5th Day – Part 3 – Poisoning (2)

They descended the passage in silence, eventually Shirou saw the entrance to a chamber, a strange feeling emanated from it. A greenish light was coming from it and he could hear strange sounds. "Sakura!" He tried to jump ahead but was held by Assassin.

"Calm down, Emiya, I'll let you in when the time comes, but for now let me deal with this." Shirou tried to struggle, but Assassin was too strong.

"You're really unable to keep a cool head when it's about a more intimate person, that's too much of a weakness, boy."

Shinji entered the chamber and turned, he started to talk to someone. "Yo, feeling fine today? Oh, silly me, of course not, you have to deal with this instead of going to Emiya's house right?" He sat down. "Emiya really is a good guy, isn't he? Who knows, if he ever discovered what you have to deal with he might even try to save you. Sort of like uncle Kariya." He had a sinister smile on his face. "Remember uncle Kariya?"

What was he talking about? If Sakura really needed help, they shouldn't waste time, why was Shinji talking about something like that? Shirou opened his mouth, but any sound he would make was stifled by Assassin putting his hand over his mouth. He whispered. "Shut up, don't ruin it, wait until it's your turn." Shirou could sense murder in Assassin's words.

"Poor uncle Kariya, he practically reduced himself to a walking sac of flesh, all for you. Did he ever get a single word of thanks? I don't think so. Sure, he might have pathetically failed." Shinji stopped talking for a moment, Shirou wasn't sure because he couldn't hear, but someone was saying something. Was it Sakura? "Why? I just thought I would point out how much of an ungrateful person you are. But then again, who knows? Perhaps as he lost his last spark of life he might have had an hallucination better than any 'thanks for trying' you might have given him." He let out a long sigh. "It hurts me, you know, this miserable life of yours, so I decided to give you a chance of redemption. You always dreamed of being saved, right? Try to treat your savior better this time. Hey, Emiya, it's your turn."

"Don't disappoint us." With that, Assassin practically threw Shirou inside the chamber. Shirou quickly realized that where Shinji was sitting was a sort of walkway, at this end there were stairs down to a pit that dominated practically the entirety of the room. He looked towards the pit.

"Senpai!"

"Sakura!" They both spoke at the same time. Something fizzled inside Shirou as he took in that scene.

Sakura was completely naked, surrounded by innumerous… Worms? Maggots? Shirou wasn't sure of how to describe them, nor did he want to. They writhed and wriggled and moved on Sakura, some other latched on to her. Other tried to enter through any open orifice. Shirou couldn't have imagined such a thing in even the most feverish and horrific of his nightmares. Still, despite all of that, the part made him feel sick the most was her face. Even if she did not always laugh, she always had a gentle expression on his face. There was no trace of a smile on her face. It was a kind of horrified shocked face. A single tear rolled down her face and a few worms jumped on it, she ignored them.

"Nooooooooo!" It was something akin to a shriek. Sakura shrank, as if trying to block her view from Shirou, as if the most important part was for him not to see her. "Please, don't look at me, Senpai." It was pained, like she was begging.

Shirou, however, wasn't listening to her. Without thinking about anything he jumped. Before he could start falling though, something grasped his collar and pulled him back. He hit the wall with a thud and lost his breath. "Don't be stupid, boy, if you jump in right now you will just get devoured by the worms." Assassin was looking at him with contempt.

"Just leave him be, Assassin, if he can't keep up his promise of not losing his cool, he should just die pathetically." He was squatting near the CD player and was pressing a few buttons. "There, that will rile them up even more." 'click', just as Shinji pressed the button, "Master of Puppets" by Metallica started to blast from the CD player.

Shirou stood up after recovering his breath. "Shinji! What are you doing? Is this your doing?" He could barely think, all he knew was that he had to do something.

End of passion play

Crumbling away

I'm your sword of self-destruction

"How rude of you! There is only one person heartless enough in this house to do such a thing." Shinji pointed beyond Shirou, at the breathless old man standing at the chamber's entrance.

"Shinji, you worthless… What are you doing, you retard? If this keeps up, the worms are going to devour Sakura!" There was panic in his voice.

Taste me you will see

More is all you need

Dedicated to

How I'm killing you

Thorn by indecision, Shirou faced Shinji. "Shinji, stop this! If Sakura dies, even if it's you, I will never forgive you!"

Come crawling faster

Obey your Master

Your life burns faster

Obey your Master

Master

"Shinji! I told you to stop, damn it!" Both Shirou and Zouken went after Shinji. Assassin tripped Shirou and slashed at Zouken with a saber that he seemingly took from inside his cloak.

