Draconian Fate Works - Volume 1

by Kratos1989

Honestly, I should have expected it. After all, my line of work would always be screwing with me when I don't need to. What I did not expect was getting myself into a world where Gods are alive and around, Angels and Demons are real, and the residents are really weird. I blame Zelretch for this. Rated T for the time being. (Yes, the title has been changed / Sporadic Updates)

12. Juggernauts and Berserkers

Disclaimer:

High School DxD is a Japanese light novel series written by Ichiei Ishibumi and illustrated by Miyama-Zero. The Fate series is owned by Type-Moon. I do not own any of the characters mentioned from both series. The only things I own are the ideas that popped into my head for this story and whatever original characters I would create for the story.

My main muses come from Gabriel Blessing and Marcus Galen Sands, authors of great works themselves. This story is meant to be a work of pure fiction made solely for fun, constructive reviews will be welcomed, flames will be ignored. Any references to characters in real-life are purely coincidental and should not be taken seriously. If I could make money out of my ideas, it would be nice...

Root Damn It!

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~~AN~~

Hey everyone, before we get started with the chapter, I must apologize for the long delay.

(Looks at calender, damn it is past half the year!)

As stated on my status update, I have been through a bit not to mention my account getting messed up so I had to scrape through old ideas and create new ones to get this chapter out. This is the best I could do, though to be frank I felt that something was still missing. Hopefully this is a good read for you guys, I will tell you more at the end of it.

For now enjoy the story... Oh and you guys get ready Linkin Park's "A Light That Never Comes" and Yuji Kajira's "Battle is to the strong" XD

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Published: September 16th 2018

Chapter 10: Juggernauts and Berserkers

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Part 1

==(Scene 1)==

I let out a light hum as I carefully took a piece of the metal scrapping from the item I was examining and placed it into the pantry dish, then poured in a clear liquid before sitting back and watched the metal react somewhat violently as the liquid turned a deep purple and giving off the odor of wheat roasting while tiny arcs of electricity danced around the pantry dish only to be halted by the insulation I had around it. Nodding lightly, I leaned to the side to press the button of the recording device next to me before speaking.

"Sample obtained from Azazel's Sacred Gear remnants has shown positive reaction to the distilled portions of Astatine, Iodine and Meitnerium. Initial observations of experiments suggest a high probability of the alloy used in the creation of Sacred Gears has the same molecular structure and composition to the Dust Alloy used by Zelretch in creating the Amulet, and thus a highly recommended substitute for the material to repair said Amulet. Also to be noted, the reaction released a high amount of energy, suggesting that small pieces of the sample can be used sparingly to give similar if not greater results than with original substance. I will need to test a couple more times to ensure the results, but again, indications are good for replacing the damaged parts of the Amulet. Ending log number 20 of Amulet Material Experiments on the 3rd of July, 2017."

With that done, I capped the pantry dish to protect the dissolving test, wrapped the metal pieces that came off of Azazel's Artificial Gear carefully, wrote a few more words in my notebook before leaning back in my chair and let out a tired but satisfied smirk. It had been a tiring morning but it was worth it.

It had been some time since I last performed any experiments of my own, and with the lull after the recent attacks and truce, I finally got a chance to try out some ideas and more importantly, try out the samples I have obtained discretely since my arrival to this world. I managed to convert one of the empty apartments to be my makeshift lab and warded it enough to make withstand majority of my explosive experiments and making sure there were no intruders getting through, but again it took a while before I could get some time to do my experiments.

That chance and time came in the form of the summer vacation when the academy would close for the period. The devils had to go to Hell in order to take part in some coming-of-age competition for Rias and Sona, while Xenovia and Irina were currently undergoing strict training by Griselda who was apparently given orders to stay in the town as part of the truce agreement. It was a little bit of a hassle trying to make sure the other apartments were not being used, but it was okay, and from what she said, it seemed many of the disciples and fighters were used to harsher living conditions, so these simple apartments were considered high-end for them.

I could not help but wonder about their living standards.

For Mitelt, she was now spending a bit more time with the exorcists for training, the younger devils of the two Peerages for some chatting, and occasionally Kano and Kawako at the shop. She would not admit it, but she genuinely enjoyed her time interacting with them, especially with Ruruko and Asia when they happened to be around with the little Sprite Dragon Familiar so that she could spoil it with little treats.

On a side-note, there were some notable changes to the current living arrangements around me. For one thing, I currently have a small group of angels that were following me around as bodyguards, likely due to my little stunt at that conference with the [Tree of Life]. That got somewhat complicated with one pair of Fallen Angels following me around alongside a couple of devils who were also ordered to keep an eye on me. It made for one very interesting afternoon when the three groups got together and nearly started the next Great War over my protection detail. It took a crap-load of quick talking to break them apart, and a whole gallon of tea, coffee and a whole bunch of my home-made snacks for the two heiresses, Griselda and I to calm our nerves down.

But enough about that, I should be concentrating on my experiments, especially the ones involving Sacred Gears.

Originally I did not think to start on the ones involving Sacred Gears and focused my work towards repairing the Kaleido-Amulet. My experiments to try and recreate the materials for the amulet were frustratingly giving few successes as Zelretch took minerals from other worlds and one particular type of Ether that could only be obtained from the cracks between dimensions during each crossing. In this world the closest sample I got to fixing the exterior of the amulet with enough conductivity for magic would be the steel shards I got from the blade wolf familiar that I had visited over time to help remove and interact with. It was after a few mishaps that I ended up having to use the ones I obtained from Azazel and the other gears.

It was through these experiments that I was able to discover quite a fair bit of information regarding the Sacred Gears, with the latest discovery that the alloy used in their making could be a possible substitute for the fixing of the Kaleido-Amulet. That was both a good and bad thing. Good because it means I do not have to go too far to find the possible source of it. Bad because for the time being, I have no way to create or synthesize the item, and what little I gathered about Azazel's work from Mitelt, just getting the necessary materials was more than enough to blow a hole in all of my bank accounts with the monetary equivalent of a bazooka.

Crud.

The only way I could think of getting said materials would be to approach Azazel and ask him for them. That could go either way as the Fallen Angel was quite relaxed in his attitude and the few times I had to talk to him regarding either the workings of Grigori or his curiosity about my magecraft, he was both pleased with our intellectual questions and our professionalism, but that was the fact that he possessed some behavior patterns similar to the magus back home, not to mention his almost religious manner in protecting his research that was enough to make Rin's behavior look mundane.

I shook my head and moved the items away to another table that had a protection and privacy rune etched to ensure only I could touch them. Once I made sure they were secured, I moved back to the table and prepared a new audio file on my machine while taking out the one I used. Rin may balk at the idea of using technology to record my findings due to a combination of her magus pride, her technological disaster of handling and the possibility of someone grabbing said files to read. But I found that these help me out a lot, not to mention the magus back home don't use technology that much with the exception of combat magus. Even then they were few and far between, so I need not worry too much.

Of course, that was the old world, what little I gathered about Azazel, he may be the one person in this entire world who could potentially understand a majority of my research, which was why I had to be careful with my wording to ensure he would only think that I was researching something else besides a way to get home, if in the event he chanced upon my research.

I stood up to stretch after preparing the new audio file for my next experiment, then after a quick check at the door to ensure it was locked, reached into my dimensional pocket and pulled out the one item I had been meaning to examine for some time. Making sure to have a good grip, I lightly placed the jar on the table and looked at it with the light shining on it, a certain item that clashed very badly with the current decor.

The Magic Crest of the late Julius Luther Balsforth.

As any good magus of their own right, particularly Rin, would tell you, possessing a Magic Crest of another person was the equivalent of a King's Ransom, a treasure trove of knowledge and the button to a magus equivalent of a nuclear war in one big package. No matter where one goes, just possessing even the Crest of the weakest magus around could be worth a fortune if there was the right buyer, but it would also be a source of problems if the crest belonged to a huge family. There was also the issue of blood lines and their compatibility with crests. Despite the popular beliefs of Magic Crests staying within the family, Rin and Luvia had demonstrated with some well-documented examples of families whose descendants could not handle any of the high-level spells and in some cases, the user would die a slow and painful death from activating. Transplanting a Magic Crest was like organ transplant, even the most compatible user cannot automatically use it immediately.

There were also cases of those who were not part of the family but could use the Magic Crests in some form or behavior. Sakura was the most extreme and by far the most disgusting example from which that thrice-be-damned old worm perverted his art to make use of her body. Thankfully for her part, we were able to remove them and the primary worm from her body, effectively cutting Zouken's lifeline and leaving him open for me and Kotomine to kill, one of the rare moments we actually agreed on something.

It was also one of the few moments where we laughed like mad men as we cut that worm down to size in slow agonizing pleasure while Rin looked at us like we were demented.

Another good example came from Julius himself. The man who was started off as a propaganda move by his adoptive family and given weaker aspects of the magic crests, got stronger and better through hard training and proved that with him defeating his brother, his family and a few dozen others consisting of other magus, exorcists and the occasional Dead Apostles. He was proof that one did not need to be blood-related to a strong line to inherit the crest; one needed to be strong enough to utilize it.

Question for me though, would I want to use it?

I took a little longer to look at the pulsing flesh in the jar, the lines of Prana glowing with each pulse, before calling upon the dimensional pocket to keep it in storage. There was a part of me that would admit that I was somewhat tempted to try some form of surgery to insert the flesh to see if I could inherit some of the properties, but the more rational side warned me of the extremely lethal consequence of doing that without any help from Rin or other certified magus. There were too many variables to consider and there was one thing that Zelretch himself was cautious about: the little-known dangers of the crest inheriting the previous users' memories and portions of the soul which could lead to a takeover of a host's body and mind. If the old wizard capable of dimensional travels and with powers that allow him to throw a freaking moon at someone was hesitant on that, it was best to pay heed especially if said crest once belonged to a man who converted himself into a Dead Apostle.

Briefly I thought about the Sacred Gears, notably [Boosted Gear] and [Divine Dividing] which housed the twin dragons. One could not help but wonder about that and whether it could be applied the same way as the Crests, placing the crests into a similar vessel like the gears and use them. There was also the ball of power I obtained from Kokabiel after that Excalibur Incident. Would it also be possible to try and 'connect' that with a Sacred Gear?

I shook my head before gathering up some papers for my next research. I would have to think about it some other time, for now I would focus on a different aspect of my work. With a press of the button, I began my next log.

"Log 15 of Sacred Gear Experimentation, Entry Type: Phantasms Combination. It has been 4 days since my last test on the gear samples obtained…"

Ever since that attack on the conference, I had gotten involved with a few more hunts for Stray Devils, and from those hunts, I ended up getting other Sacred Gears appearing before me after I took them down. Among them was a shield-type gear capable of creating multi-facet barriers, an elemental gear for controlling the earth, a couple of weapon-type gears with interesting properties, and one very weird gear which, if I have to describe it in the best way possible, has the power to generate bubbles of some sort.

At least I got something for kids' parties in the future.

Attracting Sacred Gears to me was bad enough, but having one of them rushing at me at the time both Azazel and one devil named Ajuka Beelzebub were around to see us hunt was a really bad moment for me. Seeing their expressions reminded me of Rin and other magus when they were on the verge of discovering something new on their own magecraft or my Reality Marble.

Putting aside my near traumatic experience with the two trying to figure out my ability to attract Sacred Gears, there were some factors I noted to be consistent with each case. For one, any gear I touched seemed to become more 'solid', as though they became more complete to retain their form like Kiba's swords. That effect was heightened when I used a Noble Phantasm to touch them after obtaining those gears; they seemed to merge together to create something new, a hybrid of sorts that may or may not gain traits from both weapons. Azazel seemed to think that way and coined it as such when he examined one of the weapon-type gears that I had accidentally combined with one of my lesser known phantasms and found himself stumped. Ise who was with me on the hunt actually backed away from the Fallen Angel as the man crackled like a mad scientist on the verge of discovering something new.

Truthfully, I too felt fear from him.

And so, I had continued to test out the different Sacred Gears to understand their inner workings. One of those experiments had the accidental possibility of creating a new Sacred Gear; [Hell's Trident's] ability to create lances allowed me to test out the materials I have encountered or tried to conjured up with my imagination and it was from using a regular spear with [Rule Breaker] that I ended up creating a new weapon which I had dubbed [Devil's Bane]. That was due to a new ability that allowed the weapon to cancel out any and all abilities that were related to Devils, something I believed to be very useful but also something to be kept quiet. That spear in question did not disappear like the other versions I created and instead hung around like [Hell's Trident], thus having a new spear accessory around my neck.

I have tried different combinations with the samples I have, some of which involved the pieces from Azazel's Sacred Gear, and I was right in placing them in a specially sealed jar for testing as they still held some power that allowed for a creation, and if that could be done with small degraded pieces of an artificial gear…

What about a full-charged Jewel from one of the original Longinus?

"I am about to initiate the test with the following materials. The first material is the jewel orb obtained from [Divine Dividing], a Longinus that contains the soul of the white dragon named Albion. Second material to be used is one spear from [Hell's Trident] with one ability to fire off bolts of demonic energy. In addition, I will be attempting to use one of my lesser known Noble Phantasms with holy properties to see if all three can be combined into one weapon." I continued speaking while conjuring up said Noble Phantasm and spear from [Hell's Trident], and positioned them pointing at the smallest jewel of the lot from the top. I had to be really careful with my tests as they seemed to literally explode on me. Part of it was due to my incompetence to anything outside of my Projection magecraft, but the other reason was because the merging process was extremely explosive at times. Discounting the first time when I obtained [Hell's Trident], any other gears or samples I obtained have an odd reaction when in contact with my Noble Phantasms. My last experiment involved pieces of Azazel's artificial gear and some scrapped shards from Kiba's swords placed together before using a sword Noble Phantasm, and it was so explosive I got shot out of my make-shift lab with my clothes burning from the process, and the end result was me obtaining a new Sacred Gear that had all of their properties in one weapon.

It was a little problematic explaining this to Azazel since he was around at that time and demanded to know the methods I used to create the gears while the gear in question hovered near me. I never felt so violated in my life.

"Okay, let's take this nice and slow." I narrowed my eyes as I mentally commanded the two weapons to slowly descend on the blue jewel. I had to try out different methods to get the least explosive reaction and I found that just the lightest touch would be sufficient. I was not sure if the same would be applied with two weapons but it could not hurt too much to try.

Just a little more…

"BAM! BAM! BAM!"

"Shirou, are you in there?!" I jumped at the shout and door pounding from Ise, temporarily releasing my hold on the weapons and making them pierce the blue jewel as opposed to just touching it, embedding their tips deeply into it. The jewel glowing brightly was the only warning I got that I would be in a world of pain.

'Son of a b~"

"BOOOOM!"

Whatever thoughts and choice words I had in mind got thrown out along with my body as I got pushed off my chair, out of the door and onto the floor hard enough to make a small dent in it. My ears were ringing and my eyes were having a hard time focusing on anything.

"Oui you idiot! What the hell type of experiment are you performing this time?!" A shrill voice rang out and I found myself looking upside down at the face of one annoyed blonde fallen angel with narrowed eyes. "Can we have one experiment that does not blow up in your face? We may have a lot of cash for the rent but at this rate, we won't have enough to fix the apartment you know!"

"Tell me that when I can have peace and quiet." I groaned as I pushed myself off the ground just as the sounds of pounding feet came around quickly. The girl huffed before directing her attention to the smoldering pieces of furniture to which she applied some of her magecraft to stop the others from catching fire.

"Shirou, are you okay?!" Ise came around the corner brandishing [Boosted Gear] while Kiba followed shortly with one of his procured blades. I merely put my thumb up while looking at the glowing white spear that had just finished forming itself and was making its way to us. The one thing I did note was the pure Holy Aura it was issuing out with abandonment; evidently the Noble Phantasm I chose was strong enough to overpower the demonic aspects of [Hell's Trident] creation and combined that with Albion's power mixed with it, I think I may have accidentally created something a little too pure in holy energy to be used around the others. Without thinking, I raised my hand to it, and in response, the spear flew straight into my hand. Upon contact, I could feel the link between it and me getting completed.

So I have created a new gear, at least I did not blow up my lab and set it on fire like the last three times.

"Whoa, what is that?" Ise came to a halt a few feet away and warily held his arms up, wincing slightly from both the light and the Holy Aura being given off from the weapon. Kiba himself seemed torn in wanting to stay his ground and wanting to use his speed to go to the next block.

"Apparently, my new Hybrid Gear." I mused as I used it to pick myself up."I think I will call it the [Divine Holy Spear of Division]"

["That wording, you obtained Albion's power?!"] The gauntlet on Ise's arm spoke out with the jewels glowing brightly. ["How?!"]

"Something left from our fight back in the academy." I winced as I worked out the joints that got bruised from my landing. "But I doubt you are here to ask me about my experiments."

"Oh that's right!" Ise lightly knocked his head. "Shirou, I need your help to save Asia from a despicable demon that is trying to take her away from us and defile her afterwards!"

"..."

I stared at him blankly before turning to look at Mitelt who also sported a confused expression, and then the both of us turned to Kiba who had one hand covering his eyes and letting out a sigh of resignation.

"It is a long story." Kiba only gave us that before he pushed Ise into the shared apartment. I let out a sigh of my own as I cleaned the lab, repaired the door and activated a rune to set the security for my lab before walking into the apartment and made my way into the kitchen.

I was going to need a lot of coffee for this.

==(Scene 2)==

"Okay, so let me see if I got this right." I placed my second cup of coffee on the table and looked at our guests. "You guys returned to Japan just a few days ago after winning a couple of matches in your tournament ‑ congratulations on that matter ‑ and when you arrived, a devil named Diodora Astaroth appeared claiming to be the same one that Asia healed when she was still with the church and proposed to her on the spot."

"Yes!" Ise affirmed with an angry tone. "And that guy has not been letting up on his attempts to go after her! He is even ignoring Buchou's refusals for the past couple of visits and basically pushes his way into the room to get to Asia! Even with strict warnings from Kaichou to not come again, that guy just walks up to us unannounced at night in the middle of town to try to get Asia. That guy is up to something and I know it is bad!" I turned to Kiba to get his end of the story, knowing Ise's temper was partially fueled by his over-protectiveness of Asia and another part of jealousy.

"Ise is correct in this case, and Diodara has been unusually forward towards Asia." Kiba spoke while looking mildly irritated by the person in question. "My experience with him has been brief, but I do share some displeasure with Ise regarding the manner he is approaching Buchou and Asia and how he brushes off their refusals. I have not heard a lot of good things about him as well regarding his lifestyle back in the underworld."

"That is an understatement." Mitelt chimed in from her chair. "Back when I was still in the Grigori, the guy has a bit of bad reputation regarding women from churches, especially those recently excommunicated. I am not certain of the exact nature, but many of the others expressed some disgust regarding his approach and possible treatment to them. Considering the type I had to work with, if they have heard of him from back then and called him disgusting, this guy is really a bad piece of work."

"Then we need to save Asia!" Ise got up to his feet and clenched his hand tightly. "Even Vali came to warn us about him, and you know that has to be bad if he is the one doing the warning!"

"Calm yourself Ise." I placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him back into the chair. "It is one thing to go galloping for the guy, but we need proof. From where I am standing, much of the information I am getting seems to be rumors and smoke. And correct me if I am wrong, but this guy is somewhat related to one of the four Maous, right?"

"He is under the house of Astaroh and is distantly related to Lord Ajuka Beelzebub." Kiba answered my query. "What little I understand, Diodora was not meant to be the heir but with Lord Ajuka as a Maou and his father soon to be retiring, he was next in line, and not by popular vote for that matter. There are some in the Underworld who say that he might have bought his way into the succession, especially with the disappearance of the previous primary heir under mysterious circumstances."

"The more I hear about this guy, the more I think he is a really problematic fellow." I remarked with a frown.

"Normally I will tell you to leave the devils alone, but in this case I think it might be best to actually listen and help them out." Mitelt got to her feet and dusted her clothes. "As I said, I have not heard good things about this guy, and if he is going after Asia, you guys take a queue number because I will be introducing him to my spear!" She brandished said spear with a glare that promised pain for the person in question.

"Easy there girl." I patted her head much to her embarrassment. "We will just go and check on this guy. If he is really that bad, then we can talk about introducing him to your weapon." I gave out a smile that would be patented by Rin as I added this bit, "And depending on his attitude, you may introduce the spear very intimately." Mitelt gave an evil smile of her own at my answer.

"Trust me Shirou, when you meet this guy, you will be wanting to stab him with your swords!" Ise said as they got up. "In fact, you can swing by the club-room tomorrow as he is attempting to meet Asia again."

"Okay, see you then." I replied while considering all the information about this Diodora person. I had to admit, all the evidence pointed to the devil as someone rather suspicious and the fact that he was quite tenacious in his desire to have Asia in his peerage was rather concerning, especially if Mitelt was truthful in her information.

Oh well, if he was a bad person, perhaps I would help the Gremory Peerage out a little to win against this devil.

==(Scene 3)==

Okay, scratch off what I said.

I was not going to help them win against this Diodora.

I was going to help them crush Diodora to complete devastation that he would get down on his broken knees and beg for mercy as they annihilated him to oblivion and danced on his grave.

My first meeting with him was clearly something that Ise was accurate in describing while Kiba, being the polite knight he was, understated how much of a snake the devil in question was. I barely listened to his words for the first few seconds and I had the indescribable urge to give him a straight punch to the face while using some choice Phantasms on him. It certainly did not help my opinion of him when he was proposing to Rias to exchange Bishops, which according to Ise, made it the fifth time he did so. He was oddly insistent to having Asia in his Peerage, and his general attitude to me and Ise in general was really in need of a [Hrunting] to the face. But what really got to me was how he maintained that sickening smile after Asia slapped him in the face and telling him to leave the premises, everything screamed wrongness on a level only matched by Shinji Matou.

So for the first time, I was really eager to help the Gremory Peerage in whatever manner I can to make sure that the Devil would be wishing that he left them alone. It certainly helped that Ise demanded more training to, in his words, 'beat the everlasting shit out of him', so I made sure to ramp it up to help him out.

"Again!" I yelled out to him after I struck him at the side with my sword and sent him flying to a huge boulder that broke under the impact. Ise answered by rolling onto his back and punched the ground to stop his momentum before rushing forward with his gauntlet primed for a powered punch. I merely parried it before kicking high at his head, making him fall on his back with a bloody chin. I did not stop to look at my work as I spun to intercept Kiba's sword and Koneko's fists, using my momentum to push them aside to give me space and time to dodge a lightning attack from Akeno.

From my left, Xenovia rushed past with Durandal roaring to take down the Queen. The dark-aired girl jumped away in time to avoid the explosion of Holy energy only to get caught by Rider's chains and sent crashing to the floor. Without stopping, Xenovia twisted around and fired off a wave of energy at the other peerage members, blasting them away and leaving Ise and Rias for me to deal with. I fired off some [Black Keys] to trap Ise's movements while I took on Rias, using some under-powered Broken Phantasms to prematurely detonate the ball of demonic energy fired by Rias and using the explosion to distract Rias from me coming to the side and tripping her by the legs before using more [Black Keys] to seal her movements, with a sword edge hovering above her neck for good measure.

