Day 5: Shirou — Fading
As soon as he saw Saber collapse, Shirou immediately called for Crow to come to his side. As a fellow Servant of the Saber class, Crow had the best chance of understanding what was wrong with her. Shirou was prepared to instantaneously summon Crow to his position using a Command Spell if necessary, but such drastic methods weren't required. Crow must have been lurking around the house in spiritual form somewhere nearby, likely standing guard, because he responded instantly to Shirou's yell and appeared next to him.
"What's wrong?" the Servant asked. "Is it an enemy?"
"Saber just collapsed." Shirou said. "I don't know what's wrong with her."
Crow knelt down beside Saber's fallen form and inspected her with his single eye.
"She's still alive, and there are no physical injuries." Crow said. "If I had to guess, I'd say it was something to do with magic. I'm no magus, but her energy level feels way lower than usual."
"Something to do with magic... maybe Bazett can help." Shirou said. "If she's a member of the Mage Association, she must know way more about magic than me. She could do something..."
"Whoa, there." Crow said, raising his hand. "You're a good-natured guy, but you can be a bit reckless sometimes. We only just met that Bazett chick last night, and we're not sure how much we can trust her; so announcing first thing that one of your Servants is badly weakened might not be the smartest move you could make."
"But Bazett isn't in the War anymore... she accepted the geas..." Shirou said.
"That may be so, but she's still a mage." Crow said. "I'll admit ignorance on how exactly your little secret society works, but based on the things I've heard that Rin girl say, it sounds like you aren't all buddy-buddy with one another."
That was true. Magus families were intensely protective of their secrets, and had fierce rivalries with one another that lasted for generations. When trying to dissuade Shirou from studying magecraft, Kiritsugu had warned him that the world of mages was soaked in blood. As far as Shirou knew, the Emiya family was a very minor family line, beneath the notice of the distinguished bloodlines who were members of the Association. Furthermore, since he hadn't inherited the Emiya Magic Crest, he didn't have any secret magical lore worth stealing. Although... Shirou rubbed the Command Spells on the back of his left hand. Even though Bazett had sworn not to contract another Servant, she'd kept her Command Spells. Apparently, even without a Servant, they could serve as powerful mana sources for a magus who knew how to use them. If Bazett learned that his defenses were weakened, might she try to steal his Command Spells for herself?
He wanted to think not. His impression of her was that she was a stoic but honorable warrior. But Crow was right that he had only just met her last night. He didn't really know her. He had thought he'd know Kuzuki-sensei, but the man had turned out to be the Master of Caster, the Servant responsible for harming many people by stealing magical energy from them. There was no telling what type of person Bazett really was, or what she might be willing to do. Even so...
"If Saber's life is on the line, it's a risk I'm willing to take." Shirou said.
"Cool your jets, kid." Crow said. "Rin's an experienced magus too, and she should be home soon. I don't think Saber's condition is so critical that you can't wait a couple of hours; look, she's waking up."
Indeed, Saber had begun to stir back to consciousness. Shirou gently helped lift her up to a sitting position.
"Saber!" he said. "Are you okay? Are you hurt? Do you need help?"
"Be at ease; I am in no immediate danger." Saber said. "I merely collapsed from exhaustion due to the large amount of prana I used to activate my Noble Phantasm and defeat Assassin last night. I have no wounds or injuries, so there is no cause for concern."
Shirou didn't quite buy that bit. Saber's skin was unusually pale and sweaty, and her breaths sounded more labored than usual. Something was definitely very wrong.
"Rin will be back soon," Shirou said, "and since she's a lot better at magecraft than me, she'll probably know what's wrong and how to fix it. In the meantime, is there anything I could do to make you more comfortable?"
Saber's stomach gurgled loudly, and she lowered her head in embarrassment.
"I'm actually a bit hungry." she confessed. "If you could prepare me some lunch, Shirou, I would be most appreciative. Eating one of your exquisite meals is certain to replenish my energy.
"Really? Crow asked, raising a dubious eyebrow. "I'd thought that us Servants were purely spiritual beings who could only subsist on spiritual food; so I don't see what good a sandwich is going to do you."
