A Matter of Time
"Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin."
― Mother Teresa
"Unfortunately, the clock is ticking, the hours are going by. The past increases, the future recedes. Possibilities decreasing, regrets mounting."
― Haruki Murakami
"You want to join the enforcers?"
Kirei eyed the thirteen year old boy before him up and down. He had long hair that trailed in a braid down his back, white with a few red strands valiantly fighting for their right to exist. Bangs hung to either side of his lightly tanned face. His grey, steady eyes looked through Kirei rather than at him, the mind behind them always working, always playing with some idea that would further his goal.
Never a wasted moment, and socializing was something he acknowledged as necessary but periphery.
"What makes you think I can help you get into the enforcers?" Kirei asked curiously.
"I don't want to join the enforcers, at least, not if I don't have to. I simply want to accompany them on a couple of missions. And I don't think you can get me into the enforcers. I know you can. Your existence as an intermediary between the church and the mage's association is not quite so unknown as you apparently think."
Kirei didn't even blink. He'd quickly grown used to Shirou knowing far more about things than any person his age should.
He thought over the strange request, turning it over in his mind. It would be easy for him to get Shirou what he was asking, with his contacts in the mage's association and the enforcer's themselves, many of whom he'd worked with semi-regularly.
But he was never one to miss an opportunity to turn things to his advantage, and as interesting as this request was, he gained no personal amusement from granting it.
Unless.
"I would be happy to, my young friend. That is, if I was absolutely sure you could handle yourself in such a dangerous environment. I'm afraid you might simply be too young…"
Kirei watched the boy take in a violent breath, mind spinning at a thousand miles an hour, no doubt loading dozens of arguments in his favor, until Kirei interrupted him with a proposal.
"Unless, of course, you were to prove to me your ability in battle."
The boy squinted at him.
"Are you challenging me to a fight?" He asked, the very idea seeming absurd.
Kirei smiled conspiratorially, knowing he'd caught the boy in a deal he just could not refuse.
"I'll go set up the arena." He said as he turned around, not looking back to see if his opponent was following.
Shirou stared after him, butterflies forming in his stomach despite himself.
This could… complicate matters.
/
Shirou stared down the man before him, for the first time taking stockpile of him as an enemy he would fight directly. His defined musculature stood out even under two layers of clothes, indicating a close ranged fighter and a history of intense training. Dressed in a concealing dark blue trench coat that most likely hid weapons, the man smirked as he closed his eyes and held his gold cross in between his fingers, miming a prayer.
Shirou sincerely doubted the priest was religious in any conventional meaning of the word.
"Should we choose a signal to start the match?" Shirou asked.
Kirei smirked that infuriating smirk. Reaching into his coat, he pulled out a coin.
"We'll begin the second this coin hits the floor." That said, he flipped the coin, two sharp pairs of eyes following it as it arched up and then down. Kotomine reached one hand into his trench coat, pulling out four bladeless handles held between his fingers like animalistic claws. The boy, on the other hand, palmed the reassuring weight of a dagger he always kept, tied horizontally across the base of his spine, before pulling off his messenger bag, reaching in to remove a pair of well used, vicious looking trench knives.
"Time Alter—Double Accel," Shirou muttered.
They were off a microsecond before the coin hit the ground, beginning their match with a sharp ring as it bounced off concrete.
It landed heads.
As they met in the center of the arena—a large room apparently located under the church—their blades clanged off each other, knuckle blades glancing off the black keys Kirei had materialized from prana with a spark.
Kirei swung in a lightning fast diagonal cut that almost severed Shirou's head from his body. Weaving under it, Shirou's bladed fist shot forward in a disemboweling movement. Kirei's instincts, earned through a decade as one of the church's most powerful executors, allowed him to step back in time to avoid untimely doom.
But even as he retreated, a hand swung downward, allowing his challenger no reprieve from danger. One step and slight shift in stance left Shirou whole, as he pressed his advantage, jabbing Kirei with deadly strikes faster than most could perceive.
But, as it stood, the executor was his equal in speed and his superior in experience. No matter Shirou's prodigious skill and speed, the executor had seen it all before a thousand times over, and reacted with deadly counters that Shirou barely avoided. If this went on, Shirou would lose, no doubt about it.
It was time to change the stakes. Surprising Kirei with a sweeping kick meant to deprive him of his balance, he went for the throat as the executor was forced to jump.
Jumping is rarely recommended in a martial arts battle. Though useful and sometimes necessary to avoid a potentially fatal screw up, an experienced opponent would capitalize on their lack of mobility while airborne. Often, this was the end of the battle, as the enemy used this opportunity for an unavoidable strike.
Someone of Kirei's skill did not appear "often".
His blades blurring forward, he launched the four black keys in one of his hands, forcing Shirou to retreat or die. Jumping backwards, Shirou couldn't resist the smirk that took up residency on his face.
Just what he needed.
"Time Alter—Triple Accel."
Shirou's step left dust raised as he launched himself from his position, coming at the executor like a horde of angry wasps, attacking from all angles with lightning fast fists and sweeping kicks. The executor was forced to use all his experience in close range combat to predict and nullify this thunderous onslaught, the sound of blades clanging in quick successions resounding through the church's basement, intermingled readily with grunts and the sounds of flesh striking flesh.
