Counter Guardian EMIYA stood upon a relatively tall building that he now claimed as his 'perch' overlooking the entire city at night with his arms crossed.
It had been a few days since Alaya had sent him to this world or was it timeline?
Honestly, he still had no idea.
Even though this was supposed to be an official task, for some reason Alaya hadn't bothered explaining the little details to him when she literally dumped him from the sky.
Oh sure when he accepted her task, she did gave him almost all of the details in the form of a file that she took from…somewhere with a smile to boot, but falling from the sky and in extension to his death before he could begin said task was not one of them.
Any lesser man, or any human in general would've died falling from that height.
He was no ordinary man.
He sighed.
As he stood there, he couldn't help but remember the terms of Alaya's task.
"Emiya, as I already told you, this task of mine that I want you to accomplish is different from the rest"
"Ah, I recalled you saying that at some point after you barged into my room"
"Enough with your cynical and nihilistic attitude and listen" said Alaya with narrowed eyes. "As I said before this task is different... and in a way, very special"
"God forbid the Will of Mankind from finding anything special" taunted EMIYA with a smirk.
Suddenly, EMIYA fell to the ground. coughing up a vast amount of blood. It felt like somebody replaced his blood with hot lava as it coursed through his veins. Not only that, he could feel it. The gears inside his reality marble, Unlimited Blade Works was screeching while numerous swords and weaponry were being broken or shattered one by one, but due to the nature of Unlimited Blade Works, it was being re-forged only to be broken and shattered again.
It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurts! It hurtsIthurtshurtsIthurts hurtsIthurts ITHURTSITHURTS ITHURTS!ITHURTS! ITHURTSITHURTS! ITHURTSITHURTS! ITHURTSITHURTS! ITHURTSITHURTS!
"Counter Guardian Emiya" called Alaya. He could no longer feel the pain. The air around them had gotten very tense like it was screaming danger. Gone was her smile and playful attitude and in its place was something else entirely. "It seems you have forgotten to whom or what you're talking to. I may have been lenient to you compared to the others but even you should know where your place is. You are MY Counter Guardian! And as MY Counter Guardian, I expect you to obey my commands. If not then I shall force you to obey, whether you like to or not. Do I make myself clear, Emiya?
"Crystal" replied Emiya as he slowly stood back up. The smirk still donning his face.
After a few minutes of intense silence, Alaya finally spoke.
"Good" she said with a smile. The tense atmosphere was gone and Alaya reverted back to her usual self. "Now back to important matters. For this task of mine, I want you to kill or subdue the spirits with the least amount of damage as possible."
"Ho, that's a first" answered EMIYA with a surprised face for a couple of minutes before his eyes narrowed. He projected a new chair out of this air and sat on it since like his tea, Alaya had claimed it as well. "That's not like you, Alaya"
"No, not at all. As you are aware, against my better judgement, the death of humanity had almost surpassed the threshold of extinction, and I hope by adding you, who strived and succeeded in becoming a 'Hero of Justice' to prevent that"
EMIYA's eyes widened. "You mean!"
"Yes. This time, I want you to save every life you can. I have high hopes that someone like you can accomplish this. Now, I shall ask you again. Counter Guardian Emiya, do you accept my task?"
Without a slightest hint of hesitation, The Wrought-Iron Hero, the Heroic Spirit Emiya gave an answer full of determination and conviction that even made Alaya, the Unconsciousness Will of Mankind to smile.
"I accept"
Contradicting to her behaviour, Alaya was not known for her kindness or leniency even among her Counter Guardians. Time and time again, she had proved herself worthy of being the Unconsciousness Will of Mankind.
Underneath her façade was a truly frightening beast.
She, who is the embodiment of the Will of Mankind. She, who understands mankind's greatest strength. Mankind's greatest weakness.
"How beautiful and ugly humanity is" was what he remembered her saying at one point.
He also recalled the smirk that donned her face when she quickly sent him on his task.
"Oh Emiya, before I forget, this will be a prolonged task since I know not the exact number of Gaia's Spirits. So take all the time you need to hunt for them. I know that even if you and them are enemies, I'm sure that they'll thank me for the eye-candy I sent them"
"Hmm? What do you mean by that?" questioned Emiya. For some reason, he had a very bad feeling about this.
"Ara?" Said Alaya as she smiled a very not so innocent smile and tilted her head. "Did I forget to mention that currently, all of Gaia's known spirits are girls? And judging from your luck with the female gender in your past life, I'm sure that you'll be fine"
"Alaya! You didn't-" EMIYA was not allowed to finish his sentence as a blue-transluscent teleportation circle manifested under him and sent him to his task.