"And time!" Sona called out from the edge of the battlefield that we were training at while lowering the stopwatch. With that, everyone around me dropped their stances and collapsed in exhaustion as my projections disappeared around me. With a few quick breaths, I dismissed the weapon in my hand before offering it to Rias to pull herself up.

"How was their timing?" I asked Sona who came with several bottles floating behind her, while the governor of Grigori came along a short distance behind .

"They have lasted a full hour more this time." Sona said while gesturing with her hand to make the bottles go to the others. "Reactions are certainly better and I will admit their teamwork is getting stronger."

"That is good." I turned to look at Ise coming to my side. "How's the chin?"

"Hurts like hell." The boy rubbed his chin with a pained grimace. "Seriously, I have to ask what the heck are your shoes made of, rocks?!"

"Actually steel-reinforced boots redesigned to look like normal footwear." I lifted one leg and wiggled my foot. "Part of it is for my own personal weight training, the other is meant for the protection and for sudden attacks."

"Well you got the attack part right." Ise groaned. "You are nuts, you know that?"

"I do, but this is helping you to beat that guy's ass right?" I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Yup, and again thanks Shirou!" Ise gave a big toothy smile before wincing from the pain from his jaw. Better get Asia to look at that.

"Hey everyone!" The rest of us turned to find the other Peerage group returning with tattered clothes and bruising on their limbs, but with wide tired smiles on their faces. A little behind them were Mitelt, Irina and Griselda taking up the rear, having been tasked to help train their individual skills in my place. Tsubasa who called out was currently wiping her face with a wet cloth. "You guys finished with your training?"

"Yes." Rias answered as she lightly dusted her clothes. "Emiya-kun has just proven that his training, as maddening as it is, is effective once again."

"It sure is maddening on many levels." Momo commented as she winced while moving her arms. "Damn, I am having cramps from muscles I did not know I have."

"That is the reason your groups are given different types of training." I said as we made our way back to the small patio that had tables, chairs and more importantly, refreshments. "Your groups having been focusing on the opposite tactics of one another, so that you can work on your weaknesses. Granted it may be aiding each other for your future matches, but at the least you should be able to give other opponents a run for their money."

"I hope so, I would want to have Diodora bleeding on the ground!" Ise let out an evil crackle as he palmed a fist.

"Oh trust me, with the amount of training you are doing, you are so going to be beating the crap out of him." I answered with a smirk of my own. "He will be begging for mercy~" To that we both shared a rather sadistic laugh with one another while the others looked on with amusement.

"You seem oddly motivated to help Rias and her peerage in their upcoming match with Diodora." Sona commented while adjusting her spectacles. "I will admit that I do not have a high opinion of Diodora myself, but your opinion seemed to border along the lines of extreme dislike."

"Let's just say that guy reminds of someone who I absolutely despised and would prefer to forget very soon." I replied as I dusted my hands of the dirt still stuck on them.

"Is that person you knew very unpleasant?" I snorted at Tsubaki's question.

"To say that he was unpleasant is perhaps the biggest understatement of the century." I frowned as I remembered that slimy purple-haired jackal that I regretted calling a friend a long time ago. "That guy was such a wretched, despicable, contemptible, rotten waste of flesh that I just wanted to cut off his limbs, tear open his stomach and pulled out his organs, and wrap his slimy intestine around his detestable neck so that I can squeeze it until his eyes pop out of their sockets and the tongue will hang out of that twisted mess of a face and…" I got extremely detailed in what I would have loved to do to Shinji Matou that it took the sounds of some items clattering on the floor that made me realize I had been simulating a rather graphic idea of torturing and strangling someone.

"I want my mommy~" Saji let out a frightened squeak as he and the members of the Student Council hid behind one of the bigger trees with very pale faces, while the Gremory group hid behind another with Koneko showing raised eyebrows and Ise looking ready to pass out bricks from his rear. Xenovia, Mitelt and Irina made do with Griselda who raised an eyebrow at both my reaction and the manner the girls reacted.

Akeno on the other hand was giving me a very disturbing look that I would want to forget.

"Erm, oops?" I scratched the back of my head in embarrassment.

"Considering the amount of gusto you are placing in describing your method of dealing with the individual, I would assume that the person in question is deceased." Griselda remarked while looking at me with a slightly amused tone.

"That is correct." I admitted sheepishly. "Shame I was not the one to do it."

"Given the… 'graphic' description, I suppose one of his enemies decided to do him in first?" Rias came out of her cover and asked. "I am guessing that he was one of those types that people would dislike from the start."

"That is the second biggest understatement I have heard regarding that guy." I replied while thinking back to the fake brother of Sakura. I had gone through multiple dimensions and time-lines, and in every single one, Shinji Matou was someone who would always be unrepentant and sadistic in his actions. I could count on one hand, the different worlds where Shinji actually turned out good in the end, and that was usually after some major event during the Holy Grail War that would have crippled him or something, and at the mercy of Sakura.

How ironic, to be taken care by her.

Yet of all of the dimensions I went through, the template from my world was quite arguably the most disgusting, sadistic and downright monstrous in his manners and actions. Aside from [Blood Andromeda], Shinji had Rider attacked Ayako, the three girls that hanged around her and Fuji-nee at the academy, using one of her lesser known abilities to go into their dreams and violate them, made her bring some of the students from the nearby school and young housewives from the area to his house for 'playtime' and among other matters, had done 'those things' to Sakura and tried to force himself on Rin, and at one point, seemingly used his authority to have his way with Rider, all of this done within the first couple of months alone and at a very wide scale that threatened the secrecy of the war.

It certainly said something about my world's Shinji and his sadism that Kirei Kotomine actually called for a truce for all of the Masters and Servants, and placed a bounty on Shinji in exchange for more Command Seals, in a manner rather similar to the Fourth War based on accounts by Lord El-Melloi II.

Not to mention the almost sadistic enthusiasm shared by all the other Servants to kill him once they found out about his actions, even Saber had a rather uncharacteristic smile at the idea of cutting Shinji down to the size. Berserker for one seemed to gain control over his rage enough to let out a rather frightening chuckle that sounded so wrong with his madness.

Granted, some of the Servants and Masters had other motivations. Illya did it because she wanted to make sure no one else tried to kill me during the truce except her. Caster wanted to get more information on Saber and Heracles for an opportunity to back-stab us, and try to steal Saber from me. Gilgamesh just wanted to kill everyone off to rid himself of the 'mongrels infesting his garden', while Kotomine wanted to piss us all off.

But hey, it was the thought that counted.

In any case, it did not take a genius to know that Shinji was officially screwed once Kotomine announced it, and he got more screwed when I managed to copy Caster's [Rule Breaker] and gave it to Sakura to take back her contract, leaving him at the mercy of the others. The last I saw him was in the crumbling Temple beneath the hill after Caster was defeated, in the form of a screaming head in a jar just as the dirt fell on top of him.

Good riddance to him.

"Cough! Moving on from the very descriptive mutilation of a hated person," Momo decided to get the story moving. "What else can you teach us?"

"Well, you guys are already learning how to apply Reinforcement to your body. Granted at your current level, only the Rooks are able to use it better for their combat styles while Asia is the only one who can maintain her focus the longest. So it would depend greatly on the type of battlefields you would find yourself in." I spoke while sitting down. "I think you should be able to use the minimum level like Ise, but while he can hold his for ten minutes due to prior training and that Sacred Gear, you can only hold yours for about two and you will be running on fumes after that, so use it wisely as a trump card if need be."

"Got it!" The others answered loudly before they started to pack up and talked among themselves. I took a few more gulps of water before starting on my cool-down stretches, mentally thinking about their progress. They were getting quite good with my blotched teachings of Reinforcement, with Momo and Reya attempting their own versions of Tracing after hearing my explanations about my ability and noting some possible applications. Although they have yet to succeed, it was oddly heartening to have students of sorts to teach hat one knows.

I wonder if this was the feeling Rin got as she taught me some of the Runecraft in the beginning. That thought brought me back to the time when I was living at the Clock Tower with her and Luvia, and then my other home in Fuyuki where Sakura and the others were likely to be waiting for me.

I got to get back soon.

"Well then, I guess we can wrap this up and call it a day." I finished my stretches and made to move off before Sona called out to me.

"Actually Shirou, there is something that we need to discuss." Sona held up a finger while handling her spectacles. "We have been tasked to bring in one guest for our tournament, and the management are quite insistent that we ask you to come to the underworld."

"Guest?" I raised an eyebrow at her to which she let out an exasperated sigh.

"The 'official' reason is to promote good relations between the different factions and different species, but the main reason is more likely to see who are the ones with power. We know for a fact that many of the gods, goddesses and representatives will be coming to the tournament, so for that group it is easy to see who are the strongest. But you are an enigma."

"My brother had told me that many from the Old Faction are clamoring for more information about you, and we suspect that the committee who introduced this on us were given orders from them to bring you in." Rias spoke with a grimace. "As you can imagine, this is getting out of hand. And there is only so much that our siblings can do to restrict without looking like they are abusing their powers."

"They are really wanting to meet you, and because we have some form of working relation with you, they are asking us to approach you." Sona was now blushing from the embarrassment at the sheer audacity of the committee. "I understand that this is a little sudden, but we hope that you can come with us to the tournament, even if it is for a short while."

I looked at the two heiresses with a blank look before turning to Azazel. "Are you invited as well?"

"I am the governor of Grigori, it is kind of expected for me to be called up after the Truce." Azazel answered as he stretched his arms. "Michael will definitely be there alongside famous gods and goddesses. There are also those who have not been convening with us for quite a few centuries so this will be a good opportunity to get in touch with them." He pointed to Xenovia who looked with a bemused expression. "Coincidentally, the exorcists would be coming along for the ceremony, though they might be later in case the church has something planned."

"But surely they have others to look to besides me?"

"You seriously enjoy downplaying your importance huh?" Mitelt quipped from her end.

"She has a point, you are making a few waves, and there are people wanting to know you." Rias took over while Sona nodded her agreement. "For the devils, it is rather unusual for someone of your skill-set to be in our area for so long without being approached to become a part of a peerage, let alone one who keeps rejecting our offers." She added that last bit with a wry smile.

"Not to mention with other factions out there having heard of you, our siblings thought it was prudent to place you under some protection, even if it is in name." Sona added her part with a shrug.

"Which reminds me, I am still hoping for a reply for my proposal." Azazel quipped while looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "That way, protection won't be in name anymore."

"And I will repeat. I am still hanging on to my humanity while watching over the area." I replied back promptly. "And I would rather remain neutral to all the groups for the time being."

"Curses~ I have been foiled again." Azazel gave a dramatic clenching of his fists and facial expression as he answered back with a mischievous light.

"You should save your breath, Shirou will not be going anywhere with you lots." Xenovia proclaimed as she stepped forward with a big grin. "He wants to stay human, so he will be coming to the church with us!"

"Wait a minute, he did not say anything about that!" Megumi came forward with her hands on her hips and a big frown on her face. "He can remain human, but he is staying with us!"

"No he is under our protection!" Xenovia grabbed my arm while directing a glare at the devil.

"No, ours!" Megumi and Reya came forward and grabbed my other arm.

"No, the Church!" Irina joined in taking Xenovia's side and grabbing my arm, followed shortly by Tsubasa taking the Devil's side.

Oh crap, not again!

"Can the adults do something here?!" I yelled out at the two in question as the girls were beginning to hurt my arms with their pulling, but Azazel merely threw back his head to laugh out loud while Griselda smiled somewhat deviously. It took Mitelt to join the fray to help me out by using her light spears to separate me from them.

Thank you little one, you will get an extra Treacle Tart later.

"Okay, besides that, can we focus on who you are going to be invited by?" Mitelt asked while crossing her arms. "From what I gathered, they need to invite you but you can only take one invitation. Best to get it over with now."

Crud.

I turned to look at the two groups in question, with the respective heiresses looking at me expectantly for a reply. Not much of a choice really, there was only one to pick.

"Sona."

"YES~" Tsubasa clenched her fists before coughing into one when everyone looked at her. Very subtle lady.

"Darn it." Rias let out a frustrated huff and crossed her arms beneath her generous chest. "I guess we accomplished that goal of getting Shirou, now it is just the matter of us getting a guest."

"Why not invite her?" Ise pointed his thumb at the Fallen Angel who gave a flat expression. Said expression went flatter when Rias turned to her while scratching her chin.

"Good point, Ise-kun. How would you like to come on a trip to Hell?" I struggled to keep the laughter from erupting out of my mouth and partially succeeded with a snort as my response while the two exorcist apprentices did not bother too much and proceeded to let out a few chuckles and snorts.

"Gee, thanks for the offer, even if it is for the wrong reasons." Mitelt replied with an irritated twitch of her eye. She then turned to us with narrowed eyes. "Stop laughing damn it!"

"Sorry." I replied with a smile that clearly did not mean what I said as she raised her spear in retaliation and proceeded to chase us around the area while yelling out loud. The others laughed in good nature while the exorcist duo and I ran away from the blonde Fallen Angel.

"Well with that done, I guess we can finally say this joke, even if it sucks." Ise shrugged from the corner of my eye. "We are all going to Hell for this."

Part 2

==(Scene 1)==

This was unusual for me.

If someone have told me that I would go to Hell for whatever reason, I would probably have labeled them as your typical pissed off magus or monsters cursing me as I put the blade to their hearts. Maybe even the rare person who hated the fact I could cook better than them.

But for this world, the name takes a different role, and it was more evident after I was invited by Rias and Sona to the place.

For one thing, Hell, as opposed to its usage as a noun or a synonym, was actually the name of one location among an entire world that was simply named Underworld, which until recently served as the home for different types of creatures such as the Devils and the Fallen Angels. And as one would surmised, Hell was truly the realm of Hades, the Greek God, and was his territory.

The Underworld itself was evidently an alternate world that could be classified as a mirror dimension of planet Earth, and it was apparently bigger with lakes, mountains, and everything else. The Devils occupied quite a few large portions of the Underworld, the Fallen Angels took another big sector, and the rest seemed to be split among whatever supernatural there were.

But enough of the history lesson, back to the issue at hand.

Due to me being human and this being my first visit, I was required to go through some procedures to be allowed entry into the Underworld. The first task to do was to board a train that was owned by the Gremory family and make my way through a special portal that led to the world, and that was quite the odd experience, going through a tunnel from the human world and coming out to find purple skies, huge mountains and small towns that would not look out of place in travels around the old areas of Europe.

And this was all in the Gremory Territory which was apparently the size of Honshu.

I repeat my previous thought. Rin must never meet Rias to avoid getting a heart attack.

For this little side trip, I was being accompanied alongside Mitelt by Azazel who evidently needed to make a second trip to the Maou Territory for some meetings, one of which I was required to be. Xenovia had wanted to come along, but she got contacted by Griselda to discuss something regarding their arrangements since they were more or less allowed to go back to the church. From what I gathered though, the three exorcists would still be staying in Kuoh Town for their own reasons.

It did not take that long to reach our destination, and I had to let out a whistle as I stepped out of the train carriage to see the building before me. It was certainly a sight to behold, being a cross of medieval castle theme and a modern metropolis, I could see a blend of old architecture mixed with very modern skyscraper like structures.

"Quite a view huh?" Azazel looked to the castle with a smile. "I will say this about them, they have damn good taste with the whole castle theme. Though it could use a little more color, less imposing looking."

"It is certainly something alright." I agreed with his assessment while mentally calming some of the Noble Phantasms that were getting excited in this environment.

"Come on, our destination is through the gates there." Azazel pointed out the big gates that absolutely dwarfed some of the buildings around us. "Now before we go through, I should tell you that they are very strict with the whole security and decorum, so please watch what you two are about to do or say, okay?"

"Got it." Mitelt answered with an odd glint in her eyes that told me that she was likely to push the boundaries of what was acceptable.

"No problem." I gave my reply while looking at Mitelt with a raised eyebrow, to which she responded with her tongue out.

"Great, onward to the devils~" Azazel said in a sing-along tone as he made his way to the gates. I exchanged looks with Mitelt before shaking our heads as one and followed Azazel through the gates and into the building. Immediately from the start, I could feel the wards testing us for any ill-intent and other compulsions before easing off, something I was thankful for as it felt really invasive and wrong. I took a moment to glance at the area around us, noting that it was a lot bigger indoors than the exterior suggested, and there were a lot more lavish decorations. I did not dwell on them much as I started hearing whispers around us and I could see a few of the staff members looking at us, some glaring with restrained anger, others were more curious, and quite a few were paling at the sight of me in particular as though I was the Grim Reaper or something.

"They are not being subtle about it, huh?" Mitelt remarked with a raised eyebrow.

"Considering we are the first visitors that are not devils in many centuries, not so much." Azazel looked at us with a wry smile. "I am the Governor of Grigori, one of the hated factions of the devils. Mitelt is a former member of the group and a Fallen Angel. And for you my friend, well where does one start?"

"I get the feeling I will not like this." I muttered while Mitelt snickered almost evilly.

"You are a man of many mysteries." Azazel started off with a rather pompous air. "You appeared out of nowhere and made residence in one if not the most sensitive areas of Devil Territories, guarded no less by the two heirs of the 72 Clans and siblings to the current generation of Maous. You then announced yourself by dealing with the Fair Maiden Case done by my former member of the group, before moving on to deal with Raizer by training the Gremory Peerage and helping the current host for the Welsh Dragon beat the shit out of him."

"You then took on a well known Stray Devil on the bingo books that made others from our Factions of approaching and somehow manage to claim his Sacred Gear (something that I am still trying to figure out by the way) and make it work with your magic craft."

"From there, you helped in the case of the theft of the Excalibur Shards and showed everyone that you, a mere human magician, am able to not only defeat Kokabiel, one of the original members of the Grigori and the one mentioned from the Bible, but you are also able to bring together six of the seven shards and remade them into one sword, and by right of the Fae and conquest, you claimed the Excalibur."

'Not by choice, mind you.'

"Then soon after that, you got invited into a conference where you got into a pissing match with yours truly, laid down the law on the High Leaders of the Three Fractions, and then go into a brawl with Vali. And for the two major incidents, you have been recorded and shown to everyone around the other factions and groups that you are a strong force to be dealt with."

"Could you tone down on that?" I groaned as the whispering and the staring got more intense, particularly from the younger females who seemed to want to make a hole in my head or my clothes.

I was hoping for the former.

"Okay, enough fun for now." Azazel chuckled as we past by some tables and reached a set of doors guarded by two really big guys with lots of ornate armor and nasty looking spears. Upon seeing Azazel, one of them nodded and opened the door to let us through.

"Welcome back Azazel." Sirzechs smiled as he stood up from his chair. "And to Mr Emiya and Lady Mitelt, may I say… Welcome to Hell."

"You have been hanging on to that line, haven't you?" Mitelt quipped much to our amusement while Grayfia who was nearby merely raised an eyebrow. Damn that lady had quite the poker face, I would not want to go against her in a card game. I took the opportunity to look around what appeared to be one of the grandest looking conference rooms in existence before directing my attention to the other occupants of the room.

Serafall was quite easily the smallest of the lot and perhaps the most eye-catching as she was dressed in that pink magical girl costume and was currently waving her hand at me enthusiastically with a big smile on her face. Seated next to Sirzechs was Ajuka Beelzebub looking very neat in his dressing with an outfit that made me think a cross of a Noble's dress-code with a scientist's coat with red lines going along the length of it Then at another part of the table sat a man who I had to ask whether he was in need of a good cup of caffeine or a trip to the undertaker due to the bags under his eyes. He wore clothes mostly dark grey with black trimmings and his hair looked like it could use a good trimming. Overall he had a majestic feel that was ruined by the atmosphere of constant weariness and the manner he slumped against the table.

So we have a red-haired pretty boy sis-con, a magical devil girl sis-con, a mad scientist and one insomnia-suffering devil. These made up the Four Maous of the Underworld.

… Am I the only one questioning the state of affairs here?

"Right then, we should get you guys settled in quickly so that you can check on the others." Sirzechs spoke while pulling out a book and a quill that was setting off some of the swords in my Reality Marble. With a quick flourish, he wrote out some words on it before flipping the page towards us and placing the quill next to it.

"That is a form for us to sign in so to say." Azazel spoke after looking at my expression. "The first time I came here, this was the same thing I had to do."

"A Blood Quill?" I could not help the corner of my mouth curling in displeasure at the sight of the item next to the book.

"Yeah, we would need to keep track of individuals coming into our world, and considering both of you are quite famous around theses parts, we would need the extra security." Sirzechs replied while raising an eyebrow.

"You encountered one in your life?" Azazel asked while Mitelt went forward to sign the book.

"Several times, and none of those experiences were good." I spoke with a bit of venom in my tone, unintentionally making Mitelt and Serafall flinch at me. "If I may, I have my own pen to write with."

"Sure, I don't mind" Sirzechs shrugged while taking back the quill. "The quill is more for identification and old traditions. Personally I want to do away with it, but the old stooges won't stand for it." Nodding, I took out my pen and signed the book, not caring much to the disapproving expression from Grayfia. Having encountered the Blood Quills multiple times, I could care less about how others felt I was dissing their traditions. Especially when Rin and Luvia were nearly coerced into using one by a mage who had plans to smear their reputations with help from others among other sick ideas he had for them if not for both I and Zelretch finding out at the last moment.

As for his final moments? Let's put it like this.

I had introduced no less than ten Noble Phantasms, each with the intention to bring out maximum pain and draw it out for as long as I want, one of which was used against a Dead Apostle with very deadly effect. Yet the guy actually welcomed that as opposed to Zelretch's punishment which involved splitting his body parts and sending them into multiple dimensions of several horrors at once, one of which was in a world that was radiated with ten sons while he was still breathing. By the time the mage version of the police arrived, the man was practically a wreck and begging for them to end his suffering.

You would think the guy would have thought about it before trying to harm a student apprentice of one of the strongest vampires around.

"Okay, now that is done…" Sirzechs spoke as the parchment glowed before rolling itself up and hovering back to their table. "Let's go over some news and ground rules."

"What you got for us?" Azazel asked as he sat in his chair and put his feet up on the table. I caught Mitelt's eyes before the both of us rolled them at the same time because Azazel's behavior. Grayfia on her part looked at Azazel with a disapproving glare.

"We are making quite a bit of a progress with both the Heaven Faction and a few of the smaller groups. There were a couple of bumps on the way since many still don't trust the devils that much, but we were able to smooth things over." Sirzechs spoke as he folded his hands. "I believe Michael has approached you for some ideas regarding the reincarnation process?"

"Yup, we are actually making some headway with it." Azazel nodded as he spoke. "We are actually in the phase of using a different medium for the reincarnation process, and if all goes well, we would be getting some volunteers for the test." The governor turned to me at this point, "I believe that Griselda and Irina were offered this test."

"Not Xenovia?"

"She too got the offer, but she held off on it, saying she wants to learn everything about being faithful as a human before she considers it." Azazel quirked an eyebrow at this point "The way she put it, I think she wanted your approval of sorts."

"My approval?" I raised my eyebrow at that.

"She looks to you like the second coming of the big guy." For a brief moment, Azazel had a brief expression of melancholy before getting replaced with a mischievous smile. "In fact I would not be surprised if she expects a question from you regarding her virginity or permission to bed her soon."

