Kuro looked up at the woman behind the counter at the clothing store as she tried to make her purchase. "Um... little girl, where are your parents?"

"At home, probably." Kuro said with a shrug. "I came here myself to buy some new clothes."

"Should you really be buy clothes all by yourself?" The woman asked.

"When they bought me this? What do you think?" Kuro said, gesturing to the fairy princess outfit she had on. It was so glittery and girly that it was downright offensive and would have most respectable people calling the cops for child abuse.

"Hm... good point." The woman nodded, taking the MBI credit card from Kuro and swiping it through the machine. She felt no guilt about taking Mitsuha's credit card. It was an unlimited account, so Kuro could have bought the entire store and it wouldn't have made a difference. Apparently the MBI went to great lengths to make sure that their Sekirei were well taken care of before they ripped each other apart.

The first thing that Kuro had done on the second morning of her stay with Hayato was to sneak out of the house to get her own clothes. Something she could wear without feeling like every eye in the world was watching her. Something that didn't feel dirty.

She found a clothing store and bought herself a few simple outfits. Mostly consisting of unisex sleeveless shirts, jeans, and jackets. It wasn't cold out, but the jackets gave more protection that thinner clothes when reinforced, and sleeveless shirts were preferable to none sleeveless underneath because she could just maintain the reinforcements over her vital area's without having the cloth becoming more restricting around her arms, slowing her down.

"Would you like to change into your new clothes here?" The lady asked.

"Yes, please." Kuro said with a nodded, letting the woman remove the alarm tags from the clothes before taking them back to one of the stalls for trying out clothes and getting dressed.

It was still awkward, being inside of a female body. No matter how much past experience told her that dwelling on things doesn't change them, she still shivered with horror whenever she saw her own reflection, looked down at or touched her new body. Cognitive dissonance; your minds expectations of reality and your bodies senses don't match up, causing you to feel emotional distress and entrapped.

The solution was simple; change your expectations of reality. However in practice that was proving to be quite difficult. Shirou changed her name to Kuro and even changed how she referred to herself from male to female. She tried to identify herself as being young again, and tried to act it in order not only to fool the people around her, but also herself. But Shirou's spirit was stubborn. Or perhaps that it just remembered its old body too well. The one that struggled to stay alive, requiring her to have a perfect knowledge of its ever fiber. Now she felt like a stranger in her own body.

It made her think back to those people who had been convinced that the leg attached to their body was not their own leg. The feeling building up over time, slowly driving them insane until they attack the thing with a butch knife and cut it off.

Shirou... Kuro pulled on her dark red jacket over her black shirt and black jeans before shoving the offensive piece of clothing into her shopping bag. She would dispose of it somewhere else. Probably involving an exorcism ceremony and a ring of black keys.

Next up was shoes. While her reinforced feet were enough for them not to really be needed, it didn't feel right to walk around bare foot all the time. She had some socks from the clothing store in case they wouldn't let her try on shoes without anything on her feet.

She walked through the shopping district, trying to find any place that might sell shoes while traffic honked horns all around. Traffic seemed to be at a rather strange high. Though Kuro couldn't really judge, since she was new to the city.

Any belief that something ordinary was happening disappeared when she saw the helicopters and the police redirecting traffic. Hundreds of police men bouncing people away, making sure that no one passed. A dozen helicopters circling in the sky. Then there was the scent of several Sekirei all moving in that direction. Something was going down. Something involving the Sekirei Plan.

Kuro went up to one of the policemen. "Excuse me, officer. What's going on?" She asked.

"There is an evacuation for the areas around the botanical garden. Some chemicals were spilled and the trees are going out of control. But don't worry, everything will be fine. We are far enough away here for nothing bad to happen. Now go on back to your parents and enjoy your day." The policemen said with a smile as he patted Kuro on the head, something she didn't enjoy.

"One more question, sir." Kuro said, looking up at the man. She wanted to see just how many people in the law knew about what was going on. "Does the word 'Sekirei' mean anything to you?"

