Chapter 7: Taking Measures
"Senpai?" Sakura opened Shira's door. "Breakfast is ready whenever you are."
Shira, who had been smoothing out wrinkles from her uniform, glanced up. "All right; I'll be down in a minute."
"Will Saber be joining us?" Sakura asked.
"Probably not," Shira said. "He was up pretty late last night, so I figured I'd let him sleep in."
Sakura nodded slowly. "Okay, then. Well, hurry before the food gets cold."
As Sakura left to go back to the dining room, Shira let her gaze drift to Saber's door, remembering their brief conversation the night before.
"Shira...I'm just glad you're safe," he had said. And although she did feel a little guilty about making him worry, the thought that he cared enough about her to be concerned over her wellbeing was enough to make her smile.
Well, it looks like Saber's not all ice, Shira thought. Granted, she had known that before, ever since the first morning she had spent with him—if not upon the realization that he'd wanted to protect her during his fight with Berserker, then definitely after that oddly vulnerable moment he'd had during their argument about his sleeping arrangements—but it was still nice to get a reminder every now and then.
She turned towards her door, about ready for breakfast, when the sound of Saber's door opening made her turn back. There Saber stood, dressed in his shirt, tie, and pants and regarding Shira silently.
"Oh, hey, Saber," Shira began. "I didn't think you were—"
"Shira," Saber interrupted, his voice crisp and his eyes slightly narrowed, "why did you break your promise to me last night?"
And just like that, the smile that had adorned Shira's face melted away. Right, of course; he wouldn't be happy over the fact that she hadn't summoned him. Why had she forgotten?
Saber did not wait for a response. "You came home later than you were supposed to. I can only assume it was because you were in danger."
"Look, I can explain." And so Shira told him everything that had happened yesterday, from when she reacted to the barrier to when Rin saved her from getting killed by Rider.
After she finished explaining, Saber frowned. "You still have not answered my question. Why didn't you use a Command Seal to summon me?"
Shira shifted uncomfortably under Saber's cool gaze. "Well, I didn't think I was in that much danger."
Liar, a voice sounding annoyingly like Archer whispered. You were in danger and you know it. Rider would've easily killed you if Tohsaka hadn't gotten there in time. You just didn't want Saber in any danger.
Shira mentally told the voice to mind its own damn business.
Unfortunately for her, Saber was not letting the matter drop. "You were attacked by Rider, Shira," he said. "How could that situation not be dangerous?"
"Look, breakfast is on the table and I'm hungry," Shira said, a bit testier than she intended. "Can we please eat and talk about this later?"
Saber paused. "Very well; breakfast is an excellent idea. But even so," he added, "you need to start taking your role as Master seriously."
Shinji was absent again today.
Why doesn't that surprise me? Shira thought, sparing a glance at Shinji's vacant desk as morning classes began. If her half-formed hunch was correct, then no doubt Shinji was less concerned about a good attendance record and more concerned about killing as many innocent people as he could to strengthen his Servant.
Shira inwardly winced at the derogatory turn her thoughts were taking. Try to be reasonable, girl, she told herself. Matou might be a jerk, but there's no hard evidence that he's Rider's Master or that he has anything to do with the barrier. You can't point fingers at the guy just because you're not his biggest fan.
On the other hand, though, the more she thought she may have imagined Shinji's presence in the forest yesterday, the more ridiculous it sounded.
Classes flew by quickly, and before Shira knew it, it was lunchtime. She went straight up to the roof, her appetite nonexistent, to find Rin standing there, just as she had the day before.
As Shira approached the other girl, she took note of the strange thickness in the air. It was rather similar to what the air felt like each time she passed through the school's gate, but it wasn't enough to make her want to puke, thank goodness.
"I guess I should start with the most distressing bit of information that I've found," Rin said, getting right to business without bothering with any greetings. "This morning, someone placed a call to the school. They found Mitsuzuri."
"How is she?" Shira asked immediately.
Rin pressed her lips together in a thin line. "Apparently, she's still alive, but she's completely unresponsive. The hospital says she shows signs of being poisoned, but if you ask me..."
"She was attacked by Rider."
Shira hadn't phrased it as a question, but Rin nodded all the same. "No doubt her Master ordered her to attack. The barrier that's been placed around the school is exceptionally vicious. Once that thing is activated, we're doomed; it will melt the minds and absorb the psyches of everyone here."
"Wait a minute." Shira suddenly remembered something. "Yesterday, before we heard that girl scream, you said something about delaying the barrier."
"We won't be able to destroy the barrier itself," Rin said, "but if we go through and destroy its sigils, we should at least be able to slow down the activation process."
"Sigils?" Shira repeated, confused.
"That's right," Rin confirmed. "Here's how the barrier works: Once it's erected, it starts creating a varied number of sigils. These sigils resonate with each other and allow the barrier to expand. Each sigil spawns another and the barrier gets larger and larger; as long as the sigils remain in place, the barrier will continue to grow until it completely engulfs its target.
"If we take out these sigils, the barrier will weaken. The only downside is that, with every sigil we destroy, another will eventually take its place."
"That makes sense," Shira mused; she supposed it was too much to hope for a quick and easy solution. "And just how do I fit into this plan?"
"The first thing we need to do is locate the sigils," Rin explained. "For you, that's anyplace where you've reacted to the barrier, like the front gate to the school. We need more places like that."
"Like here?" Shira pointed to the roof's floor, to a spot where the air's thickness was at its strongest.
Rin scoffed. "Oh, come on. If they were that easy to find, I would've taken them out already." But she walked over to where Shira had indicated, knelt down, and placed her hand on the floor. "You have to focus to find them—sharpen your senses and really concentrate."
Those words had barely left Rin's mouth when she gave a small gasp.