"Geez, what killjoys you guys are, can't you even wait for the chorus to end?" He turned his sight to the pit. Sakura had already fainted and the worms were nervous enough that they were constantly drawing blood from her, blood which they hungrily went after. It was enough. "They're at the point. Do it, Assassin." He dodged a wild swing from Shirou.

Assassin kicked Zouken, who fell on his back outside the room. He then took a sac from inside his cloak and threw it on the pit's direction, after that quickly drawing a pistol and shooting the sac. A cloud of some sort of dust descended on the pit. "It's done, Master."

As the dust touched the worms, a nightmarish sound, some sort of hellish shriek escaped from them, it was only partially drowned by the music that was still going on.

Blinded by me

You can't see a thing

Master

Master

Just call my name cause I'll hear you scream

Master, master, master…

By the time the solo started no more sound was coming from the pit. "See, Emiya? I'm your friend. Go on, it's safe now, the princess needs the prince." Shirou didn't say anything and merely rushed for the stairs that led into the pit. He hoped Sakura was still okay.

Assassin finally let Zouken into the chamber. "Shinji, damn you, what do you think you're doing? You want to completely wreck my plans?" He glared at him with murderous intent.

If Zouken thought that Shinji was going to look down, apologize and act submissively as always, he was very wrong. Shinji frowned at him with disgust. "Shut up, old man, your plans suck, and this is no time to talk about mine." He pointed at Shirou, who was ascending from the pit with Sakura in his arms. Zouken didn't avert his glare. If a look could kill, Shinji would be a corpse.

Master, master

Promised only lies

Laughter, laughter

All I hear or see is laughter

Laughter, laughter

Laughing at my cries

Shirou stopped just behind Shinji and glared at Zouken. "You're the one who did this to Sakura, aren't you?" Parent or not, Shirou was not about to forgive that old man. He concentrated on the Command Spell engraved in his hand and started to call for Rider.

"Whoa there, don't rush yourself, Emiya." He threw his palm at Shirou's throat, interrupting and making his stumble back coughing. "Let's not turn this into a battle between Servants. I don't terribly mind having Assassin protect you from the old man, but I'd hate to have to protect him from your Servant. Would leave a bad taste in my mouth, see?"

There was no mirth in the laughter coming from Zouken. "Hehe, so you have no love for your grandfather, I see. Well that makes sense, I've never given you any, it'd be only… Hey, why are you ignoring me?"

'click' The music ended. "Oh, I'm sorry, it's just that I was thinking about how since your vocal chords must be rotten, it explains that you can't speak loud enough to be heard over the music."

"Huh, what disrespect. A useless father, it should have been obvious that he would only have an even more useless son. At the very least you should have shut up and be a mildly useful pawn like Kariya."

Shinji's face darkened at the mention of his uncle. "Fuck you. Assassin." He made a gesture with his head towards the pit. Assassin cut Zouken in his mid-section, then kicked both parts into the pit. The old man continued to spit curses from down there.

Shirou watched all of that unfold in silence, but he kept glaring at Shinji. He passed by wordlessly and headed to the exit of the chamber. "Not a single thank you? How ungrateful you are, Emiya. Even though I helped you save my dear little sister. One last thing!" Shirou stopped by the exit, but did not turn back. "Grab something with which to cover my sister, it's shameful to carry her naked around." Shirou didn't answer. It was obvious.

Assassin was silent up until Shirou vanished from sight. "What now, Master?" It wasn't a question, so much as a confirmation of what they had already probably agreed.

"Now we wait. Patience will likely eventually reward us with another opportunity." He walked to the border and looked at the upper part of Zouken crawling to the stairs. "Don't worry, crappy old man, I'll bring you a corpse for you to possess. Eventually." He walked back to the CD player and pressed the play button again.

Master of puppets

I'm pulling your strings

Twisting your mind and smashing your dreams…

He hummed along the rest of the song.

What she going to do? When Shirou had finally arrived, Rin wanted to first scold him, then have a serious talk about what they were going to do from then on. Unfortunately that wasn't possible. Shirou entered the house with a face as grim she had ever seen. Sakura was unconscious in his arms, nothing but a bed sheet covering her. Rin tried to ask him but he said nothing. Neither Rider nor Saber were able to pry an answer from him.

"I need to think, leave me alone!" Was the most any of them got from him. At least they were able to get him to leave Sakura's side when they were going to change her.

As the sun was setting, it was quite the awkward strategy meeting between them. It seemed as if Shirou was forbidding any of them to talk. Rin was the first to defy that. "I think I have an idea of where a Master might be, maybe it would be a good idea if…"

"Rider and I are staying tonight to protect Sakura." He didn't even let Rin finish.

At that, Rin lost her patience. "Look, I don't know what happened with you and Sakura, but if you don't talk about it then obviously I won't know it!" She banged on the table with her hand.