Man's hand pulled back as if bitten and he visibly paled. "Yo...you're one of them." The man said in the manner of a person in fear for their life, or perhaps even more. How much would the MBI have to do to force the entire police to comply with their 'little game'. Just bribery wouldn't be enough. The man looked as though he was about to faint from pure terror. It was the look of a man who found himself complete powerless. Kuro had seen it before, in the eyes of people who had their loved ones held for ransom. It wouldn't surprise her if that was how they made them hold their tongues.

If it was a magic association, then they would have simply used hypnoses to make the police subconsciously tend to disregard anything out of the ordinary and simply follow orders, but the more Kuro saw, the more she doubted that magus were even involved in this Sekirei Plan.

"I'm not going to hurt you, just let me through." Kuro said, feeling sorry for the man.

"Absolutely ma'am, I'll tell my superior right away." The officer said, before moving as fast as he could without running back towards another one of the policemen.

A game. Perhaps it was, but the Roman Coliseum had also been 'a game'. That didn't mean it didn't install fear in the enemies of Roman. That it didn't inspire blood lust in its people and distract them from their own poverty. That it didn't line the pockets of the state. That people didn't die. Even games have a purpose. The Sekirei Plan was no ordinary game, it was a War Game, one that had to be years in the making. It had to have a purpose as grand as the effort put into it.

Kuro didn't like depending on others for answers. Even back in the Holy Grail War, Rin had her own motives for working alongside Shirou in the beginning. Looking back, it was amazing just how forward she was with information. Perhaps that was in order to build up his trust, and because Saber would have been able to answer any questions anyways.

This time, she would observe for herself, see what a battle between Sekirei is really all about. Then she would make a plan of action for getting through this Sekirei Plan... no, this Sekirei War.

The police didn't just let her through, they offered her a ride. She declined, seeing the horrified look on the potential driver's face. She would run. It would be a light exercise for her. Something she needed greatly.

Her muscle mass was pathetic. Most likely because she had never used them properly before she left the tank. Nor was she subjected to physical therapy in order to maintain them. It would take months of steady work for her to build herself up to an acceptable level. Or a week of something much more drastic.

The fast way did have its appeal, it would be painful as all hell, but it would be the quickest way to close the difference in strength between her and the other Sekirei. However, if she got into a fight during that week, while her body was struggling to repair itself from her unholy training, she would be completely screwed, as helpless as a newborn baby. She couldn't take that kind of risk. She didn't have Avalon to pull her ass out of the fire like she had during the Grail War.

She would just have to get by with the strength she had. It wasn't like she wasn't used to be embarrassingly out gunned.


To say that the state of the botanical gardens surprised Kuro would have been a horrible understatement. The plants weren't just out of line, the place looked like a tropical rain forest. Vines over ten meter thick in places stretched in all directions, tearing into the building and overlapping with one and other. Some of the trees looked like they had to be thousands of years old. The entire thing had spread over twelve city blocks. How on Earth did something like this happen?

A Caster class.

Territory control. The specialty of the Caster class Heroic Spirits, allowing them to set up their home base, an immense fortresses of magical traps and spells. Whatever Sekirei had cause this, their Od was flowing through every root in the entire jungle, its mental commands being heard. The forest was a living weapon.

Kuro nearly turned back the moment she saw it. Walking into a Caster's lair without proper backup and preparations was dumber than trying to give a Berserker a sponge bath.

However, it was the nature of the Od within the vines that made Kuro hesitate in her retreat. It was nothing like with Caster's territory. None of the heavy hatred to drive away intruders.

Kuro found it hard to find words to describe it. It was... peace. Not the numbness of tranquility, but actual peace. An absolute peace where all life could exist without fear, hunger, war or strife. Where happiness was not treated like a finite resource. A peace that was absolute and would last until the end of time. It felt like...