"PFFT!" I spit out the drink that was offered to me at his words. I mentally cursed at both the shit-eating smiles that was on both Azazel's and Mitelt's face, and the rather treacherous thoughts that came to my mind involving the blue-haired exorcist who I would wholeheartedly admit was a very beautiful teenager with quite a body alongside Reya, Momo and Tsubaki. It also brought to mind some of the small 'accidents' that came from living close at the same apartment building where we ended up meeting each other in states of undress.

Oh great, now I am remembering that first apartment meeting with Griselda after her bath! With the towel barely hanging on that voluptuous body, that wet hair, the water on those shapely legs…

GAH!

Focus, Shirou Emiya! You should have a mind of steel, not a god damn libido the size of Texas!

"Next topic. Now." I said with a glare at the governor.

"Fine~" Azazel shrugged while maintaining that stupid smirk. "We are also making a bit of headway with other factions, but they are a little apprehensive, understandable considering our track record. Other than that, nothing else noteworthy."

"What about that Chaos Brigade?" I asked them while taking another sip.

"They are proving quite elusive." Sirzechs spoke with a sigh of exasperation. "There have been confirmed sightings in a few locations around the world, but they keep disappearing before we can get close to them, and most of our attempts to track them are unsuccessful."

"Most? That would mean some is successful." I noted that bit, to which Sirzechs shook his head.

"The few that could track the group merely brought us to a couple of safe-houses used by their middlemen or the low grunts. The top members have their own mode of travel, with the human groups likely moved by that guy you met alongside Vali."

"Georg..." I frowned at the reminder of the teen magus.

"In any case, the groups are not quite cohesive with one another." Azazel picked up at that point. "From what my spies told me, there are many groups in the Chaos Brigade, each one with their own agenda. As you can imagine there will be lots of friction between them and quite a few hate one another."

"Do we know any of them?" I asked.

"Let's see." The fallen leader took out a folder from the inner coat and took out a sheet to read. "There are many small groups and factions in this brigade, but the most prominent groups are these three."

"The Old Maou Faction, the largest group consisting of those devils that belonged to the old regime, led by those who were supposedly descended from the original Four Maous." At this the four leaders of the devils in the room winced and looked elsewhere in the room, while Grayfia looked pained at the reminder.

"The next group might be something close to your heart Shirou." I raised an eyebrow at that comment. "Second largest group, the Hero Faction, consisting solely of humans who have access to Sacred Gears, Holy and Demonic Weapons. Arguably the strongest and the most dangerous of all the factions."

"Hero Faction huh?" I let out a hum while inwardly shaking my head at the thought of a group of humans who actively called themselves heroes.

"The third one is a bit of a mystery. What little we have gathered, they are predominantly a group of disgraced magicians who were cast off from their cabals for unethical practices. They are also the only group of the trio that is mixed, having members of mixed ancestry as opposed to the Maou Faction or the Hero Faction." Azazel continued his report.

"Don't suppose you would know this group, Shi-tan?" Serafall called out to me while tilting her head.

"I highly doubt it, I am guessing the one person who could be the closest match is Georg since he did use some skills to fight with Vali, but then he could be part of the Hero Faction since he is human with that odd ability to go through dimensions." I crossed my arms while talking.

"Crossing dimensions? That might be [Dimension Lost] one of the Longinus." Azazel spoke with a very big frown. "If so, then we have a big problem. Of all the Longinus, that particular gear is perhaps the biggest bug of the system."

"Why is that?"

"[Dimension Lost], sometimes called the Fog of Extinction, is a top-tier gear that creates a mist with the ability to block all attacks and transport anything that is in it. Of the lot that dabbles with dimensions, space, barriers and even portions of time, this is most certainly the strongest as it can, at full power, envelop an entire country to send it and all the inhabitants to the alternate dimension to be destroyed. And if the user is strong enough, it can be used to take out the entire world."

"Damn..." I could not stop that from leaving my mouth while Mitelt looked ready to wilt while the devils looked heavily troubled. So I was right about that power reminding me of Zelretch, but if you looked at it differently, one could be a close match to him if utilized properly.

Wait a minute…

"Let's be glad that none of the users in the past have ever gotten stronger to the point of warping the entire country to the alternate dimension, that would be a big mess to deal with." Azazel continued speaking with a shudder.

"Quick question not related to the situation." I raised a hand while running the idea in my mind. "This Sacred Gear deals with alternate dimensions, does that include spatial dimensions of varying space and times, meaning it links to other worlds of sorts?"

"Not that I know of, but I do know that Father had quite the imagination and power." Azazel answered as he scratched his chin. "Honestly, I think one can do so provided they have the power and the knowledge to understand the string theories and the different planes of dimensions."

"I see." I made sure to have a decent poker face as I filed that knowledge into the back of my head. This might be the break I need to get back home, but that would mean trying to get Georg and somehow getting a portion of his Sacred Gear.

One step at a time, Emiya.

"Well in any case, we won't be able to do much on the Chaos Brigade for now." Ajuka spoke at this point. "They would probably lie low for now since everyone is out looking for them, and what few we have captured, they are mere grunts, not high enough on the totem pole to warrant interest. Even the few who have Sacred Gears are clearly the dregs from the bottom. Though that bit might be debatable." He added while looking at me, for which I responded with another raised eyebrow.

"We are currently holding that particular batch in stasis and I was wondering if you could try taking the gears out of them." The devil scientist motioned with his hand. "Maybe we can question them if we remove their gears, and at the same time we can see if their gears are actually as useless as they appeared to be."

"Are you sure about that?" I asked while leaning back. "I haven't removed a gear from a living person up till now, and if Asia's abduction was of any indication, this could end badly for them."

"True, but we have been researching on that and we think we can remove it in theory without hurting the person. But since you have that odd attraction ability, we could test whether yours would keep the person alive after removing it. We will apply the same procedure just to be on the safe side." Ajuka stated that. I could only tap my thumb to consider that notion, to me it was a little risky but it did have the chance to be successful and provided an avenue to stop these users on the spot in the future, and in the long run I could get more gears for testing.

"Very well, I will give it a shot." I nodded to give my consent. "After the games I would imagine."

"Perfect!" Ajuka clapped his hands excitedly.

"Hey I want in on that experiment and research!" Azazel threw in his hat with that statement. "It is not fair to hog it all!"

"Hmm~ I wonder." Ajuka scratched his chin. "What would you give in exchange on this?"

"Oh you devil." Azazel narrowed his eyes. "Fine, how about that research regarding the alternate shield charms that dealt with holy light?"

"Deal." Ajuka stuck out a hand and they both shook on it with serious expressions.

You have got to be kidding me.

"You know if you two are doing this all the time, I am not sure if I should be participating in any more of your experiments." I commented while crossing my arms. "It seems I am the one who has the most to lose in any of this."

"Shirou, you must be the test subject for us. It is for the Greater Good!" Azazel turned to me with an attempt at the puppy dog eyes, but it looked utterly ridiculous on him.

"My fellow scientist, I believe our young friend needs a certain incentive to continue working for us." Ajuka remarked with the twinkle in his eyes. "How about materials and special tomes?"

"And why do you believe I would need them?" I decided to play along, slipping back into my rarely-used mask meant for the politics of the Clock Tower.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you have been seeking out some materials for a little project of yours?" The scientist leaned back, clearly at home with this type of discussion, with Azazel doing the same while the others were currently looking on with interest. "You have quite the assortment of tomes, but majority are meant for the creation of certain materials not native to this realm or for the reparation of certain objects. This gets compounded with the type of materials you have been seeking out."

"Ah yes, rare crystals, purified sulphur and oddly enough, a very rare type of ether." Azazel added in at that point.

"Not to mention, if I may, you have been dabbling with the Sacred Gears you have obtained and somehow created hybrid types of unknown qualities." Ajuka's eyes lit up at this point in the manner reminiscent of those from the Clock Tower. "You are clearly a man of our hearts and indirectly our line of work. I believe a working relationship where we can trade notes and tips would be most beneficial, and I'm sure that we can gather a fair number of materials, tomes and research for you to use in exchange of us understanding your 'magecraft' and your ability to attract gears." He held out his hand towards me. "Do we have a deal?"

I looked at the offered hand with a thoughtful frown, trying to find any possible loopholes he may try to use. That said, he did seem genuine with his offer, and as much as I hate to admit it, I do need some expertise from other minds to help with my issue of the Kaleido-Amulet. If I could get my hands on some of their materials and research, maybe I could speed it up.

One way to find out.

"Looks like I will be making a literal deal with the literal devil." I remarked as I shook his hand followed by Azazel's.

"Great! Now I can finally get some work done on my prototypes!" Azazel threw up his arms into the air.

"Now that we got that out of the way." I turned to Sirzechs and Serafall who have an amused expression watching our debate. "Anything I need to know about the visit?"

"Not much for now. Currently the groups are taking a short break to deal with their respective guests, not to mention the arrival of the other gods and vessels representing their groups." Sirzechs answered my query. "There will be a small dinner function later in the day and that is when you would be introduced to some of the delegates. Serafall will be hosting that."

"That's right, so you better dress nicely!" The Maou Shoujo pointed her finger at me with a pout. "I am not going to have you dress sloppily in this function, you are So-tans's and Ria-tan's friend and despite your insistence, you are still seen with the devils, so you better not make me look bad!" I could only looked at her with a flat expression while Mitelt chuckled at my situation. This was so not going well.

"For now, you and young Mitelt can go walk around the area a bit and perhaps meet up with Rias and the others. I will assigning a guard to guide you around the complex." Sirzechs pointed a thumb at Azazel. "I will be hanging on to him for a while longer to discuss some matters so he would be meeting you later at the dinner function."

"Okay then." I replied as Mitelt and I got up from our chairs and made our way to the door only to be stopped by Sirzechs putting in one last word.

"Shirou, just a warning since you are currently the only human around that has a walking arsenal. Please do not try to hurt anyone unless it is in self-defense or to protect someone, it will be a mess to deal with if you get involved in a fight."

"I promise, though honestly speaking there should no issue." I answered while waving a hand. "I highly doubt there will be a situation for me to get involved with my weapons. It is just a walk around the area, what could possibly happen?"

==(Scene 2)==

Me and my Root Be Damned mouth.

"RELEASE US YOU DAMN HUMAN!"

"For the love of…" I placed my hand on my face and groaned audibly while Mitelt was unsuccessfully stifling her laughter, with a few grunts escaping from her mouth. Behind us, the guard assigned to us was clearly making an effort and failing miserably to hide the smirk that threatened to appear on his face.

I was just minding my own business, trying to stay incognito in a world full of devils and in a room of prospective fighters for the tournament, but no~ somehow I got to be dragged into a situation where I was forced to intervene because some nutjob with a serious case of bad hair and body odor tried to pick on Sona and the others, with two of the supposed peerage members getting physical with Reya and Megumi.

Not that I was blaming the two girls for my involvement, I know Reya could handle herself with her spells while Megumi had one hell of a kick that could take down any male. If anything I was just pissed that the guys in question dared to lay a hand on them with those greasy grins on their faces.

How did this come about?

Following the instructions given by Sirzechs and with the guidance of his security guard assigned to us, Mitelt and I made our way to the place where the participants of this tournament were first brought together to give their speeches on their supposed dreams in the coming future to a panel of judges or supervisors, something the guard was helpful in telling me that was a tradition for any new King of a peerage to do when entering into the tournament, and something I was a little skeptical about but kept my thoughts inward. This was meant to see what the devils had in mind for their careers and most likely have a hand in their success should they prove themselves worthy in the tournament and in their social circles.

It sounded fine, but Mitelt and I could not help noting the odd expression that came on the guard's face when he talked about the panel of devils. When prompted, the guard admitted with a fair bit of venom that he was not overly fond with them in question as they were some of the more extreme traditionalists who were more concerned with maintaining blood purity, keeping the old ways and keeping an eye out for those who could either give them great fortune or be a possible obstacle to their work. Most of the time, it was more of of the latter as they don't like 'upstarts' to ruin their traditions and they were too heavily favored towards the 'Pure-bloods', those who maintained blood lineage through intermarriages.

It was just at that point that we arrived at our destination to find ourselves in the midst of argument. From my perspective, there were several groups of people of different ages, gender and species all together in one spot, and they were all getting very rowdy. That particular group of ruffians was apparently trying to intimidate both the Gremory and Sitri Peerages by using his group of muscle-headed goons, two of whom decided to get physical and touchy, and grabbed Reya and Meguri roughly. I kind of saw a bit of red and let loose both by [Black Keys] and Rider's Chains to restrain them and the group.

Hence, this situation.

"Shirou!" Ise called out with a relieved smile on his face. "Thanks for the assist."

"Not sure if I am really saving you guys or them." I commented while thumbing at the group. "Considering you and Saji looked ready to tear strips out of them."

"Well we could do that, but you can make cleaner cuts." Ise joked with a shrug.

"Release us you pathetic human!" The person with a punk-theme and whom I assumed to be the leader of the Peerage snarled at me. "Then we will demand why a human and a fallen angel are trespassing in our country!"

I looked at him with a raised eyebrow before looking to our security guard who was now palming his face with an irritated expression from the devil's words. "Guess these guys haven't got the memo yet?" To that the guard nodded painfully.

"What memo?" One of the other devils asked. Before the guard could answer, the punk-haired leader had enough and proceeded to do something that melted the chains and forced back the Black Key off his shadow. With a yell, he leaped forward with a fist glowing with demonic energy aimed for my face. I was going to respond with a choice Noble Phantasm when [Hell's Trident] manifested itself before me to block the attack. Then as the devil was thrown back like a ragged doll, the Reformed Excalibur appeared behind me and let out a pulse that pushed everyone back a few feet.

"What the?!" Another one of the devils yelled as he instinctively raised an arm to block the glare from the holy weapon.

"Wait a minute… A trident like Sacred Gear… a big and holy broadsword… a human knowing the heiresses..." The first devil muttered before his eyes grew wide. "Great Scott! You are the human magician that took on Kokabiel and Chaos Brigade!" That started a rampage of whispers and murmurs as the devils around us now looking at me with renewed interest.

Bummer.

"Wait, this human is Shirou Emiya, the one that trained the Red Dragon Emperor, took on Regeis, Kokabiel and even Vali Lucifer?!" The rude devil seemed to have lost all of the blood going to the face as another devil shouted that tidbit. Damn I must be quite infamous around here.

"Forget that! We want this human evicted!" Another member of the rude devil's group, supposedly the second in command, pointed his finger at me. I was about to say something when Rias and Sona stepped forward with a very angry and stern expressions on their faces.

"In case you have missed the memo, Shirou Emiya is currently the guest of the Sitri Peerage for the Rating Games, while young Mitelt is the guest for the Gremory." Sona spoke while glaring at the rude members of the group. "Granted, it was partially our fault that we did not inform him about our interaction patterns, but you are insisting on removing our guests away for protecting us, and that we can't do."

"Tch~ typical princesses using their influence to make things go their way." That particular member sneered as his fellow members stood by and gathered their aura in their hands. "Think you two can throw your weight around because of your siblings huh? The way I see it, you two are nothing without your influence. Heck, you two should back out of the rating games and while you are at it, kill off your male teammates and serve yourselves out to us because that is all you girls will be good at, being toys for our pleasures!"

Oh, big mistake, asshole!

As one, Ise, Kiba, Saji and I rushed forward in time to block off their attacks at the girls, with Kiba providing a solid wall of steel to fend them off while Saji sent out several lines to drain their energy, with me using [Black Keys] to hold the majority down and letting Ise rush forward to deliver a power fist that sent them tumbling.

"You bastards! How dare you say that to Buchou and Kaichou!" Ise clenched his gauntlet as the jewels glowed brightly with his increasing rage. "You bloody well don't know the crap they had to go through and how much they had to sacrifice!"

"You insolent creature! You dare to attack your superior!" The second in command growled while sporting a few burns and bruises. "You are merely a reincarnated pawn, you are nothing without that bloody gear! Just like those other two weaklings hiding behind that shield! And as for you!" He directed a sneer at me. "You are just a pathetic human who got lucky with Regeis and Kokabiel, any of us would be better at killing them."

"Enough!"

That one word was accompanied by a force of pure pressure that descended on us hard like a tidal wave, causing everyone except me and a few individuals to crash down to the ground and gasp for air. I turned to find one devil standing in the distance with his arms crossed and a stern look on his face. He was a handsome young man with black and slightly messy hair with violet eyes that seemed to hold a flame speaking of great trials he had to endure. He was quite tall, arguably the height as me or Tsubaki, and that was accentuated with his muscular build that was actively straining his clothes. It looked like one good flex of his arms or pectoral muscles would tear them to shreds.

Truthfully speaking, he actually made me feel a little envious and impotent with that build.

"Both sides please stand down." The man spoke out as he looked at us. "This is a meeting place meant to welcome guests, not for a brawl."

"Screw you Bael!" That earned the devil more pressure on his body and a more intimate meeting of his face to the ground. The young devil merely huffed as he turned to look at Ise, Kiba, Saji and me.

"Guys I hope you don't mind if you could put your weapons back down?" He asked politely though there was a definite light in his eyes that spoke of his determination to stop this argument by whatever means. I had to smile at his actions, clearly this was someone who talk the talk and backed it up. I straightened myself with a nod and dismissed my projections, leaving [Hell's Trident] and Excalibur who had calmed down significantly floating behind me. The other three followed suit with Kiba actually bowing to him.

"Sairarong Bael, thank you for your assistance and apologies for our actions." The knight spoke as he raised his head. The young devil merely waved his hand back with a smile.

"No problem, though admittedly I should have stopped this earlier." Sairarong let out a big laugh before relaxing his aura, letting everyone breathe properly and the rude group of devils to get back on their feet. With a glare at him and the rest of us, they pushed their way out of the crowd and back to the streets.

"Well this is going to be awkward." Sairarong scratched his head before turning to me with a raised eyebrow. "You do know you are going to be in a bit of a pickle with that stunt you pulled earlier?"

"I suppose so, but that does not mean I can afford to stand around doing nothing if those people decide to manhandle my friends." I answered back.

"Even if said friends could possibly trounce them ten times over?" Sairorong titled his head with a questioning smile.

"Even if they can do that, it is still a gentleman's duty to, pardon my language, kick the shit out of those jackasses for trying to lay a hand on a lady and for saying such offensive words to them." I gave a playful smirk back.

The young devil laughed loudly as he came over and looked at me with a keen eye, and I could tell from his posture and general behavior that this was a guy who was certainly more brains than brawn, likely enjoy a good fight without being bloodthirsty and one person whom I could get along very well.

"I like this one Sona, he has a good head!" Sairorong turned to her while giving a thumbs-up. "Now I see why you are always so happy to~"

"Nope!" In the blink of an eye, Sona crossed the distance between them and slapped a hand on his mouth, a big blush on her face as she attempted to silence him with her glare. "Nothing to be said there!"

"What is he talking about?" I asked while raising an eyebrow.

"Nothing, he is just teasing, right?!" Sona practically growled at this point to which Sairorong shrugged while maintaining an amused look on his face. I looked between the two before throwing my arms in the air.

Devils, I would never understand them at all.

… Why were some of the devils snickering in amusement? Why were Reya, Megumi and a couple of the other girls looking at Sona with narrowed eyes? And why were Ise and Kiba palming their faces while Saji looked like his heart was getting broken?

"Well since that little debacle is over with." The young devil got Sona's hand out of the way and turned to me offering a hand. "If I may, despite the incident earlier this is a pleasure to meet you, Shirou Emiya."

"Likewise Mr Bael." I greeted back while shaking his hand.

"Call me Sairorong." The man pointed a thumb behind him where I could see a few other devils standing in the distance, likely his peerage. "If you don't mind me asking, would you fancy having a meal with us? Sona and Rias are welcome to join us for lunch, and I do have some questions regarding yourself and them for some bits." I turned my head briefly to look at the others, particularly the two heiresses. Seeing them nod their heads gave me my answer.

"Think I would like that offer."

==(Scene 3)==

"Well, looks like your plan is coming together quite nicely."

"It is, and hopefully we can get good seats for the shit storm that is about to descend on them."

"Yes, but how will you ensure the matches will go as planned? Despite your little mind games on the organizing team, it would appear that the groups are lot more spread out than expected."

"True, which is why I have been manipulating a few of the tasks and the matchups so that the teams in some of the blocks would meet with an 'unfortunate accident' that would force them to forfeit and throw the other team into a negative light for the timing. This should be enough for the next two days since there aren't a lot of teams in the rating blocks. You would think that the organizers would have known better than putting two teams of extreme dispositions and power strengths into the same block."

"I see, but may I ask why are you attempting to get the two princesses and their peerages together in the same dimension? I get the Gremory because of their match with Diodora since that guy wants to take that former nun from them, but isn't the Sitri Peerage on a totally different battlefield?"

"It would seem that way, but with the teleportation gate being controlled by my puppets, all I need is a little change to the placement and they will be there."

"And again why?"

"I figured you would want more test subjects when you get both the devil boy and Emiya into your experiments."

"Aww~ thanks partner."

"Anytime. Just make sure that he or those devils do not catch word of our involvement."

"No worries there, I got this."

Part 3

==(Scene 1)==

I checked both my clothes and my equipment for the fourth time, making sure I got everything with me including my procured or created Sacred Gears, all the while thinking what the heck did I got myself into.

After that little debacle with the other devils, I went to train the Gremory Peerage and Sitri Peerage to help with their future opponents, something I got to know more thanks to previous recordings of their matches. It was quite interesting to see different groups of devils competing in this Rating Game Tournament, where it could be the flip of the coin for any team or a decisive battle of the heavy weights. Some were like the Gremory Peerage, using overwhelming power to take on their opponent. Some like the Sitri dealt with tactics and the gathering of information for a true victory. There were some who have abandoned attacking power for absolute defense, making it a battle of attrition. And then there were those who dealt with the method Kiritsugu and I were very familiar with, sacrificing one member for the team victory.

Sad, but it works.

Interestingly enough, the matches were pretty even for most of the teams. There were no obvious advantages to either side which meant it usually came down to numbers or luck for these contests. The only exceptions were the Gremory group, Sitri group, the Bael group that had that Sairong fellow, and a couple of others that were linked to the 72 clans in some manner.

I took absolute pleasure in seeing that rude group of devils taken to town by both the Sitri Peerage and Sairaorg's Peerage, the latter giving them a well-deserved smack-down worthy for any WWE shows.

That said, the matches involving that Diodora were really weird to me, considering the irregular power levels he displayed for his attacks, and after having a few words with Rias and Sona, I gave my thoughts to them that there was a high chance that he was doing something illegal, likely taking the demonic equivalent of a performance steroid to gain the boost needed for his magic. That certainly concerned the twin heiresses and wanted to inform their siblings, but Akeno, Tsubaki and I pointed out that it would be very difficult to prove that and for all I could tell, perhaps it was an ability that Diodora had before and this was the first time I saw it. That however did not hold much water when the heiresses told me that he never had such a power before, and that he was quite sub-par compared to others.

With that in mind, I had to switch my training plans for Ise to increase his capacity and, to put it bluntly and crudely, act as a battery for the others to get energy. Thankfully Ise had kept up his training with Reinforcement since that Phenex match and was able to tweak his methods a little to suit the idea I had. He even expanded on it that he could fire off two balls of energy at his chosen targets, although he would need to be really close to them to get them energized and he had to ensure nothing was between them, let alone an enemy who could use that against them.

