Shadow Unforgotten

"Alright, I wanna have a go!" Kuro jumped to her feet.

"No. Sword-testing is done. Besides, I have more to do." Taking out a number of scabbards, Sasaku carefully slid her new weapon into one. Less to protect its edge, as she winced upon noticing that the weapon seemed likely to cut through its 'protection' than anything else.

"I wonder if Lancer would have made a closer match, since she uses a similar weapon ... oh you need my help for that?" Illya took the pencil and notebook that her Caster handed over. "If everyone would write down their names in full, please. In whatever your native script is, as well. And your eight maids, too."

"Even them?" Rin looked up in surprise as Illya started writing. "Mind me asking what all this is for?"

"I'll be carrying out a pair of pseudo-formalcraft rituals before tomorrow's battle. I saw 'pseudo' because rather than using ambient mana, it will draw directly from the energies still stored in the Realm, bypassing my own magical circuit limitations. Thus for our side, I will be setting up a, hm, monument of sorts."

"Is there a reason the others need it too?" Saber didn't look particularly interested in the ritual itself, but at least didn't seem to object to it.

"They need it even more to avoid being collateral damage when enemy Servants bust in here. Which they will, if things go as planned."

l

(Sakura)

"It'll all come to a head tomorrow, won't it?" Sakura asked, sliding the letter she had been given for safekeeping into Shirou's table. Without saying a word, since none was needed, he came up behind her, extending a hand as Sakura turned around to face him. At first, she thought that he was going to pat her head or something similar, since he had with Archer or Medusa (current form). Caster though, only once and her obvious condescending amusement annoyed him enough that he didn't try a second time.

As a result, my breath caught as his fingers instead slowly and deliberately closed on the hair ribbon I was wearing, instead. There was a brief sound of weapons clashing outside as the Servants practiced their skills, but it sounded muted compared to my own heartbeat as Shirou slowly pulled on the ribbon until it came undone in his hand. The hair that it had been clinging to swayed for a moment, freed.

"..."

Shirou slowly moved away backwards without breaking eye contact until he had to turn, laying the ribbon carefully across the head portion of the room's bed. Neither side said anything for a while - no words were necessary. Sakura let out a breath that she hadn't been aware of holding.

"Since it isn't a matter of, do we have to, it's one of do we want to," he said simply.

"Um, even after everything since yesterday, if you're still fine wi-" She cut off as he slowly shook his head.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'. And yes. Come." That was it.

And then we made love. It was rather, how to put it, pedestrian, standard, vanilla, not really the most technical or demanding engagement. But as a simple and perhaps physically-direct shared experience, it was what we needed and certainly wanted at that moment.

What I certainly wanted.

...

That wasn't just... a fantasy while I lay under someone else... not this time. Sakura blinked, looking around at the all-too-familiar view from her narrow bed in her room in the Matou house. A house that she remembered having seen burning fiercely on the newscast.

Almost timidly, she stepped outside, making her way down. Pausing at the sight of the door to the basement standing open; a rarity. Sakura clenched a fist in realization. Could Grandfather have yet another trick?

Prepared for a third battle, she defiantly made her way down, daring her opponent to take note of the sound of their stairs under her weight. But at the bottom, the area which she had warned even the Servants about entering without preempting the dangers of with a great deal of firepower, was empty.

Not quite. There was a sound from that pit in front of her. Like a sloshing of something wet. Wary of a possible trap or distraction, Sakura carefully approached, checking around her with each step before carefully peeking in from a safe distance from the lip.

A moment of horror at what she saw was followed by a loud splash that echoed through the area as she jumped in. Anyone but him!

In a panic, Sakura beat wildly at the small school of crest worms that, like fish being fed, were swarming around the slumped form of her lover. They fled, probably more in surprise than fear, leaving her time to haul him up and out of the pit, dripping a trail of whatever warm viscous liquid had been pooling there.

"Ah, Sakura." Shirou stirred as she began looking over his naked form for any injuries. "How unexpected."

"Are you alright? Did they bite you anywhere?" They did, after all, have a bit of an appetite for male flesh.