"Avalon..." Kuro mumbled, feeling a bit of an ache in her heart. It wasn't exactly like Avalon's energy, but it was close that even Kuro could hardly tell the difference. Kuro's eyes welled up with tears as she felt herself drawn in. The branches not moving to block her. It felt as though Saber herself was calling out to her.

So despite her better judgment, she went in, moving towards the heart of the forest, following the Od to its source.

Sekirei were crowding the forest, but most were having difficulties moving forward, most likely because the forest itself was responding to them, sensing ill intent and attempting to keep them away. It was the only explanation Kuro could think off. It wasn't that uncommon that Bounded Fields are made to be triggered by the person's intent.

There were only three Sekirei that were making much headway moving towards the source of the Od. One was familiar, one of the girls that had been at Kuro's introduction to the boy who thought he was her master. It was the woman with the scythe; number forty three, Yomi. Most likely she was cutting her way through, or using wind to jump through the branches more quickly. The other two Kuro nearly mistook for being a single source, considering how close their energies were together. They smelled of ozone.

Lightning users.

The difference between them was a subtle one, most likely two different parts of the same cloud, one lower and the other higher with different rotations and temperatures, but both needed to produce the most powerful lightning strikes.

Yomi was practically right on top of whatever Sekirei had created this forest. Kuro pushed herself, moving more quickly than before. An urge to help protect the source of the energy building up inside of her, eclipsing all reason. The trees themselves seemed to be opening up a path for her. When Kuro finally got close enough, she took to the trees' upper branches to see what was going on without being seen.

Yomi was standing with the source of the Od, a small girl, one no more than four or five years old with honey blond hair that swept down to her heals and large green eyes. With her featureless white gown dress and shoeless feet, she looked like an artist's interpretation for what a fairy would look like... not that that was what the fae were actually like. She was a pure and gentle creature and the little thing looked absolutely terrified as Yomi pulled on her arm, trying to force the child to come with her.

"Hurry up and follow me!" Yomi shouted at the small child.

"No! NO!" The girl cried, trying harder and harder to break free. But it was no good, the older girl was much stronger than her and wouldn't let go. Tears had formed in her eyes. The whole forest seemed to be shaking, reacting to the little girl's fear.

Yomi didn't seem to care at all. She glared down at the girl, baring her teeth a little in frustration. "I went out of my way just to meet up with you." She said tightening her grip on her death scythe and starting to lift it in a threatening manner. "Such a bad child. Maybe I should punish you."

Kuro heard it all with her enhanced hearing from her perch a quarter mile away. Her body stiffened and hot anger pushed through him. To threaten the Ever Distinct Utopia. Unforgivable.

Her hands rose and a black steel bow appeared in her one hand with a large metal arrow in the other. She started to reinforce her body in order to have the strength needed to pull back the string, fully intending to kill her supposed ally. Not really caring that the girl wasn't actually the embodiment of man's dream for a Utopia. Nor the inherent irony in killing someone for threatening it. Emotions were in control and emotions weren't every things to like to sit and wait.

But before she could even start to fit the arrow onto the string, others burst into the clearing and things started to get... weird.

"Kuu-chan!" A boy jumped out from behind Yomi and grabbed her in a jumping tackle as if to try to knock her away from the tiny girl. Yomi didn't budge and inch from the human's attempt, but that didn't mean that the surprise attack had no effect.

"Hey, get off me! What do you think you're touching you pervert!" Yomi shrieked as the boy's hands had wrapped around her and grabbed onto her boobs. The Sekirei started shaking herself about trying to get him to let go, seemingly forgetting that she had enough upper body strength to throw a small car and could easily just break the boy's arms. "Let go! Let go right now! Even my master hasn't touched me like that yet!"

"Get away from Kuu-chan!" The boy said, not letting go.

If that wasn't confusing enough, another voice entered the mix. "Alright weakling, just keep holding onto her like that and don't move." A bolt of lightning flew in and struck the two as they stood there in their retarded wrestling match. The two shook violently from the lightning before the human boy fell to the ground, leaving the Sekirei he had been try to hold standing in a dazed shock.