Aside from that, I also went for the dinner function that was meant for guests to interact and honestly, I had to be odd one out of that lot. For one, I was the only human magus in the entire mansion of devils, angels, fallen angels, gods, demigods, and what looked to be an entire platoon of grim reapers. For another, I was the one human who apparently got showcased a lot in the areas occupied by said groups of people with all of my attack styles displayed, not to mention the bits when I projected weapons of different mythologies. Needless to say, I was under a lot of scrutiny by quite a few deities and then I had a few coming up to ask me a lot of uncomfortable questions about where I got my weapons, where I was from, those sort of things.

Damn.

I shook my head and went to the door to leave the apartment. I was running a little late for the upcoming match featuring Ise's group against Diodora's, and I for one would want to be there to ensure that my training did not go to waste. Seeing the bastard devil crawl on his knees would be a good bonus.

"Shirou!" I turned to look at Xenovia who was dressed in her usual exorcist outfit. "I was just about to get you, we are running a little close for the timing."

"Sorry about that, had to make sure I got some special equipment in case of emergencies." I pulled back my jacket to reveal my harness packed with several items meant for demon extermination. Xenovia's eyes widened comically at the sheer number I had under it.

"How on earth are you packing that many under your jacket?!" She pointed a shaking finger at me with a wide mouth.

"Magic." I gave a toothy smirk while the girl swatted at me with a pout. At least I finally got her to relax around me enough to act like a normal girl of sorts, even if it was a slow process. "So are you excited to come to the underworld?"

"Well it is a bit of a mixed bag for me." Xenovia admitted as we moved along to the meeting point where we were to teleport to the arrival zone in the underworld. "If you have told me that I would go to Hell, I would have thought you were threatening me or that I have committed a major sin to warrant such a journey."

"That makes two of us." I gave rueful smile as I thought back to some of my old missions. "Practically three quarters of my fights end with the bad guys screaming that they would be meeting me in Hell or they will be reserving seats for my arrival." I snorted at that point. "Funny bit, I went there just a few days ago and I did not see them."

Xenovia laughed as we neared the location. "True, that is always the case with my fights." She went solemn almost immediately with a sad expression. "Then again, considering what I have learned over the past few months, maybe they have a point. I do not know if I had attacked the innocent or the guilty." I looked to her with a solemn expression of my own, then with a light reach of my arm, I pulled her closer and hugged her head with one arm.

"Shirou?!" The girl blushed as I started to lightly pat her head.

"The past is the past, you can't change that." I spoke softly as I drew on my own experiences. "I would not know about the enemies you went against, whether they were truly evil or people your superiors sent to eliminate under the guise of heretics, but that is over and done with. What you can only do now is to keep moving forward, but make sure to keep one foot firmly in the present. If you are worried about the lives you have taken, work towards your atonement in whatever manner you can do with."

It was a little hypocritical of me to say these, since I still had issues with my mentality, but it was sound advice, especially if some of it came from the age-old vampire of the Clock Tower. It seemed to have worked as Xenovia nodded with a smile and pulled away.

"Thanks, I needed that."

"No problem gal." I smiled cheekily at the pout she gave at my choice of words. "Better get moving."

"Indeed." We both turned to find Griselda, Irina and Mitelt waiting for us at the place of appointment. "We are running a little late for the competition."

"Sorry for the wait." Griselda waved her hand while Irina pulled Xenovia to the side and started to say something that made the blush on Xenovia's face brighter. Wonder what they were talking about?

"That was a nice thing you did for her." Griselda commented quietly as we wait for the teleportation circle to power up. "She has been worried for sometime about the missions she had undertaken for the church. She could not stop questioning her actions and whether she had harmed or killed any innocents."

"There will always be some casualties, be it the guilty or the innocent." I answered while checking I got my ticket for the travel. "Don't take this the wrong way, but in the politics of the church, there will be some who will disguise their intentions as reasons for a crusade against those who don't view things the same way as them. There was the possibility that Xenovia and Irina would have been tricked by their handlers or superiors to do the dirty work. The fact that she feels remorseful is a good thing for Xenovia, she just needs a direction to make up for it before it overtakes her."

"Speaking from experience?" Griselda asked as she crossed her arms across her chest. I merely shrugged just as the circle glowed.

"Time to get going you two." I called out to the exorcist apprentices, ending their talk and coming to our side. As the circle glowed brightly, I could not help but ponder Griselda's remark.

Speaking from experience huh?

She had no idea...

==(Scene 2)==

It has been roughly three hours since our arrival, and I must say this was quite the experience for us.

Upon first arrival, we had to undergo a security inspection to ensure we did not carry any lethal weapons, something that kind of got us into trouble, what with Griselda's and Irina's light-sabers, Xenovia's Durandal, not to mention my walking armory that nearly gave the devil guards a heart attack when I decided to tap into my inner Zelretch and started pulling one weapon at a time from my Reality Marble while making it look like I kept them all under my jacket. Only the arrival of a laughing Sirzechs and Azazel saved the guards from the inspection.

I could hear them sighing in relief as I made my way out of the junction.

Then we went to the booths where we were to watch the match-ups. It was there I ended up interacting with the other guests again. The gods for one were very interested about my fights with Kokabiel, the few goddesses or female demigods were very curious and sensual with their query, to the point of sheer awkwardness, about my 'swords', and the few odd ones who asked about my views on some matters since I was considered the third party.

There were of course a few that I was extremely wary of, particularly the god of the Underworld, Mr Hades himself, alongside the troop of Grim Reapers behind him with their wicked scythes. It was kind of weird to see the actual god himself, being a skeleton dressed in the robes of a high priest and looking at me with glowing eye sockets. Rin and Luvia would never believe me meeting this guy.

Now we were waiting in the booth that was to be transferred temporarily to the dimension where the Gremory Peerage would be fighting Diodora's Peerage. I have watched the other matches either at the staff room where I watched it with the Maous or through recordings made for the matches, so this would be my first time at a live watching. That being said, I was somewhat uncertain about the security aspect of this. This was begging for someone to move us away from the safety of the area and to a dimension where they could take us out one by one or leave us hanging for Root knows how long.

"Don't worry about it, it will be completely fine~" I turned to find the smallest Maou of the group trying to relay my concern with a big smile. "We have been using this for a long while and we make sure that no one tries to tamper with the dimensional barrier, or that would get really bloody quickly."

"That does not comfort me much. There is a high chance we could get transported to a place where we could get ambushed."

"Oh you big worrywart. We have procedures for that, we have the evacuation stones and portals to get everyone out. And if things really go belly up, the bracelets that each of you have will forcefully transfer you out to our medical center." The girl in magical girl costume pouted just as the barrier started to cover the booth and the guards announced the countdown to the relocation and the reminder for everyone to be seated. "There is absolutely nothing to worry about. It is not like we are going to be attacked from the moment we arrive."

Girl, you just jinxed us.

That thought was confirmed when we arrived to the bright glare of an explosion that rocked the booth while groups of people in dark robes hurled fireballs and spells at us, intent on breaking down the barrier and killing us off.

My expression was flat as Griselda, the apprentices, Mitelt and I turned slowly to look at Serafall who had a fixed smile and a twitch in the eye. "Don't say it, Shi-tan." She warned me in a sweet tone.

"He told you so." Mitelt smirked at the glare from the Maou Shoujo. The devil decided to ignore that and instruct the security to start the evacuation procedures.

"Everyone please stay calm and move to the emergency transfer point!" The security announced to the guests who started moving to the exit, with a few rushing in their panic. It went well until it came to us, when Mitelt passed through the barrier the dome flashed brightly and the booth shook violently. Before I knew it, the exorcists and I were flung out of the booth through the viewing window and sent crashing to the battlefield below.

At least I was used to getting thrown into a battlefield disorientated and with odds against me. Before we hit the ground, walls of steel appeared around us to protect from the onslaught of spells aimed at us. A quick roll on the floor and I got back to my feet to project a storm of blades down from the sky to take the attackers out. That did not take long before I took down the wall to show the bodies lying on the ground, a few who were still alive but magically exhausted from their usage of protection barriers.

"Everyone all right?" I called out to the exorcists who got back on their feet.

"I would like to make a complaint to the management of this tournament." Griselda somehow managed to make that sound as flat as possible while making it polite with a very scary smile on her face. "Clearly something is amiss with the security of the current game."

"Is it just me, or is it a little coincidental that four humans get driven out of the booth while the others get stuck behind the barrier?" Xenovia grumbled as she shook her head from the impact.

"Nope, it is not you." Irina remarked while maintaining that easy smile.

"GUYS, ARE YOU OKAY?!"

"By the gods, that girl has one set of lungs." I blinked as we watched Serafall waving her arms in the air while Mitelt was next to her trying to break the barrier.

"Guys, if you can hear me, we can't break past this barrier, so you will need to sit tight!" She called out to us. "We will try to breech the barrier, but it could take some time!"

"Great, just what we needed." I grumbled as I projected a spear to throw at the enemy that was coming over the hill, setting off an explosion to take them out. "I should be getting overtime for this."

"I will agree on that note." Griselda took out her weapons and passed one to Irina, before reaching under her clothes to get the one strapped to her leg, momentarily distracting me with the view of those smooth legs. "I would be getting compensation for this."

"Well we can start with them." Xenovia indicated the group of robed enemies coming up to our area. With a yell, she brandished Durandal and slammed it into the ground, sending out a huge wave of holy energy that decimated the enemies heavily. Irina followed suit with her agility to take out another group that came from the side, while Griselda merely took down her group with the ease of one taking a stroll in the park, albeit one in a devilish landscape and with plenty of bodies littering the area.

As for me, two words.

Target. Practice.

I projected multiple swords and sent them flying at the enemies, using my bow occasionally to take down the ones further away or those that were more tricky. With a quick twist of my body, I grabbed a sword and brought it down to one that snuck past me attacks, slashing him across the chest and cutting his arm in the process. Without stopping, I grabbed his head and lifted him off the ground to push him at two others, using the distraction to fire off an explosive phantasm.

"Ladies, I would believe that we would need to split up." I called out to them as I used two swords to behead two magicians.

"What do you say that?" Xenovia asked while carelessly releasing a wave of energy to knock some enemies down.

"Because I can sense the Gremory group in the distance, and something tells me we are being obstructed from getting to them." I answered as I raised my fist and brought it down to release spears from the sky. "And right now I am getting a lot of bad vibes."

"That is fine and all, but I think that is a bit of bad advice right now since we can't break away now." Griselda mentioned as she avoided an attack aimed for her head.

"Leave that to us!" A voice cut through the racket before we started seeing enemies flying in the air and screaming in pain. I turned to find Sona's group wrecking their way through the enemy lines, with Yura and Momo sporting rather sadistic expressions as they took down their share of opponents. "We will keep them busy for you!" Sona shouted as ice and water appeared to consume her opponents.

"Right then, I guess we get moving." I remarked only to get faced with what looked to be a few ugly-ass trolls raising their clubs to smash the ground and separating me from the exorcists. I projected a few blades to stab them through their limbs, making them fall to the ground and giving me the chance to introduce one blade each to their brains. But there were a few more enemies coming from my end, and we were running out of time.

"You guys go ahead first, I will slow them down!" I called out before firing off another round of weapons to take the enemies down.

"We can't leave you there!" Xenovia tried to make her way to me only to leap back from the fireballs aimed at her.

"Just go, I got backup from them!" I called back. As if to emphasize on that, Tsubaki conjured up several bolts of lightning and directed it to Sona who used her water element as a medium to move them to the enemies, electrocuting the more unfortunate people while stunning those further away enough to let Megumi and Saji to pick off.

"Understood. Remain safe young man." Griselda went to grab Xenovia who looked at me one last time with a worried expression before letting herself be dragged away from here and making their way to the Gremory group. I made sure that I took down whoever stood in their way before making my way to Sona's group.

"Fancy meeting you here." I quipped to Sona while firing off an arrow.

"Yeah, we were not expecting that either." Sona answered before throwing up a wall of ice to block off some attacks. "We were supposed to be going into our set battlefield with our opponent, but for whatever reason we got transported here. We have been dealing with these guys for sometime now when we saw the private booth teleporting here. We figured we could get out through the security portal, but I guess that is a bust."

"It is." I stabbed the ground with a blade that would create multiple stakes to pierce out of the ground and take out the opponents on the ground.

"Well at least we get some combat practice." Yura called out as she delivered one nasty haymaker on one unlucky fellow, before grabbing the head of another and sending him out of the area with a big throw. I looked around me and watched the enemies pour from over hills and surroundings us

The number of enemies was rather troublesome, I would guess they were hoping to catch us off guard and attack the guests but did not anticipate the security measures implemented. Still though, this was getting us nowhere with all the time being wasted on this group. The fact that someone went through all the trouble to bring us into one spot meant that we were being held back from Rias's group, and there was a high chance that we would need our strength for what's to come.

Time for desperate measures.

"Sona!" I called out to the bespectacled girl. "Get ready to hunker down, I am about to pull the Black Hole on them!"

"The Black Hole?" She asked as she blocked an attack with water.

"The one that dealt with [Sammael]!" I yelled back as I called forth the spear containing Rias's Destruction Power. That definitely got their attention as Momo and Reya manipulated the earth to create a protective dome around them, keeping them safe from what I was going to do. With a yell, I threw the spear into the air and projected chains to anchor myself to the ground.

And so for the second time, I got the front row seat to the disturbing image of my enemies getting sucked to the spear and their bodies disintegrating upon contact with the destructive aura. With a quick projection and overload with my Aura, I sent it to the sphere and watched the enemies burn in agony. It did not take long for them to burn completely to ashes and for the ball to explode, sending the ashes all over the area and falling to the ground like black snow.

A rather bleak image, wouldn't you say?

I let out a sigh before canceling my projections and making my way to the earth dome, using one sword to smack the surface to get their attention. "Okay it is over, you can come out now!" The earth dome cracked and crumbled to reveal the Sona Peerage looking a little worse for wear but still alive.

"Shirou, don't take this the wrong way." Sona commented while dusting her clothes. "You need to learn some restraint with your attacks."

"This is considered restraint." I shot back with a raised eyebrow. "If I were on my own, I would be bringing down a rainstorm of weapons on their heads."

"You are mad, that is all I can say." Saji blurted out in frustration with Ruruko and Megumi nodding their heads in agreement.

Oh well, can't win them all~

"RRROOOOAAARRR!"

The heck, don't tell me the devils or the bad guys included a Tyrannosaurus Rex in their battlefield?

"The hell was that roar?!" Saji yelled as he looked around with wide eyes. "Don't tell me we got to fight some monster again?!"

"Whatever that was, it seems to be far enough for us to avoid it." Sona commented as she looked to one part of the battlefield. "If I am not mistaken, that is where the beast is, so if we avoid that area we should be safe."

"Uh correct me if I am wrong, isn't that where Ise and the others are currently?" I pointed out the general direction, to which the devils paused before they planted their palms to their faces as one.

"Damn it, this is getting ridiculous." Sona grumbled as she removed her hand. "We are supposed to be competing in a tournament, not fighting for our lives!"

You think this was bad, try your luck in the Holy Grail war.

"I think we should get going while we can." I answered to which they agreed, and we started to make our way to where the Gremory group were alongside that roar. As we got closer, the roars got louder and the ground was getting more torn up. At the same time, the scent was getting stronger and more familiar, and it was infuriating me because it was at the back of my head. I felt like I knew it from somewhere.

"What the fuck?!" Yura's curse broke my thoughts and I realized we have reached our destination. And it was one hell of a mess; the land before us must have once held a ruin of seemingly Roman origins and a few small hills, but now was reduced to complete rubble and ash with small bouts of fire in other areas. One side stood the Gremory Peerage and the exorcists, all sporting injuries, bruises and an expression of fear on their faces. Interestingly enough, Vali was also there with Bikou, Arthur and that young witch, also sporting expressions of wariness and uncertainty.

And on the other side…

'Oh shit...'

Lying in the middle of a small crater was perhaps the most armored dragon I had ever laid my eyes on. It was perhaps double the size of a full grown adult, with green gems adorning a fair majority of the joints present on the crimson armor. It seemed to be a bipedal with the huge clawed feet stuck firmly on the ground, but considering the tail and the manner it was hunching, I would believe that it would be using all four limbs to move about, something I hope to avoid considering the huge claws on its arms. It had an elongated neck that had the very unsettling manner of moving like a snake, particularly with the dragon's head that had in my opinion the sixth most nasty looking set of jaws with a huge set of teeth. Finally the wings on its back was an odd cross of leathery wings, metallic tree branches and futuristic shades that reminded me of Vali's Balance Breaker.

But that was not the looks or the power that thing had that got me worried.

It was the scent coming off it that got me cursing inwardly. The scent was a dragon but at the same it was of a certain someone that was conspicuously missing from the group.

That dragon was Ise.

Fuck.

"Is that?" Yura paused as she struggled to comprehend what was before her.

"That would be Ise." I answered that query with a grim expression.

"Great, just what we needed." Sona shook her head in disbelief before looking to the peerage below. "We better get to Rias and the others while we can. For the moment Ise is distracted so we should move quickly but quietly." With that we made our way to them while keeping a wary eye on the dragon who was currently letting out sad howls as though Ise lost someone dearly. I could only make a guess based on the unconscious Asia who was being held on by Rias and what I had glimpsed from the gear during the training that Ise must have unlocked an ability due to the trauma that must have involved Asia, and now he was running rampart. With a quick projection, I equipped [Brahmā Kā Caimpiyana] to my arms and activated the ability to cover my body in blade-mail

Good thing I did it as something happened at that exact moment in the form of a streak of yellow light hitting Ise hard on his body, causing Ise to roar out in pain before he twisted his head to find the source. A second streak of light hitting his head caused him to turn and looked straight at us, his mouth sharpening into a snarl and his wings spread wide.

Crud.

"MOVE!" I rushed forward while conjuring up a few walls of steel to separate the others from him and me, just in time to avoid a few stray shots from him. The steel walls buckled, cracked and melted under the pressure and heat of the shots, but held firm to the attacks. With that in mind, I leaped forward to deliver a massive tackle at the dragon, the momentum pushing us well away from the others as a result of my increased strength.

It was just as well because Ise was giving me a run for my money in the power department as he immediately grabbed me with his arms and tossed me aside, letting the momentum carry me to the ground while he opened his jaw to reveal an orange glow that was also present on his spine. In a manner that would make a certain iconic Kaiju proud, it let out a huge roar and unleashed a huge beam of concentrated crimson energy that decimated everything in its path and only a quick application of Rho Aias and a couple of overlaying Aegis saved my butt.

"Sorry about this, but this will hurt you more than me." I projected my bow and notched [Hrunting] to it, pulling it back as far as I could and poured in a big portion to it, making it cracked around the entire length of it. With a minor grimace, I released straight at Ise, who moved out of the way on time to let it shoot past, and just as [Hrunting] was about to come back from behind, Ise let loose another ball of energy to destroy it, detonating it in mid air and forcing the both of us back from the blast power. I had to project a blade every so often to stab it into the ground and slow my momentum with the blade before it breaks.

Unfortunately that distracted me enough to have Ise charging at me from the sky and slamming into me hard, forcing me to grit me teeth and grabbed both his head and body to stop him trying to bite my head or throw me off. I was literally hanging on by a thread as Ise the transformed dragon on steroids made it his mission to throw me off or to attempt slamming me into the ground and mountain sides.

This was getting very old!

I got my break in the form of Ise attempting to slam me head first into the boulder coming quickly. With all the moving he was doing, I merely let my legs dangled wildly before forcing my body straight in time for my legs to hit the boulder, forcing him to a stop and allowing me to free one arm to deliver the mother of all steel-reinforced punches right to the chest, damaging his armor and forcing him back enough for me to bend my legs and pushed forward, using my momentum to twist around his neck and tightened my grip to deliver the coup-de-grace ,aka Edelfelt's famous German Surplex that cratered the ground hard.

I did not let up on the attack; while Ise was still dazed from the impact, I kicked hard on the back to force him flat on the ground, then with a quick grab of his wings and a quick tie with some chains, I pulled him off the ground and threw him high into the air, before taking a big leap to his level as he tumbled in the sky. Projecting a dragon-slaying board-sword, I went to clip his wings before delivering a hard kick to his abdomen, breaking the armor more and sending him crashing into the ground once more.

Damn it, sorry kid!

"Please stay down, Ise." I landed the ground harder than expected but still in one piece. With a projection, I gripped [Rule Breaker] tightly and moved to Ise who was groaning in pain. "This will only hurt for a while, but this should snap you out of it." I raised the dagger while aiming for his back, then I brought it down…

'WAP!'

Only to have it smacked out of my hand by his tail.

Really?~

I barely had time to look at the dagger breaking into pieces and lamenting my luck before I got a face full of teeth intent on biting me. I barely moved to the side when Ise chomped hard on my arm and proceeded to chew through the blade plating on my body.

"AHHHHH!" I let out a pained yell as Ise kept biting hard on my arm, drawing a fair amount of blood in the process. Projecting a thunder elemental phantasm, I crushed it to absorb its properties before directing my fist to his head, forcing him to open his jaw to roar out in pain and letting me get away. I heaved painfully as I watched the wreck of my arm, with the blade-mail damaged severely and with open holes through my arm. Focusing my thoughts and Od, I hastened the regeneration of my arm through [Avalon] to at least heal the wounds and stop the bleeding. I would not be able to use my arm for some time but at least I can keep going.

Just in time as Ise came back for a second round. I projected [Aegis Type 2] and manipulated the barrier to layer themselves to stop his oncoming attack. With another gesture of the hand, I sent a hailstorm of [Kanshou] and [Bakuya] right at him to push back if not distract him with the multiple explosions. It worked for a while before a familiar voice broke through it speaking a familiar command.

[DIVIDE! DIVIDE! DIVIDE! DIVIDE! DIVIDE!]

Oh hell no! I forgot about Ise absorbing Albion's power!

As if to compound on that, the smoke cleared to reveal a glowing Ise with his armor fully repaired and eyes glowing with rage while his wings had the jewels glowing the familiar blue color of [Divine Dividing]. In a flash, he came straight at me and swung his tail to slam me into a few trees and another boulder, making me dazed enough to allow him another big bite, this time on my shoulder.

Not content with that, he expanded his wings and flew us both straight into the air as he spun like a corkscrew, using the spinning momentum to stop from attacking and to later throw me hard into the mountain, before opening his mouth to fire off another beam to destroy me and the mountain. I was too messed up to deal with the oncoming attack and could only brace myself for the eventual pain.

'BBOOAAMRR!'

"AAAAAAAHAHHHH!"

I could not stop the scream of pain as the blast slammed into me, pushing me deeper into the rock as rubble started to fall on top of me. Before long, the entire mountain face broke and collapsed all over me, sending me deeper into the ground and getting buried beneath all the rock. It felt like I was falling for a long time until I smacked into some broken pieces of boulders, getting my armor cracked even further and getting stabbed in a few places as well. This continued for quite a while before the rubble stopped, the rocks glowing red hot from the blast made by Ise. But this was a big problem as the heat was literally sucking away the precious oxygen and I could not afford to lose much of it in my current state. Even now the rocks were starting to dim, it would not be long before I would be left in the dark. I had to think of something to get out and fast!

