So, no showing of the evar amajingu SEIBAA, but...hey, Shirou's still here for you. Venomancer and I worked extra hard to ensure this was of the best quality that could be produced for you guys. I can only hope you enjoy it.

Now continue forth and see for yourself the mighty struggles of Shirou Emiya!

Decidedly, Shirou couldn't tell which part was worse when he'd finally become conscious: the rats that squeaked and glared at him with their beady eyes full of malice and hatred, the penetrating cold that seemed to seep into his very bone marrow and chill him to no uncertain degree, the fact that he was bound up in a cocoon made of rope from his ankles all the way up to his torso, or the many carcasses and skeletons of those who may have been just as, or more, unfortunate than him. The rats simply hissed and squeaked at him for invading their space, but other than crawling over the ropes that bound him and generally annoying him like gnats, he didn't mind them as much. The cold, he had unfortunately grown used to from living in the castle. He would definitely reach a state of hypothermia, though, if he didn't find some source of heat soon. The ropes kept him somewhat insulated at least. Then, there was the matter of the bodies – he didn't know who they were, but he didn't want to join them as some kind of new playmate after death either.

Welcome back to the land of living.

The ropes were probably his biggest issue at the moment. Getting out of them wouldn't be too difficult – he would simply cut his way out. The problem was that he was still groggy and was having some difficulty accessing his prana. More than likely, Shirou surmised, the people who had beaten him into a pulp had probably drugged him, and he was still suffering from the aftereffects. That was fine – if he was awake now, the effects would fade after a bit, too. Then, he was going to get the hell out of there. Shirou turned his head back and forth to look around at the surrounding area. Realizing his immediate surroundings were clear, he finally let out a low growl as he recalled the fight.

Right, the fight where you got your ass kicked like a dummy bag.

He had messed up, and badly at that. As the men hadn't been soldiers, he thought he might be able to take them down with ease, but he'd been out of the loop for a while. Shirou had still been rather concerned about using his magecraft in any sense, and he was stubbornly trying to keep his promise to the king about not making any trouble for her. Several dead people gone missing or dead would definitely have raised some eyebrows somewhere. If someone had somehow suspected him for having something to do with it, he wouldn't have had much of an alibi to work with. Besides, killing people without a real cause, other than self-preservation, didn't really sit right with him. However, if people were going to start targeting him and putting him in less than pleasant situations, like how he was currently, that was an entirely different matter.

There's more than one way to skin a cat...

Shirou shook his head hard to clear away the cobwebs within his mind. The poison, or whatever it had been, was finally starting to fade and he was starting to gain more control over his limbs. He tightened the muscles in his right arm as he tried curling his fingers into a ball and then loosening them. Closing his eyes, Shirou mentally visualized the physical compound and structure of a simple sharpened dagger, and it hardly took any time at all for its physical form to appear within his hand.

At least you're still capable of the basics.

Deftly cutting the bindings nearest to his hand, he carefully opened up a hole through the ropes before eventually working his way out of the bindings entirely. He tilted his head from side to side and stretched out his arms and legs to get his blood flowing a bit. The redhead looked back down at the various bodies surrounding him and frowned as he came to the long awaited realization that he was going to have to kick things up a few notches. If people were intent on taking his life, then he was going to fight back. No, he would have to fight back – there was no other option. All things considered though, Shirou was still hesitant about taking their lives. He didn't want anything connecting back to him whatsoever, because that was just asking for a one-way trip either out of the castle and far away, or to the gallows or chopping block. He just wasn't willing to risk his place and the close proximity to King Arthur.

I really don't think she's in a position to care about you at the moment, or maybe ever.

Although, if he had no other choice, no other option, and no other path to take other than to steal away their lives from them, then so be it. He'd just explain himself as best as possible later. Hopefully, it wouldn't have to come down to that. So, for now, until he was backed into a corner, he would put them down for the count. He could do that, right?

Doubtful. But hey, what's a few miracles here and there?

As Shirou continued looking down at the bodies, something about each one caught his eye. Slowly bending down, he reached out and carefully touched the cloth. There was nothing remotely remarkable about it – it was just the normal, cheap cloth of a lowly servant or peasant, but there was just something that struck Shirou as odd. Grimacing slightly, he mentally apologized to the dead person as he patted down on the clothing. When he looked back at the palm of his hand, nothing but black coated his skin. He knew what it was almost immediately.

Soot.

Now, that wouldn't have been very interesting of a detail all on its own, but he knew for a fact that there were very few occupations within the castle that required working with coal. Firstly, there were the blacksmiths who tended the hearths for their fires to make weaponry, and the armorers who forged armor for the soldiers. Then, there were also the fire tenders who took care of the giant hearths in the Great Hall and other various rooms meant for members belonging to royalty and that of the court. One more group that would have come into contact with a lot of soot were the people who cleaned out the various pipes and tunnels that the sooty air traveled through. Then, of course, last but not least, were the kitchen staff.

There you go.

Shirou didn't know these people from Adam, so they could have come from anywhere, or they might have even been prisoners who somehow escaped and met their end in an abysmal place like this. He seriously doubted that though, especially since he recalled Baeddan saying something about sometimes finding his employees went missing while gone on certain "escapades", and Shirou also specifically remembered King Arthur telling Baeddan that her steward always had to keep finding more and more people to work in the kitchens.

So, what now?

Still bending down, he gingerly took one of the corpses' hands and flipped it over to look at the palm and the finger pads. Shirou looked up and around him quickly to make sure he was still alone as he inspected the hand before turning his attention back down to it. His eyes narrowed slightly when he saw the various cuts and scrapes on the hand that could have been reminiscent of someone who worked with knives a lot. Again, that could mean the person used to work with the blacksmiths or armorers, and he didn't exactly have definitive proof that the dead around him had been kitchen staff, but he had a feeling that they had been.

You do realize how close that was to being you, don't you?

His heart skipped a beat when he thought of how he might've met the same fate as them if not for his abilities. Shirou wiped his hands down the front of his tunic, now completely covered with dirt, dust, and soot. He had to get out of there, wherever there was, as soon as possible. Standing up, he glanced down the long tunnel leading away from his dead-end area. He turned to move down the tunnel when he heard the click-clacking of someone else walking down the enclosed corridor. Shirou hesitated for a short moment before looking around himself quickly.

Are you just going to let them take you down again?

There wasn't anywhere for him to hide quickly, which meant that he had to think fast. The steps came closer and closer and Shirou finally chose to plop back down on the corpses where he'd been before, making sure to project ropes around him to make it seem as if he were still tied up. The footsteps slowly drew up towards him about a minute or two later, and he raised his gaze to meet the cold, dispassionate ones of some guy he didn't know. The man leaned down, putting his face right in Shirou's.

You've been too complacent, too stupid. You're no longer even recognizable anymore.

"Hey, mate," the man drawled. "Have a good night's sleep down here?"

A guy of this level is nothing compared to you, or to who you used to be.

Shirou immediately recognized the voice as the one belonging to that guy that had had a bag over his head. It grated on his nerves to hear it, but he was also somewhat pleased that he would have chance to deal with this douche once and for all.

Don't think. Don't question. Don't yield.

The man smirked and grabbed a hold of Shirou's chin as he blew onto Shirou's face. The latter felt himself become a bit nauseous just from how awful the other man's breath was.

Don't hesitate.

"How about you and me go for a little walkie-walk?"

This is your chance. Take it!

"How about not?"

Shirou released his rope projections with a burst of energy, and grabbed the man's tunic as he launched himself forward and slammed the other person onto the ground. The other man, taken by surprise, immediately tried to fight back and regain control, but Shirou simply slapped the guy's face to confuse him further. Thrusting his forearm against the man's throat and leaning all of his weight on it, he drew back his fist again and smashed it into the other's nose. Then, rising quickly, Shirou pulled his enemy up by his tunic, spun him around, grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it up behind the other man until the guy grunted in pain. Shirou's eyes were cold as he pushed the man forward against the wall, and continued pushing up on the wrist until the guy shouted for him to stop.

Never stop. It's him or you. Choose.

"Stop?" Shirou questioned as he methodically and carefully kept pushing further and further up.

"You're going to disconnect my shoulder, you fucking asshole!"

"That sounds like a personal problem to me," Shirou replied, letting go of the wrist only to grab a fistful of the man's hair and slam his head into the wall he was pressed against.