The two lightning Sekirei moved into the area, followed by a human who had his own slight magical signature.

Kuro nearly flinched as she noticed that the two Sekirei were twin women. The scars from her last encounter with a pair to twins still fresh in her mind. They weren't quite as identical as Mitsuha and Mitsuki, one sister had slightly bigger breasts and the other a little rounder eyes. But beside that they were nearly completely the same down to their skin tight two piece purple jumps suits, with long gloves that went all the way up above their elbows. More fetish outfits... what was with these Sekirei?

The two stood in a proud fashion in front of the man with their hips cocked out and chins up.

The man had a disheveled appearance, like he hadn't shaved in a while and his white shirt underneath his jacket had large sweat stains on it. But beside that he could have been any other guy in Japan; black hair, dark eyes. Kuro supposed he was fairly tall but other than that.

Shaking herself to get feeling back into her body, Yomi turned towards the new comers. "You two... I've heard of you..." She said before pointing an accusatory finger at them. "You're the Sekirei of that trash Ashikabi! Hikari and Hibaki! Aren't you busy making a living!?"

The twins posture faltered at the accusation. "Shut up you pervert!" One of the twins shouted back. "He's better than your handsome, rich, smart Ashikabi!"

"Hikari... that only make us sound bad." The other twin said miserably, tears started to roll down both their faces. The man standing behind them, the one who must have been their Ashikabi turned away, pulling out a smoke and scratching his head, not bothering to deny anything said about him.

The entire display was so unbelievably surreal that it snapped Kuro out of her murderous trance as her brain struggle to process what had just happened, requiring a full reboot. Her arrow fell from her fingers and she only just managed to dismiss it before it would have hit the floor with a metallic clang and given away her position.

Meanwhile the other human was sitting right in front of the small Sekirei girl, Kuu-chan. The two were just looking at each other.

The boy was... around eighteen or nineteen... and Japanese... Even if asked to give a better description of him, Kuro wouldn't have been able too. The guy was plain in every aspect as far as Kuro could tell. Average black hair of the average length in average condition. He was an average high and seemed to be of an average build where average clothes. The boy couldn't have looked more average if he tried. He looked like the personification of what people thought a Japanese teenager looked like.

That, along with the fact that he was probably an Ashikabi, didn't have his own Sekirei with him lead Kuro to draw two conclusions. This guy had somehow stumbled into the Sekirei War without realizing it, and he was hopelessly over his head. There was no other explanation for why an Ashikabi would go so deep into an obvious war zone without his own Sekirei go guard him. Then he tried to actually protect a Sekirei at the risk of his own life. This guy was what Rin would call a grade A idiot... It reminded Kuro of herself didn't the Holy Grail War.

"It looks like we finally met." The boy said, giving the small girl a smile.

"Onii-chan!" Kuu said, throwing her arms around the boy's shoulders and starting to cry into his jacket.

"Hey, there there." The boy said, patting her on the back. "Don't worry, you don't have to be alone anymore."

"Get away from the girl, you perv!" Yomi shouted, raising up her scythe, running straight towards the two. "My Master has his eyes on that Sekirei, someone like you can't touch it!"

Yomi was doing a jumping strike, aimed right for the boy as he tried to shield Kuu.

An arrow flew through the air, slamming into the head of the weapon with enough force to deflect it, causing it to drive itself into the tree beside the target rather then cutting through the boy.

"What the hell..?" Yomi said, turning to see where the arrow came from only to be met with three more. Each one was a grazing hit, not aimed to kill or maim, but rather to just damage arms to stop her from lifting up the scythe. Two on the left arm, one lower and one upper, and the last into the Sekirei's back leg.

Kuro had calculated each arrow to piece the flesh and muscle but leave the bone intact. However she was surprised when after the arrows hit their marks, they only felt small cuts, no bigger than one would get from slipping with a kitchen night. In reality it did a long more damage to the girl's clothes than her body, cutting away a large chunk of her gloves and stockings. Kuro had underestimated just how tough a Sekirei's body was and hadn't reinforced the edge of her arrows enough.

