Shirou stumbled out and pulled the passenger door open. He grabbed Berserker by the wrist and pulled his arm over his shoulder.
"Come and gimme a hand." He grunted under the weight of the Servant and his own broken ribs.
Rin rushed to Berserker's other side and threw his other arm over her shoulder as well. Between them they half dragged, half carried the massive Servant into the mansion. To her surprise Rin detected a faint magical aura emanating from Shirou. It was similar to the one that had burst forth when he had lifted the car but much less powerful, more along the lines of what she would expect from an ordinary magus. Rin surreptitiously reached out with her magical senses to try and figure out what kind of magecraft Shirou was using. If he noticed her magical probing he gave no sign. To her surprise the spell was relatively simple, even if he was using it in a way that Rin had never encountered. It was simple fortification magic. Shirou was fortifying his body's toughness, just as he had fortified his strength during the fight. It was probably the only reason he was still on his feet.
They passed through the massive double front doors and once again carried Berserker into the kitchen. This time Ilya and the others were waiting for them.
"What happened?" Ilya asked, tremulous concern audible in her voice.
"We saw a massive spike on the map and you were gone, I was just about to come out looking for you!"
"We had a run-in with Assassin. It didn't end well." Rin replied grimly as they laid Berserker out on the table.
Shirou quickly grabbed a pair of kitchen shears and slit Berserker's pant legs up the side, pulling the fabric away to reveal his wounds.
"Crud, this is bad. We need to get him to a hospital." He said.
"A hospital won't do anything." Rin replied, trying to keep the despair out of her voice.
She could feel Berserker's life ebbing through her link to him.
"I...I don't think I can heal all of this." She said miserably.
She was determined to try though. She pulled out all of the mana gems that she had available and channeled through them, weaving the most powerful healing spell that she could. There was too much damage for a blanket approach so she directed the healing energies like a scalpel. First she repaired the two deepest cuts, the massive slashes to Berserker's legs. At least if he survived he wouldn't be crippled. If he survived. The rest wasn't so easy. All of the other cuts had been magically inflicted and resisted the healing energies. Rin had to focus twice as hard for half the effect. She closed the deepest wounds and had started pulling together some of the cuts to Berserker's torso when she felt something go slack within her like an empty sack. The glow from her mana gems winked out, they were completely drained.
She could feel Berserker continue to fade away.
"No, NO!" She cried. In desperation and despair she thumped her fist down into Berserker's chest.
He jerked upwards with a gasp.
"Rin! I was...when I was...huurng." He choked, blood flecking his mouth.
"Shhh, don't try to talk." Rin said, putting a finger over his lips.
He pulled her hand away, leaving streaks of blood on her sleeve.
"Listen. Assassin. When he sent me there...I saw...I saw...it said Whitechapel."
Rin's eyes widened. A shadowy murderer with ties to Whitechapel St?
"That makes Assassin...Jack the Ripper! That doesn't make any sense. How? He was never famous, never revered. History doesn't even know who he was. How could he qualify to be a Heroic Spirit."
"I..I don't." Berserker struggled briefly and then fell back, his chest rising and falling shallowly. Rin bit her lip in anxiety. She could still feel his life fading away. Tears of frustration streaked the blood and grime on her face.
Ilya watched the proceedings wide eyed, tears glistening in her eyes as well. She looked back and forth between Berserker and Rin, her features wavering in uncertainty.
"Oh, Rin, I'm so sorry. My father, he made me promise not to...oh, you won't hate me will you? I just can't stand by while...Caster, can you do anything?"
Rin's head jerked up when she heard Ilya mention Caster. Her eyes flicked to Estavio as he stepped forwards. He rubbed at his chin thoughtfully and then nodded. There was an all too familiar burst of grail energy and his appearance subtly shifted. Rin stared wide eyed. The man before her was still Estavio, but now clad in shimmering robes with a royal purple streak running from shoulder to waist. His slender fingers were folded into his sleeves, his white hair was no longer immaculately combed, instead it fanned out in a wild halo above his head like he had been electrocuted. The look of wisdom in his eye, his protectiveness of Ilya, his estrangement from his "wife" Melva, it all made sense now. He had been Ilya's Servant since the very beginning.
"His natural Servants healing will be more effective than magecraft against these wounds, but he needs time for it to work. I'll leave him mobile through Space but I'll retard his passage through Time." He said.
He stepped forward and threw his hands over Berserker's body. Unidentifiable and unimaginably powerful magic flowed from him over the dying Servant. Rin felt a sudden tug against her link to him as he was put into stasis, a natural consequence of moving through time at a different speed than her Servant.
"Time control! That's True Magic! Who..." She stammered.
Caster glanced at Ilya, who nodded.
"No use hiding anything now." She said.
Caster bowed deeply, his robes drooping.
"Archimedes, at your service."
Rin's head whirled.
"That means that everything...even the map..."
"Yes. It was Ilya's idea, clever girl." Caster said.
"Rather than have me establish a single, powerful Workshop aura here I established the entire city as my workshop. It isn't powerful enough to give me an edge in combat but, as you've seen, it makes for an excellent early detection system."
Rin fell heavily into a kitchen chair.
"It's...it's a lot to take in. Will he...will Berserker be alright?" She asked tremulously.
"I believe he will. I've put him in a state of suspended animation, he shouldn't deteriorate any further until his natural healing has had a chance to catch up." Caster replied.