Shirou heard the obvious crunch as the nasal bone broke into pieces. The man, stunned, could only manage to stumble back a few steps while holding a hand to his broken nose. The redhead simply continued looking on, not feeling fazed whatsoever by his own actions. The man growled, and upon evidently considering his nose a lost cause, charged straight at the time traveler. Shirou jumped back out of reach before flying forward and sending a well-aimed open palm strike back into his enemy's face, causing further damage. He then spun on one foot and sent a simple kick crashing into the man's ribcage, hard enough to possibly break, or at least fracture, another couple of bones. The man flew back from the blow to land back where Shirou had originally been lying down.

Holding his right hand to his ribs, he took in a shuddering breath as he tried to glare back at the redhead.

"B-but, how...? We took you down easily before... You were nothing like this..."

How little you know...

Shirou crossed his arms over his shoulders. "You pissed me off. Congrats."

"I heard you were a simpleton who couldn't fight at all!"

"Hah," Shirou scoffed. "Give me a sword, and I'll swing it around and maybe hit a few cones. Give me just my fists, and I'll wreck you with every damn technique I learned from my friend. Give me a bow," he continued with a pause, "and you'll never know that you even died."

"Fuck you! This was supposed to be an easy job! I heard what happened in Tryst! You were kicked around like a scarecrow!"

Scarecrow, huh? That's a new one, although "dummy bag" is better.

Shirou let out a soft sigh.

"You know, I've been through some serious shit since I've gotten to Britain here. First, I get attacked by a dragon. Then I get involved in a war that has nothing to do with me. Then I'm brought here to a castle out in the middle of nowhere. Then, you know, I finally start making a life for myself, and then, you guys have to go and screw it all up."

They did you a favor.

He shook his head slightly as he walked forward and slammed a foot down on the man's crotch, causing the other to elicit a high-pitched scream. Shirou pressed down harder and harder, his jaw tightening as coolly looked down at his victim.

"I don't know what I was thinking for nearly, what, the last half of a year? Yeah, I got here sometime in September, I guess, and now it's March? I guess I thought that, well, being a completely different place from where I'm from, that my outlook on life and how I approached things would have to change, too. But, that was too idealistic, too simplistic, and too naïve of me. Thanks for reminding me that things are exactly the same no matter where I go."

Same evil, same malice, same stupidity, no matter where you go.

Shirou eased his weight off of the other man. Taking a few steps back, he fell down to kneel and simply looked carefully at the beat-up person in front of him. The man whined a bit unconsciously before a fierce growl erupted from his mouth. The man pushed himself up slowly, clutching at his side the entire time.

"So, you were just deceiving everyone the entire time?" the guy grunted. "Playing the innocent clown until you could finally strike?"

"Nah," Shirou denied, loftily waving his hand in denial. "I'm no actor. I was honestly trying to live my life and set out to accomplish what I'd originally planned, but you guys screwed that up. So, now I'm here, with you. This isn't your lucky day."

"No," the man disagreed as he stood up. "It isn't yours!"

Shirou narrowed his eyes slightly when he heard that declaration, though there wasn't enough time for him to consider what it meant when he felt an arm wrap around his neck and pull him up to his full height. The muscular arm squeezed around his throat, and for a minute, he wondered if the two people who were trying to kill him really understood his current frame of mentality right then. Probably not.

Don't falter. Take him down and do it fast.

Shirou grasped at the arm tightly with his left hand and thrust back his right elbow the person's gut as hard as he could. His attacker let out a harsh grunt and Shirou was quick to pull away the beefy arm and spin around, grabbing hold of the person's tunic and shoving them into a wall. When it seemed that his perpetrator was about to strike back, the redhead slammed his head forward and executed a heavy headbutt. The blow took the man by surprise and Shirou steadily followed up by smashing the back of the man's head as hard as he could into the wall, and then letting the guy falter and fall forward onto the ground on his own.

That's not enough! You need to finish this!

As soon as the second man hit the ground, Shirou spun back to grab the tunic of the first one. Seeing that just a simple tug made the person unsteady, Shirou made a quick strike at the man's left knee, sending him spiraling back down onto the ground.

"Stay put," he ordered the bewildered man as he went to talk to the second man.

Pulling the second man up again by his tunic and slamming back against the wall, he asked,

"How many more of you are there? Do you have backup coming?"

The man refrained from answering and Shirou breathed slowly out of his nose, slightly annoyed. Clenching a fist, he launched it straight into the man's stomach, causing the guy to try to double over. Shirou kept a tight grip on the man's tunic to keep him standing straight, and shoved him back against the wall.

"One more time," he said determinedly. "Are there more of you coming?"

"...No," the man was slow to reply.

"Do you know why everyone's targeting me?"

The man painfully shook his head. "No."

"Do you know who the ringleader of all of this is?"

Another shake. "I was just hired for a job, man! I don't know what's going on! I just follow orders."

"Do you know anything that is of any use to me whatsoever?"

"No," came the reply, his hand raising up so he could point at the first man still crashed on the ground. "But, he does! He knows everything. Please don't hurt me anymore."

Shirou looked back at the other man who was now glaring vehemently at the traitor. He nodded his head slightly and turned back to the second person, who seemed somewhat hopeful.

"So, see? I told you all I know, so let me go, okay?"

"Yeah, sure," Shirou agreed with a small smile. "You're free to go."

Deal with him.

The man cracked a smile himself until Shirou continued:

"...Is what I'd like to say, but I don't want to take the chance that you might run back and tattle to your boss. So, sorry, you've got to stay here a bit longer."

"...Y-you're going to kill me?"

"I hadn't planned on it," Shirou laughed. "I don't make a habit of killing others. I just need you out of the way for a while more. Don't think too badly of me for this, all right?"

He followed those words up by spinning in a tight circle and sending a powerful high kick crashing into the man's right temple, sending him careening into an adjacent wall and then falling to the ground, unconscious, with a sickening thud. Shirou casually shifted to his left a few steps to look down the passageway just to make sure no one else was coming for certain before he turned his attention back to the now very alert man behind him. The man tried to move back away from the redhead, but his nearly broken bones were starting to definitely impair his movements. He settled for glaring at Shirou instead, his mouth set into a deep scowl.

Now, for the next obstacle.

"Wh-what the hell do you want from me?"

"Answers," replied Shirou, as if it was nothing short of obvious. "I'm tired of being led around like some kind of puppy. You're going to tell me what I want to know, and if you don't, this is going to be a very difficult experience for you."

"Fuck you! If you were this strong, why didn't you just beat us down before? You wouldn't even be here right now if you had!"

And miss the look on your face? Hah.

The time traveler cocked his head slightly. "Yeah. I should have taken a few more precautions, but I was afraid of breaking some promises."

"The fuck? What fucking promises?"

Shirou smiled. "I made a promise to the guy who sent me to Britain that I wouldn't show off any more than necessary, for one. For two, I promised the king I wouldn't cause any trouble. If I had killed someone back then, that would have put me in a really bad position, so I couldn't do that. Plus, you weren't soldiers, so I thought I'd be okay. Guess I underestimated you guys."

That's an understatement.

The man gritted his teeth as Shirou continued to smile. Shirou chuckled softly.

"But now, well, all bets are off. So, I've answered your questions. Now, how about answering mine? Firstly, how did you hear about Tryst, huh? Secondly, why are you people after me? Thirdly, who are you? Are you part of the castle staff? Fourthly, who's behind all of this?"

"I ain't telling you shit."

"Huh, that's too bad," Shirou lamented a bit. "I was hoping you would make this easier for yourself. Now I have to actually pry it out of you."

Shirou walked over calmly, cracking his knuckles all the while. The man simply smirked, feeling that he could take anything the redhead dished out.

"You don't think this'll land you in trouble, huh, red boy? You're going to get kicked out, or maybe even executed!"

"I doubt that," Shirou said as he leaned down in front of the man. "I mean, first things first, I didn't fight back as hard as I could because I was afraid that someone might see. But, you tell me, do you see anyone here with us, besides that guy who's sleeping over there with that corpse? Anyone at all?"

Use this opportunity wisely.

When silence answered him, Shirou shook his head. "Now, tell me, who do you think they're more likely to believe? You, someone who probably has never even met the king, or me, someone the king has traveled with personally and who could never even throw a punch at anyone because he's too 'meek'? They'd believe me every time. Now, answer the first question."