Remembering about that brought up some very fond and uncomfortable memories. But that was a couple of weeks ago. According to Alaya, in a couple of days, one of Gaia's Spirits will descend to this city. And when it did descend, he'll be there to kill it.
Itsuka Shido held his breath.
It was an unbelievable scene.
It was as if a part of the town had just vanished. In its place was an enormous crater that probably even a falling meteorite couldn't create.
A group of human figures fluttered in the sky. It was absurd beyond even his wildest dreams.
However, Shidou did not even notice this abnormality for there was something much more extraordinary in front of his eyes.
A girl.
A girl, wrapped in a strange light, stood there.
"Ah—"
Enveloped by his faint voice, the sigh slowly faded away. The presence of the girl was so overwhelming that it suppressed that of any other object. Like metal, yet also like cloth, the dress was made of a strange, eye-catching material. Attached to the dress was a skirt that radiated light, beautiful enough to cause one to lose consciousness.
However, the beauty of the girl herself overshadowed even those.
Her long black hair, like a plume of smoke, weaved around her shoulders and waist. Coldly looking up at the sky, her eyes were of a strange, hard to describe color.
Her figure, which would probably make even a goddess feel envious, was warped by weariness, as she stood silently with pursed lips.
His vision.
His attention.
Even his heart;
In that moment, they were stolen away.
It was so...
Excessively. Abnormally. Intensely.
Beautiful. That was what his mind thought
"—What's..."
Dazed, Shidou spoke for the first time. Even if his throat and eyes are to be destroyed for blasphemy, he thought.
The girl slowly shifted her gaze downwards.
"...Your name?"
His voice, carrying the question from the bottom of his heart, shook the air.
However.
With a sad look, the girl replied.
"I have no such thing"
At that time.
The two's eyes crossed, Itsuka Shidou's story had begun.
It had begun the instant the girl's sword was inches away from his neck
"Did you also come to kill me too?" she asked.
His mind stopped. Even if there was a giant sword inches away from his neck. His mind just… stopped. Only as the girl inched closer to him and in extension, her sword, was at his neck till it draw a thin line of blood only did his mind worked again.
And in his mind, there was only one question.
Why did she ask him something like that?
Only now did he realize how dangerously close to death he was. His body was gripped in the clutches of death himself. For that moment, his body was paralyzed. The only thing he could do was shake his head sideways to answer the beautiful girl in front of him.
The girl looked at Shidou with a mixture of surprise, suspicion, and confusion.
However, she immediately narrowed her eyes and looked away from Shidou, turning her face towards the sky.
As if being brought along, Shidou also turned to look upwards—
"Whaa...!?"
His eyes opened wider than ever before, his breath caught in his throat.
After all, there were a few humans wearing strange suits flying in the sky—and to add to that, from the weapons in their hands, a large number of missile-like things were shot at Shidou and the girl
"W-Waaaaaaaaaah!?"
Instinctively, he let out a cry.
However—even after a few seconds, Shidou remained conscious.
"Eh...?"
Astonished, his voice leaked out.
The missiles that were launched from the sky floated unmoving in the air several meters above the girl, as if they were held by invisible hands.
The girl gave an exasperated sigh.
"...This kind of thing is useless, why can't they ever learn."
As she did this, the countless missiles crumpled up, as if being compressed, and exploded where they the magnitude of the explosions was frighteningly small. It was as if all of the power had been sucked inwards.
He could somewhat understand the confusion of those people fluttering around in the air.
However, they did not stop their attacks. One after another, missiles were shot.
"—Hmpf"
The girl gave another small sigh, making a face which seemed like tears might come out at any moment.
It was the same face as when she had been pointing her sword towards Shidou before.
"—"
Seeing that expression, Shidou felt his heart pound even harder than when he was on the verge of losing his life.
What a strange scene this was.
Who the girl was, he had no idea. Who the people in the air were, he also had no idea.
However, the fact that the girl was stronger than those people flying in the air, that much he understood.
That was why he vaguely thought of this question:
She is the strongest.
—So why is it that she is making that kind of face?
"...Disappear, disappear. Anything and everything... Just disappear...!"
While saying that, she pointed the sword that gave off a glow as mysterious as her eyes, towards the sky.
Tiredly, sorrowfully, she artlessly swung the sword.
Within a moment—the wind howled.
"...W-Wah...!"
A fierce shockwave assaulted the area, as the slash flew towards the sky along the path of the blade.
The people flying in the air hurried to avoid it, and withdrew from their position.
But in the next moment, from a different direction, a light beam with a tremendous output was fired towards the girl.
"...!"
He involuntarily covered his eyes.