Shirou replied with an even louder bang. "Of course you don't know! You're unrelated!" He kept his gaze firm, not backing down, despite the insensitive remark.

Rin opened her mouth then closed it. Of course I'm related! Sakura is my… But could she even say it? It wasn't like they were sisters by any standard but blood. She didn't even know what had just happened to Sakura. Frustration was starting to boil over. "Fine, so something happened! Why such a reaction? You can't simply abandon the offensive like that."

Shirou stood up. "Tohsaka. You weren't there."

It took a lot of effort from Rin not to draw blood by biting her own lip. I can't change that now! Why don't you tell me? But that would just make the argument full-circle, instead she swallowed her frustration and conceded. "Okay, I understand. At least make sure that you take care of Sakura."

"You don't need to tell me that."

As she left for her reconnaissance at 10 o'clock, Rin couldn't help but pity Fujimura-sensei. She had no idea what was going on but was still roughly sent away by a merciless and angry Shirou. "Go get dinner on your own." That was probably also the first time she saw Shirou like that. Probably that was the first time that Shirou was so angry with something.

Well, Rin was sure that he would eventually tell her at least part of what happened. It did her no good to worry about it right then. She was going out into enemy territory after all. She couldn't afford to worry about other things as she went to the battlefield. "Saber, let's go."

It was merely a theory, but she hoped it was right. All of the comas caused around town had to be a Servant's work. However, there's no way that it wasn't being done from a place of advantage. Even a Servant, without some kind of help, would use up more energy by gathering at a distance than could be absorbed.

The first possibility was Ryudou Temple, but a preliminary investigation turned up nothing. After the school she approached the place with the pretext of tormenting the Student Council president, but she could neither glean any kind of information from Ryudou-kun's comments nor sense any sign that a powerful Magus inhabited the Temple. After all, the Servant could only be Caster, the Magus Servant.

The second possibility, however, was more of a shot in the dark, a desperate attempt of finding the enemy. After all she was relying on rumors to support. Many witnesses reported seeing strange sparks coming from plugs or electric wires before people fell into a coma. So maybe, just maybe, very, very improbably, the Servant might have been using the city's electrical grid to accumulate the power. Even she knew how ridiculous that sounded, but it was the best she could come up with. Still, if it was right, then there would be only one place that they could be: The city's electric substation.

Fuyuki wasn't such a big city so it had one big main substation to distribute energy to the whole city. As she and Saber arrived, Rin was almost completely sure that this was the right place; the ominous aura that she didn't find in Ryudou Temple could be found in spades here.

"Rin, I can feel a Servant." Saber said calmly.

"Bingo." She wasn't sure whether to be happy or sad about that.

They climbed the fence and entered the facility easily enough, however, Rin couldn't help but feel uneasy with all of the wires hanging over them. It was as if… "Watch out, Rin. Things are getting dangerous from this point on."

Saber had a bad feeling about this. She didn't know why, but her instincts were screaming. Run away, this place is dangerous. It was determined that their opponent was probably Caster, which was possibly the best matchup she could ask for, as Caster would probably be unable to harm her in any way due to her magic resistance.

Still, she felt unease approaching that field. S if there were point where she could not stand for long. "Saber, try to approach the building." The substation's building wasn't very big and it wasn't very far either, but Saber felt that she had to act cautiously.

She experimented entering the area that she felt to be dangerous and quickly stepped away. Lightning coming from the wires struck the ground where she was. "That's magic… I shouldn't be afraid of magic." But she felt that getting hit by it was a bad idea. She closed her eyes and calmly analyzed the trap in front of her. She knew the safest route.

She ran and leapt where necessary, lightning danced around Saber, but never touched her. She was almost there when she suddenly realized it. She fell for it, there was nowhere to run. "Too bad." Lightning struck her and she let a gasp escape. "If this was a fair maze you would have won, miss." Two men emerged from the building, probably Servant and Master.

"How come, I am being affected?" She didn't feel that there was anything wrong with her magic resistance, so why?

"Oh, so you have great magic resistance, then…" It was the man with a tidy mustache that was speaking. "Frederick! Looks like we caught ourselves a big fish, I think this is Saber."

"I see… She might make a good battery. Lots of magical energy or so I heard."

The situation was catastrophic. Still, how was Saber being affected by the lightning? "What is going on? How did you guys take my Saber down?"