"What question?" the man delayed, much to Shirou's displeasure. "Don't know what you're talking about."

The man continued smirking until Shirou grabbed the man's left hand and, without faltering in the slightest, steadily bent the index finger back until it broke at the base knuckle, causing the man to give out a loud howl. The man tried to pull back his hand with his right one, but Shirou simply slammed a fist into the fractured bones, effectively breaking them with absolution. He then took a hold of the middle finger and bent it back much in the same way, easily breaking it as well. The man cried out again and Shirou let go of the hand as he continued kneeling beside him.

This is how you do it. This is how you overcome them.

"Stop making this difficult for yourself. Answer the question. How did you hear about Tryst?"

"F-fuck you!" the man screamed out, clutching his hand to his chest as he tried to protect his broken ribs at the same time. "I'm not telling you shit!"

Just remember:...

Shirou nodded once, stood up, and calmly placed a boot atop of the man's kneecap. The man looked up at the redhead with horror as Shirou reached down to get a good grasp of the back of the man's ankle. He tried to kick his leg around to make his interrogator stumble, but Shirou hardly faltered, his balance nothing short of perfect.

"Last chance," Shirou warned, pulling up on the ankle a bit. "And I'm warning you – if you think I don't have the physical strength to do this, you're going to be in a lot of pain within a few moments."

"Fuck you! Fuck you! Get off of me!" the man cried, still kicking.

Shirou nodded again and slowly and achingly pulled up on the ankle. His foot ground down hard over the kneecap, his golden-brown eyes never leaving the man's chocolate brown ones. The redhead pulled up further and further, starting to feel resistance as the leg angle reached its limit.

"No! No! Let me go! Stop! STOP!"

He stopped, but only long enough to ask, "How do you know about Tryst?"

"Fuck you! I don't know anything! Stop this!"

"Huh," murmured Shirou. "Then, I guess it's fortunate for me that no one's around to rescue you, because they'd definitely hear what you're about to scream next."

"NO! STOP!"

The ends ALWAYS justify the means.

Summoning up a large boost of strength, Shirou put both hands around the ankle and pulled upwards as hard as he could, wincing a bit himself as he heard the revolting, sickening, and overwhelmingly loud crack as the foreleg detached itself from the thigh, the kneecap shattering to pieces.

"AHHHHHH!" the man screamed, reaching for his broken leg with both of his hands, each one trembling as he struggled with the pain. "AHHHHHH! You fuck! Fuck! God, damn it!"

Shirou let go of the now awkwardly placed foreleg and crossed over to the man's other side, placing a foot on top of the other kneecap.

The ends justify the means.

"So, shall I break the other one now?" he asked, waiting patiently as the man continued screaming.

"NO! God, no! Please! Leave me alone!"

"Last time," Shirou said in a clear tone. "How do you know about Tryst?"

"God," the man cried out, tears trailing down his cheeks. "My God, someone help me!"

The ends justify the means.

Shirou pushed down on the right kneecap with a bit more pressure to make it clear that he was growing impatient.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait! T-Tryst, right?" the man hurriedly said, looking somewhat dazed and out of it. "S-some people went and ch-checked it out! Th-they s-saw th-that it was burnt to the g-ground, a-and th-thought that you... God! P-people th-think that y-you did that!"

"Second question," Shirou said, absorbing the information and locking it away for later consideration. "Why are you guys after me?"

"I-I don't know! Honest! I j-just got the assignment a-and w-was trying t-to complete it! I-I don't have a-any personal g-grudges against you! I s-swear!"

"Hm," the redhead replied, believing the man. "Third question: who are you?"

"I-I'm with the c-cleaning staff! I swear, I-I didn't know a-anything about w-what was going to h-happen!"

"Who's the leader of this band of misfits?"

"God, I don't know! A-all I know is D-Dai hired me! Th-that's right!" the man declared, sniffing a bit as his face suddenly darkened. "I-it was all D-Dai's idea! H-he hired us! H-he s-said that he w-wanted you gone!"

"You've done this before?"

The man bowed his head before shifting his eyes to look over at the dead bodies spread out around them. He licked his lips a bit as he frowned.

"None of them fought back like you," he whispered softly and slowly, his stuttering evening out. "They never stood a chance..."

"How many of you guys are there down here? How many will I have to deal with? And where are we? Are these the castle dungeons?" Shirou asked, firing one question off after another.

The man's eyes were somewhat dull as the pain caught up with him. He swallowed, licking his lips again as he looked back up at Shirou.

"Not many," he responded after a short while. "Maybe ten of us? Probably not even that. I don't know for sure. And, we're in the dungeons, but not under the castle. Those dungeons spread out and connect to the sewers and other tunnels that lead out away from the city from underneath. We're probably a good half a league out from the city itself, and maybe a full league from the main castle..."

"Last question, and then you can rest," Shirou reassured the man as gently as he could. Standing up, he then asked, "Now. Where is Dai?"

And now, it's time to hunt.

"Damn it, how does this thing work?"

"You just talk into it," Shirou replied, his feet hitting the ground hard as he sped through one abandoned building after another. "It isn't rocket science."

He slid through one doorway, immediately bending backwards as a dagger zipped straight over him. Leaning back on his hands, he flipped backwards and quickly approached the woman with a quick strike from his fist. He stunned her momentarily, but not enough that she wasn't able to hurriedly mutter a few words and send streams of fire racing towards him. Shirou grunted and promptly materialized a wall of solid steel right in front of himself. The fire slammed into the wall and as soon as it perished, a bow was already in Shirou's hand with the sight aimed straight at the woman in front of him. The arrow in his hand flew from his fingers and landed true to his aim right into the heart of his target.

Both feeling and seeing the intense concentration of prana that left its container once it "died" was enough to ease his mind somewhat. Shirou walked up to the pile of mud and clay and pulled out the lighter from his back pocket. A simple fire spell would have done just fine, but he simply couldn't wrap his head around that element. The only element he could somewhat access at all was earth, and its relative, gravity. The latter certainly wasn't something he could control well, if at all, and the former... Well, he had both on and off days with that one.

He held a couple of fingers to the bud in his ear.

"Rin, you read me?"

"You're coming in loud and clear. Emphasis on the loud part."

Shirou chose to ignore the complaint. "I think I've taken down all of the ho-"

Hearing the clack of something, Shirou spun his gaze around as he simultaneously instinctively ducked down and pushed himself forward. Executing a swift double palm strike to the enemy's chest, he followed up with fierce somersault kick, rolled forward, materialized his bow and an arrow once again, and shot straight into the victim's chest. He exhaled softly and slowly as he stood back up while a burst of prana expelled from the host.

"Correction," he told Rin. "Now they're all gone."

"Wonderful, Shirou. Now, if you're finished playing around with your clay, would you mind coming back to where the city hall must have been?"

"I wasn't just running around making vases, you know," he muttered as he started walking out of the building.

The two of them were somewhere in northern Alaska where a small village had essentially been wiped out by a mage gone rogue. He and Rin had been assigned to the task because it was supposed to be a simple mission where they eradicated the problem and all of its ties within the small town. The rogue mage also wasn't particularly strong, or smart by the looks of things, and it didn't take long after the two had arrived before earthen golems began charging them. Rin assigned him to cleanup duty while she followed the trail of prana and its many different traces to track down their mark. As for why he was on cleanup duty by himself, well, Rin declared it a good exercise in learning how to accurately trace prana in objects. Eh, he was working on it.

Shirou jogged up to the charred building and went on inside to find Rin waiting impatiently for him. Sitting beside her in a chair, tied up in ropes, was the person he assumed to be their victim. The woman's gaze met his and he frowned as he glanced over at Rin.

"It's a woman."

"Yes. You're particularly sharp today, Shirou," Rin responded dryly. "Thank God I don't have to teach you the difference between the male and female sexes."

"Oh, shut up. I just assumed it was a guy by how the Association was talking."

"Unfortunately, women can be just as, if not more, crazy than men at times."

Rin took out her smartphone and frowned as she pressed a few buttons.

"What number are you at now?" he asked, referring to the number of phones she had already broken by that point.

She glared at him briefly before looking back at the phone. "Thirty-five."

"Jesus, Rin."

Rin paused a moment, her index finger stilling before she slowly turned to smile sweetly at him. "Shall I take that to mean you do not recall what happened the last time you mocked me for my technological skills? I'm fairly certain your eyebrows and hair do."