"No." He paused to blink at the sight of the two of them splattered in the same stuff. "They were just, er, saying thanks."

"For what?"

"Feeding them. Any idea why?" Sitting up as she dropped down next to him, Shirou watched Sakura wordlessly examine the liquid on her fingers in lieu of answering.

"They can survive off sexual stimulation as well as magical energy," she said at last.

"I guess that means I did a better job than I thought..." he paused. "But I see you have other thoughts."

"I don't know..." It was the first time with him since taking over their 'familar contract', but remembering what she had heard about succubi and incubi, the latter subsisted off emotions, especially from women. "I just remembered your Caster asking if magical girls could turn friendship into energy."

"So, you mean... love? Why would you think it was something like that?"

Sakura froze.

"Listen, our first time together... wasn't my first... but I can see you already guessed that," she sighed. Obviously he would have noticed, after all. Even if he fainted afterwards.

Shirou waited for her to continue.

"It wasn't who you think. Or rather, what." This gave him visible pause. Then, after a moment of realization, he pointed sideways into the shallow pool she had dragged him out of.

"Yes. Not them specifically,though."

"I see."

They simply sat silent. "It really is you, isn't it?" Sakura asked after a while of this, a different sort of unease creeping up on her,

"I suppose so," he replied. "Or my imagination has become very dark. Why?"

"You shouldn't be here," she got to her feet, looking about. "We can't have the same dream."

"Why not? Though it's awkward to say, I've seen some of Caster's dreams."

Sakura swallowed nervously. "Because we're not linked like that. Or we shouldn't be. You need to wake up. Now. Call Saber for help."

"I don't... oh you mean th-" Shirou cut off as he abruptly disappeared. Sakura exhaled in relief as her legs gave way.

Rider, are you there? No response. At least Shirou was safe.

"Sis, are you there?" Experimentally, she called out to the Servant who should certainly be with her, since this was after all a mental landscape. Though she was a pretty good copy of the Caster who was now her magecraft teacher, this one apparently was more minded of a sibling. Younger one, that is. Or perhaps actually, it was more that Sakura wanted her that way?

There she is. "You know you only need to use your will to speak with me, right?" The figure sitting a few feet from her, dangling her legs over the side of the pit, raised an eyebrow at the sight of her host walking up to her. "Do I even want to know what was going on?"

Wordlessly, Sakura kicked her off her perch with, fittingly enough, a simple act of will that reached across the distance. Flailing in surprise for the briefest of moments, Sasaku fell face-first into the pool and was jumped on by its playful inhabitants.

"Shoo! I don't have anything good to feed you with!" Watching her try to beat them away before recovering herself and simply jumping out in a leap, Sakura practically laughed to see the Caster was now thoroughly drenched, though in another situation, it would have been a rather terrifying sight.

"I see," Sasaku said thoughtfully, snapping her fingers absentmindedly as the liquid nearly leapt off her clothes and hair, forming a growing puddle at her feet. "It's your blood."

"They live in my body, I guess that fits well enough."

"You need better backgrounds than this. By the way, it seems you are burning quite a lot of the magical energy that you just, uh, received from Shirou."

That last bit caught her attention. I must have been running low after all of today's magecraft. But I didn't even feel the usual urges. "Wait. Right now? But that shouldn't -" Sakura blinked. "If Saber already roused him, why hasn't Rider woken me up yet?

Sasaku moved a bit closer, with a small smile. "She can't from outside, I guess." And slapped Sakura across the face.

"Sis, you jerk!" Sakura flinched backwards instinctively, nearly knocking over the much smaller Rider who was holding onto her arms, trying to shake her awake. "Uh, what?"

Saber was holding back Shirou near the door of the room, while on the other side, Rider and her Master were standing in what looked in a dark cloud filling about half of the space, though she could see through it with no issue.

"You don't have a younger sister," Shirou said in confusion at that exclamation rather than the situation as a whole. About this time, Caster poked her head in the door before blocking the way in.

What just happened... did I do?