"You're right," she said in wonder. The ground around her hand suddenly began glowing white. Rin chanted a spell and small black sparks appeared around her arm. The sound of something breaking was heard, and the glow disappeared just as quickly as it had appeared.
"Was that a sigil?" Shira asked.
"Yes," Rin answered as she stood up. A smirk crossed her lips. "Well, I suppose any magical talent you do have had to go somewhere."
Shira just shook her head. Really, Tohsaka, would it kill you to simply say thanks?
Shira and Rin met up after school to locate and destroy more of the barrier's sigils. This process took at least two hours, and the girls found sigils within the floors of classrooms, chalkboards, ceilings, and walls. There was even a sigil located in the boys' bathroom of all places, and Rin and Shira had spent several seconds just staring in disbelief before the former squared her shoulders and went to destroy the sigil as swiftly as possible.
The sun was setting by the time the girls went back to the roof, each with a milk tea from the vending machine in hand.
"Do you think we got them all?" Rin asked.
"Yeah," Shira replied. "Most of them, anyway."
"Well, we've at least destroyed enough to get the job done. Regardless of how this affects the barrier, we're bound to get a response from this reclusive Master."
"Then we catch him red-handed?" Shira guessed.
"Exactly." Rin sipped at her tea, smirking viciously as she stared out into space. "Show yourself already. You've put me through a whole lot of trouble over this. I'm gonna make you pay."
Shira couldn't pretend she didn't understand Rin's point, but it was still rather unnerving to see such an expression on the black-haired girl's face.
"You're a real con artist, you know that?" Shira asked, continuing after Rin had hummed in reply. "I mean, I for one would never have guessed the school's top student was nothing but a coldblooded magus."
"If the people being conned are upset," Rin said nonchalantly, "then they have no one to blame but themselves. A magus has to conceal their identity."
Shira made a noncommittal noise in her throat, taking a swig of her own tea.
"And besides," Rin went on, sounding more serious, "I'm the heir to the Tohsaka family, so if I don't work hard and become the star pupil, I'll never be able to look my father in the eye when I see him up in heaven."
"Oh." Shira shifted her gaze to Rin as the winter breeze picked up.
A slight, awkward pause passed before the redhead spoke again. "Your father's dead?"
"Yes," Rin said, her voice neutral as she shivered a little, still not looking at Shira. "He died when I was young. But he lived a long, happy life and died of natural causes, so it's not like it's painful for me or anything. After all, I am a magus."
Shira frowned, taking note of the toneless way Rin was speaking and how blank her expression was, as if she were trying to divorce herself from what she was saying.
"You're lying," Shira said quietly. "When someone dies, it hurts, and when it's someone you love, it hurts worse." A mental image of the dead Kiritsugu smiling peacefully appeared before her, and she started blinking rapidly as she downed some more tea. "My dad's dead, too, and when he died...it was one of the worst moments of my life."
A sad smile crossed Shira's face. "You can't just shrug off something like that by saying you're a magus."
The silence that followed was a long one, the only sound coming from the cold wind and the occasional sip.
"You're right." Rin's voice was soft and no longer as bland as before. "You're absolutely right. I won't even try to deny it."
A bit of warmth crept into Shira's smile; maybe she and Rin could be friends after all.
Shortly afterward, Rin decided that it was about time to be heading home. Once the girls made it off the roof and outside the school building, Shira told Rin to go on ahead and offered to throw their empty cans away.
"You wouldn't be thinking of taking a detour, would you?" Rin asked suspiciously, but she let Shira take her can anyway.
"It won't take long, I promise," Shira assured her. "I'll catch up to you in a minute."
As Rin left, Shira turned back in the direction of the school, hoping to find a trashcan. She hadn't taken more than a few steps when the horribly familiar sensation of nausea overtook her.
Shira stumbled forward, dropping the cans and clutching her stomach as if to keep everything she'd eaten and drank that day where it belonged. The air was very thick—even thicker than at the school's gate.
Mercifully, the wave of nausea passed. Shira straightened up, glancing at where Rin had stood only a little while ago. So much for catching up to her.
After a few seconds of thought, Shira decided to check things out. If it was nothing, then great, but if it wasn't...she tried not to think about that.
She walked into the schoolyard, the air's thickness not subsiding. In fact, it seemed to be getting stronger the closer she went to the archery dojo. Tohsaka and I didn't even think to check here, she thought. I don't know why; it's by far the most suspicious.
Shira entered the dojo, the setting sun doing little to brighten the dark interior. She looked around, but there didn't seem to be—
She suddenly gasped at the sight of a large magic circle branded into a wall. Shira stepped forward, cautiously placing a hand on the circle. She let out a short yelp as black sparks made contact with her hand, flinching back as though burned.
I can't stay here; I gotta get Tohsaka. But before Shira could turn around and run, she saw a dark figure out of the corner of her eye.
"Rider!"
Sure enough, the lavender-haired Servant stepped forward, and Shira curled her hand into a fist.
"You sure you wanna fight again, Emiya?"
Shira glared, recognizing that voice as its owner appeared from the shadows. Dark blue hair, light blue eyes, and a smile so smug that the redhead was sorely tempted to slap it off his face.
"Matou. I knew it was you."
Shinji addressed his Servant, ignoring Shira entirely. "I can take it from here, Rider."
With those words, Rider disappeared, and Shinji walked towards Shira, smirking all the while.
Author's Note: Does the image of Shira slapping Shinji around make anyone else feel warm and fuzzy inside, or is it just me?
In summary, Shira is continuing her journey up De Nial, Rin and Shira commiserate over their dead daddies, and Shinji is about five—no, three—seconds away from getting punched out and nobody cares because it's Shinji.