Shirou decided to quickly change topics, not wanting to think about how she had "accidently" attached a spell to the stove that had increased the fire strength without him ever knowing. He wasn't sure he would ever forgive her for laughing her head off as he stared blankly at his flambéed food, his eyebrows seared straight off along with a good portion of his hair. He'd had to settle with practically being bald for a couple of weeks and with her wondering if she should buy him something to help polish his shiny, cue ball head.

"Uh, right, so, is the program working right yet? Or are you going by email right now?"

"Waver-ly Boy sent –"

"Wait, by Waver, are you talking about Lord El –"

Rin immediately cut him off. "I don't give a flying flip about what he's supposed to be called. He'll receive my respect when he figures out how to actually give some himself. Can you believe that he has a TV hooked up in his office and that he sits there playing video games every single time I'm supposed to meet and discuss anything with him? Every single time. Every. Single. Time. It's no wonder no one wants to date him. Unbelievable."

"Pretty sure I didn't need to know any of that..."

"He sent me a note via a familiar," Rin explained before gesturing to their target. "We are to convene three kilometers south of here so we can head to our next drop point."

"So," Shirou started, shrugging his muscular shoulders slightly, "what now? Is she coming with us?"

"Of course not," Rin replied with a frown. "She's to be disposed of here."

"Rin..."

"I will take care of that," she reassured him. "But I need you to extract the information from her."

"Using what?" he asked, looking around. "Am I supposed to, I don't know, stick in a USB stick into her ear, or better yet, attach a cable to the back of her neck and rig her to an HDD system and electronically access her files by using the nerves as access points? Maybe sync with her via cloud?"

Okay, he hadn't liked being bald, but one more jab at her couldn't hurt.

Rin stared at him with somewhat widened eyes, his rambling having completely gone over her head, as he'd predicted. She frowned and looked at their victim before glancing back at him with one eyebrow raised. Her right eye twitched a little as she subconsciously clenched a fist, her smile as artificial as he'd ever seen one.

"My, my, Shirou. You are on a roll today. I daresay I will enjoy the next few weeks of your training."

Shirou tried to make a cheeky smile until he felt the pressure from her anger and irritation slam into him, and for a second, he swore that the long, craggy hand of a demon had attached itself to him, ensuring a torturous and very, very painful demise. Shirou stiffened and slowly bowed his head to her in deference. She simply smiled back at him, as if nothing had ever occurred, but the feeling of certain death faded away regardless.

He sighed. "How am I supposed to extract information from her?"

"Interrogation, of course. What else is there?" she asked rhetorically, still looking annoyed as she placed one hand on her hip. When she saw his expression of obvious rejection to the idea, she added,

"Look. Either you do the interrogation, or you dispose of her. Choose."

"But, she's a woman," he protested.

"Yes, Shirou," Rin snapped. "We have established that she is indeed female. She is also a lunatic who has dissolved every person of this village into "la prana d'essence", and not even for the benefit of the Association either, but I suppose that should all be overlooked because she is a woman? We should let her go because she was fortunate enough to be born a sex that you can't see yourself hurting? How extraordinarily kind of you, Shirou."

"But..."

"Fine," she muttered, turning away. "Then go home. You're of no use to me here."

Shirou moved forward, quickly grabbing a hold of her wrist. He pulled her back to make sure she made eye contact with him.

"No. I'm not going anywhere. I'll do it. I just need to know how."

The raven-haired woman's blue eyes widened slightly before she averted her eyes. His sudden assertiveness had caught her off guard, although she was really appreciative that he was willing to take action. She really hated drawing information out from people – she always tripped at the very end, which would make the entire thing utterly pointless overall. Glancing back at Shirou, she gently pulled her wrist back out of his grip.

"First things first," she murmured back, slightly mollified. "You need to realize that who you're interrogating is no longer a person, Shirou. It is a thing. A barrier that contains all of the information you need. And as with all barriers, it must be ripped down and apart until not a single piece of it is left remaining."

"I can't do that," he said back softly, causing Rin to frown somewhat. "She's obviously human, and obviously alive. There's got to be another way to go about this."

Rin crossed her arms over her chest. "There are, but you need to learn how to get things done the quickest and most efficient way. Now, I need you to shut down whatever emotions or pathetic feelings of sympathy you may have for this psycho and take care of this for me. Here's a hint: pain works wonders."

"You want me to just beat her up? What, like she's some kind of cow or pig?"

"It," his partner corrected him, her frown deepening. "This, thing, is no longer a human being. It is something that is meant to be used for the purpose we establish for it and then taken out of its misery."

"Bullshit, Rin," he countered. "What's going on with you? How can you act like there's nothing wrong with doing this?"

She was running out of options. "You had no trouble killing Kotomine, as I recall. He was a person. What is the difference between torturing this girl for information and that?"

Shirou stood his ground and lifted his chin, obstinate. "You can't kill something that is already dead. You're the one who told me he didn't have a heart and that something was acting as one instead. That means he wasn't alive – he wasn't human. But this girl, she's alive. I can't just do something like that to her."

Her jaw clenched tightly before she suddenly turned away from him and picked up a rather strong, durable looking metal pipe. Shirou watched her turn back around and come his way before instead moving to right up in front of their victim. Her fingers tightened around the pipe before she, like many times before, lifted it up high above her head.

Shirou wasn't sure whether it was the tightening of skin around her eyes, the way her entire body seemed to lock in place as she looked down at their mark, or the slight, but noticeable trembling of her hand as she held up the pipe. Maybe it was the fact that everything about her screamed that she didn't want to do this again, that she was tired of dealing with this, but would do so anyway because she would tolerate no less of herself. She would complete this job for the sake of pleasing the perfectionist within her, only to suffer inwardly for weeks later as she recalled every single wrongful thing she did with heavy, burdening guilt. The thought of that happening caused Shirou's chest to hurt more than the idea of causing pain himself – he couldn't let his best friend go through that. Not again.

His hand reached out and caught the pipe with a sure grip before he even understood what he was doing. Rin's aqua-blue eyes slowly shifted to look at him, and he could tell that she was definitely pushing herself. Shirou gripped the pipe tighter and forcefully pulled it out of her hand.

"Give me that."

"Shirou," she said, not bothering to reach for the weapon again. "Once you do this, there is no going back. You can't approach this half-baked."

He looked down briefly at her hand. It was still trembling. He straightened his shoulders and gently pushed her away from him as he held onto the pipe tightly and looked down at the woman sitting in front of him.

"I know."

He reached down deeply inward for the cool resolution he needed to complete his task. This was the first mission where he needed to take any forcible approaches with their targets – Rin had normally completed everything herself, but he could tell the experiences were starting to weigh her down. She always looked more and more haggard and withdrawn than usual, so it was high time for him to take charge of something himself. He also had the added benefit of not having the normal thought processes of most people – he could tune out things that would have normally bothered him and become as dead and cold inside as a machine.

His resolve found, Shirou glared down at his mark, the pipe shifting in his hand smoothly as his eyes slowly shifted into ice-cold brown pearls, revealing no emotions whatsoever. He gripped the pipe tightly and just as he was about to pull his arm back, he heard Rin say,

"Just remember, Shirou," she said clearly, her own voice as cold as he inwardly felt, "the ends ALWAYS justify the means. Always."

His only response to her was to lift up the pipe clear into the air before sending it flying straight at his target with all of the force he could muster. He concentrated so hard on the making sure the blow hit solidly that he didn't hear her whisper the words,

"They have to. There would be no point to this nonsense otherwise..."

Shirou frowned as he remembered that specific event. How could he possibly have forgotten? That was a monumental turn in his professional life, so to speak, and he'd definitely felt a shift with how Rin had approached him after that. He couldn't say that it was fear, but rather respect with a touch of admiration. It had been odd to experience, after going so long as her lesser. It was almost as if she had finally seen him as an equal after he'd taken over the interrogation processes. Maybe he had forgotten because it had become commonplace in his life, whereas now, it seemed to once again be vastly different.

Luckily for his state of mind, their first victim hadn't died by his hands, but he would never forget the look of utter and abject fear present on her face. She may have been a psychotic mage hell-bent on destruction – he wasn't sure exactly how many villages she'd torched before then – but she had still been a human being. After looking down on her after gathering all the necessary information that she screamed out with pleadings for him to stop, he'd had to leave the room and leave Rin to clean up the mess. His clothes had been splattered with blood and whatever other crap that had flew onto him and he hadn't slept well that night, or week, or even month afterwards. However, he soon learned to deal. It had become second nature to him at some point.