"Unlike you, I have a permanently materialized body, with according physical needs." Saber said. "And take care not to underestimate the value of good food. Good food is not merely energy for the body; it is sustenance for the spirit. Eating a well-prepared meal can raise a soldier's morale enough to increase his fighting strength a hundred-fold. Entire wars have been won and lost because of armies losing the will to fight when forced to subsist on low-quality rations. I will surmount any other obstacle without fail, but victory is impossible to achieve with an empty stomach."
"Well, I'm clearly out of my depth." Crow said. "You seem to know best, so far be it from me to get in your way."
"Naturally." Saber said. "Shirou! Prepare me a meal worthy of the palate of a king!"
Shirou understood. Whatever was wrong with Saber, it wouldn't be fixed by anything as simple as a large meal. But she knew he was concerned about her, and so was putting on a brave front for his sake. The thing Shirou hated most in the world was watching people suffer and being unable to do anything to help them. So, being given something that he could do for Saber, no matter how insignificant it might be, was exactly what he needed in order to stay focused.
"Right!" Shirou said. "The best lunch you've ever had, coming right up!"
Shirou and Saber had just finished eating when Rin returned, Red Archer in tow. Black Archer was nowhere to be seen; apparently Rin had sent her off on a scouting mission of some sort. Shirou quickly filled her in on Saber's fainting spell and weakness.
"To be honest, I'm not surprised." Rin said bluntly. "I suspected this might happen after seeing Saber use Exalibur last night. When fully unleashed, it's an Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm — but there's no way an inexperienced magus like you could provide enough prana to power it. In fact, it's probably lucky the prana connection between you and Saber is inactive, or you might've died. Masters have died like that in previous Wars, having their souls consumed due to their Servants overusing Noble Phantasms. Anyway, since you're not providing Saber with prana, she burned a ton of her own reserves — so much that she no longer has enough magical energy left to maintain her existence. Unless you find some way to quickly restore her energy level, she'll disappear."
"Is this true, Saber?" Shirou asked.
"There is no need to be alarmed." Saber said. "It is merely fatigue. If I conserve my remaining strength by eating well and resting, I will still be able to fight when needed."
"Who do you think you're fooling?" Rin asked. "Anyone can tell just by looking at you that there's no way you can fight in your condition. Even if you do nothing but rest, I doubt you'd last the rest of the day."
"Saber!" Shirou said. "Why were you trying to hide this from me?"
"...I was afraid you might use one of your Command Spells." Saber said. "Since you cannot provide me prana normally through our link, the only way for me to acquire is it would be to kill civilians and consume their souls. The very idea is so abhorrent that I would rather die. But if you were to order me with a Command Spell, I would not be forced to obey... to become a monster that preys on the lives of the innocent."
"How could you even think I would give an order like that!?" Shirou yelled in outrage.
"You have acted irrationally because of me before." Saber said. "Throwing yourself in front of Berserker's sword..."
"I'm willing to risk my own life, but I won't sacrifice others." Shirou said firmly. "There has to be some way to save you without hurting anyone."
"...Ah, what the hell." Crow said. "Go ahead and your contract with me. Give all the prana I've been using to Saber."
"What?" Saber said, looking at her fellow Servant in surprise.
"It's clear the kid's Magic Circuit thingamajigs aren't strong enough for him to sustain two Servants." Crow said. "I'm sure a knight in shining armor will be of more use to him in the War than an old one-eyed, one-armed man like me. And anyway, I'm the one who showed up uninvited and pressured the kid into making two contracts he didn't have the magic to uphold, so the situation's my fault in the first place. The least I can do is man up and take responsibility for it."
"Out of the question." Saber said. "As a knight, I am sworn to the protection and service of others, even should it require the sacrifice of my own life. To force a comrade-in-arms to sacrifice their life for my sake would be a grievous violation of the code of chivalry."
"Hey, I'm a cop." Crow said. "To protect and serve is kinda my thing, too. And you're, well, a lady. Isn't the chivalrous thing—"
"I am a knight before I am a woman." Saber interrupted, giving Crow a severe look. "Please refrain from implying that I am some frail flower of femininity in need of protection, unless you are so desperate to sacrifice yourself that you'd like me to kill you myself."
"There has to be something we can do, some way to get Saber the prana she needs without harming anyone else." Shirou asked. "What about drawing mana from leylines, like Caster was doing?"