The man with the mustache turned to her, somehow he was terribly familiar. "Oh, talking about her magic resistance, right? That's simple, no magic was cast directly on her." Huh? "It is quite disappointing really, you Magus People. Just because you have this wondrous kind of energy, you all are so terribly inefficient about it. I just armed enough mines on the ground to create conditions in which a current could come from a wire to the point on the ground. I made it a maze too, so I could just make something that cannot be dodged at the end. Your Servant fell for it because she was paying too much attention to the pre-made attractors." The man spoke with a blasé that was almost frightening. "Though I guess since it is a physical phenomenon, it cannot deliver the killing blow to a Servant."

There was still something bothering Tohsaka though. "Are you not the Servant Caster?"

The man bowed. "The one and only, missy. Though I'm afraid that my Master and I are too engrossed in our research to pay much attention to the War that is going on." She stashed that information, it could be useful later.

"Then are you not a Magus?" It made no sense if he wasn't. Caster had to be a Magus. "You said: You Magus People."

The man smiled. "I'm afraid I am no Magus. Just look closely at my face, it should be recognizable. Or are you going to tell me that that bastard Edison's campaign to besmirch my name was that good?"

It all made sense now. Of course he was not a Magus, of course he manipulated electricity like his toy. The man in front of Tohsaka Rin was the non-Magus closest to a sorcerer that the world had seen: Nikola Tesla. Things were bad, she had to run away, but how to free Saber?

A voice nearby gave her the answer, but she didn't like it very much. "It would hurt me if Saber were to be imprisoned right now, could you please let her go?" The voice belonged to Matou Shinji.

Caster turned to him. "Oh? If you're asking that of me, then you have a good reason. So you want to me to easily part with my newly acquired battery? I wouldn't need to attack any more people in the city if I had her, can't you think of the city's inhabitants?" He spoke calmly as if he was discussing by a fireplace.

Shinji quickly dismissed his response. "No can do, I'm the Master of Assassin, if you don't let Saber go in five minutes I can't guarantee your master's life."

Caster sighed. "Fine, I don't want to jeopardize our research on behalf of a mere battery." He released the lightning that kept stunning Saber. She staggered back to Rin's side. "Don't come back here, we just want to research, next time I won't have mercy." He turned back and entered the building.

Shinji smiled triumphantly at Tohsaka. "Don't expect me to thank you." She regarded him with disdain. "That was quite a bluff."

Shinji chuckled. "First of all, of course I won't expect any thank you from Tohsaka Rin, surely you could escape that situation on your own, eh?" Rin averted her gaze. "Second, that wasn't a bluff." Assassin materialized beside Shinji. "Also, how's Emiya doing?"

As he said that, it didn't take too long for Rin to add two and two. "It was you! Shinji, what did you do to Shirou and Sakura?" She would have grabbed him by the collar if Assassin hadn't out himself between them.

Shinji acted innocent. "Me? Wait. I see… Emiya is really depressed, isn't he? Well, he should be, after that blunder, really. He could have killed Sakura you know? Lucky thing I was there to salvage the situation."

So the reason he was feeling so depressed was that it was his fault that Sakura was like that? It couldn't be. But wait, it made sense, he seemed like he was one of those with a huge sense of guilt. Rin wanted to say something to defend Shirou, but she couldn't.

"Anyway, good thing I was passing by. Don't mind me. You don't have to owe me one if you don't want to. I just don't want my schoolmate to lose like this." With that he left.

It probably wasn't Shirou's fault. That's what Tohsaka wanted to believe. So why, why did it make so much sense when she put the blame on him? That could also be why he refused to talk about it. "No, don't start distrusting him now… Idiot." She could tell herself that, but it was as if she had been poisoned somehow.

5th Day end

So ends this chapter. Of course i don't own the rights for "Master of Puppets" by Metallica, but i thought it'd be cooler this way. Anyway, here's the Stat Sheet for Caster (or what is known by Shirou and Rin, sort of).

General)

Master: Frederick Feuerbach

True Name: Nikola Tesla

Alignment: Lawful Good

Strength: E

Endurance: D

Agility: D

Magical Energy: E

Luck: E

Noble Phantasm: C

Class abilities)

Territory Creation A: Actually not in use, since Nikola Tesla was not a Magus, therefore he is unable to make use of this class ability.

Tool Creation A: Creation of tools that carry magical energy.

Details)

Tesla was one of the foremost researchers in the use of electricity. If it wasn't for him, Edison's inferior direct current would possibly be used instead of alternating current. Most likely you wouldn't be reading this if it wasn't for Tesla. Really, go read on the guy as he was pretty much a genius and quite deserving to be called one of the closest people that the real world has to a Magus.

Skills)

Visualization A: He can easily visualize the structure of anything that he comes up with, facilitating in its creation.

Efficiency B: His expertise at making use of energy cuts severely the cost of any spells or magic cast by him.

Understanding A: How fast one analyses new technical information. He is adept at absorbing even the most complex information in a small time frame.

Noble Phantasm)

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