The ends justify the means.

Yes, that was part of the reason why he'd had no problem leaving that one guy whose leg he'd broken in half there in that dead end to possibly die. The other reason was because the guy had been the one to start everything in the first place. Well, whatever the case, that person was no longer his problem. To be honest, it had felt a bit nice to step back into his old proverbial shoes. It had been somewhat refreshing, actually. Did that make him a sadist? Shirou wasn't sure if he had a problem with that or not.

Then, there had been the constant voice in his head as he'd felt himself reawaken to his combat abilities. The voice had been a combination of him on a really bad day and Rin on an average day. He could understand hearing himself – his bad days were not particularly good to recall and also made him out to be somewhat of an asshole – but Rin? That had to be a sign that something, somewhere, was very wrong in this world. Well, besides the fact that he was 1,500 years in the past attempting to save a heroic being from a possible life of endless suffering without a clue as to how, but that was another worry for another day.

"So, uh, can I go now?"

Shirou focused his attention back on the man who he had been holding against the wall with quite some force. He had unwittingly used so much force that the guy was wincing from the pain, but again, that was not Shirou's problem, at all.

That's right, he'd been interrogating this man for some time, since the previous eight or so people had been completely useless to him. This man, of course, had been no better, but Shirou knew he was getting closer to his target. He could feel it, and when Shirou finally found that miserable man known as Dai, he was going to...

Wait, to what? What would he do? Shirou found that he had an unmistakable urge to beat the godforsaken life out of the bastard, but Dai had some prominence, and had a powerful friend in Telyn. She may have run away from home, but she still had connections. He also had no doubt that he would be the first suspect to consider, seeing as Shirou had never seen eye to eye with Dai. Hell, what was he saying? He would've been a suspect anyway, based purely on how he looked and how new he was to the castle. He'd only been there for practically three months, for crying out loud.

Shirou frowned more deeply. He had to think about this more clearly.

"Um, sir? Lord? Master?"

"Hm?" muttered Shirou as he was roused from his thoughts yet again. "Let you go?"

The man in front of him nodded his head assertively, hope dawning in his eyes.

"Nah, don't think so."

The man didn't have the time to even feel disappointed as Shirou chucked a low punch into his stomach and watched with minimal interest as he fell down to the stone ground. The redhead turned away as the man gurgled for help and seemed to adamantly ignore him instead. The man followed Shirou with his eyes, his outstretched hand wavering in the air until his vision finally failed him as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Shirou rubbed the back of his head as he walked down the extensively long tunnel, not really certain of how much time had already lapsed. He still wasn't quite sure how long a league was, but it had to be nearly five kilometers. He didn't know what time it was or if Zago or anyone he knew was even awake yet. What he did know was that he was definitely getting closer to the castle. As soon as he'd reached the city limits, the tunnels had suddenly expanded and become ridiculously complicated. Shirou could definitely understand how someone could get lost forever within its depths. Fortunately enough for him, each person he struck down silently and stealthily was kind enough to show him the correct path. Or, at least, they directed him to his next victim, and that was good enough for him.

Now, however, he was pretty sure that he was back under the main castle, as the rocky stone that seemed to be aging in several places with moss and algae hanging around – it was connected to the sewers, after all – was replaced with carved stone blocks aligning the walls. Shirou also noticed a number of sconces adorning the walls, though there weren't any torches present. The absolutely putrid smell from the city sewers was also starting to fade, though Shirou was actually sure whether he was capable of smelling anything else anyway, considering how absolutely foul everything had smelled. There was very little water cycling down through the tunnels, so all the bad stuff just...sat there.

Shirou walked on for another good ten minutes before the enclosed shaft opened up into a somewhat spacious area. This was it, he realized as he looked around himself. This was the small enclosure that secretly connected to the dungeons. It also broke off into several other passages that led to closed off areas in the castle itself. The only reason these possible breaches weren't well-known to most was because the tunnels beneath the city were so complicated that no one could normally make it out away from the castle alive. Besides, if they didn't die from starvation in thirst in the midst of the maze, then they'd surely die from lack of breathable air. The path Shirou had taken had been full of twists and turns, and the only reason he'd gotten along was because of all of the "guides" along the way.

The entire area was dark save the soft glow coming from one of the paths that veered off away from the dungeons and the underground city entrance. Shirou narrowed his eyes, suspicion flooding his mind. Was he crazy for thinking that this had to be some kind of trick, or maybe he was simply paranoid? There was no way his target could be down that corridor, but if, by some chance, Dai was down that way, Shirou had to take the opportunity to possibly confront him, no matter what possibly awaited him.

The ends justify the means.

A dagger flashed into materialization in his hand before he even realized what he was doing, and he quickly dissipated it. Clutching a hand to his chest, Shirou took in a deep breath. He was radiating with malice and needed to tone down his killing intent. What if the guy was someone who could feel misplaced intentions towards himself? Shirou had no intention to kill Dai in the first place – he was still just running on his high from his countless interrogations.

This was why he sometimes wouldn't go on some missions with Rin; there were a number of instances where he couldn't turn off the switch between the shadow of himself and his real self. Then, there were other times, like the past number of months, when he forgot the switch existed or how to turn it on in the first place. He took in yet another deep breath. Man, he was a wreck.

"Breathe," he commanded himself, feeling himself sink back into a state of dispassionate coolness. "You aren't in danger. He can't touch you. Just get your information from him and make sure he stays alive."

Shirou looked down at his hands before clenching them.

"Make sure he serves as an example to anyone else who decides to screw with me," he whispered to himself. Then, after a brief feeling of sadness hit him, he said, "Even if this king was the one I'd known, she would never be able to recognize me. I've changed so much. In both good and bad ways."

He looked up to stare over at the lit passageway. Unlike what the queen had said about King Arthur, he thought as he carefully and silently walked across the room, Shirou had not yet found a happy place. Rin knew how to handle his switches, and Shirou knew how to compose himself well enough normally, but he was a ticking time bomb. Maybe it was for the best that he'd essentially been in a state of emotional suspension all this time. Going in time must have shocked him a lot worse than he'd originally suspected, and there was the fact that he'd met Sa-... King Arthur, so that hadn't helped any. Whatever. The past was the past, and he wasn't interested in time traveling any more than absolutely necessary.

Shirou crept down the corridor, feeling his muscles tense further as he came upon another slightly larger enclosure. The area opened up to a rather long room with one, two, no, three people, that he could see from his hiding spot. There were two grunts and...

His golden-brown eyes narrowed dangerously as he saw the last occupant in the room. The first grunt was standing guard, though he was obviously not being as vigilant as he should've been, and the second grunt was laying on the ground, snoozing a bit. Well, that was fine by Shirou. He, as quietly as a possible, sped forward and, with the first victim completely unaware of his actions, wrapped his left forearm around the man's neck and caught him in a strong chokehold. Shirou clapped a hand over the man's mouth to keep him as silent as he could, all while keeping his attention on the other two occupants. The other grunt was still dozing and the last occupant seemed to be reading something on the wall.

Shirou felt the man's strength leave him as he fell unconscious, and after lying him down somewhat gently, Shirou projected a thick cloth. He stalked across the room, keeping a close eye on Dai as he did and then leaned down near the sleeping grunt. Smoothly turning him over, he straddled the guy and after tightly binding the man's wrists with some projected rope, Shirou forcefully pulled the man's mouth open and stuffed the cloth in as far as he could. He then placed a hand over the mouth, though by this time the man was already wide awake. He made as if to scream when Shirou pulled out from his right pocket a knife that he had "borrowed" from someone along the way and held it very close to the man's neck.

"Make a single sound," he whispered harshly, his eyes dashing up to look at Dai, "and your life is forfeit. Now, which will it be?"

The man eyed the knife nervously, his resolve crashing down around him as Shirou pinched the man's nose closed. A couple of minutes passed by, and as each second ticked by, the redhead saw his victim grow more and more desperate, though all Shirou had to do was press the knife to the man's neck hard enough to draw blood. Shirou watched the man's eyes' pupils slowly enlarge from lack of oxygen before the man slackened completely. The time traveler immediately dispersed his projections, waiting impatiently for the man's brain to force him to breathe in again. As soon as the first breath was drawn, Shirou was on his feet, looking straight at his one last obstacle.

