Day 6: Shirou — The Worms In The Walls
Shirou and Rin approached the Matou house, hoping to find some clue within as to what had befallen Shinji, whose Servant Rider was now a slave of the False Avenger. The house's front door was unlocked, allowing them unimpeded access. Inside, the house was dimly lit only by the meager light that managed to filter through the thick curtains that covered all of the windows. Shirou tried flipping the light switch a few times, but to no effect. In addition to the darkness, the atmosphere was thick and oppressive. A feeling of senseless dread suffused the place like miasma.
"Something's wrong here." Rin whispered. "Do you sense anything, Black Archer?"
"No Servants." Black Archer said. "But... something. Familiars, perhaps."
"Well, well, well." a dry and cracking voice spoke. "And what brings the Tohsaka family head to my humble house?"
Black Archer instantly spun about and fired an arrow at the source of the voice. The missile of blazing prana exploded against a wall, sending shards of wood and plaster flying.
"Oh my, how terribly impolite." the voice said. "Entering someone's home uninvited, then punching holes in the walls. I'd expect more refined behavior from someone of your noble lineage."
"Zouken Matou!" Rin called. "Show yourself, you miserable vampire!"
"Truth be told, I'm not actually home at the moment." Zouken said. "But if you'd really like to see what you're talking to..."
There was a skittering sound within the hole Black Archer had blasted in the wall, then the worms began to crawl out. They spilled forth like maggots from a wound, their wriggling bodies clinging with ease to the vertical surface of the wall. Their small, toothy mouths all worked in unison, producing a crackling buzz that resolved into Zouken's voice.
"What do you think of my familiars, Tohsaka?" Zouken asked. "You're probably heard tales of the Matou family magecraft, but seeing it with your own eyes must be an entirely different experience!"
"You don't intimidate me, you filthy parasite." Rin retorted. "And we didn't come to talk to you; we're looking for Shinji. We'd like an explanation as to why his former Rider is now serving Avenger."
"Shinji?" Zouken laughed. "My worthless grandson is dead! He was slain in battle by another Servant, the False Rider. His own Rider survived his death, and I suppose it must have sought out Avenger to become its new Master. Servants are fickle and treacherous, caring only for their own goals and willing to abandon their Masters should it prove advantageous – though it is hard to fault Shinji's Rider in this instance. I certainly wouldn't have been willing to die on behalf of that pathetic idiot!"
Shirou gritted his teeth at Zouken's mocking laughter. Even if Shinji had been black-hearted, he was still Zouken's flesh and blood. For his own grandfather to dismiss his death so callously was unforgivable. He could hardly contain his rage at this inhuman monster who spoke through a mass of writhing worms. Rin, however, maintained her icy composure.
"You don't sound surprised to hear about the existence of a Servant of the forbidden class, Avenger." Rin said. "Does that mean you knew about the Holy Grail's corruption, too?"
"Kihihihihihi." Zouken's worm gave a dry, raspy laugh. "I know more than you imagine, little girl. Rather, it is you who are woefully ignorant. For instance... about Sakura."
Beside Shirou, Rin went rigid.
"Funny how you asked about Shinji, but not your own sister." Zouken said. "But then, you've always preferred just not thinking about it, haven't you?"
Shirou turned in surprise towards Rin. Her expression spoke to the truth of Zouken's revelation: her composure was crumbling and her face was twisted by a mixture of shame and fury.
"You play the good magus, pretending like her adoption severed all bonds between you; but the truth is that deep down, you still care about her." Zouken said. "But you don't want to face that truth because it would make you a failure twice over – a failure as a magus for your lingering sentimentality, and a failure as a human for discarding your sister. Thus you live in denial: ignoring Sakura at school, turning a blind eye to her circumstances, telling yourself it is the proper code of conduct for magus families, even though the sight of her suffering makes your heart break."
Zouken's voice seemed to be growing louder in volume, coming at them from all directions. Looking around, Shirou saw more worms crawling out of the house's floor, walls, and ceiling. They oozed out from behind paintings, wriggled forth from between the pages of books on the bookshelves, and burrowed up from beneath the carpet. Within moments, it seemed as though the entire Maotu house was covered in a blanket of foul, pulsating, flesh-hungering worms.
"Sakura is currently a slave of the Dark Servant, Avenger." Zouken said. "But that is hardly the worst thing that had befallen here, since your father placed her into my loving care. Tokiomi Tohsaka was a remarkable magus; but, alas, a terrible judge of character. When I told him that I would raise Sakura as if she were one of my own children, he was so proud of me – he clearly never inquired as to how I raised by children. And you, Tohsaka, never asked – following the magus code of honor, like that's worth a damn – kihihihihi!"
"What happened to Sakuta?" Rin demanded.