"Tapping a leyline requires magecraft, and Saber isn't a magus." Rin said.
"I'm a magus." Shirou protested. "I admit that I'm not a very good one; but now that Rin has taught me to use my Magic Circuits properly, I'm sure I could tap the leylines if she taught me how."
"That may very well be true, but it alone would not be sufficient to improve my situation." Saber said. "Because our contract is not properly sealed, even if you were able to access a large amount of mana, you would have no way of transferring it to me."
Rin made a soft coughing sound.
"That's right." Shirou said. "The problem isn't that I don't have the prana; even supporting Crow, I'm still able to do magecraft, so I must have excess capacity. I should be able to give Saber at least enough to continue existing if only I can find some way of transferring it to her."
Rin made another noise, which sounded a bit like choking.
"Something you want to say, little lady?" Crow asked.
"Oh... um... well..." Rin sputtered. "Regarding the consensual transfer of prana between individuals... There is a, um, method for achieving that..."
Rin was speaking with far less arrogant confidence than usual. She also appeared to be blushing a bit.
"Really?" Shirou said. "That's great! You should have mentioned earlier that you had experience with that."
"Experience—!?" Rin turned even redder. "I've never—! I mean, not that I couldn't—! Uh, no, what I meant to say is..."
She trailed off into inarticulate babbling, then turned around and pressed her forehead against the wall.
"Uh... did I say something wrong?" Shirou asked. "I'm sorry if I somehow offended you. I just want to know how I can save Saber."
Rin slowly turned back around to face him.
"The thing is..." she said hesitantly. "There is a way... but it's a bit... well..."
"Dangerous?" Shirou asked.
"No, not that." Rin said. "It's a bit... a bit..."
"Yes?" Shirou asked.
"...Not that I myself am overly sensitive about that sort of thing, mind you, ultimately it's just a simple method of energy exchange, a professional transaction in other words, not necessitating any sort of emotional investment, I'm just saying that there are some people who might find it a bit..." Rin fretted.
"Go on and spit it out already." Crow said.
* Rin starts to explain "mana transfer", but keeps dancing around the issue because she's embarrassed. Archer EMIYA finally just tells him to use a Command Spell.
"Nyuuuurgh..." Rin moaned. "Alright, so when it comes right down to it, in the end, what I'm talking about is..."
"I can't listen to this any longer!" Red Archer, who had been listened to Rin's rambling with an increasingly pained expression, finally flung his hands up in exasperation. "If you need to replenish your Servant's prana, just use one of your Command Spells. That's the simplest way."
"I'm not going to force Saber to attack innocent civilians." Shirou said firmly. "That decision is final."
"I'm not talking about that." Red Archer said. "I'm saying you should use the Command Spell itself to refill her prana directly."
"I've never heard of such a thing." Rin said dubiously. "Is that really possible?"
Since Rin was such an accomplished magus, Shirou had just assumed that she knew everything there was to know about magecraft. However, it seemed like there were gaps in her knowledge after all.
"It's simple." Red Archer said. "Command Spells are most often thought of as a way to force a reluctant Servant to obey a distasteful order. However, it is also possible to use them in a positive way — to reinforce rather than to enforce. With support from a Command Spell, a Servant can do something that might otherwise be impossible for them. Well, they can't do something truly impossible, so a silly order like 'go backwards in time' would be useless. But if it's something as minor as recharging their prana, which would be happening naturally anyway if not for your error, then a Command Spell should be more than enough to compensate for the incompetence of your magecraft."
"How do you know all this?" Rin asked suspiciously. "Were you a magus in a previous Holy Grail War or something?"
"Oh, I don't know." Red Archer said whimsically. "I must have picked it up somewhere or other, but I can't exactly recall when. Since we're on the subject of incompetent magecraft, maybe I should mention that Shirou's not the only one who managed to botch—"
"Shut up!" Rin said, flushing again.
"As you wish, my Master." Red Archer said with a smirk.
"Well, I might as well try it." Shirou said. "I haven't had to use a single one so far, so I should be able to spare one."
He extended his right hand.
"Saber." Shirou said. "By my Command Spell, I order you: let your prana be replenished."