She sought to correct that problem, pulling back another arrow.

"What the hell, shooting from the trees? What kind of coward are... are..." Yomi's voice dropped off as she brought her hand up from one of the shots to her left arm and looked at her hand. "Bl...blood... I'm bleeding..." She said, starting to shake.

Kuro let the arrow go, aiming again for the already injured leg. Yomi saw it coming and barely managed to move out of the way of the steel arrow. Then as another volley came at her she started to swing her scythe in Kuro's direction. "No! Get away!" The Sekirei screamed, releasing waves of wind that changed the trajectory of the arrows, causing them to miss. The invisible blades of wind came towards Kuro's hiding place, so the Magus Sekirei slide back behind the tree. Then, dismissing her bow, she started dropping down to a lower branch using the trunk as cover before slipping in the shadow from tree to tree. She didn't even disturbing a single leaf as she moved with the skill of a practiced assassin.

She reached a new vantage point, a good deal away from her first and was pulling out a new bow, ready to continue were she had left off. However, while she was repositioning, another individual entered the fray.

A woman dressed in a sort of shrine maiden outfit with a unusually short skirt was standing in front of Yomi, catching the scythe with two red gloved hands, the flats of her palms pressed up against the metal surfaces at the edge of the blade. Kuro was shocked at how easily it seemed that the girl was holding the blade back.

"Minato, I've been looking for you!" The girl said, giving the younger man a smile. She looked rather breathtaking with her brown hair framing her pretty face and her large round... eyes.

"M...Musubi!?" The boy exclaimed in shock as he sat in the ground behind her holding Kuu close to him, as if to protect the small girl.

"It's dangerous to go around swinging pointy objects like that!" The girl said before twisting the end of the scythe and breaking it with astonish ease. "There!" She said, clearly proud of herself.

Yomi stumbled back looking at her broken scythe with dismay. "M...My precious Death Scythe!"

"Are you alright?" She asked the boy, presumably Minato.

"Musubi, what are you doing here?" Minato asked her, still looking shell shocked.

"Oh, I came to bring your phone. Here." Musubi said cheerfully, handing the boy a cell phone.

Kuro watched the scene unfold, holding an arrow ready to the string. It was strange to her. Nothing like what she had expected. These girls... were stupid. They dropped their guard constantly, they wasted their time with words and displays that could only be described as dramatics. They didn't act like they were in a fight for their lives. They weren't taking it seriously. When Yomi had first seen her blood, she freaked.

That said, they were still absurdly strong. While Yomi's swings were inelegant, they were powerful and fast. Fast enough for the human eye to struggle to keep up. And that Musubi chick stopped it with ease, going so far as to snap the metal like it was a twig. That metal wasn't ordinary. Even when he was Shirou Emiya, Kuro wouldn't have had the physical strength needed to pull something like that off.

She hasn't seen enough of this new Sekirei to get a feel on how she worked, but she thought she had Yomi's number. She would have been an assassin class, physically weaker than the other classes besides caster, but able to make up for it by hiding the true nature of her attacks, those wind blades. However she ruined that advantage when she used it to deflect Kuro's arrows. He opponents already knew she could manipulate the wind to a curtain degree and wouldn't be caught off guard about it.

For an Assassin class, being so see through was a death sentence. Yomi was surrounded by the enemy, out number four to one by individuals who were stronger than her, and had already had her trump card spotted. The only rational thing to do at this point would be for her to retreat, or try to take a hostage.

Kuro drew back an arrow, filling the tip with prana until it broke and shot it up into the tree behind Yomi. The arrow exploded on impact, sending bits of wood flying all over Yomi, further cutting up her clothes and causing her to cover her eyes. The tree fell forming a physical barrier between her and the most likely possible hostages, Kuu and Minato. Then to distract from the purpose of that arrow, she shot two more on either side of the woman.