"Avenger consumed her with darkness – not that there was much light left in her at that point, after all those yours spent in the worm pits having her young body violated by my Crest Worms in every imaginable way. But the most amusing thing is, not once did Sakura ever give up hope. 'Surely someone will come save me from this hell', she thought. 'Surely Rin, my sister by blood, will realize that I am suffering and come to rescue me', she cried. But of course, you never did, did you, Tohsaka? You never asked about her circumstances, never looked into her eyes long enough to see the pain behind them. After all, the business of the Matous was no business of the Tohsakas. And now she suffers torment greater by far than any I could ever inflict: taken as a slave by Avenger and given a direct link to that which we call 'All Evils Of This World'. Not even I, who consider myself a master in the fields of torture and degradation, can begin to guess at the consequences that enslavement by Avenger might have on Sakura, provided she survives... an assumption with very thin odds, indeed."
"You... you monster!" Rin spat. "Do you think you can break my resolve with this? Do you think this is going to stop me from coming after you? I'm going to defeat that Avenger, then I'm going to hunt you down like the vermin you are!"
"Bold words from one so young and so inexperienced." Zouken said. "I have lived for centuries, child. I was personally tutored by the Great Master Schweinorg, and dared to steal the secrets of his Sorcery when he refused to teach me. I experienced the first four Grail Wars, and survived them all; and I will participate in four more, if that is what is necessary to attain my wish. Threats from such as you are as irrelevant as the buzzing of mayflies. When your bones are dust and your name has been forgotten, I will still endure. You have not one iota of my knowledge, my experience, my resources, or my resolve. And you imagine that I might tremble before your hollow words, your empty threats? Go on, then, arrogant girl. Try to impress me."
Rin opened her mouth to retort, but Black Archer abruptly interrupted.
"He's stalling." the Servant said.
"What?" Shirou said, startled.
"There's no reason for him to be rambling on like this unless it's to distract us." Black Archer said. "He's deliberately provoking Rin in order to keep her attention on him. He's planning something."
Rin blinked as Black Archer's cool, rational tone broke her out of her fury. She took a moment to compose herself, then deliberately turned her back on the worm-filled wall.
"Right." she said. "If Zouken wants us here, then we should probably be somewhere else. Nothing this scumbag has to say is worth hearing, so let's go."
"Attack now!" Zouken's buzzing voice rose to a shout. "I Command it!"
Shirou reacted purely on instinct, grabbing Rin's arm and pulling her behind him. Not because it was Rin, or even because she was a girl; but because it was the fundamental nature of Shirou Emiya that he would sacrifice himself for the sake of others.
The enemy materialized out of shadow. An Assassin-class Servant, which had been using its Presence Concealment ability to hide itself up until Zouken's order compelled it to strike. Shirou got only a brief glimpse of it – a young Japanese woman, wearing a red jacket over a kimono – and then the enemy thrust a knife into his chest.
Shirou was certain that it would be a fatal strike, an assassination technique which would piece his heart and kill him instantly – so he was completely surprised when he found himself still-living a few moments later. When the Servant had stabbed him in the chest, she had missed his heart entirely. The knife's short blade had rebounded off his sternum, leaving a painful but ultimately harmless cut. This seemed to have caught the Assassin by surprise as well, as she was staring at Shiro in puzzlement with her unusual eyes, which seemed to shine with swirling bands of rainbow color. Everyone else, however, wasn't wasting time being surprised.
"It's an ambush!" Rin shouted. "We have to get out of here!"
Black Archer immediately seized her Master by the arm.
"Faust Buckler!" she shouted.
Then, in an instant, both Rin and Black Archer disappeared. Shirou didn't think for a moment that they'd abandoned him to die; if she had not done so during the hopeless battle against Berserker Heracles, she would not do so now. Rather, faced with an attack by Servant Assassin, Black Archer's first priority was to ensure the safety of her Master. Once Rin was secure, Black Rider would return for him. He simply needed to stay alive for that long. The Assassin had gotten over her puzzlement at Shirou's survival of her first attack and began moving towards him again, knife once more raised for a lethal strike, but Crow immediately dashed between them, blood flowing from his arm and stump and coalescing into blades.
"Stay behind me, kid." Crow said, as combat between the two Servants began.
Crow was taking advantage of the short length of the enemy's knife by extending long blood blades to keep her at a distance. However, each time their blades clashed, the enemy's knife sheared cleanly through Crow's blades without resistance, causing the severed portion to splash on the wooden floor as liquid blood. Crow was maintaining the length of his blades by constantly exuding more blood, but Shirou wasn't sure how long he could keep it up; while Servants could regenerate blood much more quickly than humans, that required using prana, and Crow must certainly still be exhausted from the fight with Rider at school.