One of the three symbols on the back of his hand glowed with red light, then faded. At the same time, an intense aura seemed to radiate from Saber. A faint corona of blue light surrounded her skin, and a powerful wind kicked up inside the room for a few seconds, rattling the furniture before subsiding.
"Do you feel any different?" Shirou asked.
"It seems to have been successful." Saber said. "While my reserves have not been fully refilled, I have just received a large infusion of prana and am now once more capable of fighting."
"I'm glad you're feeling better." Shirou said. "You should try not to use that Noble Phantasm again, though, or you'll just end up back in the same situation."
"Understood." Saber said. "I will try to refrain if at all possible."
"Good." Rin said. "That's all settled, then. Nothing to worry about. No need to talk about anything that might... Anyway, good."
"Consider yourself fortunate." Red Archer said. "Were I not concerned about the presence of the abnormal Servants, I probably would have just killed you both to spare myself the sound of your idiotic babbling. Please attempt not to try my patience so much in the future, or I may reconsider my decision."
The red-cloaked knight shifted into spiritual form and vanished.
"Don't mind him." Rin told Crow and Saber. "He talks tough, but underneath the hard exterior, he's really just a big softie. If you'd heard some of things he's said to me in private..."
"Well, if you say so." Shirou said dubiously.
While it was true that, as Red Archer's Master, Rin spent more time with him and knew him better than Shirou, Shirou's instincts nonetheless rebelled at the idea of taking the Servant lightly. Every time Red Archer spoke to him, his blood grew hot and his mind was filled with the clashing of swords.
Shirou glanced at the back of his palm. One Command Spell gone; two remained. He'd mostly ignored them thus far because the idea of using it to strip a Servant's free will from them, to turn them into an unwilling tool, was repulsive to him. When he had thought about them, he'd considered them a bit pointless — if you were a good Master, you wouldn't need them to get your Servant to obey you; whereas if you were a bad Master, a mere two enforced orders would hardly do anything against sustained disobedience. And it would only be two, since using the third Command Spell would sever the bond with the Servant, and thus constitute resignation from the War. A terribly ill-conceived system, he'd thought.
Now, though, having seen Saber's restoration, he was beginning to understand their power. Their true strength was not the power to enforce, but the power to reinforce. Excalibur had nearly taken the top off of that mountain; such an incredible expenditure of magical energy, and one Command Spell had been enough to replenish Saber afterwards. What if, as she had swung the golden sword, he had used all three Spells at once with the command for Saber to put all of her energy into the attack — how immeasurably powerful might the resultant blast have been? What if he burned one of the Spells for prana for his own use — what marvel might he be able to Project, with such an abundance of power at his fingertips?
He thought of Bazett Fraga McRemitz, the Association-trained combat mage who he had invited under his roof. Who had sworn a magical oath upon her very soul not to re-enter the War with another Servant, and yet who had kept her Command Spells. Shirou hadn't believed Rin when she'd warned him that Bazett might try to kill him and steal his Command Spells, because he didn't see the Spells as something valuable enough to murder over. But if Bazett was aware of their power, and sought it for herself...
Shirou shook himself. No. He would not doubt her. He must not, because where would that lead — throwing her out of his house, into the fire of the War, in order to protect his own cowardly self? Unthinkable. That would be what Kotomine would want, wouldn't it? For Shirou to turn his mind to steel, to ignore the suffering of the innocent in the pursuit of victory... Well, Shirou wouldn't do it. He wouldn't be what Kotomine wanted him to be. Trusting in others, even if it meant suffering the occasional betrayal, was better than being the type of person who would never trust anyone else at all. Where would that end — mistrusting Shinji, who had been his friend from childhood? Mistrusting Rin, who had entered into so close an alliance with him? Mistrusting even his own Servants, fearing that they might abandon him if they decided a different Master had a better chance of obtaining the Grail? It would never end. He would end up all alone...
...alone atop a hill of swords...
Shirou rubbed his forehead as a faint twinge of pain ran through his head. Where had that image come from? In any event, he had already decided. For better or worse, he would put his trust in Bazett, and allow her the opportunity to live up to her word. He might not be entirely certain about her, but he was certain about himself. He would not be unkind, or unwelcoming, or mistrustful, or unmerciful, or treacherous towards those to whom he had extended the hand of friendship.
Shirou Emiya would be a hero.