They both played their parts. The tiger crouches low to the rocky ground, plants bending in the wind of its mighty roar. But the tiger's power was a passive one, held in the quiet weight of its taut muscles, the overwhelming wisdom of its experience.
On the other hand, the dragon is the pitter-patter of endless rain, the roar of the heavens and the force of the wind, full of active energy and serpentine speed, striking faster than humans could react.
Evenly matched neither could overcome the other, in perfect balance. Shirou was the dragon, and Kirei the tiger.
But a battle is a short, brutal affair, and no balance could exist forever before being toppled by the plans and manipulations of man.
Both opponents jumped backwards, seeking breathing room to recover from their quick bouts. Shirou breathed heavily, sweat pouring down his forehead and stinging his eyes. Glancing at his Trench Knives, banged up and dull from repeatedly hitting the executors Black Keys, he let his hands relax, the weapons falling from his hands to hit the concrete.
Kotomine too looked stressed, breathing heavily. He hadn't had a true battle like this since Kiritsugu. His training had waned. Once, he would have annihilated this brat. Now, he struggled just to match him. Watching the boy drop his weapons, the man smirked, accepting the invitation for what it was.
Dissipating his black keys, the executor placed them back in his trench coat. It was agreed. The battle would now rage weaponless, combat in its purest form. The executor's smirk morphed into the smile of a hungry beast, intense and bloodthirsty and more than slightly crazed.
Shirou's lips tilted upward despite himself. This battle, it was… exhilarating in a way that nothing else was. Those sparring fights with humans at the gym couldn't satisfy him any longer, and perhaps they never had.
He needed to sweat, to shed blood, to fight with his fullest capabilities, reach beyond his power and win. He wasn't satisfied with fighting humans. No, he needed to battle his own kind.
This wasn't a fight between humans. No, this—this was a battle between monsters. No mercy. No regret. No hiding. Just blood and violence. There was no space for anything but humanity's basest, most primordial realms.
The realms of beasts.
Dashing forward, the two combatants crashed together like two cars colliding, fists smashing into flesh on both sides. Shirou took a strike to the rib to bloody Kirei's nose. Kirei sacrificed his height advantage to sweep Shirou's legs out from under him. Rolling backwards, the boy launched himself back up with his arms, feet hitting Kirei in the chest and sending him flying. Coming together again, hopelessly attracted as powerful magnets, they met once more, but this time Shirou could detect a subtle shift in Kirei's stance. Something was different, something dangerous. His whole body moved in sync with some rhythm he just remembered, moving together with a unity the domain of masters. As Shirou threw his fist forward in a bling blitzkrieg, Kirei ducked under it and delivered an elbow strike so explosive Shirou coughed up blood, feeling his heart shred to pieces as he was launched backwards. The wall caved in as Shirou struck it with force like a bomb, multiplying damage as his bones cracked and broke.
His body collapsed into a gasping mess on the floor. Kirei looked on, slightly worried. Perhaps he'd gotten a tad carried away. He'd thought he'd finally met an equal, but as it turned out his prey was still unripe. He turned around, preparing himself to request some healing phantasm from his bodily Servant, he heard a raspy chuckly.
He turned around, honestly surprised to find the boy still conscious, shakily standing on his own two feet.
"...how? There's no way a human could recover that quickly."
The boy laughed shakily, interrupting himself with a gasp as his hand instinctively covered his broken rib. "Humans can recover from almost anything, Kirei, given enough time."
Touching his rib, the boy muttered, "Time Alter—Recovery".
Time around his rib accelerated feverishly, and when he removed his hand the rib was healed as if he'd been recovering for weeks. Accelerating a single part of his body, isolating it from the rest, was extremely risky business.
The damage done to his heart had been healed as well—up to a point. There was only so much normal human regeneration could accomplish. With Avalon, his healing rate was vastly faster than a normal human, but even then his heart would be weak until he figured out some way to heal it properly, most likely with magecraft.
Taking a deep breath, Shirou brought his hands up in fists, and prepared to launch himself forward, only to slouch in surprise as Kirei laughed out loud.
"W- what's so funny?"
Kirei looked at the boy for a long moment unable to contain his laughter, before speaking. "You really are something, aren't you? For some second-rate magus like you, with no teacher, to advance this quickly… you don't even realise how impossible that is, do you?"
The Emiya didn't take getting laughed at easily. "Are you done? Can we get back to fighting, now?"
Kirei broke into cackling laughter again, his face sore because he wasn't sure he'd ever laughed this much in his life. As his breath ran out, he waved his hand in rejection, "As much as I'd enjoy that, I think we're done here. You're ready." He added offhand, "And if we fight again, I don't think I'll be able to resist just killing you."
The bloodthirsty priest walked off, a slight limp in his step, announcing as he left, "Be here a week from now at 8:00. I'll have something ready for you then."
Staring after him, off balance from the anti-climactic finish of the battle, the Emiya let out a relieved breath and followed out the church.
He didn't want to be here a second longer than he had to be. It smelled tainted.