You have one shot. Don't blow it this time. If he gets away scot-free, then you're SOL.

Shirou's right hand that was holding the knife trembled with anticipation and he made his way across the room. He secured it in his pocket again - killing was not currently an option. Dai continued to read along, obviously unaware of the oncoming danger behind him. Just as he turned to ask one of his grunts something, that was when Shirou sped forward, one hand reaching for the man's tunic as his other fist clenched, ready to throw a punch. Dai's eyes widened as he finally noticed the danger he was in and he tried to shift backwards away from the redhead's range. Shirou shifted at the last second to his right, using that as a chance to flank Dai from the side.

The latter fumbled back a bit to try and create some distance, but Shirou was charging forward within an instant, his clenched fist racing through the air as he slammed it into Dai's face. Dai went sprawling back onto the ground, his face distorted from both shock and rage. Shirou simply looked down his nose at the cook, eyes narrowed.

"You're out of your league, Dai."

Dai turned his head to the side to spit out some blood before glaring back at the redhead.

"You don't know who you're messing with."

Shirou rotated his wrists as he walked forward slowly, almost in a stalking manner. Cracking his knuckles a bit, he exhaled softly. Dai scrunched back somewhat, unable to believe that he was afraid of the stupid, bumbling foreigner that had invaded his kitchen some months before. His heart began to pound as fear and adrenaline screamed through his veins and he gritted his teeth.

No, he wasn't finished – the stupid foreigner would meet his end this day.

"I should have killed you when I'd had the chance," Dai growled out, slowly rising to a crouching position. "You lowly piece of dog shit."

"I wish you'd tried," Shirou responded honestly. "That would have made things move far faster for me, I'm sure."

"What do you want from me, you reject of a Scot?"

"Hmph. I want answers. What else could I possibly need from someone like you?"

"Answers?" Dai questioned with a bark of laughter. "I have none to tell to a rancid, foul being like you."

Shirou's eyes narrowed further, not at all pleased by the insult. Now, that was just rude. He wasn't a zombie or anything.

As he was about to approach Dai finally, he reached out to grab the man by the collar when Dai grabbed at the ground next to him and threw a bunch of dirt particles into Shirou's face. Shirou's eyes widened slightly before he rubbed at them, trying to clear away the dust and dirt as quickly as he could. Dai pushed off of the ground and tackled the redhead, sending him slapping against the stone. The brunet raised his own fists and started hammering them into Shirou's face as fast and hard as he could.

Shirou cried out and growled as he was finally able to open one eye and catch one of Dai's fists in his left hand. His left eye, reddened from the foreign particles, glared up at the brunet with irritation. He saw the other fist come down and caught that one as well, not needing both eyes to manage that much. Shirou gritted his teeth, trying to keep his anger in check.

"That, was a serious mistake."

He quickly shifted his hands from the fists to gripping around Dai's wrists before pulling down on them forcefully. Dai came flying down as Shirou raised up to meet him with a hard headbutt. The former saw lights as he automatically tried reeling back, but the redhead still held a firm grip on the man's wrists. Shirou let them go and pressed back on the man's chest to make room just as he pulled back his legs tightly against his chest and let them slam straight into Dai. The brunet was hurtled back and rolled across the ground before slowly coming to a stop.

Shirou grunted slightly as he cleaned out the rest of the junk from his other eye. He blinked them both a few times, still feeling some pain but knowing he was far better off than before. Standing up, Shirou looked over at the struggling Upper Echelon, not feeling a bit of concern for the man. Dai managed to push himself up from the ground, only to send a murderous glare back over to Shirou. The latter could feel Dai's killing intent all the way from where he stood.

"Make this easy on yourself. I just want answers, and then I'll let you go."

"Fuck. You."

"I could come up with a clever one-liner to that one, but nah, too easy."

Dai roared out his fury, turning and heading straight for Shirou with his arms swinging. Shirou fell into a fighting stance, grabbed one arm with his left hand and swept Dai's feet out from underneath him. The brunet face-planted onto the ground and Shirou swore that he heard a distinct crack of something. Dai slowly shifted his gaze around to look up at Shirou again before he clung onto one of Shirou's legs.

Shirou's eyebrows raised with surprise – he'd never had an enemy do that before. He simply kicked back at Dai's face again to release himself. When Dai tried again, Shirou felt himself grow somewhat annoyed. He kicked Dai away once again before grabbing the man by his tunic and lifting him up to look at him eye-to-eye.

"Last warning. Stop struggling."

Dai swiftly replied by hacking and hocking a loogie into his face.

"Ugh, what the hell? Damn it!" cursed Shirou as he fell back a few steps, again forced to wipe his face clean of the disgusting substance.

Dai lunged forward, reaching and grabbing the shiny metal he saw peeking out of the other man's pocket. Shirou wiped his sleeve across his cheeks and opened his eyes, only barely missing Dai's next attack. The knife instead caught a hold of his tunic's fabric and left a gaping hole trailing from the midway all the way down to the bottom edge. Shirou stared down with horror at the now ruined tunic Ceri had given him. He slowly lifted his gaze back up to lock eye contact with the brunet who simply smirked.

Rage flooded through Shirou's mind. How dare that idiot ruin something he cherished so much? A tear like that couldn't be mended, and even if it could, not well enough not to notice!

Belting out his own cry of outrage, the redhead flew at Dai, his only desire at that point to put down the threat that was trying to ruin his life in every way. Shirou cranked back a fist and sent it flying with no reservation whatsoever into Dai's face, definitely cracking the man's cheekbone. Dai crashed back against the ground, groaning. Shirou would have continued his attack, but then he felt some fiery pain on right arm. Taking a look down at his forearm, he saw a lengthy gash running all along it and frowned.

The question now was how had Dai managed to slice his arm so well?

Shirou flicked his gaze up again to see a chortling Dai slowly standing up, the knife rotating in his right hand. The redhead scowled, took one last look at his ruined sleeve, and eventually decided to just shed the piece of material right then and there. He carefully tested the range of movement within his fingers, but found that the wound was nothing if not superficial. Dai hadn't been able to get very deep, although Shirou wouldn't have thought as much with the blood trailing down his arm.

A burst of prana ran down Shirou as he quickly reinforced his own skin to make it tougher. He doubted it was at all necessary to bother, but Dai did know his way around a knife. Then again, it would have been stranger for him not to, considering what his job occupation was.

"I'm going to finish this now," he said loud enough for the other man to hear him. "And when I do, you will give me the answers I want."

"Hah, you haven't been able to beat me yet," bragged the cook.

Shirou simply frowned. "I haven't really been trying. That ends now."

Dai lost his smirk as Shirou was on him in the next second. He waved the knife around, trying to catch the redhead off guard, but Shirou slammed a precise roundhouse kick against Dai's wrist, making the latter drop the piece of metal to the ground. Shirou then spun around and smashed another kick into the cook, sending him flying up against a nearby wall. The redhead followed up quickly by grabbing the man by his tunic and pressing him against the wall as hard as he could. A hand was immediately at Dai's throat, clenching around it as Shirou looked at the man coolly.

"I'm finished playing games with you, Dai," Shirou whispered, tightening his grip around Dai's throat to make the other sputter from lack of air. "You do not call the shots anymore. You are no longer in a position of authority. You will answer what I need to know, or you will come to regret it. Have I made myself clear?"

Dai coughed a little and Shirou eased his grip somewhat.

"I pranced around with you because I really didn't want to hurt you. Not because I like you or respect you, but for Telyn's sake. I know she's fond of you and that you're like siblings. I'd never want my older sister hurt like this, so I went easy on you. But I'm done. You'd better tell me what I need to know."

"F-fuck you," Dai spat out, making sure to spit on Shirou's face again.

Shirou let go of Dai and slowly wiped the back of his hand against his face before calmly looking back at the brunet. Dai never saw Shirou's hand as the redhead reached down and squarely grabbed Dai's testicles through his pants. His right hand was around Dai's neck again as he tightened his left and squeezed the sensitive area without any remorse. Dai squirmed and cried out as a muscle jumped in Shirou's jaw while he continued clenching his hand together into a fist.

"Why did you attack me?"

A whine was all that met Shirou's question, and he eased up some. Dai licked his lips, pain in his eyes as he murmured,

"Because I couldn't find your sister, asshole."