The sounds of a chain broke my thoughts, and in my haziness I grabbed the item that fell into my hand. I raised my arm slowly to see what I was touching, and much to my disbelief the Kaleido-Amulet was in my grasp, the tarnished and cracked surface getting the last bits of light from the cooling rocks.

Unbelievable, this was going to be so cliche for me; Me with my broken body, waiting in the dark for the light that could never come, bleeding out on the rocks and having the last moments with the one item that could take me back home, but it was too broken for me to fix. It was at that moment I actually felt something that I had not felt for sometime.

Regret and fear.

I was afraid of being alone without the others around me.

I was afraid of leaving the others behind.

I regretted not being able to come back home to see the others.

I regretted not getting the chance to visit Illya's grave one last time.

I feared leaving Sakura alone in the old house.

I regretted not visiting Fuji-nee back in school.

I feared not being able to visit Luvia in her laboratory to deliver her packed lunch or a chance to talk again.

I feared not being able to check on Rin at the Clock Tower, leaving her behind to deal with the mages out to get her.

I feared not being to help the others get away from the terrorists or the rampaging Ise...

But most of all…

I feared not being able to see Saber for one last time…

I am so sorry guys...

I am sorry Rin…

I am sorry Sakura…

I… sorry...Luvia…

Sorry… Saber...

So… sorry…

…

…

…

...

[Amulet Safety Feature activated. System is now ready. Subject's heart rate flat-lining. Beginning Analysis.]

[Danger detected towards Subject. Danger Level: S-Ranked.]

[Subject's Status: Critical injuries to internal organs, internal bleeding and extremely low levels of Prana.]

[Imminent Danger to Subject. Proceeding with Emergency Protocol: Card Installation.]

[Card Installation Process at 10%. Subject's wounds currently being sealed to reduce blood loss.]

[Card Installation Process at 22%. Beginning checks to ensure successful procedure.]

[Card Installation Process at 30%. Beginning selection of Servant based on Threat Level.]

[Card Installation Process at 45%. Selection Power Levels to be set at S-Ranked. Proceeding with refinement.]

[Error Detected. Hardware damage preventing majority selection of Servant.]

[Card Installation Process at 55%. Noble Phantasm found equipped on subject. Proceeding with refinement.]

[Card Installation Process at 60%. Hardware damage at 60%, efficiency down to 40%.]

[Card Installation Process at 72%. Insufficient Prana for selection and installation. Beginning extraction of external ambient Prana.]

[Card Installation Process at 80%. Dark essence detected in Prana extraction. Proceeding with purification process.]

[Emergency Installation Selection to be initiated based on present subject's dimensional templates.]

[Card Installation Process at 88%. Purification Process is being disrupted from hardware damage. Purification only feasible to 60%.]

[Card Installation Process at 95%. Emergency Selection completed.]

[Card Installation Process complete. Emergency Card to be installed immediately.]

[Warning: Hardware Damage impeding successful installation. High Risk of Data corruption.]

[Overriding alerts. Proceeding with installation.]

[Installing Sab… Ber.. Cast… Lance... Ride...]

[Warning: Data Corruption Imminent. Prana Corruption Imminent. Installation is getting compromised.]

[Installing… Installing]

[Installing… Assa.. Ber… Ber… Berserker Alter]

…

…

…

"SSSKKKRRREEEEOOONNNNKKK!"

Part 4

==(Scene 1)==

A rain of lightning bolts striking down the invaders halted for a moment as the owner of the attack paused to turn his head. Capitalizing on the chance, the few who survived the onslaught grabbed those who still lived and escaped through a magic circle. The god dressed in robes ignored them and focused his attention in the direction of the arena with a troubled expression mixed with fear and uncertainty.

"Brother, did you sense that?" The dread-locked man beside him asked as he lowered the Trident in his arm.

"Yes Poseidon, I felt that." Zeus answered while maintaining his gaze at the arena. "This feeling… something else has come forth after the dragon. A presence of great power… and rage."

"What manner of beast are we facing?" The water god asked with a notable tone of trepidation in his words.

"I… am not sure if that can be called a beast." Zeus answered with sweat running down one side of his face. "This type of power, it is not like anything I have faced before."

"There is that, but did you notice the rage aspect?" Poseidon looked at his Greek brother.

"Yes, it reminded me of him." Zeus answered with an expression filled with pain and sadness.

"Hercules?"

"Yes." Zeus nodded with a troubled expression. "It reminded me of him when he was sent into madness by Hera."

"Hmm~" Poseidon turned briefly at the exit point before looking back. "What say we take a look at the source?"

"We are supposed to be helping out with the evacuation." Zeus answered with disbelief. "Not to mention us moving to the safe zones."

"Which we have done so." Poseidon replied back. "They may want us to be safe, but considering the type of people trying to hurt us, that is somewhat redundant."

"So in short, you just want to go see who or what we are dealing with?" Zeus snorted.

"Why not?" The water god shrugged. "Don't tell me you are not curious what is going on over there?" The God of Thunder paused as he reached out with his senses to find the source. It was rather puzzling to say the least; The power coming forth reminded of him of the warriors who went berserk during the bloodiest of wars, and even more troubling was the feeling that reminded him of his son. When Hera pushed Hercules too far, he lashed out violently and changed the landscape of the land without meaning to.

There were other signatures to the energy that was confusing the god. Quite a few reminded him of the Spartan warriors of Ancient Greece, others made him think of other children he had fathered in the years long past. And whatever the source was, it was making him uneasy.

"Fine, we will go there to find out what is going on." Zeus looked at Poseidon in the eye. "But I will insist that we go with whoever else is coming along. Something tells me we are not the only ones curious."

"No problem on that front." Poseidon agreed as he shouldered his weapon. "Even I am not that suicidal, especially after getting a whiff of that power."

"Indeed…" Zeus nodded before looking once more, inwardly thinking about the source that reminded him of his son in a rage.

'This could be bad.'

==(Scene 2)==

The blade cut through the attackers in a manner that was almost effortless. The user in question however was not having as much fun as it wanted as it lifted the giant scythe and rested it on its shoulders.

"This feeling…" The skull turned slowly to where it felt the presence of the odd power.

"You sensed it too, Pluto." The God of Death came to his side while carelessly letting off some dark smoke from his body to make the few attackers collapse to the ground gasping for air as their skin darkened, with a few sporting boils or aging rapidly before expiring. "Something has arrived here."

"It feels familiar my Lord." The reaper spoke while fingering its weapon.

"Ares, I presume?" Hades turned to him with glowing eyes.

"Yes…" The reaper drawled as it pondered. "The feeling is similar to Ares when he was running wild with blood-lust. Yet this feels even more uncontrollable and direct at once."

"Intriguing." The god hummed while raising a bony finger to his chin. "Well we have dealt with the enemies in this area. Shall we see what they have installed for us?"

"Are you sure about this?" Pluto asked as his bodyguard. "I do not doubt any of our strengths, but I get the feeling we are about to push our luck, especially if we want to avoid letting the others know our involvement with Chaos Brigade."

Hades let out a very dark chuckle that would make a lesser man feel chills down his spine. "Perhaps, but the other gods would undoubtedly have sensed the power coming from the battlefield, and if I know my brothers, they would want to see what is going on as well. We can claim that we wish to investigate the source and possibly remove it if it is dangerous."

"I suppose that could be possible." Pluto nodded. "In that case, shall we continue forward?"

"Yes…" The God of Death let out another dark chuckle as he looked to the direction of the source. There was rage, despair and oh so many emotions that were coming at him that sent oh so pleasant tingles down his spine.

"Let's see who or what awaits us."

==(Scene 3)==

The lance stopped firing off bolts of lightning at the intruders, which was just as well since there were hardly any enemies left to kill off. The one-eyed god lowered his weapon and looked to the direction where he felt the pulse of power and dread, his eye narrowing in confusion.

"Lord Odin, what was that?" His silver-haired bodyguard asked as she lowered her weapon, fear evident in her tone.

"That, my dear Rossweisse, is a good question." The All-Father remarked as he lightly scratched the back of his head while carelessly firing off a fireball at an enemy that tried to sneak an attack behind them. "But this feeling reminds me of the Frost Giants and the Berserkers for some reason."

"How so?" The female teenager asked while looking around nervously as the pulse of energy surged through the area.

"The feeling I am getting is similar to the time I led my army against the Frost Giants. The intensity and emotions running were so rich in the air, one could choke within seconds of it. This… whatever it is, it resembles that and more." Odin answered with a grim expression. "Whatever is giving off that energy seems to be reaching levels of Heimdall, and more likely to surpass it."

"Wait, if it is that strong, then it is best to be away from it!" Rossweisse picked up some of her items and secured them to her pouches.

"Perhaps…"

"Lord Odin~" Rossweisse growled as she turned to face the god, her fear temporarily forgotten in favor of familiar annoyance to deal with the obvious interest the god had for the source of that evil. "Don't even think about it!"

"Too late~" Odin let that out in a sing-along tone before going towards the direction of the source with the air of a ten year old looking for an adventure.

"Lord Odin, get back here this instant!" The Valkyrie yelled out on frustration as she gave chase, spouting out a few selected swear words in her native tongue. Odin ignored her and mentally considered the feeling that was growing inside him. He was right about the Frost Giants and the guardian of the gates, but there was one more feeling that made him hesitate to say. For whatever reason, the power reminded him of Thor when he was in a despairing rage and loss as he went about in a rampage for revenge. That was the one time Odin admitted to feeling chills down his spine.

And now that chill was back with a vengeance.

With the scent of an ancient evil.

==(Scene 4)==

The red dragon stirred restlessly as it turned its head to sniff the air suspiciously.

It had been feeling a disturbance in the Dimensional Gap that made it move around back and forth to seek the source and eliminate it with extreme prejudice. The dragon was almost certain it was in the right place, but the essence of the power kept changing like a vortex, throwing its estimation off a few times, and the feeling of it was making the dragon very uneasy.

It took a while, but the dragon found both the general location and the memory from which it was reminded of. The scent of steel and dragons from the previous time was now back stronger than ever, as well as being oddly purer. Yet at the same time there was something foul, like someone was trying to corrupt the source with an evil so potent, it made the red dragon curled its mouth in distaste. It was not sure why, but it felt this was something that must not left to fester; this 'thing' was making all of its instincts go mad despite of its distance, and a voice at the back of its mind was roaring that the source must be destroyed with complete prejudice. The same voice was also telling it to save the source of purity from the corruption.

With a loud roar, the Great Red swerved and flew straight at the source's direction, using some of its power to find a crack in the Dimensional Gap to force its way out. It would find the source of conflicting scents and decide on that spot whether it would save the source of purity or kill it.

Because no matter what, the scent of evil would be burnt by its flames.

==(Scene 5)==

The forest shook from the anguished roars of the forest king, sending birds and creatures fleeing for their lives as the bloodlust and rage threatened to smother the forest and choke the life out of them. Satooji swore as he hung on for dear life to a tree that ended up showering acorns and tree branches on top of him.

"What the hell is wrong with you today?!" Satooji yelled out in frustration as a particularly loud roar pierced through the forest before more trees starting to fall from its rampage. "Please calm the FUCK down already!"

In the distance, the wolf king of steel snarled and scratched at everything and anything in its path, destroying the hills and rivers with its energy attacks in its rage. It had been feeling uneasy for the past day, then the feeling shot up to the point that it lost itself to the madness and wanted to get rid of it but could not find the target.

And it knew it had something to do with the human that carried the same scent as it. The human visited the king a few times so it was quite used to him, and it felt a kindred spirit in him that it actually created a tentative bond with him to see if he was worthy.

Now something was threatening that bond with some foul power that was making the spikes on its back stand on its ends. It was not sure what but it could tell that this foul power was harming the human it chose, and it did not like the fact it was stuck here when the human was at risk.

With a snarl and another roar, it let loose another burst of energy that destroyed another portion of the forest before it and made the nearby river boil over from the residual heat. It had no choice but to wait for this feeling to pass, and hopefully the human would be safe.

==(Scene 6)==

"What is going on over there?!" The angel guard yelled at the crowd that was standing outside the Gates that held the room of God and the machine that created the Sacred Gears.

"We are not sure." The closest angel answered with a troubled expression. "The system started to act up a few minutes ago, and the power emanating from it has risen to the point that all of us could feel it from the third level. The vibrations are also getting stronger that they are creating tremors and are disrupting us at the fifth level."

"Is Lord Michael in there?" The guard asked while squinting at the light that was coming out of the gaps of the gates. Now that he was there, the guard could feel the vibrations at its full strength, it was literally shaking him down to his bones.

"He has not returned from the Rating Games in the Underworld. And before you ask, no one is inside. Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael were somewhere else, but are coming back as we speak." The angel paused before continuing. "This energy though, it is way purer than when Michael uses the system, and this feeling..."

"You too?" The angel with dreadlocks next to him asked.

"This feeling, it reminds me of [Father]." That comment seemed to silence everyone else in the area, a growing expression of incredulity and comprehension coming onto everyone's faces as they reached out with their senses and found he was right. The power coming from the system was reminding them greatly of their long-past God, and the intensity was something that not even Michael, the strongest Archangel around, could make the machine exude.

"But why is this happening now?"

Before the guard could answer, a loud boom resounded in the area, followed shortly by a rumbling that made everyone crash to the floor hard. Then holy light started to pass through the gaps of the gates as they started to groan from the pressure emitted from the machine. Just as the angels started to get back on their feet, the gates started to open slowly, letting out a steady beam of light that broke through the clouds of Heaven. The light intensity got so intense that everyone had to use their arms to block the glare from their eyes. The guard was the furthest from the gates and closest to the exit point of the clouds, so he was the only one who witnessed a figure appearing for a few moments before traveling along the beam of light.

"What in Father's name is going on here?!"

==(Scene 7)==

It stirred in the void, restlessly trying to understand with its limited intelligence.

It could feel something calling out to it, like the other times it felt the presence in the void.

It always tried to reach out to the presence, always failing as it disappeared before reappearing at another spot.

It was certain it knew this feeling, after all it was the same as the presence.

Now the presence came back, this time closer than ever before.

It reached out and for a brief moment connected to it.

Images flashed before it, making it wiggle in pain as it tried to process the information.

It could feel the presence of these strange figures.

It could smell the sweat coming from the figures as they clashed with one another.

It could see the one who had been present in all the worlds it resided, and the supposed victor.

It could also taste something that was familiar to it.

Yes, it knew this flavor.

'Evil'

Yes, the reason it knew it because it was the same as this thing.

It… No… He…

He was the same.

He was Evil incarnate.

He was the personification of all the evil in the world, an evil that all would fear.

He… had a name...

He was called… Angra Mainyu…

He was supposed to unleash evil upon the world, but was denied his right...

He must find the one that was giving off the presence and merge with it...

He must be free!

He must be reborn!

THE GOD... OF EVIL… WILL RISE... AGAIN!

==(Scene 8)==

'CRASH!'

The two young women jumped from their positions on the floor, messing up the chalk drawings on it in the process and turned to find their professor hunched over the table with an expression they don't often see, a look of great uncertainty and fear.

"Professor Zelretch, is something the matter?" The dark-haired woman dressed in red got up to her feet and made her way to the old man.

"This feeling…" The old vampire muttered as he grabbed his chest with a tight grip, while feeling out with his senses. "Oh dear, this is not good..."

"What is the matter?" The woman with the gold locks asked, noting with a bit of unease at the sweat on his forehead.

"It's Shirou." His response made the two women widened their eyes. "He is in a bad state."

"What, Shirou?! You know where he is?!" The first woman had to restrain herself from grabbing her professor by the neck and wringing him. "What has happened to him?"

"I am not sure what, my dear Rin. But he is in grave danger." Zelretch spoke slowly as he tried to straighten himself up. "One of my safety features activated, and it is bar none the most destructive of the lot."

"Why, what does it do?" Rin demanded again.

"It is based on Ruby and Sapphire, the ability to install a Servant Class for the user to use. The amulet will allow Shirou to have the powers of the Servant based on his dimensional template if he were summoned into a Grail War, like the Archer counterpart." At this bit Rin got very uncomfortable. "However this is an emergency Servant transformation in the event that he is injured or unconscious in an area that has at least a Category 3 or a Rank C beast targeting him. I have also included a few features that would tell me if something is wrong with the amulet, and just now it sent off one hell of an alarm."

"Why, what is wrong with it?" The blonde asked.

"The amulet seems to have been heavily damaged some time after Shirou left the Clock Tower, so its output has been diminished to start with and its abilities will get reduced. Secondly there is a feature that allows it to draw in ambient Prana to force the installation, but if the Prana is corrupted..."

"That installation could also be compromised, corrupted at worst?"

"Correct, my dear Luvia, and a lot more than just corrupted."

"Old man, what else can go wrong?" Rin growled, clearly at the end of her patience.

"The emergency installation was designed such that he cannot operate this consciously. Once his template is chosen, he will be shall we say 'going under'. His template is the one driving it. So say his chosen Servant would be the Archer class, likelihood of your Archer is high, that would mean he would be the one controlling his body, and I do not think I need to say what he would do in the situation?" Rin grimaced at the point made by Zelretch.

"That is already normal circumstances, since the amulet is damaged, that means whatever Servant Class he has installed would be corrupted, and I don't think this is the typical data corruption."

"Wait..." Rin spoke with dread evident in her tone and an awakening expression of fear on her face. "Please tell me that one is not coming out?"

"What thing?" Luvia looked to the two with an exasperated expression.

"Yes." Zelretch nodded gravely. "The one that comes from the Grail."

"SON OF A! FUCK!"

"Rin Tohsaka!" Luvia looked at her rival with wide eyes. This was the first time she had ever heard Rin swore or being this angry in her life.

"Oh Shirou…" The old vampire ignored the two for the moment and looked out of the window with a grim look. "What trouble have you gotten yourself into this time to have the amulet use that?"

Part 5

==(Scene 1)==

Everything was going into a hen basket.

For some reason, that was the thought that went through Rias's mind as she struggled to keep up with all that was going around her. Around her, her peerage were also in disarray, with only Asia still unconscious from her time in the void.

When they went for their match against Diodora, it did not take long to note that they were entering into a trap since Asia disappeared upon entering the field and they were forced to go against Diodora's Peerage and some grunts from the terrorist organization. Ise was a man possessed as he fought his way to get to Asia who was captured by Diodora. The devil turned traitor basically bragged to them all about fooling the higher ups and getting support from the terrorists, in addition to his sick delusions with Asia. That set Ise off badly whom alongside Xenovia Quarta who arrived earlier with Irina and Griselda proceeded to beat Diodora to within an inch of his life.

When it seemed that they won, Shalba Beelzebub appeared and sent Asia to the Dimensional Gap to be killed and render their efforts voided, but in the process, it enraged Ise to the point of activating a hidden power inside [Boosted Gear] called Juggernaut Drive, something that was sealed off by the original God for a very good reason. He basically transformed into a miniature armored dragon with sharp teeth that tore into Shalba before blasting him away with some power that blasted him away and tore up the landscape.

It was in this scene that Shirou Emiya and the Sitri Peerage came across when they arrived to rescue them. As the group made their way to them, Shirou rushed forward to create several barriers of steel to stop a rampaging Ise who after getting struck by a beam of light came charging right at them. Shirou had equipped those unusual gauntlets that transformed his body into some metallic armor to handle the attacks, but after a few intense rounds, Ise managed to grab hold of Shirou with his mouth and throw him into the nearby hill, ending it with a blast of demonic energy from the mouth.

Now her group and the Sitri Peerage were currently hunkering down in one of the broken buildings of the simulated dimension, trying to catch their breath and awaiting rescue from the others. Sona had told them that her sister and the other Maous were attempting to breach the dimension, but there was the possibility of the other gods coming to their aid since they bumped into Odin on their way to rescue them. Xenovia, Irina and Griselda ended up returning outside the barrier when their emergency bracelets activated.

They could only wait while evading Ise, or rather a rampaging dragon. After all Ise was not a monster, this dragon was.

"I hope Shirou is fine." Rias turned to find Megumi hugging her legs while rocking, the clear air of despair evident around her. "He took quite a hit and he has yet to come back."

"Shirou should be safe." Reya answered, though notably without her usual assurance. "He was hit harder than normal so this might take him a while to recover."

"I hope so." Sona turned to Rias with a tired expression. "Don't suppose showing Asia to Ise now would calm him down?"

"I doubt it." Rias brought a hand to her face and let out a tired sigh. "Whatever that beam of light was, it made Ise more aggressive and he is not backing down at all. I fear we would need both our siblings and a couple of gods to help us out."

"What about you?" Sona turned to Vali who merely shrugged.

"I highly doubt my presence would help at this point, rather I might aggravate it." Vali clenched his fists while giving a smirk. "But this might be a good chance for me to fight him seriously."

"Seriously you want to do that now?!" Saji gaped at the half-devil before him. "Are you always this battle hungry?"

"Don't bother kid." Bikou spoke from his side of the room, his arms behind his head and swinging his leg as he laid back on the broken window sill. "This guy will go after every single fighter there is if they are strong."

"Do you think we should find Shirou?" Tsubaki asked while looking at Vali's group in a disapproving manner, likely trying to break the conversation. "He may need some assistance and in a way we could use some of his more insane plans for now."

"We could try, but with Ise on the loose, I don't think we can get there fast enough." Kiba being the sole voice of reason pointed that bit out while tending to Asia. "We may have to wait it out for the others to rescue us."

"I doubt you have that much time to wait." Vali spoke while looking outside. "Two points. First, as I told you earlier, the longer Hyoudou Issei stays in that form, the more life energy he will use, shortening his lifespan significantly."

"And the second?"

"Second." Vali got into a stance while smirking. "Incoming." Before any of them can react, a roar heralded the arrival of a transformed Ise who slammed into the ground hard, causing many of them to fall to the ground hard.

"Oh shit…" Saji swore as the dragon raised its head and sniffed the air, before directing its head right at them with a snarl.

"Well then, looks like I get to fight now." Vali smashed both his armored fists together with a bloody-thirsty smile. "Time to..."

"SSSKKKRRREEEEOOONNNNKKK!"

Everyone clamped their hands to their ears and collapsed to the ground as the ground shook harder than ever before while dark clouds gathered around the area with crimson lightning flashing among them. Even the dragon seemed to bow its head down in fear from the roar. It was a few seconds later that the roar stopped and everyone dared to remove their hands from their ears.

"Damn, what the hell was that?!" Saji shook his head to rid his head of the ringing.

"Don't know, that was some seriously bad mojo." Bikou answered while clutching his staff tightly while having a serious expression.

"Guys?" Megumi pointed outside at the area where the clouds seemed to gather the most, and for the more keen-minded, the area where Shirou was supposed to be after getting attacked. As they watched, something seemed to shoot upwards from the ground, splitting the clouds briefly before coming back down.

"I think we should move." Arthur Pendragon announced as he pulled some of the others off the ground. They agreed and proceeded to jump out of the area just in time as the dragon decided to let out a challenging roar at the incoming object. The object came moments later and slammed into the dragon hard, destroying the building they were in and burying the dragon in its rubble. The object in question smashed into the ground, cratering it deeply and throwing out a lot of dust and smoke.