"I...thank you. Ilya I...just...thank you." She said. She pushed herself to her feet and moved towards the door. Ilya moved to follow but caster laid a knobbly hand on her shoulder.
"Let her go." He said. "She has a lot on her plate."
Rin stumbled out into the hallway. Her world seemed like it was collapsing. So many secrets, so many lies. Why couldn't things be simple? Easy? She was sick of feeling powerless. Sick of having to plan around Berserker's weakness. Did she resent him for that? She did, a bit, and she hated herself for it. She was confused by his feelings for her. And she was confused by her own feelings for...
She heard the kitchen door close softly and whirled. Shirou stood in the darkness of the hallway. His face was shrouded in shadow, she couldn't make out her expression. Rin sniffled and scrubbed a hand across her face, blinking back stinging tears. Shirou!
"Why did you go!" She raged, surging forwards.
She slapped him as hard as she could, the sound echoing through the dark hallway like a gunshot. He didn't retaliate. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, his face turned to the side where her blow had moved it, his eyes downcast. Rin stood there panting, hot tears brimming at the corner of her eyes.
"Answer me, damn it!" She hit him again, pounding her tiny fist against his chest. She may as well have been hitting an oak.
"Why did you go! He could have died!" She screamed, pounding futilely on Shirou's broad chest.
"You could have died." She whispered.
His broad arms rose slowly around her and crossed over her back, pulling her gently forwards. Her blows shortened and then ceased as he pulled her in, her fists pinned against his body by his encircling arms.
"I'm sorry." He whispered into her hair.
The stress, Berserker's injury, the mental exhausting of dealing with Assassin's fear effect, it all came crashing in on Rin. She sobbed against Shirou's chest, trembling in his strong arms for long minutes.
She felt better after she had cried herself out, filled with the empty feelings of release, of letting go. She pulled back slightly to see her face in a mask of mucous and tears on Shirou's shirt. She sniffed and looked up at him. Their faces were inches apart. He didn't move back, she didn't move forwards. They just looked at each other. Her eyes darted between his, looking back and forth between his eyes and his mouth. His lips parted slightly and Rin's breath caught.
"Rin..." He said.
"...Yes?" She asked in a small voice, pushing her self up on her toes.
"You've got snot on you."
Rin blushed furiously and pushed herself away, turning and self consciously scrubbing her sleeve across her face.
"What was that back there? Why didn't you tell me you were a magus?" She asked accusatively when she turned back around.
Rin wasn't even close to ready to begin hacking at the tangled snarl that was her feelings. But a purely mechanical mystery she could deal with.
Shirou quirked an eyebrow.
"Huh? A magus? Do you mean my, uh, powers? That's not magic. It's more like super powers. You saw. I can toss cars around, not pull rabbits out of hats."
Rin's brow furrowed. He didn't seem like he was lying, more like he was genuinely confused. Could it be that he didn't know how his own powers worked?
"No, what you did was definitely magic. But you use it in a way that I've never seen before. And it's much more powerful than it should be. Show me again." She said.
Shirou shifted uncomfortably.
"I...try not to use it for trivial reasons. I don't wanna use it all up."
Rin waved her hand dismissively.
"Oh, don't worry about that. Prana, that's the power that your abilities are using, recharges. Think of it like a cup standing in the rain. It fills up with prana and then you draw a bit of it each time you use your powers. The more you draw at once the more powerful the spell is. Once the cup is empty you have to stop for a while, but it'll eventually fill up again. For some reason you can draw a lot more prana a lot faster than you should be able to."
Shirou still looked dubious but he nodded.
"Okay, if it'll make you happy. Here goes." He said.
Once again Rin picked up a low level fortification spell emanating from Shirou. She focused with her magical senses and was surprised by what she saw.
"This is most unusual. I haven't seen anything like this before. Something about the way you use your powers creates a...a magical lens effect. It focuses your magic on your own body. It means that your magic affects your own body more strongly than it should, but it also means that you probably can't cast spells on external objects. You can use your magic on yourself and it will be way more effective than normal, but you can't use magic on other objects."
Shirou looked surprised.
"No kidding? And it really is magic? Well, son of a gun. I always thought it was a side effect from..." Shirou glanced at Rin but she was too excited about her discovery to notice the odd look that he gave her.
"Toxic waste or radioactive spiders or whatever made me like this. Do you think I'll be able to learn to cast spells like you?" He asked.
Rin frowned.
"I'm not sure, but it isn't likely. That lens effect prevents you from using magic on external objects. Can you tell me how you do that?"
Shirou shook his head.
"It's like walking." He said.
"You don't think 'I'll flex my left quadricept and left hip flexer to raise the leg while simultaneously flexing my right hamstring and calf muscle'. You just...walk. I couldn't tell you how I do what I do. Just that I do."
Rin nodded. Shirou wouldn't be able to compete with a fully fledged Servant even with his self fortification, but between him and Berserker he would give their team an edge. Rin smiled a bit inwardly. She had a team, and it felt good to have people to rely on.
"Well, get some sleep. We have lots to do tomorrow while Berserker is recuperating." She said.
As she turned away to mount the stairs to her room she glanced back one more time over her shoulder. She blushed. Shirou didn't notice since he was checking out her legs again. Rin gave a saucy roll of her hips and headed into her bedroom to clean up.