Shirou blinked, not sure that the he had heard the words correctly. He gaped at Dai for a few moments before anger tore through his body. His left hand gripping one of the testicle clenched until he felt it ready to practically rupture.

"Did you know," he began harshly, his voice low, "that when a man's testicle is popped, he will die within the half-hour? Not to speak of the pain I'm sure you're feeling right now."

Dai couldn't stop the tears as they started to form. His mouth was open wide in a silent scream as Shirou slowly drew back his left hand. The redhead let the man fall down to the ground, holding both of his hands to his groin as he curled into a fetal position.

"Why did you attack me?" Shirou asked again, looking down at the pathetic mess at his feet.

A low whine answered him again and Shirou, losing his patience, threw a kick into the man's stomach.

"Last time I'm asking. Why did you –"

"I couldn't...lay a hand...on that knight," Dai wheezed out, breathing labored. "Telyn was upset...because he was there. You're the reason...he was there. You...were the source...of her pain."

What kind of logic was that? He couldn't hurt Percival so he decided to make Shirou's day hell instead?

"That's the reason I've dealt with all of this crap?" Shirou yelled out. "Because you have guard dog issues? That wasn't my fault at all!"

"And...because...I hate...your guts."

"Well, at least that makes sense," Shirou grumbled. "Next question: you're the master planner of all of this, aren't you? The dungeons and whatever?"

"...No. I didn't know about them...until I was told about them."

"By whom?"

"I don't know," Dai admitted grudgingly. "He just comes, gives me information, tells me what to do, where to go, who to see, who to command, whatever."

Shirou face contorted into another frown. Who was this "he", and what was his connection to Dai? Shirou quickly voiced his question.

"I don't know, I said," the man did nothing but repeat.

Shirou realized with some consternation that the brunet was not going to offer him up any more information than that. Shirou had a couple of choices at that point: keep pressing uselessly for more clues as to what was going on around him since Dai seemed be at the center of everything, or walk away from everything here and try to do things on his own terms. There was a third option, of course, and that was to go back to being a normal cook and trying to live a normal life, but since other powers were determined to involve him in everything it seemed, it probably wouldn't be a good idea for him to act like he could get away with that.

Another matter that bothered him was things were progressing in a different manner than he had been prepared for. Saber hadn't told him anything about her seal being stolen, or about one-meal-a-day issues, or underground killing sprees. The King Arthur of this time hadn't known anything about the servants' housing problems or various other issues either. Saber had spoken a lot about the predicaments she faced with wars, the decisions she had to face in light of them and the consequences that bore down greatly on her afterwards, but not much of inner affairs. Shirou wondered if perhaps Saber had focused so much on the outer aspects that she never came to understand her undoing from the inside as well. She hadn't known her people well, and chosen to hide her true self away from everyone – perhaps if she hadn't, maybe she might have faced all of these different problems in addition as well.

Of course, the last and most obvious answer that he had was that just by being present in the past and coming into contact with all of these people, Shirou had inadvertently changed parts of her history in a way that no one would have guessed possible. Maybe Saber couldn't have known about such things because they didn't actually happen? She couldn't have been that unaware of things happening right under her nose, right? It was a big castle though, and things like this happened all the time throughout history, too, so there was some chance that his presence hadn't somehow screwed everything up, right?

Shirou rubbed the back of his head furiously as Dai continued to stare at him suspiciously. No, Shirou reaffirmed to himself, looking down at the other man. There was little point in speculating over what could be or could have been – he needed answers for certain. Since Dai was incapable of giving them to him, he needed to find someone who would. Zago was bound to know someone who could help him. He honestly would've liked to question the king directly, but she was already pissed enough as it was from what happened with the seal thing – there was little sense in him attempting to do something that might end up with him dying.

He nodded, satisfied with his plan. Now, there was just one last thing that he wanted to do. He wanted to make sure that this would never happen again.

Kneeling down, a muscle in his jaw jumped as he leaned in close to the other man.

"I've been through hell and back since coming to Camelot, and each time was pretty much thanks to you or Baeddan. I can't do anything to him – he's too important. But you? I feel no such reservation. So, listen: I'm going to walk away from this and keep living my life the way I want to, and you are not going to interfere anymore. I don't care if you think I'm invading your territory. You are stuck with me. I guarantee though, if you dare come near me and start something ever again, I can't promise that I'll hold back next time. Got it?"

Shirou rose up to his full height again and turned away slightly. After giving the cook one last glance, he fully turned and began walking away. Dai grunted, not bothering to get up from the ground as he watched Shirou walk away.

To say the least, he was angry. He had been utterly humiliated by a lower class cook, and his plan thoroughly ruined. Dai was hardly one to ever admit defeat, but there was no denying the fact that Shirou outclassed him in every fighting aspect – the redhead was stronger, faster, more skilled and able. However, the man had a soft spot for those in need, as had obviously been witnessed with helping out Eos and Zago a month prior. He also wasn't sure how, but somehow Shirou had managed to rope in the queen into battling against the meal issue as well.

Oh well, it didn't really matter. His part had been played. An evil smirk crossed his face.

"Hmph, what a fool you are," he managed to say loudly enough that the retreating Shirou could hear him.

The latter looked back, an eyebrow raised questioningly.

"How's that?" he asked, just wanting to leave and get to where he belonged.

"There was a reason I was waiting down here for so long. You can't possibly think I'm in this godforsaken place for the fun of it."

"I kind of thought you just enjoyed creepy, disgustingly rank sewers."

Dai continued smirking. "You said before that I was mistaken with what I did, but no, Shirou. You lost your life the moment you laid a single finger on me."

Shirou focused his complete attention on Dai, now fully alert. "What do you..."

He felt his ears twitch slightly when a soft sound rang out from down the long corridor. Another one, similar to a low beastly growl followed after, and the slight padding of footstep. Shirou swallowed as the growls grew deeper and never noticed Dai's smirk widen even further.

"I told you," he simpered, looking rather triumphant. "Your fate's been sealed. You'll never get away with hurting me. I'm quite special, you see."

Shirou didn't bother answering as the creature burst out through the corridor. A shiver went straight down Shirou's spine when he saw the eyeball popping out of its eye socket, its teeth gnarly, yellow, and looking ready to fall out at any moment. Its skin sagged as if it were melting right off of the skeleton and it stank worse than any dead body he'd ever smelt. The body had obviously been dead for a long, long while, as maggots were crawling all along its insides and outsides, each white, wiggling body marking its own claim. Shirou exhaled softly as registered what was in front of him.

It was a zombie. It was a mother-loving, freaking zombie.

He felt his heart skip a beat. He hated necromancy. Not only were zombies a massive annoyance to fight against since they felt absolutely zero pain, but he could just feel the pain the hosts were feeling as well. Necromancy stripped away whatever honor was left to a person with death and made them tools to be used for someone else's general interests. It ticked him off that someone would defile a person's body after death and use it for their own begotten interests, as if dying wasn't enough of a punishment.

Shirou gritted his teeth.

"...Was this person one of your 'victims'?"

"Ah, I remember that guy. I had him gotten rid of over a year ago – he kept poking his nose around in affairs that had nothing to do with him. Well, at least he's useful now."

Shirou's fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. The zombie stared absently at the redhead and Shirou could only feel pangs of horror and sympathy for the poor soul who had lost his life for little more than he could have ever predicted.

"You..." he bit out, nearly growling himself. "Did he even know what he was dying for? What was the point of killing him? Why couldn't you have cast him out of the kitchen then?"

Dai chuckled. "I don't recall saying he was from the kitchens."

"What?"

"I said he was poking around. Well, who's going to miss a poor peasant or two, eh, Shirou?"

He felt himself snap again. "You asshole!"

The very moment he spun around to just finish the deed he'd begun and take Dai's life for real, the zombie suddenly flew into motion, spiraling at him. Shirou's eyes widened slightly, having been completely taken aback by the undead beast. The zombie's mouth came snapping at him, barely missing his right bicep as he evaded the attack. His boots slid across the floor as he fell behind the zombie, his fist already raised for his next strike. The zombie twirled back around to go for its next attack, but Shirou slammed his fist into the zombie's face, putting all the weight he could behind the punch. Very much aware that Dai was paying close, gleeful attention to his fight, Shirou jumped and rolled a couple of meters away to snatch the knife that was still lying down on the ground. When the zombie next rose to its feet again and rushed him, Shirou quickly funneled what prana he could into the weapon, strengthening it as he sank it deep within the zombie's chest.