As expected, the beam of light seemed as if it hit an invisible wall in the air above the girl and was stopped. Like a firework exploding in the night sky, it spread apart in all directions, sparkling beautifully.
However, as if the light beam had continued, something landed behind Shidou.
"W-What the hell is going on..."
Since a while ago, Shidou hadn't been able to understand anything that had been going on.
He felt like he was watching a bad daydream.
However—seeing the figure that just landed, Shidou's body stiffened.
It was wearing a machine, or something like that.
Covered from top to bottom in an unfamiliar body suit was a girl. She carried large thrusters on her back, and a weapon shaped like a golf bag in her hands.
The reason Shidou's body froze up was simple. He recognized the girl.
"Tobiichi... Origami...?"
He muttered the name that Tonomachi had taught him this morning.
The girl with the overly mechanical appearance was his classmate Tobiichi Origami.
Origami flicked a glance at Shidou.
"Itsuka Shidou...?"
As a response, she called Shidou's name.
Even though she was surprised, her expression didn't change. However, it was just a bit, but her voice carried a puzzled tone.
"...Huh? Wh-What's up with that suit—"
Even he himself realized that it was a stupid question, but by that time he had already said it.
Overwhelmed by everything that had happened, he didn't even know what he should be worrying about anymore.
However, Tobiichi quickly looked away from Shidou, and dashed towards the girl in the dress, engaging her in combat.
They swung their swords in a speed that his eyes could not track.
His classmate, Tobiichi Origami knew that she held no advantage in the fight on ground and flew into the sky where both she and the spirit continued exchanging blows in the air. However, the Spirit proved to be the superior one as she overpowered his classmate, forcing her to fight on the ground once more.
The battle went on until the Spirit had managed to disarm Tobiichi of her weapon. Weaponless, defenceless, sprawled upon her back, she could only watch as the Spirit lifted her sword high above her head. She closed her eyes, waiting for her imminent death.
But it never came.
*CLANG*
She heard a sound as if someone was had somehow managed to block the Spirit's sword.
But that wasn't possible… No one was close enough to her to deflect the blow. And yet, for some reason, she felt that somehow, someone did manage to do the impossible.
Opening her eyes, she saw a silhouette of a man a with a red overcoat, white hair, tanned skin and wearing a black body armor. In his hands were a pair of beautiful married black and white swords.
Was he a Spirit as well? No. Impossible. There were no known male Spirits ever recorded. She shooked her head. But when she looked at him, he was only blocking the purple spirit's sword with only one hand, without any effort whatsoever while the other hand holding the black sword was by his side, resting there lazily. And yet, the purple spirit was looking hard pressed. With only one hand and one blade, he was slowly overpowering the powerful existence known as the Spirits. She was about to ask him about who he was until he spoke.
"My, what a terrible situation you've found yourself in, ojou-san"
For some reason, instead of feeling relieved, she was for some reason feeling annoyed at by looking at the man's infuriating smirk.
In the shadows, unknown to any of them except for the white haired man, a silhouette of a girl could be seen. if one were to look closely, one of the spirit's eye was blood red while the other one was hidden from sight.
"Ara Ara, this is unexpected. To think that a Counter Guardian was sent to kill us. And quite a powerful one too. This will surely been interesting" said the girl as she tilted her head. " But I wonder Counter Guardian-san, by being sent here, are you able to find out the truth about us Spirits, or will you accomplish the task given to you by her while being kept in the dark about us.
Authors Note
AAAAAANNNNNNDDDD It's done. Phew. Really, I did not expect that many reviews, followers and favourites for this story. Honestly, I was only expecting 2-3 reviews and a couple of people actually fav and follow this story.
The truth is, I was inspired to write this chapter after reading the reviews of the 1st chapter again and then bam, I was done. One of the major reasons I was unable to finish this quickly or even write a 3rd chapter is because I lack information. I have a fair amount of knowledge about the nasuverse but I am very very lacking about the information about the DAL-verse. If anyone would be so kindly to answer my question feel free to pm me.I took a chunk of the information from the light novel since I was lazy to write it since everybody here should now the story, but I really can't just skip that part of the story since it's so important.
I remember reading a review from LightofPurgeandShadowofEmbrace (OMG that's such a long name) offering his help, but I am unsure if his offer still stands so I am asking for help yet there is someone interested in helping me, the 3rd chapter if I decide I will write it will be uploaded faster depending if I am free or not. Anyways thanks for all of the reviews, without it, I would just drop this story.
Also, I am sorry for anyone who reviewed because I didn't reply to them but I will personally pm the reviewers this time around (If there are any) . So hopefully, I'll see you guy next time.