The pain in Shirou's chest died, submerged under a wave of anger. Once again, he was helpless. Once again, he was relying on someone else to protect him. He was sick of it. He wouldn't back down from evil any more. He would be a hero.
"Trace, on!" he called.
Kanshou and Bakuya were in his hands almost the moment he visualized them. Even without going through his normal process for Projection, the twin swords appeared for him as if it were the most natural thing in the world that he should wield them. Without a conscious thought, guided solely an instinctive impulse conveyed to him from the swords by his structural grasp magecraft, he flung them away to either side of Crow.
The swords, he understood, were two halves of a single whole: tied to one another by an invisible bond. As they passed by Crow, their flight paths changed due to the pull they exerted on one another, causing them both to close in on the Assassin in a pincer attack from both sides.
False Assassin whirled about. She slashed Kanshou with her knife, causing the sword to break apart as though it had been made from naught but wet clay. Bakuya, she raised her left arm to block. Though the blade bit deeply into her limb, there was no blood; the site of the impact crumbled rather than being cleanly sliced, as though the arm was prosthetic. That impression was reinforced when the Assassin showed no signs of pain from taking the hit, smoothly jumping backwards to dodge a swing by Crow.
At that moment, Black Archer reappeared next to Shirou and grabbed his arm.
"Time to go." she said. "Faust Buckler!"
The world froze. Crow and the assassin stood as motionless as statues. There was absolute silence, and everything took on a grey tint.
"Don't break contact with me, or you'll become frozen in time as well." Black Archer warned. "Now, let's hurry up and get out of here. I can't keep my Noble Phantasm active indefinitely."
"What about Crow?" Shirou asked.
"He's only fighting to protect you." Black Archer said. "Once you've been moved to safety, he can retreat in spiritual form."
She began walking towards the front door, and he was forced to turn and go with her or be pulled off his feet by her iron grip and be dragged. She guided him out of the Matou house, off of the property, and to a location several blocks away where Rin stood, frozen in time like everything else. Then Black Archer's shield made a loud clicking sound, and color and motion returned to the world.
"Come on." Rin said. "We should keep moving away from the house, in case the enemy has a way of tracking us. In fact, it'd be best to head back home and rejoin with Saber and Red Archer. We should be safe from assassination with four Servants guarding us."
They began walking, but Shirou wasn't able to relax until he sensed Crow's spiritual presence join them.
"Crow!" Shirou called. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah, no problem." Crow said. "I ran for it as soon as I saw Black Archer had taken you to safety. I'd rather not get into any more fights today, though; I'm pretty exhausted. The worm-guy's Assassin is definitely the one that Bazett lady described taking down her Lancer – that tiny knife didn't feel like it had any sort of magical energy in it, but it was able to cut through my Crow Claw like nothing."
"So Zouken was responsible for defeating the Caster at Ryuudou Temple... and killing Kuzuki-sensei." Shirou said.
"That rotten bastard." Rin said through gritted teeth. "I thought that the time of the Makiri was finally over, that the Grail would no longer choose them to compete. But it seems that wretched old vampire is determined to stick his nose in no matter what. Well, this time, I'm not going to overlook it. Since he's decided not to bow out gracefully, I'll end him myself."
"Rin, about Sakura..." Shirou began.
"That's none of your business." Rin snapped. "The Tohsakas are a mage family, bound by mage traditions. Someone like you, who received only a half-baked upbringing and training, couldn't possibly understand. You're no better than an outsider, and have no right to judge."
The tone of her voice made it clear that she had decided the conversation was over. They walked the rest of the way to Shirou's house in silence.
==Interlude: Zouken Matou==
Zouken was in a wrathful mood.
"If you were going to fail to eliminate even one of them, you might as well not have bothered to show up at all!" he shouted, his worms relaying his voice to False Assassin.
"I only attacked because you compelled me with your Command Spell." False Assassin said in her empty, placid voice. "I would have preferred to merely observe them from hiding."
"It was your unnecessary hesitation which forced me to use the Command Spell!" Zouken snapped back. "They had realized they were being set up and were going to leave. You had the perfect opportunity for an ambush presented to you; and not only were you willing to let it pass, when you did engage, you somehow managed to bungle it! I did not judge you as a coward or an incompetent when I formed my pact with you, but your performance here leaves me baffled. How could you have failed under such advantageous conditions?"
"I would not qualify these events as a total failure." False Assassin said.
"Oh, you think it was worth it, do you?" Zouken growled. "Now they know you are my Servant; they've seen you fight, seen your abilities. Please, explain to me, how exactly was this debacle worth it?"