A solid blow filled with prana would normally have been enough to destabilize whatever spell was animating the undead and cause it to die off for good, and Shirou almost thought he'd made a mistake when the zombie kept pushing towards him. It wasn't that he'd made a mistake, it was that his weapon wasn't long enough of a conductor to repel the spell. He needed a sword, or better yet, his arrows.

Shirou once again felt himself grow frustrated over being unable to immediately simply access his abilities and get the job done easily and without wasting his energy. If he was being targeted though, there was no telling how much more trouble he might get in. It was just easier in the long run not to overtly display his skills, as much as it really bothered him now. He bit down on his bottom lip as he slid forward and delivered yet another solid hit to the zombie and sent it tumbling back a bit before he turned and raced out of the small area.

"Yeah, that's right!" Dai shouted after him, much to his further irritation. "Run, boy! Run! You won't make it out of this alive!"

As soon as he was in the pitched-black corridor, he muttered, "Trace on!" and a bow and arrow were immediately within his grasp. He had good reason to do so, too, considering the ten or fifteen zombies waiting hungrily for him towards the end of the path. The one zombie he'd left behind came hobbling up with a speed like Sonic the Hedgehog, though not nearly as cool-looking.

Exhaling shortly, Shirou made a full reversal, cocked his bow, pulling the drawstring back nice and taut, and let the arrow now blazing with some of his prana fly straight through the zombie's body. The effect was immediate as blue energy swelled from within it before it burst into small pieces of dust that slowly burned away into nothingness. As much as he wanted to say a prayer in light of what he'd just done, he instead turned his attention back to the approaching assemble of undead heading straight for him.

Shirou materialized three more arrows, quickly launching them at his nearest targets before taking his bow into both his hands like a sword and smashing it into the head of another undead. Taking a few steps forward, he made sure to adjust his breathing accordingly as he struck two more beings in much of the same manner before again finally materializing another few arrows.

Three more bodies went down and he could swear that twice as many showed up out of nowhere to take him on. Switching the bow back to his left hand, Shirou materialized a light dagger in his right hand and slammed it into one zombie's head all the way to the hilt. He shielded his eyes when it burst apart, and then threw a kick into one undead that had gotten just a bit too close to him for comfort.

"Damn it!" he cursed, seeing more zombies line up.

How many had Dai ordered to be killed? Were they all from Camelot even, or were some of them unfortunate travelers who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time? There had to be twenty of them trying to kill Shirou at that point, and they were all insanely strong and persistent. Shirou jumped back to make some space, quickly concentrated and bundled some arrows together with prana, and then drew back all three bundles on his bow.

"Trace on: bombardment!" he yelled, releasing each bundle, and watching as all the arrows detached from one another and flitted straight through twelve of his targets.

He watched with a bit of unease as only three of the zombies burst apart, with the other eight collapsing to the ground as mounds of mud.

"What?" he gasped, astounded as more zombies kept coming.

Well, on the good side, not all of them were dead people. On the bad side, he was currently in the sewers. If the sorcerer or whatever was making mud hosts, they had a lot of material to work with. Even worse, Shirou couldn't tell which bodies were actually dead people and which ones were hosts fitted to look like the dead people. It was a ridiculously complicated spell, and not a kind of magecraft he was incredibly familiar with. It reminded him of the psychotic woman back in Alaska, but she hadn't been of a level that could raise the dead. It might've been a lot of worse of a situation if she had been able to.

They were all starting to crowd around him again, eager for a bite or two of his living flesh. Shirou shuddered and gave up on using his bow in such closed-quarters. It disappeared from his hands as he instead summoned Kanshou and Bakuya into existence. The yin and yang swords gleamed softly as he gripped them tightly, as if ready to strike down whatever enemy he faced against. Shirou spun the two blades in his hands before lowering his stance.

There was a very high chance the necromancer was somewhere relatively close, with how much power was being allocated to each zombie and host. Unless he found a way to stop the person, more and more hosts would just pop up and eventually be the end of him. There was little time to come up with a battle plan – he had to keep it nice and simple. Shirou readied his swords. He would just have to follow the trail and take down every single undead he could along the way. He also had to do it fast – with his inability to properly absorb prana from outside sources, all he had left to rely on was his own od, a resource that was running out quite quickly.

Prana swirled gently around his feet as he lowered his stance. This move was yet another thing he would have to thank the king for one day – he had really taken an interest in her prana burst but had incapable of mimicking on any scale, and most certainly not as easily and deftly as she had. The best he could do was push out a balanced burst of prana with each step that increased his speed just enough to get out of trouble. Each burst took at least ten prana though, if he were to put a number to it, so the most he would be able to do would be around five steps. Shirou looked closely at the route available to him.

One step forward, one sidestep right, insert a tight spin leading into another forward dash, a quick step with an acute angular diversion, with the last step followed immediately by a spinning flip over their heads and into freedom, so to speak.

The redhead exhaled softly, hoping things would go as he'd just imagined. His stance fell and he sprang into motion, his first step propelling him forward and directly at one enemy. Kanshou's blade sank deep into the decomposing body and the latter burst apart almost immediately. Turning his head as his eyes searched the next opening, he quickly noticed two zombies coming up on his right, whereas there were nearly four on his left. Without even considering otherwise, he planted his left foot down on the stone hard, a fierce gleam of blue erupting as he shifted with increased speed at the two zombies.

Kanshou came up from beneath at a low angle, slashing straight up diagonally through one zombie as Bakuya's beautiful white blade slid through the other zombie like butter. Shirou took in a short breath as he spun tightly back to his right, his next step crashing against the ground again as he swept through the middle of another few enemies. His fourth step had him sliding to the side a bit before he was able to push off the ground again and right up to yet one more enemy. Both of his blades came slamming down on the body's shoulders, as he, with his final step, launched himself up into the air, flipping around and landing on the ground nearly a meter away.

Shirou barely heard the burst as he raced through the tunnel and was back into the large opening from before. The corridor had been a lot longer than he'd remembered, but now he had bigger problems to deal with. The animated creatures he hadn't destroyed were filtering back in after him like ants – ants large enough to bite his head off – and there were nearly one hundred more in front of him. Shirou breathed in and out slowly as he looked around him at all of the enemies that had appeared out in the middle of nowhere. His golden-brown eyes passed over one body after another, already feeling weary from the battle he knew was about to take place.

"Crud," he muttered, still looking around and trying to devise some kind of strategy.

One of the figures began to move through the horde, catching his attention quickly as he focused instead on them. The person was wearing a dark hooded cloak, their face completely hidden from his sight. He could feel sweat glide down the side of his cheek as he mentally prepared himself for whatever might happen. Shirou took a couple of steps back when the person walked up to him, only a mere five paces away. When they pushed back their hood, Shirou felt himself freeze as their eyes looked at him calmly.

"You," he found himself sputtering out. "Who are you?"

"I take it you are Shirou," his newfound enemy softly responded. "I must admit, I wish we had met under better circumstances."

Shirou wasn't sure why, but just looking at the person made him feel oddly wary and concerned for his safety. He wasn't sure what it was, but there was this feeling of death that surrounded them, and it was a feeling that made him certain that whatever happened next wouldn't be good.

"I'm not a part of this," he blustered, his head rising with confidence he didn't actually possess. "Let me leave and we can forget any of this happened. I don't want to have to hurt you."

"Nor I you, yet you leave me no choice."

Shirou watched the person slowly raise their hand above their head and as all of their minions began to move as one, navigating closer and closer to Shirou as he looked around, his head turning left and right over and over. With the next words they said, he knew his fate really was sealed:

"Leave him alive."

He materialized his two blades one last time, garnering his enemy's surprise. The hell if he was going to go down without a fight, he thought, his body starting to break out in a cold sweat as he considered his probabilities of survival. They were low, but that didn't matter. Shirou drew in his elbows, slid his feet apart, and bent down low, eyes narrowed and focusing on his targets.

"If it's a fight you want," he shouted, "then bring it!"

Haha, she broke thirty-five phones. Anyway, how'd you like it, or dislike it? Comments? Thoughts?

Check out the new poll on my page, and there's also a new forum thread available if you so choose to discuss what's happened in this chapter. I can't say when chapter ten will come out, what with starting a new job, but you can guarantee that I am definitely working on it! See you guys later!