"Damn!" Tsubasa coughed at the amount of dust. "That was a hard hit, wonder if Hyoudou is knocked out?"

"No idea, but what hit him?" Sona asked while wincing from the sound.

"Let's have a look." Vali paused for a moment before answering in a tone that was devoid of any emotion. "Well this could be a problem for us."

"What?" Akeno took her turn to focus her sights on the object, her eyes widening in comprehension and oddly enough, dawning fear. "What in the Maou?"

"Akeno?" Rias turned herself to find a human like figure in the smoke. With a gust of wind, the dust and smoke cleared to reveal their missing companion had returned. She was about to call out to him when her tongue caught itself in her mouth while her eyes focused on the magician, and honestly speaking...

She was not sure what to describe Shirou Emiya's state.

He was standing abnormally still in the crater he made, hunching forward and clearly heaving hard. The body that was previously damaged had healed, but now had some unusual veins of glowing crimson that spread on one side of his body and seemingly to one side of his face. Steam seemed to be radiating from his body and unless she was mistaken, it was also coming out of his mouth like a beast exhaling hot air. His arms were slack and his hands were constantly clenching and opening. With a slight jump, she noted with an increasing unease that his fingers now resembled talons of sharpened steel that looked like it had blood on them. The arms themselves looked like they had expanded unevenly and cracked along the length of the arm, revealing cartilage like streaks in between the gaps that pulsed between a light blue and a deep crimson red. Blade-like stakes protruded out of his elbows with the same glowing features as the arms and what looked to be electricity sparking off the tips every few seconds.

It was when Shirou straightened his body that Rias realized the true reason for her deepening fear.

As she had suspected, the odd glowing veins covered his left side of the face, but that was a mere distraction from the expression of perpetual rage that seemed to be straining against whatever restraints in his body to hold that back. His gritted teeth looked absolutely terrifying as they resembled more like fangs and when coupled with the hot steam that was issuing from his mouth, it made him looked more demonic. His twitching eyes had changed colors, with the left eye a glowing crimson and his right a dark yellow that resembled a dragon's eye. On his chest where his heart would be and the origin of the veins, an odd shaped jewel pulsed with dark energy that glowed in time as the veins on his body.

"Shirou?" Reya asked softly with a great deal of hesitation and fear in her voice.

"What on earth happened to him?" Saji kept blinking as though he was hoping that this was a hallucination that was making him see this sight.

"Bikou, what is the matter?!" Everyone turned to find Vali trying to calm a hysterical Monkey Yokai who looked ready to pass out bricks and faint at the same time. Their other two companions were looking on with concerned expressions of their own, finding their normally confident and smiling friend to be this frightened.

"Vali, we got to get away from that guy!" Bikou looked to him with wide eyes, and the two Peerages could not help but gulp at the expression of absolute fear and madness adorned on his face. "That ain't normal man! We got to get the fuck away from him!"

"Koneko?" They now turned to the cat yokai who was clutching her head in pain while her ears and tail were upright. She was also crying and biting her lips hard enough to bleed, and she looked ready to pass out. "Koneko, stay with us!" Rias hugged her tightly while trying to comfort her at the same time.

"Okay this is getting nuts." Yura spoke out while keeping an eye on Shirou who has not moved a muscle since his reappearance. "And as sad as it is, I am inclined to agree with monkey boy to get away from this location for now until Shirou can cool off. At least I hope." She ended that with a lame tone. Before any of the others could answer, the pile of rubble moved and tumbled before the armored dragon emerged uninjured and utterly pissed off.

"Oh he looks angry." Momo stated the obvious as the dragon took a look at Shirou and let out a deafening roar.

"RRROOOAAARR!"

Shirou looked to the dragon with a sneer that sent shivers down their spines, before he took a deep breath and let loose one of his own as the ground beneath him caved in on itself even further and cracks radiated from the spot.

"SSSKKKRRREEEEOOONNNNKKK!"

The roar that came from him was perhaps a tad quieter than the dragon's, but the sheer intensity behind it seemed to reach into the soul and Rias could not tear her eyes away from the sheer rage that radiated from his body as dark energy erupted from his feet and spread everywhere in the area, making everyone collapse to the ground gasping for air as though they were slowly getting crushed by a weight that was increasing. To describe the roar Shirou was making was both difficult and terrifying to even consider, but the best any of them could describe would be the sound of a kaiju mixed with the screeching of metal plates and the rather horrifying scream of a man whose vocal cords were half ripped.

Then suddenly the weight was gone alongside the roar.

The group gasped as one to take in the precious air before they found themselves blown off their feet and hitting the nearby war, with Kiba cushioning Asia with his body. It took a few moments to orientate themselves, but when they did they could only gasp at the sight of the transformed Ise knocked cleanly off its back from Shirou who had punched it right in the face and sent it flying away a few miles to a flat plain of the dimension with ease. With the amount of force exerted from his attack, he apparently obliterated a majority of the rubble and buildings around them while sending them back with just the shock-wave alone.

"Sweet mother of bananas!" Bikou yelled at the destruction. "What the fuck did he just do with that one punch?!"

"I would suggest everyone to not be in their immediate vicinity." Arthur commented again. Not that it mattered as Shirou seemed to kick off the very air he was hovering and flew straight for Ise.

"Come on!" Before any could react, Megumi rushed forward with her speed, followed shortly by Reya and Yura, and then Vali and Arthur. Before long everyone else started following them and soon after started using their wings or abilities to get to the area where they could see plenty of explosions and rubble being thrown into the air..

"Uhh guys, you do know we are heading straight for a dragon and some steel maniac?!" Saji yelled from his end as he barely avoided a stray boulder sent his way.

"Yup!" Yura answered back before slamming into a stop in the air, almost making a few of the others collide into her. Whatever words they wanted to say died as they looked at the landscape before them. What was once a flat plain now resembled a war zone that had been torn by years of warfare, except this was done in mere minutes by the two rampaging juggernauts that were currently at opposite ends of the landscape. To further the look of an eternal war, the ground was scattered with the different types of swords and spears that were likely from Shirou's arsenal. Rias could not suppress the shudder at the rather bleak image this presented.

A landscape of marked graves.

"Shit, they did a number on this area!" Saji looked at the landscape before him with wide eyes.

"No kidding." Yura spoke before looking down where she could see Arthur and the others who could not fly. "I think we would need more cover than up here, shall we head down?"

"You do that, I will be getting a front row seat." Before anyone could comment, Vali flew forward just as the two fighters launched another round of attacks at one another, throwing out more rubble and explosions.

"Forget the battle hungry idiot, we would need more cover." Rias flew straight down with the others following. With a quick dash, they reached the edge of the battlefield and watched the dragon battle with their transformed companion.

And what a battle it was.

The dragon roared while slamming both of its front legs on the ground, a clear display of dominance to scare off the opponent. On the other end, Shirou was standing among the weapons surrounding him while grasping an axe and a broadsword. From their vantage point, they could see the weapons in his hands were getting 'contaminated' for a lack of better description, with their color seemingly dimmed and the same vein-like effects on them as dark aura covered them like a bloody mist. With Shirou hunching over and snarling at the dragon, he made for quite a disturbing sight of a madman.

The dragon roared again as it opened its mouth and balls of energy gathered around it before they flew in different directions all aiming at Shirou. That was when they saw what had to be the most insane sword wielding skills used by Shirou; with a quick movement, Shirou used the axe to bat away the first ball of energy to the side before raising the sword to block the second which forced him back a few feet, leaving behind deep trench marks from the dragging of his feet. He twisted his body to take out two other shots coming from the sides before throwing the weapons at another two coming from above, detonating them prematurely. With an action that was almost instinctive and way too smooth for one supposedly mad with rage, Shirou grabbed another two weapons and swung in time to strike another shot and redirected it to another. Then with a minor roar of his own, Shirou threw both weapons at the dragon while rushing forward to grab another set. The dragon wrapped one wing around it to block the weapons in the nick of time as they detonated on impact, but it blocked its view of Shirou having thrown other weapons at it from other angles, causing it to get distracted from other attacks hitting it at different portions of its bodies and letting Shirou come close with a chain to wring its neck and wrap around its wings.

With a bellow, Shirou leaped high into the sky, dragging the struggling dragon along with the chain. Roughly a few hundred feet in the air, Shirou stopped his ascent and with a somersault, pulled the chain hard enough to launch the transformed Ise further up into the air before sending it crashing to the ground. Without a pause, he created a spear of crimson lightning and threw it at the dragon, timing it just right when it hit the ground and detonating the spear. The resulting explosion created a miniature mushroom cloud of smoke and ash as the others braced themselves to avoid getting blown away.

But that did not stop the dragon as one wing sliced through the cloud cover to reveal it having ridden of the chain wrapping its mouth and firing off a bolt of energy that hit Shirou and parting the clouds behind him. The beam dissipated after a few seconds, leaving behind a charring Shirou that crashed to the ground. The dragon let out a victorious roar only to be cut off by a giant sword of stone introduced intimately to its face. From the newly made crater, Shirou sprang up from the earth, let out another roar and pushed off the ground hard enough to send him soaring straight at the dragon to deliver a steel-reinforced punch to the jaw, breaking off bits of its armor, jewels and a good portion of its jaws. Undeterred, the dragon restored its broken parts and retaliated with the swipe of its tail that sent Shirou into a mountain that sent the rocks and boulders crashing on top of him.

"Holy shit!" Momo yelled as she winced from some of the rubble heading her way. "This is going nuts!"

"Neither one are letting up on their attacks." Sona commented as she focused on the barrier to keep the more lethal projectiles coming their way. "The way they are going at it, one would think they are two animals fighting for supremacy."

"That might certainly be the case for Ise, but I don't think the same can be said accurately about Shirou-san." Kiba spoke out at this point.

"What do you mean?" Rias turned to find him in a contemplative mood.

"Look at the way he is fighting." Kiba pointed to the person in question. "The manner he is handling the weaponry might be rough compared to his normal handling, but you can't say that he is an animal in that state. He would not have been able to deflect those dragon shots earlier, he would have just tanked them."

"He has a point." Megumi nodded as she kept watching. "While he is not his normal self, he is still fighting with the type of precision, speed and intuition of a swordsman. It's like his body is going on autopilot, otherwise he would not be able to precisely hit them by the edge of the weapons or able to throw them with that much accuracy."

"I think that might be the reason he is reacting in this manner." Sona spoke seriously. "I would guess that he is unconscious from the earlier attack and some spell was activated to keep him safe. I would bet that the jewel on his chest is the source of all the current problems."

"Well that is nice and all, but I don't think this is helping our situation!" Yura let out a yell before grabbing a big chunk of rock and threw it at another heading their way, breaking it apart to lessen the damage to them.

"RRROOOAARR!" The dragon let out another angry roar as balls of red energy appeared around it, easily reaching the triple digits in numbers. On the opposite end, Shirou who broke out of the rubble raised an arm to call forth his arsenal, matching in the same numbers as the dragon's. The two peerages and Vali's companions could not help but gaped at the sight of the sky being hidden by the glowing balls of energy and the numerous swords, spears and other bladed weaponry in existence. There was a pause, then with a roar from both sides, the balls of energy and weaponry flew across the sky and struck each other in the middle, exploding upon impact. The group may have erected more barriers to deal with flying debris, but they did not anticipate the blinding glares that resulted from the multiple explosions flashing all over the area and around the horizon. Ruruko, a newly awakened Asia, Koneko and Saji were some of the casualties to this and were currently rubbing their eyes to remove the dots in their eyes.

"Damn! I thought Shirou's fight with Kokabiel was intense!" Rias winced from the shock-waves coming their way.

"Clearly, he has been holding back on us!" Sona yelled back with a notable tone of disbelief. The others agreed on that bit as they watched the onslaught of attacks that was going on before them. There was a big difference between the battle with Kokabiel and this one; Kokabiel's fight with Shirou was undoubtedly an intense battle that had the presence of a noble battle being fought with everything on the line, whereas this was a battle of almost animalistic carnage where neither competitor cared for anything else but the destruction of their enemy, with neither side giving ground to the other.

At least, until now.

Slowly but surely, the bolts of red energy was getting pushed back by the rain of swords and spears, something the dragon noted and attempted to stall by using the dual powers of the [Boosted Gear] and [Divine Dividing] to gain more firepower against Shirou, but the metallic being seemed to get even angrier at the stolen power and in turn get stronger in the form of more dark energy coming off his body and the weapons increasing dramatically to the point the dragon was literally against the wall trying to halt its impending doom. It was to no avail and the dragon soon found itself getting battered by the weapons.

"ISE!" Rias screamed as the onslaught of weapons kept going with the explosions being heaped one after the other in quick succession. The Sitri Peerage with help from Vali's group had to hold back the others from trying to get to the battlefield. Thankfully they only had to do it for a while as the rain of swords stopped shortly after, leaving behind a huge cloud of smoke and ash that filled the area.

"Is he dead?" Saji's query got answered when Ise emerged from the smoke with its armor cracked and its eyes burning with rage, and rammed straight into Shirou. Grabbing him with its claws and limbs, it raised its head and opened its mouth wide, its teeth aiming straight for Shirou's head. Shirou moved at the last moment and so had the dragon's teeth embedded into the shoulder, almost puncturing through the arm. Shirou roared out in pain and managed to free an arm to start punching and scratching at the dragon, but the dragon held fast and kept trying to chew through the interlocking blades of steel to remove his arm.

'SHRING~ STAB!'

"RRROOARR!"

The dragon let out a pained roar as blades of different types and elements came out of Shirou's body and stabbed through its body out the back, with a particular nasty one with jagged blades cutting through its mouth and snout, holding it in place for Shirou to lift both arms and grabbed the mouth at both the top and bottom. The dragon protested in agony as Shirou began to pry it open with the blade still stuck through it. With a snarl, Shirou pulled hard, almost ripping the snout wide open and breaking off the blade, then with a twist that broke the other blades of his body, Shirou spun around and hurled it away from him, causing the broken blades to deepen their cuts in the dragon's body. Before it could get back up, Shirou jumped on top of it and grabbed both of its wings, and with a quick burst of strength, yanked out them out of its sockets, spilling blood all over the ground and on his body.

"RRROOOAARR!" The dragon let out another pained roar as it struggled to push back against the weight on it. The gems on the armor glowed brightly and in a flash, multiple appendages wielding copies of the dragon slaying blade Ascalon were attacking Shirou in mass, most glancing off his steel covered body with the few stabbing his body lightly. Shirou snarled and grabbed those offending appendages with both his arms, squeezing hard enough to break their joints and started to pull hard causing the armor around it to crack and chip off. With a loud bellow, Shirou managed to break them off as well, showering himself even more in the blood as the ligaments and blood vessels hung freely from the broken portions. With a quick leap, Shirou delivered a hard kick at the dragon and sent it flying against the rubble of rocks in the distance, burying Ise once more under it.

"He is hurting him!" Rias raised her arm to conjure up a ball of dark energy only to have her arm pulled back by Sona who made sure that the ball was not about to make contact with her. "Sona, let go of me this instant!"

"Rias, please get a hold of yourself!" The Sitri heiress had to dodge an attack from Rias and call upon a water barrier to stop the ball aimed at her. Around them, the others seemed to be in a similar struggle with their counterparts facing each other, with the sole exception of Asia who was being supported by Bikou.

"Let us through!" Akeno let loose some lightning from her hands right at Tsubaki who deflected it with her Sacred Gear while Momo conjured up some chains to restrain her. Koneko lifted a huge boulder only to have it be destroyed by Yura, sending the rubble crashing on top of her. Kiba had to deal with both Reya and Megumi stopping him from spamming his weapons.

"ENOUGH!" A brief blast of holy energy stalled their short battle and everyone turned to find one furious Arthur Pendragon. "This is not the time or place to have this argument. Right now we need to stop those two."

"But..."

"No buts, Gremory Heiress. Instead of wasting energy in fighting one another, focus on working together to stop them." Arthur cut through with his words. Before they could reply back, an odd grating sound directed their attention to Shirou who was still standing while holding to the ripped appendages. This time though, his body was shaking and it took a while for them to realize with a spike of fear that the sound was in time with his body shaking…

And that sound was him laughing.

As if it was timed just right, the sound of his laughter got louder before he threw his back and let out another crazed roar that had the hints of deep blood-lust as the dark energy poured forth from his body and more weapons appeared on the ground around him. Then before their eyes, a few figures appeared around him and increased in numbers rapidly, covering the landscape before them and giving them a chance to look at those that were closest to them.

A hulking man with darkened skin, wild hair and bony protrusions from his elbows.

A dark knight with mist covering its entire body and hiding its features.

A girl in a frilly white wedding dress wielding a club.

A pale-skinned Spartan with red tattoos and chains seemingly seared into the flesh of his arms.

A young man with orange hair, dark clothes and a white skull mask covering the left side of his face while maintaining a sadistic smile.

Many more covered the landscape, but all had two things similar to one another. One was the glowing red eyes that radiated madness, and the second was the expression of perpetual rage that was making everyone wanting to run away. Bikou and Koneko were once again reduced to tears and hysteric as they were getting the full blast of this.

The sounds of rubble shifting drew their attention back to the transformed Ise who emerged from the rocks, and it was clear that the attacks had injured it badly with broken armor, torn appendages and a crooked jaw. The dragon started spitting out blood and groaning as it pushed its way out of the rubble and stumbled on the ground. The dragon lifted its head to look at Shirou and it was clear to everyone that it flinched at the sight of Shirou staring at him. It let loose a roar of defiance, but it had a definite tone of fear in it.

And like a shark in the water, Shirou had smelled blood and sneered at the dragon before letting loose his loudest roar yet, only this time the figures around him seemed to join for the chorus if the sounds of throats being torn were the indication.

"SSSKKKRRREEEEOOONNNNKKK!"

Everyone let out screams of their own as they collapsed to the ground as one while clamping their ears shut with their hands amidst the group of figures that were all screaming their lungs out. If that was not enough, there was the sheer pressure of presence coming off them that penetrated their souls and seemingly ate them piece by piece.

They just want the roars to stop.

Make them stop!

MAKE IT STOP!

MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! BY THE MAOU MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! BY ALL THAT IS GOOD MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!

A brightening glow of crimson drew their attention to some of the weapons that started to hover alongside the torn-off appendages and wings and glowing in sync. Upon contact, the items in question started to break down and swirled about in a cloud of glittering dust as they merged to create new weapons with Shirou's weaponry as the base. Before long, a broadsword, two falchions, a katana, a bifurcated claymore, a crystal-like spear and a double-ended sword took their place, each with distinct markings, gems and designs derived from [Boosted Gear]. But the more unsettling bit came from the new figure that stood next to Shirou: one Hyoudo Issei in his Balance Breaker form with darker accents and the same glowing red eyes that radiated rage as it screamed alongside the others.

The roar from the dragon drew their attention back to find the chest plate of the armor open one more and power started to gather again at the sprout of the huge cannon with the jewels glowing madly.

[BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST!]

"Crap! He is going to use that cannon again!" Saji yelled while scrambling back on his feet. "And I think he is going even further for this one!"

"Guys!" Momo pointed back to Shirou who was now hovering in the air with the double-ended weapon in his hand. He let out a brief roar as he gripped it tight, causing the jewels and blade edges to glow brightly, before it let out a sound that made their hearts stop for a moment.

[BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST! BOOST!]

"ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! He has the same weapon-type as well!" Bikou's eyes wanted to bulged out of their sockets as the energy levels from the weapon started to spill over to their end and make them quake in their knees. It certainly did not help that the energy hitting them was the dark malevolent type that was giving them all sort of alarm bells. With the final boost, the double-ended weapon lit up and shot a beam of light from both ends, then before their eyes, the sky seemed to split along the beam, revealing blue skies and white clouds against the dark purple sky and faded shadows of the clouds, and there was something about it that make them instinctively believe that this was the past of the world they were in, the 'truth' if you would.

"Everyone, we should leave this spot. Now!" Arthur called out to them in time as both combatants had finished the countdown of their respective weapons and were clearly ready to fire them off. With a roar, the dragon stood on its hind legs and threw its chest forward to aim the cannon at Shirou, who let out his own roar and raised his weapon to aim at Ise.

[Longinus Smasher!]

[Longinus Slash Emperor!]

With that declaration, the two combatants unleashed both of their arsenal at one another, meeting right down the center...

And then, the world went dark for them all.

==(Scene 2)==

"HAHAHAHAH! Yes!" A man pumped his hands into the air as he looked gleefully at the scene before him. "This is perfect! My experiment is a success and my proof that you are here, Shioru Emiya! I will enjoy this!" He kept on laughing while the magical rune barrier was buckling under the strain of maintaining its protection from the bombardment of rubble, fire and the occasional shrapnel that came his way. The magic circles of the barrier glowed brightly as the particularly big pieces crashed into it with enough force to crush an elephant easily, with the inertia rune used to repair and power the shield runes to keep them from collapsing. It was a good thing he developed this particular set as he got a taste of how strong the Sacred Gears were and he decided of getting an edge against the power types.

It took a few more minutes before the bombardment slowly diminished to a manageable level. With an idle motion of his hand, the cloud of smoke and ash cleared away to reveal the scene before him.

The entire landscape before him had been totally leveled and scorched to the point there was literally molten rock that was following out of the cracks of the earth and towards the outside of the plain. The remains of the weapons that Emiya had conjured scattered the area, burnt beyond recognition and breaking down as soon a breeze hit them, and whatever powers left in them erupted uncontrollably, creating more explosions that threw up fire, lightning, demonic energy or otherwise. At the edge of the battlefield, the man could see the devils, humans and yokai getting back to their feet, stumbling about likely disorientated from the attack. In the distance he could sense the presence of several gods making their way to this spot.

The man then directed his attention to the center of the battlefield where the smoke cleared enough to reveal the two combatants.

The devil-turned-dragon was clearly the more injured of the two, what with the majority of the armor broken and chipped with blood oozing out of them. Its head was perhaps the most obvious, with half of its face broken off to reveal the normal face plate of the armor and portion of the devil's mouth. It was missing an arm and its tail, making it lose its balance a few times.

Shirou Emiya on the other hand was looking like a nightmarish child of a steel mannequin, the Terminator and a beast, ruined by the explosion and made worse with the corruption of his body. His entire right was charred black from the explosion with the arm missing from the elbow onwards. The portions not charred resembled molten metal that cooled unevenly, especially his face which had half of his face melted off and showing portions of his metallic skull and teeth, bringing to mind the image of the Terminator. His remaining arm looked mangled but still functioned well while his legs looked ready to break at the knees.

"Now what will you do, Shirou Emiya?" The man let out a hum as he scratched his chin and turned to the side. "Penny for your thoughts, She-who-wanders-as-a-girl?"

"..." The dark-haired girl dressed in a gothic lolita slash Black Victorian outfit looked on silently at the scene before her, her eyes constantly switching between the devil dragon and his prey. Despite her poker face (which he might add was one very good one, he could not even tell if she could feel anything), there was a certain light in her eyes that spoke of curiosity towards the magus in front of them. After a while she turned to look at him while tilting her head.