Her clothes were in tatters and she started to struggle to cover herself. "Damned coward! How dare you humiliate me!" Yomi said angrily, looking towards where Kuro had shot the arrow from. In doing so she saw the thunder twins standing there with their arms cross and looking forward she saw Musubi with her fists raised. "Ganging up on me huh? Fine, I'm out of here!" She cried, jumping away, trying to shield her modesty with her thin arms and dragging along her broken scythe.

Kuro let her bow and all the arrows disappear into flakes of prana as she glanced to were Kuu and Minato were. The girl looked as though she had fallen asleep. Creating that entire forest must have exhausted her completely. Kuro couldn't even begin to imagine how much prana must have gone into it. Far more than even a servant would have had.

Kuu seemed to know the boy, and he had put himself in danger to protect her. While he was a grade A idiot, that also might he was a pretty alright guy and wouldn't do anything to hurt her. Kuro would leave the little girl in his care... though if she found out that something bad had happened to her...

Kuro dropped those thoughts and she saw the second human looking her way. She didn't want to have her identity connected with the archer. Considering how obnoxious phones had already proven to be for her.

She slides backwards into the shadows and left to find a place to sit and think about things.

One thing was sure. Yomi was a bitch. Though that wasn't really that big of a shocker nor did it mean that much going on. That little girl was a Sekirei. Therefore it would only make sense to try to bring her over to their side. The only thing that drew Kuro to attack was because of how innocent the child seemed and the fact that she felt so much like Excalibur's sheath.

Actually, if Yomi hadn't threatened the girl, Kuro might have been firing arrows at the lightning twins instead. Or much more likely, simply sat back and watched them all duke it out to its logical conclusion before jumping in to remove the victor if Yomi lost.

However something about the whole thing felt weird, closer to a kidnapping then looking for a new member. What would have happened if Hayato had gotten a hold of Kuu? Would she have even been of any used to him? She was far to gentle to be used in battle. It seemed completely unfair to pit such a small child again fully matured adults... well, physically matured.

Kuro had the feeling that her alliance with Hayato wouldn't last forever, or even that long. Before that happened, she would need to set up a method for taking care of herself, a base of operations hidden with bounded fields would be best, though she would also need to consider how to get food. While she was not morally above stealing it, she would prefer something else. While the credit card was useful for the quick shopping spree, Kuro had found a transmitter inside it using her structural analysis. Not something she wanted to be carrying around.

She would also need to learn a few things more things about this War Game.

First, how much damage did it actually take to 'terminate' a Sekirei. It would be a handy thing to know about if she was going to be fighting them on the regular. If they could take a sword through the stomach and keep going, Kuro would like to know before she had to fight against five or six of them. Especially given how resilient they seem to be.

Second, what exactly were Ashikabi. What were their purpose, did they have traits that could be used to identify them. What would happen to a Sekirei of their Ashikabi was knocked out or killed.

Third, what was the nature of the bond between Sekirei and Ashikabi. How was it established, was it complete sub servants or something more mutually beneficial, could it be removed without terminating the Sekirei involved. She had been told that a Norito could be used to terminate a Sekirei without damaging them, but she didn't exactly know what a Norito was. She had heard the part from the lab building say the word, but she had been a little preoccupied at the time. Then there was Rule Breaker. If the bond between the Sekirei and Ashikabi was based upon a contract, then Rule Breaker would be able to sever it in intent. However, there were different kinds of bonds than just those made under a contract. Rule Breaker wouldn't help if the bond was brought about by a biological dependence or a physic connection or, heaven forbid, the power of friendship or true love.

Kuro sat in the higher branches of the trees, wondering these questions. She had managed to watch a few skirmishes here and there where the Sekirei of different Ashikabi met, though none seemed to end in termination. The Ashikabi seemed to be a little risk adverse at the moment. When they saw just how many Sekirei were there, most of them left. Now only a handful remained and they were spread out enough so that they weren't likely to run into each other.

It was going to be Kuro's chance to answer a few of her questions for herself. Locking onto two relatively weak scents nearby, she moved in.