as she performed surgery.

Medusa blinked as she suddenly found herself pressing against the wall. Her eyes momentarily left the male nurse currently doing open chest surgery and moved towards Gilgamesh, across the room, who was also pressing against the wall. Their eyes met and conveyed similar horror and shock.

No, it couldn't be. Not her. The magus Servant couldn't be channeling her.

Some things were so traumatizing that they affected Heroic Spirits even after the Servant body was undone.

EMIYA drew back from the incision he had cut into Sakura, British knife dispelling, and projected a large, empty needle into his empty gloved hand. A very large needle. As in, the length of Medusa's arm and the width of her head large.

Medusa found herself ramming into the door as she tried to flee, too terrified to even bother with the doorknob.

Why wouldn't the door open!?

The hinges were blasted off and the door fell back as Gilgamesh tried to bolt past her only for Medusa's A rank agility to beat out his C rank as they both fled out of the room and up the stairs.

Not the needles! She didn't want her check-upppppp!

Not even her sisters would do this to her!

Archer shifted himself into a higher plane of existence, the astralization ability that every properly summoned Heroic Spirit had. The Crest Worms were both physical and metaphysical. Part of the physical plane and outside of it. As such, if you wanted to remove the Crest Worms from a human, you needed to be interacting with them on the plane they were in. Just physically removing the Crest Worms wouldn't work because, as disgusting as they were, Crest Worms were Phantasmal Beasts.

Yet, Sakura was human and her existence had weight. As such, getting to the Crest Worms by only spiritual means would involve a great deal of spiritual damage to her. Enough to definitely kill her.

In comparison, a series of physical holes were much better than spiritual ones.

Zouken sat quietly, the core of his being wrapped around Sakura's heart as he felt the other worms he had left be removed from Sakura one by one. The two Servants had hunted down every Crest worm he had left, killing every Crest Worm in his mansion and grounds. But he had a few stashes outside of there. Some were going to be quickly wiped out by those Archers but a few might survive.

Only if he was careful. One of the Archers was Gilgamesh and Gilgamesh had high Clairvoyance, a high enough Clairvoyance that could allow him to see the future. When Gilgamesh had been content to only observe, Zouken could act freely. In contrast, now that Gilgamesh had moved against him, Zouken had no choice but to concede this war. Any action that he could do, Gilgamesh would see and know and then move to come down on him like the wrath of a king. And as the trio of Servants had proven at the estate, you couldn't win a war by being on the defensive.

Such a pity. Sakura was a rare windfall. Except, she had been just too strong to easily break and be molded by him. Unless he could overcome a setback like that, she would be useless as his Lesser Grail.

Once she was broken though…

Well, Servants were familiars. Powerful ones that only a fool would dismiss as only a familiar. Most of these Servants had already surpassed their Masters in both achievements, power, and knowledge. But at the end of the day, Servants, even Gilgamesh, were spiritual beings stuffed into a container linked to the Greater Grail.

A weakness, if you knew how to exploit it.

But he could make do with a lesser tool. His ambition could still be fulfilled in the next war. He would just need to salvage this war's Lesser Grail. Assuming that she didn't win it, which, by having Heracles as her Servant wasn't quite impossible assuming that Gilgamesh didn't intend on participating.

But if Zouken died in this War, he could not achieve his immortality and…

Curse the loss of so many Crest Worms. He couldn't remember what the original goal was. Only that he needed a perfect immortality to see it through.

Sakura died.

"Patient has died," Shirou noted down in the basement as he killed another Crest Worm that had not come out easily.

Pity. But the Nurse of Steel, or his pale imitation of it, was not to be deterred by mere things like a patient dying. He would save Sakura even if he had to kill her! Besides, he already knew what he had to do. Death would not stop him!

"Beginning resuscitation procedure!" he yelled, channeling the Berserk Nurse. "First, find the airway! Tilt the face sideways, and if there is anything inside the mouth, scoop it out with your fingers!"

Shirou did so, willingly sticking his hand down Sakura's mouth just to double check if something was there.

"Next," Shirou continued, reciting from memory what the amazing Nurse of Steel had said in her CPR demonstration. "Lift the chin up, pinch the nose, and blow in with all of your might for one second!"

Shirou eagerly put his mouth where his words were, planting his lips so hard on Sakura's that her head smacked against the back of the table despite being laid right upon it.

A sense of shock swept over Zouken. Surely, they had someone reliable and capable to heal the girl they had gone to such extents to save? Admittedly, Zouken had done his best to make it impossible. That was why he was now a Crest Worm wrapped around and a bit into her heart. Removing him would kill Sakura. He was sure of it.

But had they found him? Were they even aware of him controlling her heart? Zouken didn't think so. They had found several Crest Worms but not this one. Nothing had probed his 'granddaughter's' being well enough for this Crest Worm to show up. What kind of quack doctor had the Servants found? Sure, he had been removing his Crest Worms, not a simple feat considering that they were Phantasmal Beasts, but to kill his patient in the process? Who had given this guy a medical license?

Something was happening, Sakura's recently deceased corpse was having something done to it, around the head area in particular. Were they trying to analyze his Mysteries that he had implanted into the girl?

"And most importantly," Shirou recalled, putting both hands between Sakura's voluptuous breasts above where the heart was. "The chest compressions!"

Zouken finally remembered the CPR and first aid lessons he had encouraged Homurahara Academy to put onto their homeroom classes's schedule. It had been shot down (as he had expected) but the image had been good for his purposes in the community as PTA president.

Well, at least the Servants valued Sakura's life. Though CPR might not work, Zouken had come to a grudging and annoyed respect for Sakura' will. If she wanted to live, CPR might just bring her back. He hadn't thought that Sakura's self of self would last this long so maybe she would, through her own sheer stubbornness, refuse to die.

But didn't CPR include—

"Punch the chest one hundred times per minute to force the heart to restart!"