"I was able to observe our enemies and gauge their abilities in preparation for a future decisive strike against them." False Assassin said. "I may have been able to do so without them gaining any knowledge of me in return, had you not Commanded me to attack... but even that provided me with valuable information that I can use to ensure my future victory. Most significantly, I was able to determine that the male Master and the female Archer both present an unusually high degree of difficulty as targets."
"How is it the Emiya boy is still alive?" Zouken demanded. "I thought you could kill any foe with but a single strike. But given a perfect shot at the boy, you managed to miss his heart and inflict naught but a trifling scratch!"
"I have told you before; I do not aim for my enemies' hearts." False Assassin said. "What I target is their concept of existence. I see the point which embodies the manifestation of their death, and actualize it. A mere physical attack with this poor blade is unlikely to be effective against a competent enemy, so I always prioritize conceptual attacks. However the location of the point of death is metaphysical, so it does not necessarily coincide with a vital physical organ such as the heart. It can in some cases, but the boy was one of the exceptions. So my attack did not miss; I struck precisely where I aimed."
"And yet the boy still lives." Zouken hissed. "How do you explain that?"
"The point of death disappeared at the moment I struck." False Assassin said. "It receded from this conceptual plane, becoming unreachably distant. That child is protected by an extremely potent Conceptual Weapon – something on the level of a Noble Phantasm. But it is of no concern. Everything in creation has an end – even Noble Phantasms. The protection which shields his point of death carries its own point of death; I saw it when it activated, and will know to target it next time. In our next encounter, he will die, with certainty."
"See that it is so." Zouken said. "What of the Archer, hmm? What difficulty does it present?"
"Her Noble Phantasm is not a physical object, but an effect." False Assassin said. "Things without form are much harder to see. But she used it within my sight too many times. I can visualize its concept, now. And anything I can comprehend, I can kill."
"How about the False Saber?" Zouken asked. "That was quite a poor excuse for a Saber-class Servant, if I've ever seen one. Why did you not slay at least that one?"
"The reach of his blades is too great for me to strike him." False Assassin said. "Normally, that would not be a problem, as I could first sunder his weapons; but his Noble Phantasm allows him to regenerate additional ones. But he is no threat; it is only because I was fighting openly that he was able to defend himself. Striking from ambush with my Presence Concealment ability, I can fell him with a single surprise attack before he even has the chance to notice me."
"I was expecting you to stab him in the back when he turn to flee after his Master." Zouken said. "Why did you let him get away? Should not your Spiritual Grasp have let you halt his retreat and take him down?"
"Indeed, that is what I would have done; but my Doll Arm was damaged by the boy's thrown sword. It should take no more than a few minutes to regenerate, but my Noble Phantasm will be sealed until then. I doubt the boy was aware this; it was simply a lucky hit. Now knowing their weaknesses, I can ensure that the next battle does not last long enough for him to pull the same trick."
"Hmph." Zouken grunted.
His Servants arguments had somewhat mollified him. Looking back on matters calmly, he had in fact erred; tried to strike hastily when he would have served him better to remain in the shadows. He prided himself on his ability to play the long game; had he not been working towards the fulfilment of his ambition for over five hundred years already? Hadn't he even chosen to sit out the Fourth War entirely, judging that it would be more advantageous to prepare for the Fifth? To hastily try to pick off two Masters on a spur-of-the-moment attack just because an unanticipated opportunity had presented itself... it was too rash.
Zouken blamed his body. All the preparations he had made, all the prana he had absorbed... and yet already he felt the signs of decay. His vessels had begun degenerating at an alarming rate. In the past, patience had come easy, for he had always been able to assure himself that even if he was unable to claim the Grail in the current War, the span of sixty years before the next War was no obstacle to him. But now, for the first time in centuries, Zouken was beginning to feel the bite of mortality. There was a chance that, if he failed to claim the Grail during this War, he actually might not live to see the next one. Five centuries he had outrun death; but now he felt death narrowing the gap, and his anxiety had interfered with his judgement.
But no further. Zouken would not panic, would not falter, would not make any further tactical errors. And most of all, he would not die. Zouken Matou, born Zolgen Makiri, would never die, not for all eternity
"Perhaps using my Command Spell was... slightly premature." Zouken allowed. "I will not rebuke you further for this defeat. However, in the future, it would be helpful if you explained your intentions to me before the battle so errors like this don't occur again!"
"As you wish, my Master." False Assassin said.
"In any case, that location is no longer of any use to us, now that it is exposed to our enemies. Resume shadowing Sakura and Avenger. They are likely planning to claim territory at one of the locations suitable for activating the Great Grail: either Kotomine Church or the cavern beneath Mt. Enzou. We must know where they intend to anchor the vessel for the Black Grail, so that we may ensure the invocation of the White Grail occurs at the opposite location."
False Assassin nodded, then faded away.
==Interlude Out==