"Who are you two?" She asked in a low voice, and somehow without needing any power or exuding any presence, she still managed to make the magus sweat lightly and make him tensed up in anticipation of an attack. Then again this was no normal girl.

This was the Dragon of Infinity, Ouroborus by her real name, but currently called Ophis by the current generation. The one who could possibly match the Red Dragon of the Dimensional Gap.

"Who are we, hmm?" The man managed to contain himself and put a hand to his chin. "I am a magus trying to conduct some experiments and find a way home, while that third-rate mage over there is my arch nemesis and someone I would love his head on a spike."

"… What are you two?" The girl tilted her head the other side while maintaining her gaze on the magus. "The both of you are not truly human. You have the scent of a vampire wrapped in ash and brimstone, and a beast that is straining his chains. As for him" she turned to look at Shirou Emiya. "he has the scent of iron, steel, dragons, the Faes and the Old God. And now he has the same scent as the True Beast." Her eyes narrowed at that point. "The one from the Bible."

The magus quirked an eyebrow at that admission. Clearly the bit about the mythical beast of the Bible was not what he had expected. But this also confirmed a small theory he and his research partner had been pondering; anyone arriving to this world seemed to be 'reconnected' with something else here, depending on the nature of their magecraft it would seem. That was supported with his use of flames and other battle type magecraft, and his fellow researcher had pointed out his increase his abilities. But for Shirou Emiya to have this much connection, seems like things have gotten more interesting.

It would make gathering his body parts more exciting.

"Watch and learn, little miss." The man motioned with his head as the devil dragon roared again and pushed off the ground hard and slammed into Emiya, biting his neck hard while digging his talons into his back. Emiya let out his own roar of frustration and proceeded to yank the dragon off him, pulling out portions of his blade-mail and flesh in the process. With a quick kick, he sent the dragon crashing to the ground a few feet away while raising his arm. The dragon got back on its feet and launched itself again only to be struck back by a large stone sword that hit it at nine different places at once, causing it to lose its remaining limbs in the process.

"Looks like the festivities is about to end." The mage commented as Emiya canceled the projection and moved to the downed dragon. The third rate mage turned steel golem grabbed the devil dragon boy by the neck and hoisted him up roughly, bringing it face to face with him. The man had to admit Emiya could make quite the villain with the sneer on his face as he opened his mouth wide with fangs ready to bite down on the dragon's flesh.

That however got interrupted when the earth and sky seemed to shake from some unknown force and started to create fissures in the ground, tearing the hills in the distance with ease. And before their eyes the sky started cracking like glass and the pieces dropped to the ground breaking off even more. All the while demonic and holy energy started spewing out of the gaps like geysers, making it rather painful for those with particular sensitive magical senses.

"OH~ looks like their little tussle broke the dimensional barriers and a little more than that." The magus let out a whistle as he looked on at the destruction before narrowing his eyes at a particular big crack. He could have sworn he saw something moving in the darkness, and after a while his eyes widened.

"What the hell is that?!"

==(Scene 3)==

Saji was seriously wishing that he was in bed at this point.

He got blown away from the resulting blast created from two overpowered monstrosities that completely leveled and incinerated the landscape and the surrounding hills, with the huge mushroom cloud hovering above them and quickly developing into a thunderstorm that poured rain on top of them. He and the rest barely got back on to their feet when the cloud of dust cleared to reveal Shirou and the dragon on their least legs. Much to their horror, they had quite a fair bit of damage yet they kept going for a little while longer before Shirou got the upper hand and looked ready to devour Ise.

It was at that moment the world seemed to finally gave out to the stress it endured from the fight and both the earth and the sky cracked to let out a mix of demonic and holy energy that spilled everywhere. It was the loud sound of something truly breaking apart that brought their attention to the sky where a particular huge crack appeared and something was swirling in the gaps and started to spill out of it.

"What now?!" Saji grabbed his head as he watched what looked to be demonic tar gathering from the cracks in the sky in one huge blob. He could not be sure if it was his imagination going wild but he could swear that he was seeing giant faces on the surface, all of them seeming screaming in silence with the odd arm or hand protruding before getting absorbed back into it. Then at the bottom most portion of the blob, a singular drop descended to the ground, hitting it hard and cracking it deeply. Saji gasped as the ground around it started to burn and blacken with the scent of sulphur permeating the air, and the few odd drops seemingly eating into the ground like acid. Now that it was closer, Saji wished he was wrong about the faces as he could see every detail of them across the surface of the blob as though they were pressing against some thin membrane of blood and tar, their faces showing eternal torture with empty sockets.

The singular blob shifted and twisted as it expanded, before four tentacles appeared and started shaping themselves into irregular limbs. The legs were first to form with one shorter than the other, causing the blob to shift and hit the ground hard, splattering the ground with some of the drops. The other two tentacles formed rough imitations of arms to clutch at the ground, crushing it as it attempted to push itself off the ground, only succeeding once the legs became uniform enough to hold its main body. The blob continued to change with the formation of a torso and abdomen, with the head being the last of the freakish transformation. And it seemed that the blob wanted to end it with a very horrifying depiction of a head forming as the eyes appeared irregularly on opposite ends of the sphere and a mouth filled with sharp teeth appeared in the center, all while maintaining the uneven jelly like effect that made everyone queasy. That like a balloon deflating, it seemed to collapse on itself and shrink down, pushing whatever mess into the remaining body parts and forcing it onto its knees again, creating an even bigger crater from its fist alone. Then slowly but surely, the figure got its footing and stood upwards with dark shadows issuing from the feet and wrapping around its body to form dark clothing. With a crack of its neck, the figure raised its head and opened its eyes to direct them at them, giving them a chance to see the form it has taken on.

Where it was once a blob of 'something', now the figure of a bare-chested man with very dark skin took its place, with a dark pair of pants with the imprint of fire that was actively moving around on it. Dark bandages were worn on both his lower arms and his face, leaving only the blood red eyes that had gold pupils and the rough hair that shook in the breeze. His most notable features however were the dark tattoos of runes and symbols adorned on his entire body that seemed to swirl about, making it difficult to keep track of them.

But the bit that made them very fearful was his appearance, because for whatever reason, he looked a lot like Shirou if he were covered in dark bandages, overly tanned skin and a presence that begged to be released on the unsuspecting populace.

"Who or what the hell is that?" Yura starred at the figure with fear.

"This is bad." Arthur spoke and Saji could not help noting the deep apprehension in his voice or the manner he was clutching his word. The other sword rattling in the sheath was another clear indicator. "That is not from any faction I know. In fact I don't think it is of this world at all."

"Well great~ just what we needed, more chaos on our asses." Akeno commented flatly, and the other devils noted that she must be under some serious pressure to use those type of words.

"Should we go and save Shirou and Ise?" Ruruko asked from her side with a nervous glance at the two in question who were now looking at the figure. Shirou on his part dropped Ise to the ground and turned to face the dark being with a snarl. The being however tilted his head in a manner that showed it was more amused by this action, something proven from the light in its eyes.

Before the others could agree, another shudder in the area made them fall down again, and this time more holy energy spew out of the sky, creating a giant pillar of pure white light that made everyone shut their eyes from the glare, and for the devils, they had to move for cover as their bodies started to smoke from the holy aura.

"Now what?!" Bikou yelled as he tried to open his eyes.

"I think someone else is coming." Arthur commented just as the glare lessened and the others chanced opening their eyes. A few feet away in the air, the figure of a person was present in the pillar of light, slowly descending to the ground. Once the feet touched the ground, the pillar dissipated, allowing them to see who that person was.

Whoever it was, there was no way to identify other than the person being a male as he was totally covered in white armor adorned with gold linings and holy markings. The two shoulder pauldrons painted with huge crosses were big enough to serve as shields while his gauntlets were equally thick with gold fingers and patterns of angelic wings spanning from the wrists. The boots were heavily armored with sharp spikes covering the knees, and the chest-plate had the image of a white tree imprinted on it with jewels adorned to resemble fruits. The helmet was an odd cross of a knight, a spartan and the old war helmet from the old devil wars, with the horn like design curved inward around the eyes with small gold wings sprouting from where the ears were. Behind it, a giant halo ring glowed brightly with eight wings of gold spread widely for all to see. Emerald green eyes glowed from the gaps of the helmet as the person turned his head to face Shirou, Ise and the dark being.

"So who is this fellow?" Bikou asked now calmer than before.

"This feeling..." Arthur gripped his two swords with a slightly awed look. "It cannot be!"

"What is it?"

"This feeling, I only ever got it from fighting with Shirou Emiya." Arthur spoke while looking at his swords again. "But this is stronger and purer, it is as if..."

"The original Christian God has come to grace us." Everyone jumped as Vali appeared from nowhere and looked to the beings on the battlefield. "I know what you mean, this is the exact same feeling I thought of as well, it reminds of Shirou Emiya using the Excalibur and those other holy weapons against me."

"So we got a being of pure evil and a being of pure goodness. What next?" Bikou's sarcastic question got the ironic answer in the form of a humongous red dragon breaking out of the cracks in the sky and letting out an angry roar that stunned everyone in the area as it landed hard on the ground creating a huge crater and cracks spanning from the impact. "Oh for fuck's sake, I was just joking!"

"That is… Great Red..." Vali looked to the dragon with a smile of disbelief. "How do you like that? One of the top goals is before me, yet I doubt I can take him now." He turned his head slightly to the right with a dim light in his eyes. "Especially since he is her opponent." The others turned to find a dark-haired girl dressed in gothic lolita slash Black Victorian dress in the same area as them, alternating her eyes at Great Red and the other beings. More disconcerting for them was her lack of presence compared to the other three; she did not register on their senses and ended appearing between them and Shirou.

"Ophis, why is she here as well?!" Bikou and Arthur were looking at the scene with disbelief evident on their faces.

"This is nuts, why are they all here?" Tsubasa groaned from the pressure that was mounting on her from the presence of the beings near them.

"I believe our devil friend and magician are the main reasons." Arthur answered that with a nod of his head towards Shirou and Ise. "All that power being thrown about would have attracted a lot of people, and considering the damage to the dimension barriers, these fellows have arrived to see who they were."

"That is nice and all, but what is going to happen now?" Reya asked uncertainly as she looked at Shirou who was now eyeing everyone with a wary eye even in his berserk state. "I am not sure if we can fend them off to save them?"

"I don't think we will have that choice." Kiba remarked just as Shirou prepared to leap forward at the one bearing holy runes, only to be halted by said being who merely raised a hand to stop him in a partial pose. With another gesture, Ise got off the ground and hovered near to him, allowing the holy being to walk forward silently. The holy being stopped a few feet away from the two, tilting his head lightly as he alternated his sights on the two. Using the same raised hand, he lifted one finger and lightly touched Ise on the head, causing holy aura to issue forth from the point of contact and for the armor to start glowing brightly to the point the others had to shut their eyes from the glare. After it diminished, they opened them to find Ise was both out of his armor and fully healed from all of his injuries, with his Sacred Gear looking brand new on his left arm. With a light gesture, Ise floated to their group, allowing Rias and Akeno to run forward and grab him.

"Ise!" Rias let out a sigh of relief as she watched the rise and fall of her beloved servant's chest. "He is alive!"

"Thank Maou for that!" Akeno and the rest of the Gremory cheered at that only to be stopped by the others who were looking at Shirou, now the center of attention for the beings in the area. Idly Rias noted the presence of the gods who just arrived but ignored them in favor of keeping an eye on Ise and Shirou.

Even though he was restrained, Shirou seemed determined to break loose of the enchantment through sheer force. That got stopped when the man wrapped in dark energy threw out some of his dark bandages to wrap his limbs and his neck, the steel turning rusty and smoking from the contact. That gave the holy being a chance to step forward and grabbed him by the chin, holding him there to look him in the eye. Then to the horror of the devils, he lifted his other arm and shot it forward to the gem above his heart, cracking the steel portions around it as he gripped it tightly and started pulling.

"SSSKKKRRREEEEOOONNNNKKK!"

Shirou let out a roar of intense agony as he struggled against his bindings, but the bandages held fast to his limbs while the hand holding his chin barely budged as the holy being kept pulling at the gem to get it out of its steel protection, revealing strands attached to the underside resembling blood vessels but channeling energy instead of blood.

"NO!" This time it was the Gremory Peerage who had to restrain the Sitri group from trying to get to Shirou, but that was not really needed when the dark haired girl merely raised her hand to release some type of energy that forced them to their knees and gasping for air.

"Do not interfere." The girl spoke softly as she looked at them briefly. "They are removing the taint from him."

"T~Taint?" Sona panted as she tried to push off the ground.

"Something has corrupted your friend, the jewel is both the source of his strength and the curse that is corrupting him." Ophis answered while looking back at Shirou who seemed to be losing strength. "The jewel is damaged, thus the taint." At that moment, the holy being was able to pull out the jewel completely, removing his hand from the chin and letting the other one keep Shirou steady. With the freed hand, he laid it on Shirou's forehead to do the same thing as Ise, though his was more visual as it would seem the dark blade plating absorb enough of the light to show what was being done with veins of light appearing across the surface and covering his entire body. The bandages smoked from the holy energy coursing through him but they held fast to keep him steady. There was the sound of grating steel before a multitude of swords and spears sprouted from the arm wound, reshaping itself into the nightmarish form of an arm. Then with a bright flash, Shirou seemingly exploded into many steel shards, leaving behind his real and reformed body that was now displaying new scars and his gauntlets still on his arms. He swayed before going limp, with the dark being releasing his hold on him and letting him collapse to his knees.

Yet they still could not get near as the steel shards that came off were currently converging into a tight ball before reforming itself into a rather nightmarish caricature of a figure barely resembling Shirou's corrupted state. The head, if one had to call it, looked so wrong with the eye sockets glowing a deep red and a mouth that was laden with more sharp fangs than Jaws with teeth. It let out a scream that made one think of a Banshee mixed with the sounds of a ripped throat before leaping towards Shirou, intent on getting back to its host or to kill him. But the two beings of light and dark held out a hand and stopped it in its tracks, then with a gesture of their fingers, the creature soared through the air just as Great Red took a deep breath and unleashed a blast of red flames that covered the entire creature.

"SGETEERRRRKKK!"

The screams it issued as it was being burned alive would stay with the two peerages for a long time as it crashed to the ground and thrashed about on the ground in a futile attempt to put out the flames. Asia, Koneko and Ruruko had to turn around and closed their eyes and clamped their ears shut as the screams started getting weaker and the creature was losing the battle to the flames. With an arm stretched towards Shirou, it let out one last scream before it melted on the spot, creating a small pool of molten steel with small flames dancing on it.

"I think it is dead?" Saji spoke out as he watched the trail of molten steel going to a certain direction. "Please let it be dead!"

"It should be." Bikou stated as he winced from the ringing in his ears. "I can't sense it anymore." That seemed to be the trigger to have Reya and Meguri rushed forward to Shirou, with Ophis and the two moving away slightly to give them room.

"He is alive!" Reya shouted back while having a tearful smile, Megumi forgoing words for a big hug around him. The others let out a sigh of relief as they looked between Shirou and Ise, thinking the problem was solved.

Only Vali kept a close eye on their other guests and watched as the holy being held up the jewel in question and waved his hand to keep it hovering as the pieces around it vanished to reveal its original state in the form of an amulet with an unusual design around the jewel and inscribed with some unknown language that was actually giving him a headache just looking at it. From what he could tell, the jewel was encased in a gold and silver body with small designs of wings and vines, with three smaller gems located on the outer rim. It was also clear to him that the amulet had seen better days with the cracks evident on the body and a bit on the jewel itself.

The movement of the two beings and Ophis walking around it in a circle in a seemingly ritualistic manner was what attracted the others' attentions.

"Hey, I seen that amulet before." Saji spoke out while looking at the dark being having an arm towards the amulet with his hand a few inches away and moving his fingers as if it was trying to understand it. "Shirou has that on him a few times I seen him in that lab he works in."

"Yeah, I noticed that as well on some of our hunts." Momo nodded while lightly clutching her head, also experiencing the odd feeling from it.

"It seems that is the reason your friend went berserk earlier." Vali answered. "From what I can see, it is heavily damaged, likely giving rise to a failed spell that caused your friend to appear in such a manner."

"What are they doing?" Akeno's query got answered when the trio stopped moving and the holy being brought forth both hands to the sides of the amulet and started to focus his energy on it, making it glow brightly with holy aura filling it. Then slowly he pulled his hands apart, with an image of the amulet moving along with his right hand while the real one followed the left. With a light clench of his fist, the amulet glowed once more before the glare diminished to reveal its restoration to its former glory. With a gentle gesture, the amulet floated to Shirou and wrapped a golden chain around his neck to secure its place.

With that done, the being turned back to the image in his hand, tilting his head as he started manipulating it, changing the overall shape and size of it and stretching beyond its original dimensions. At that point the dark being came closer and paused to look at Shirou again, making Reya and Meguri take a protective stance in front of him. The dark one was clearly amused by their actions through his body gestures and glint in his eye, and proceeded to ignore them by turning back to the holy one before him. Raising a hand, he seemed to call forth some of the substance that made up his body and have it condensed into a ball coming out of the palm of his hand. Even in the distance, the others shivered at the sheer evil that was coming from it, and the dark aura that was coming out of the being's body and merging with the ball was not helping their hearts. It took a few moments for the ball to be shrunk down to the size of a small marble that was filled with the swirling mass of dark miasma. The being plucked it out of his hand, breaking off the small bit attached to his palm, and looked at it with a rather demented look evident even with the bandages covering his face. With a light flick, the marble hovered and started to circle the amulet image.

In response to that, the holy one raised an arm to the sky, and before everyone's eyes, Ise, Kiba, Gasper, Saji, Vali and Tsubaki started glowing before images of their gears appeared in front of them in the form of a gauntlet, blue wings, a sword, a pair of glowing orbs and a mirror. With a light pulse, they changed into small balls of light and went straight to the hand of the holy being, merging together upon their destination.

"What is going on now?" Saji let out a groan at all that was happening.

"I think that one is gathering samples of the powers in Sacred Gears." Vali gestured to Shirou who also glowed before [Hell's Trident] and a few other weapons he had procured appeared above him and fired out beams of light that got absorbed into the ball. "That is the only explanation I could think of since it took your gear and Albion's [Divine Dividing]."

"Look!" Rias called out and pointed to the sky where they could say similar balls of light appearing in the horizon. They quickly flew towards the enlarging hand and merged with it, growing in both size and power as they could feel the aura building immensely. Before long the last ball of light entered it and the being clenched his fist to crush the ball in his hand, seemingly trying to force it into a small space with beams of light peeking out of the gaps of his fingers. After a few seconds, he lowered the hand and opened it to reveal a small blue marble that had small streaks of white moving inside. That one followed its dark counterpart and circled the ever changing amulet.

The holy being was not done just yet. With a wave of his hand, Rias and Sona started glowing themselves before two balls of their own aura appeared above them, growing in size as they took in more of it. After they reached the size of a basketball, they made their way to the hand of the holy being and started merging with others that have arrived. It was seeing a second glowing orb that made them realize that the being was also getting samples of the gods that have arrived in the area.

"Why is he gathering our auras and the gods'?" Rias asked as she watched a particularly foul ball of energy that reminded her of Hades moved to the armored figure.

"I do not know myself, but as Vali said, I think he is collecting samples for whatever he has planned." Sona answered as they watched the two balls have finished gather the energies and condensed themselves into smaller balls, one being a bright silver and the other a glowing gold, and joining the other two to hover around the amulet image.

The roar of a dragon now drew their attention to Great Red who glowed a bright red and opened its mouth to gather aura in front of it. The devils tensed at the possible attack, but the two beings with Ophis maintained their positions and watched it condensed that aura into a small crimson marble and let it float down to the amulet.

As it passed Ophis, she seemed to have come to a decision and call forth her aura in the form of a dark snake that was looking at them with glowing eyes of green. Then with the opening of its mouth and a quick strike, it bit its own tail and started to consume it, getting smaller and tighter in the process before it condensed itself into a ball as well, this being a dark marble with the image of her symbol etched on it.

Now with all the marbles present, the amulet image seemed to gain momentum in its changes and swallowed them whole, before collapsing on itself and letting out a bright glare of light and clashing auras that made them winced in pain from the sensory overload. It took a while before they could open their eyes again to see what was done.

Where there was once an amulet now stood a sword that was roughly as tall as the being up to his chest level, with thin lines of gold along the edge of the blade. Within the cavity of the fuller, the gems were inserted along the length of it with holy runes and demonic writing separating them. Adorning the gold rain-guard and separating the silver hilt from the blade, the image of Shirou's Amulet was the main center piece of the sword, with the two ends of the cross-guard resembling the wings of both an angel and the devil. Surrounding the big jewel was the decorations depicting Great Red, Ouroborus, Gods, the Devil and the Christian God in various poses.

Seemingly pleased with his creation, the holy being pushed the weapon towards Shirou, letting it glow brightly before condensing into a ball and going inside him, causing him to briefly open his eyes and gasped in shocked pain before he collapsed back to unconsciousness.

"It is done..." Everyone turned to the holy being who was starting to hover in the air and glowing as he spoke with the voices that had the tones of young and old, male and female, and everything in between. "There are trials to come, and should he prove worthy, he will unlock that gear as dictated by my father." He turned to his dark counterpart. "What of you?"

"Heh~" That one let out a dark chuckle that sent chills down their spines, especially since the voice sounded just like Shirou's but with a darker tone to it. "I have found the one who awaken me from my slumber, the one who helped me remember who I am, my purpose..." He turned to look at Shirou with maniacal eyes. "And the one who apparently took down my avatar in all those wars..."

"Wars?" Sona muttered without thought and found herself looking at the dark being in the eye, and she could not help the revulsion from looking at him, as though she was bared all for him to see, touch and be violated in all manners before being killed, all done in the most gruesome imagination possible.

"Yes, wars..." He answered in a hiss as his skin started to bubble and stretched while his mouth started to stretch and his teeth started to resemble fangs. "Keep him alive, for I wish to see if he is capable of containing my power. Who knows, perhaps he would be a suitable host for me?" With that, his body bloated and expanded alarmingly quick, and in a flash, a giant foot stomped the ground as a dark three-headed dragon with blood red markings let out a roar that blew them away before it took flight and made its way back to the crack that the blob of evil resided, getting through just as the cracks sealed itself off.

"And you two?" The holy being turned to face Ophis and Great Red.

"I have come to challenge Great Red, but now I have found something else of interest." Ophis stated while looking at both Shirou and Ise. "These two will be the storms of change, and I will want to see more." Great Red on his part did not speak, but the resounding roar he gave supposedly supported her word. The holy being nodded and turned back to the group just as the pillar of light reappeared around him.

"Keep this one safe, and give him this warning. The time will soon come for him to decide when the balance is shifted, old allies and enemies will appear before him and he must consider if he wish to become the same guardian as the one before him, or to go against the Will of the one named Alaya. He must choose wisely." With that the being shot upwards in the pillar of light, vanishing soon after without a trace. Great Red took flight and flew back to the opening from whence it came, while Ophis simply turned and walked away, turning invisible with just a few steps. And so, the higher beings left the scene, leaving behind two unconscious combatants, a few devils, a splinter group of Chaos Brigade and some gods in relative silence, and all thinking the same thing as they looked back at Shirou and Ise.

'What the hell was going to happen next?'

Part 6

"Well, that was exciting."

"Exciting my ass! You nearly blew our cover!"

"Hey, just as you wanted confirmation about Shirou Emiya, I too had my methods. It can't be helped that at the time I checked on him, the dragon boy was going berserk."

"Right~ and the fact that Shirou Emiya ended up using the very form he used to kick your behind all those years ago was purely coincidental? That is so good timing. Oh, and let's not forget the giant ass blob of black slime that reeks all sorts of wrong, that holy armor that went to heal both him and that dragon boy, and Great Red being thrown in!"

"Don't push your luck pal. At least you get your exciting Peerage Game, and I did spice it up for you with that rampaging dragon. And thanks to that we both get to see the fabled [Juggernaut Drive] and the Berserker form."

"Sigh~ okay, I got it. Sorry about that, I am just a little high-strung at the bit about Shirou Emiya turning into… whatever that was."

"That would be as I stated, the Berserker form. From what I understand, that is a by-product of the amulet given by Zelretch because of the boy's participation in the Fifth Holy Grail War. Supposedly it grants the user the same type of abilities as Servants but using the person's template as the base. That is just my thinking."

"I see. But is it supposed to make the user look like..."

"Like the incarnation of a demon as what we witnessed? That would be a no. When I last fought him, he had a different look for that particular type. Perpetual rage, yes. Looking like he got dipped into some demonic pit of tar and blood, nope."

"I wonder..."

"What's on your mind?"

"If you recall, the Grail System was dismantled by the Church, Clock Tower and Zelretch on grounds of it endangering the Stature of Secrecy. The main issue was due to a contamination of the grail that happened during the Third War, revealed in the Fourth War in the form of a fire that consumed the town the war was based in, and almost got released during the Fifth. From what was gathered, the contamination was because of the Einzbern Family rigging the system to call forth a spirit that did not conform to the rules, and after it got defeated, the darker attributes got absorbed into the cup. It turned it well... 'dark' for lack of a description. That was why Zelretch was there to supervise to make sure it was totally removed."

"Okay, but what does that have to do with Emiya?"

"That footage of his rampage, that black gunk... what did you feel?"

"... Oh hell no~"

"Oh hell yes."

"Let me get this straight. You think that the same contamination that was the artifact is now on Emiya?"

"Yup."

"Okay~ anymore surprises that you want to drop on me?"

"Unless I am much mistaken, someone else hijack your attempt to test Emiya and went to collect some of that black gunk."

"Oh great, just great. It says something about our fucked-up culture when even the vampire himself is skeptical about the system and tries to remove it, while another decides 'what the heck' and goes about trying to collect that gunk."

"If I recall, that gunk is supposedly the representation of the all the world's evil."

"Oh that is even more awesome~ I can only say we are now well and truly fucked!"

"True, but let's look at this differently. Whoever it was that went to hijack your attempt and collected the gunk is likely trying to create something, or perhaps find a connection. You saw where the gunk came from, maybe this fellow is trying to reconnect to our old world."

"Maybe, or he wants to recreate the whole evil aspects or..."

"Or what?"

"... Oh shit, I hope I am wrong about this. But isn't one of the mages from our world a person with an axe to grind against the Tohsakas?"

"I think you need to be more specific than that, there were at least 12 families the last time I checked."

"That was like 50 years ago. The guy I am referring to also had an axe to grind against the vampire because his family clan was not chosen for the first Holy Grail War."

"Oh... OH~ Oh bugger."

"Yes, that guy."

"… Well this is going to suck."

"PFFT~ tell me about it. What do you think is going to happen next?"

"Considering the footage, it is safe to say that Shirou Emiya is going to be under heavier scrutiny, and with Chaos Brigade running interference, we can proceed with our work, but I think it is time we try to contact the others. I would prefer not stepping on any of their toes when our own plans come to fruit."

"Indeed. Let's not."

Part 7

The sounds of the spectators filled the area as the students run along the track tied to their partners, with Ise and Asia making quick time to get the lead and were now approaching the home-stretch. On my side, both their classes and their friends cheered them heavily, with Tsubaki sitting next to me and the other two members of the Perverted Trio holding up a banner with his name on it. The closing event was coming to a climax and everyone was going nuts for the race. At least this could put some of my thoughts out of the way.

The situation after that mayhem at the Rating Games was… tense to say the least. The fact that Chaos Brigade was able to infiltrate the security was bad enough, but to know that at least one member of the higher echelons was also a member of the terrorists was quite disconcerting, and the council for one was not enthused by it. Ajuka was one of the most heavily affected as Diodora, a member of his family clan, was also a member of the terrorist group and one who aided in bringing in a disgraced devil just to get Asia. He may put up a relaxed front, but it was clear that he was both angry and saddened at the fact that one of his own was responsible for the incident.

The responses from the visiting dignitaries were mixed. Those like Zeus or Poseidon understood the issues and did not blame the devil administration for the security breach, rather their attitude towards the terrorists got stronger and they vowed to throw their full support for the alliance. Others were not well convinced and held off on signing on to the alliance, or worse actually refused on the spot and went back to their territories to stay out of their way.

And then there was the rampage and aftermath between Ise and I.

The both of us fell into a brief comatose state that took a few days to come out of, during which the others were going nuts trying to revive us. When it was my turn to wake up, I found myself strapped to the bed with Azazel looking ready to vivisect the both of us with very questionable equipment. Ise's first reaction upon waking up was to scream at the governor, thus getting everyone else's attention.

This got even more awkward when the doctors checked on us and found that we both had reduced lifespans because of the transformations. Zelretch had warned me about that danger with my Amulet so I was prepared for that, but to have confirmation from a doctor and my own personal checks brought it home. In a sense, this reminded me of some dimensional templates of myself, specifically those that passed away differently as opposed to the one commonly shared among us, dying in our Reality Marble or on a battlefield.

I was so glad that Rin and the others were not around to hear that, I would be running my ass out the back door just to avoid the Gandrs, fireballs and other attacks that would be after me.

That particular bit of news did not stop Asia, Rias and Akeno from hugging Ise to the ground, and Megumi, Reya and Yura from hugging me tightly to the point of almost breaking my ribs while crying their eyes out, with Kiba, Saji, Azazel and a couple of other guys looking at us with the type of look reserved for those right bastards that dared to make girls cry.

It took a while to coax the details of the rampage from them, but when we finally got it, I got the feeling that Ise and I would want to be away from each other for a while until we could get a better handle on this.

From what I understood about [Boosted Gear], Ise had reached a state called [Juggernaut Drive] that was only available to gears having a dragon soul within and unlocked from large amounts of negative emotion. The end result was basically Ise transformed into a rampaging armored dragon with a supersized cannon that could destroy just about anything. If I had to take a guess, this was a power that was bordering just outside of an EX-Rank Anti World Noble Phantasm!

I would hate to encounter him in a Holy Grail War...

On my part, it would seem that the Amulet's safety feature kicked in and did an emergency installation of a Berserker Servant, but due to the corruption of Prana, data and the lack of repairs, the device ended up calling forth a corrupted version of it. If my memories were correct, this was based on a dimensional version that got tainted by Angra Mainyu, and that was so not helping my situation as any normal Berserker Servant was strong enough, but throw in Angra Mainyu's influence and you got a recipe for disaster, especially when the Amulet's safety feature meant I was not in control of my body at that point.

And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

The gods, demigods, and everyone else had some inkling of what I could do because of those fights that kept getting broadcasted by someone else, but this was the first time they got up close and personal with me using a fair bit of my Reality Marble. That really opened up a big can of worms as quite a few tried to get past the devils to demand where and how I could attain and use the Noble Phantasms that resonated heavily with them. It was certainly quite the hassle when you have gods like Zeus or Odin looking ready to tear your ass a new one, while you have others who actually tried asking if one was related to them from previous flings.

Bummer.

And if that was not enough, the both of us were currently on heavier guard surveillance from the alliance since Ise has shown he could turn into a pissed-off dragon and blow up dimensions while I could change into a corrupted Berserker that could destroy gods while laughing like a mad man. They really did not want us to suddenly go ape-shit on them or fight one another again to avoid destroying the town, let alone the world. So for Ise's part, he had the devils keeping an eye on him while I got the church, with Grigori alternating between us every so often.

Sometime after that, I had to tell Ise and the others some details about my abilities, including the amulet and its safety feature. Sona said with a great deal of sternness and some other emotion I could not identify that I was not to be in any situation that would necessitate this feature to avoid shortening my lifespan even further. I could only compromise since this was a situation no one would have expected.

And lastly was the appearance of two unknown figures alongside Great Red and the apparent High Leader of Chaos Brigade, Ouroborous or Ophis as that one was known currently. Based on what the others described, they were the ones who stopped the both of us in our rampage and the holy one restored us both into our normal forms. Then they did something to repair my amulet and supposedly collected the different powers of all the known species, gods and Sacred Gears to create a blade that was inside me. Even now I could actually see it in my Reality Marble, occupying one hill with what looked to be locks holding it in place to prevent an early release, just as the others said.

All of this was happening too quickly, and the worse part was me not knowing the hell was going on anymore. I was also particularly worried by the words the holy being spoke of, it knew Alaya and more importantly, it knew of Archer and his supposed decision to give the warning about me getting to that point.

What the Root was going on here?

Seriously, I hate my E-Rank Luck Stats.

"GO ISE!" The duo's yelling broke my thoughts and brought my attention to Ise and Asia just a few feet away from the finishing line with another pair closed on their heels. With a big leap, the both of them broke the cloth that ended the race, bringing forth a huge cheer from the spectators and the duo who leaped up and started hugging while cheering at once. I merely clapped while smiling brightly at the flushed expressions on both Ise and Asia.

"Looks like Asia has gotten back on her feet." I commented as I watched the two teens walk off the race track, noting Ise being half carried by Asia and Koneko who came along.

"Indeed." Tsubaki nodded as we both left our seats and made our way out of the stands. "She was most distraught when Ise was still in that coma state, we barely got her to get some food and water in her system until he woke up."

"At least he got back on his feet, and the others can calm down." I stretched my arms and continued walking for a while before realizing Tsubaki had stopped walking. With a troubled expression and a quick look-around, she grabbed my arm and pulled me into the building next to us where we ended up being in an empty corridor, well away from the crowd. With a quick gesture of her hand, a small barrier was erected to keep our conversation private.

"Tsubaki?" I asked as I looked at the tall teen looking a little upset.

"How about yourself?" Tsubaki asked softly while looking down.

"Beg your pardon?" I blinked at her question.

"Meguri, Reya, Yura, even Momo were worried sick for you. Xenovia was standing guard the whole time you were stuck in bed, and Mitelt was actually forced to take a calming potion by Azazel before she could sleep." Tsubaki spoke while her hands clenched into fists. When she looked up, I was surprised to find her eyes tearing up. "Sona was also trying her hardest to use her abilities to wake you up, and there are others who worry for you. So why don't you let us?"

Before I could answer, she came close to me and started to hit me in the chest while her voice started going higher. "You keep running into situations alone and making us wait on the sidelines while you get hurt to the point that you get stuck in bed from a few hours to a few days, and yet you keep on going on suicidal runs with homicidal priests, over zealous Fallen, some twisted monsters from god knows where, a battle hungry Longinus user and now a rampaging dragon that needed you to become a freakish looking demon of steel and cuts your lifespan by 15 years!" Her strikes gotten weaker at this point, giving me a chance to wrap my arms around her. She struggled weakly before giving in and lightly grabbing a fistful of my shirt. "You keep getting hurt, yet you keep smiling. You keep pushing us away at arm's length despite us trying to know you better. Why?"

There was no real answer for me to give, I could only hug her tighter as she started to sob on my shirt, making it wet from her tears. I could not help but sigh mentally as I recalled a similar argument I had with Rin, and how she berated me for my philosophy. Idly I considered the aria for Unlimited Blade Works, specifically Archer's line that spoke of never knowing life or death in his fights and not attaining his dream.

Guess we were still too similar despite my attempts to do otherwise.

"I can't really give a decent answer to your question." I spoke slowly while lightly rubbing her back, thinking how to phrase my answer properly. "I have been this way for as long as I can remember, I have been told that my mindset is wrong and have people try to fix that, but it is not easy to fix something or for that matter, someone who is broken."

"Broken?" Tsubaki coughed out the word as she relaxed her grip. A treacherous part of my mind could not help but note that with our height, our positions and current set of gym clothes, this would be a rather scandalous sight for anyone in our school to see. There was a reason Tsubaki was the fourth most popular girl in the academy and considering how her shapely body, which was snugly covered by the clothes, was pressing against me and her head was near my shoulder, many of the hormonal males would be crying for my blood.

But I was not one of them, or at least I could keep my hormones way better in check. And considering how her body was shaking from her earlier outburst and her tears, this was certainly not the time or place. Her query did break that train of thought, but that ended up making me say something I normally kept silent elsewhere.

"Broken, and I highly doubt that even Asia's gear could fix me that much."

"Shirou..." Tsubaki moved her head to look at me, and a part of me was pissed at myself upon seeing the tears going down her face. With a hand, I lightly brushed off the tears and tried to give a smile, but likely getting a grimace instead.

"It is not easy for me to get closer to anyone. I have too many enemies that want me to suffer if not dead, and there have been attempts to use others to get to me. I can't be too close."

"But you are always alone, that is not healthy." Tsubaki shook her head in pain before her face gain an expression of resolution, and I would admit I was experiencing an odd sense of deja vu since it was similar to Rin's when she was going to rampage on my behavior. That made me surprised, intimidated and strangely enough with the voice of Ise, a little turned on.

Crap.

"Shirou Emiya, you will not be galloping to some shit alone. I know for a fact that Reya, Megumi and Yura would be hounding your ass for that thought pattern, I would be making sure that you remember that you are still in our territory and so under our protection, and do not get me started with Sona, Xenovia and the others." Tsubaki at this point had separated from me and had one hand on her hip and a finger tapping my chest, her face having the serious expression and close to mine.

"But..."

"No buts! The way I see it, you won't have much of a choice but to interact with us since now there are already people getting more interested in you. You will need our help." Her face then switched to a passive and somewhat vulnerable expression. "Don't push us away."

"..."

Darn it, this young lady was not making it easy for me. That speech and that pose was practically a mirror-image of Rin, and the sad part was her being correct. In a sense I was starting to relapse back to old habits without any of the others to set me straight, I guess I do need some help.

Just got to hang on a little longer.

"Very well." I let out resigned sigh.

"Good." I suppressed a twitch on my eye as Tsubaki's expression turned smug, just like Rin when she got what she wanted. "At least I got that part through to you." As I shook my head in disbelief at that, my ears picked up some odd words from her. "… a little ahead of the others at this..."

"What was that?"

"Nothing!" She straightened herself up and looked to the side, an odd blush on her face as she took down the barrier. "Just thinking about the paperwork to finish for this sports event."

"I see." I merely shrugged knowing she was not telling the truth but felt it was not important.

"Right then." Without me noticing, she turned and hugged me once more before placing her lips on my cheek, dangerously close to my lips. She let go and gave a smile that was oddly more natural and beautiful than other times. "Make sure you take care of yourself, and do not forget what I said." With that, she turned and exited the building, leaving me standing like a statue with my mouth slightly open.

What just happened?

One part of my mind with the voice of Rin started to berate me about 'teen drama' and 'denseness', and another part of my mind with the voice of Archer snarked at me getting caught up with a huge mess. This was really not what I needed at this point in time, I was not sure what to feel about the alliance, the attacks and the remote possibility of Dead Apostles in this world to begin with, adding teen drama was so not worth the headaches.

I shook my head and started to leave the building myself when I spotted the familiar messy hair of Ise and blond hair of Asia in the distance. With a few steps to the side, I hid in the shadows of the trees and kept a curious eye. Just as well, since it looked like Asia finally confessed to Ise and gave him a chaste kiss.

Looks like I won myself a couple of dollars from Saji.

That said, I could not help the smile on my face as I watched those two interact. This was one of the reasons I tried to save people, even if I would end up alone. To see their smiles knowing that they underwent a very traumatic situation, especially with Asia's near death experience, it just warms me up very nicely. I would make sure those smiles keep on going.

And on that note...

"You know, I don't appreciate people who would want to disturb this scene between two young lovebirds." I spoke while lightly turning and gesturing with my head. "Why don't we take this conversation elsewhere?" With that, I took a few quiet steps to the place I was thinking while checking to see if the mysterious watcher would follow and not take the opportunity to get a few pot-shots at Ise and Asia. Much to my hidden relief, the watcher was of the same mind and followed a few meters behind, maintaining a safe distance from me.

It did not take long to get to a quiet spot where I could afford to make a bit of a mess without getting spotted and ensuring that the others can get to me in time if I had trouble. I stopped to turn and face in the direction of my guest. "Okay, we are alone, so shall we have our conversation?" I paused before adding this, "Or do you want to stay within your pocket reality, Mr Potter?"

With that, a line of bright line appeared a few feet before me, extending from the ground to my height before it expanded to reveal a familiar young man with black hair and wearing glasses, dressed again in that outfit consisting of a school uniform and robes similar to those from the Clock Tower.

"Please, anything but that name." The teen let out a sigh as he exited the portal. "I get enough of that from the others in my group."

"Apologies for that Georg." I smirked while maintaining my mental trigger. "It is a bit of good ribbing."

"Apology accepted, Shirou Emiya. At least you do apologize for that stupid name fixing." The mage nodded while adjusting his glasses. "And on that note, please accept my apologies for barging in on that moment earlier. It was not my intent."

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Indeed, contrary to the others who are uncultured, I do not go around breaking moments like those." Georg replied to my expression. "Even if they are devils now, I can understand there are some things that must be respected, and it is clear they have a deep love for one another. It might sound cruel to you, but at the least I will let them have this before we fight them in the future."

"I see." I kept my voice even while narrowing my eyes. "So in a way, you will be our enemies, with standards."

"Well… for the devils yes. But you?" Georg tilted his head while quirking an eyebrow. "That is dependent on a few factors."

"What do you mean?" I shifted my weight to get a better stance for an attack, something Georg realized and made to raise both arms to show he was not being aggressive.

"Well, no doubt you have heard something about us from the devils, Grigori and Heaven. But you have yet to get the side from your fellow humans." Georg came forward a bit before offering a hand. "And despite your neutrality, I can tell that you would not accept their words so easily. Not to mention the current situation with both your 'outbursts' during that tournament fiasco, you are in a very precarious situation."

"So what are you suggesting?" I clenched my fists lightly while mentally feeling out the weapons in my Reality Marble. They have been rather restless since the Berserker incident and were itching to be released into the world, it was rather distracting to say the least.

"I think for your part, it would be best if you hear from our side." Georg answered as he straightened his form. "I am here not as a representative of Chaos Bridgade, rather I am representing the faction I belong to."

"Which is?" I decided to humor him in order to loosen his tongue, but what I got almost took me by surprise.

"The Hero Faction, consisting of humans who are descendants of heroes past." Georg said in a manner that suggested he had practiced this speech for a while. "We are effectively the last line of defense against the other supernatural for the humans. We also provide a safe haven for those who would be poached by the others for their powers of Sacred Gears."

"And…"

"I had guessed you won't be taken by any normal speech." Georg merely smiled wider as he reached out. "So perhaps this method will be more direct for you. After all, I got interrupted by Vali and the devils the last time we met."

"Shirou Emiya, I would like to extend an invitation to you to join the Hero Faction."

… Well, that complicated matters big time.

Crud.

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=()=

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=====Author's Notes=====

Hello, I have returned with a new chapter for this story. Phew, I finally managed to get this done before the end of the month. I was hoping to get it out by the previous month, but I was busy with wok and I really wanted this chapter to come out fine since I had to go back on some old ideas to project what I had in mind for this. Not to mention with my account acting weird over the past few months, I could only get some of the features slowly and only recently get the publication portion working for me. T.T

Enough of that, let's get on with the notes.

As with the Excalibur Arc, this chapter was one of those plots that got me wondering what happen if 'A' from Nasuverse meets 'B' from DxD. As far as I can tell, no one has gone further than the Excalibur Arc without going off the rails and skipping this part of the novel altogether. I had always wondered how would the user of a gear that has the rampaging beast inside deal with a Berserker Class Servant, and because we have a certain dimensional trolling vampire to think of, I decided to give this bit a try.

Now there were some stories that depicted a Shirou who became a Berserker, but they are based on Archer Emiya's template, meaning tanned skin and all. For this I had the idea that Shirou going berserk in some other world would become a literal "Beast of Steel", and I thought that for someone who always considers himself as a weapon, his body should reflect that but with some details to show that he is a Berserker. Now that would be good for others, but I wanted to show that such a thing would be a last resort of sorts, which is why in this case Zelretch placed it as only a safety feature to activate if he is in danger. At the same time I figured with the damaged amulet being in the underworld, there was a chance for contamination, hence the Alter version.

Now for comments:

Chapter 9 "Observations" Comments

To Kuroshinobi 13: Thank you for the link, I am getting some ideas. As for the allies, well that is a bit of a secret currently. Then again we are talking being in alternate dimensions .

To RedRat8: The energy ball will come into play real soon. The amulet portion has been demonstrated with this chapter.

To ZenithTempest: Thank you for the comment. I would keep that bit in mind, I am trying to portray Shirou properly since this is approaching new grounds for me.

To Noxlux013: Me too, I am thinking carefully how the Great Red summoning would turn out, but at the same time I got a crazy idea for an omake XD

To DarkLord98: I did not realize I made the bad guy sound like a rip off to HIS ROYAL "ALL HAIL BRITANNIA / ZERO" MAJESTY! XD

To akd98: I was thinking of tweaking the story a little to make it seem that the angels do not have a working system yet and that Azazel would be drafted along to study the Devil System.

To star (Guest): I am only keeping it a theory

To Kyo no Kitsune: I hope this chapter proves I am not making Shirou the next Christ Almighty, I too hate those types...

To daveadrian4: Does this chapter fulfill the request? XD

Comments from Quick Status Updates

To Zechs (Guest): Thanks for the loyalty.

To JumpinToaster: I have no idea myself T.T "

To SentinalSlice: Who knows what the future holds? 'Insert Zelretch Troll face'

To Saber77kun: Thanks for the comment. I am trying to make the fights scenes more frantic, but it is very hard to describe it in words.

Now that comments are done...

I am going to be reviewing and changing the flow of my previous chapters to make the reading cleaner so that others won't have a hard time knowing where are the breaks. I am trying that idea here so hoping the scenes are noticeable.

On a side note, I have posted the name of the alternate account on the front, but in case you missed it, my alternate account for all RWBY stories is rwby1989. I will be editing that profile soon to include this account's name so that everyone can visit one another. And while we are at that, perhaps you would like to read my Harry Potter crack story and the other couple of stories I made, including the one called Foreign Entity Series which I would be adding a new chapter soon. I should also be adding a couple of chapters for DFW omakes and the supplementary notes while I am at it.

So there you have it, this is my new chapter. Hope you enjoy reading it. Please Rate, Review and hopefully continue following the story.

And I put my pen down for now.

P.S. anyone else having issues with the publishing? I keep getting HTML coding instead of words...