It ended up being late afternoon by the time Akitsu and I finished burying the Enforcers' bodies. Alter!Shirou was sleeping against a tree off to the side of the clearing. It turned out that while my counterpart was more skilled at his Reality Marble in that he could actually deploy it, it still was a massive drain on both his prana and physical stamina. A soon as the Enforcers were dead and Unlimited Trope Works dropped, Alter!Shirou all but passed out from exhaustion on the spot. It gave the impression that the only way he managed to use it as all was to Cast From Hitpoints.

I mentally sighed, letting the shovel I had traced dissolve into nothingness. Now that I had met my trope powered alter ego and seen the projection of his soul, it was unlikely my little "thinking in hyperlinks" problem was going to get better anytime soon. I inspected the area to make sure that there were no signs that someone had dug 5 body sized holes. Seriously, at this rate I wouldn't be surprised if someone who found the steadily increasing number of bodies suddenly appearing in the park thought that there was a serial killer on the loose.

Not finding anything that could incriminate me, I walked over to Alter!Shirou. He was muttering to himself in his sleep, though from what I could make out, it wasn't even remotely coherent. All I could understand was "best plan ever" and "I'm sexy and I know it…". I gently nudged him with my foot and asked "Hey, are you ready to go?"

He sat up with a start and blurted out "Super sentai banana hammock!" There was a long, uncomfortable minute where we just stared at each other as nether one of us could figure out where to go for there. Eventually, Alter!Shirou looked off to the side sheepishly. 'Sorry about that. I don't know if it's a side effect of my abilities, but I have really weird dreams."

I tilted my head to the side. "Do I want to know?"

"I would think not. Don't worry, my memory of them fades with time, and I'm pretty sure they're not Canon."

"Canon?"

"Don't worry about it," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand. He then stood up with a groan, brushing off his pants. "In any case, I'm good enough go off on my own."

I frowned in thought for a moment before asking "Do you have a place to stay?"

"Not really," Alter!Shirou replied. "I only arrived a few hours ago, and unless the current system of currency accepts copper coins as legal tender, I don't have any money either. Don't worry though," he tried to reassure me after seeing the look on my face "This isn't even close to the first time I've been homeless in a strange new place."

I made up my mind on the spot. "The inn I'm stay at has some room left, and the landlady there never turns down someone in need. You can stay with me there."

He seemed reluctant to accept my invitation. "No, no, it's fine. I don't want to be a burden."

This made me smile a bit. While we may have turned out a bit different, we were still very close to the same person. His desire to shoulder his problems on his own mirrored my own feelings on that matter. Or they would have if Matsu hadn't called me out on it after the Fraga magus' attack. "You saved all of our lives from something that should have been my problem to begin with. At least accept this as a form of repayment."

He sighed and rubbed the back of his head, smiling to himself. "You would be able to convince me, wouldn't you? Alright, let's go."

As the three of us started our walk back to the inn, I asked him "By the way, we need a way differentiate between the two of us when we get there." It would be confusing to everyone in the inn if we both responded to Shirou, and I didn't want to call him Alter!Shirou as that seemed vaguely insulting.

My counterpart thought to himself for a second before responding with a grin "Call me Troper."

By the time we got back to the inn, it was just about time for dinner. On the way, Troper gave his own story of what happened during his Grail War. It was… interesting to say the least. Although, some of the things he talked about were things I think I would have preferred not hearing. Such things like some of his experiences with his Rin and Saber…

"…And that was the weirdest thing I ever did to a girl backwards." he concluded as we crossed the threshold of the Izumo House.

I gave him and unsettled expression. "You know what, how about we never talk about that again."

"Ah…" I heard from behind me. Sure enough when I looked behind me, Akitsu had 2 spots of red on her face. "I liked that." she said in disappointment. I tried to resist the urge to palm my face.

I failed to resist the urge.

"Ara ara," I heard from the kitchen. "Emiya-kun, you wouldn't happen t be talking about lewd things, are you?" The voice grew closer, and Miya rounded the corner. When she saw the three of us, she paused and her normally crinkled eyes widened in shock at seeing my doppelganger. "What's this? Perhaps something else from your mysterious past?" Because I was looking for it, I managed to see the subtle shift in Miya posture, readying herself for conflict. It seems that since the Fraga magus showed that there were people in this world who could actually pose a credible threat to her, she had decided not to take any chances with the man that looked exactly like me.

"It's… complicated," I said. "In any case, I had a run in with that "mysterious past" of mine while I was out, and he saved both mine and Akitsu's life." Miya titled her head a bit and looked at Troper with a look of curiosity. I continued "He just got in to town and doesn't have anywhere to go, so I thought he could stay here."

Miya stayed tense for a moment long before relaxing. "Well, if did help you, I suppose it would be the least I can do. Besides," she said with her eye crinkling and a smile returning to her face "My husband would never turn down someone in need."

When both my counterpart and I relaxed, I realized just how tense he had been as well. In fact, the way he had been looking a Miya the whole time reminded me of when I first met Miya. Hmm… I wondered, does that mean he also has my magic sense? He never mentioned it .

My musing were cut short by a familiar cry of "Onii-chan!" as Kuu-chan came in from the living room and ran at me to latch onto my legs. However, as there were two of me standing right next to each other and she was only a second away from having her momentum carry her into us, she didn't exactly have time to think about what was going on. So, her little mind came to the conclusion to just latch on to us both, around my left leg and his right. It was adorable as it was awkward.

"Gah! Moe!" Troper exclaimed in surprise as the young plant mistress attached herself to his leg.

It was at this point Kusano realized the legs she was holding onto belonged to different people. She looked between him and me in confusion."Why are there two Onii-chans?"

"It's… complicated. Look, I'll explain everything at dinner." I said as I tried to placate the young girl.

Having decided that I was the original she looked up at Troper and asked in a hopeful voice "Does other Onii-san have swords too?"

He gave her a smile "No, instead of swords, I have tropes."

"But Kuu-chan wants swords!" she said piteously, unshed tears welling up in her eyes. While I'm sure she had no idea what tropes were, she had already decided that they were inferior to swords.

"Guh! I… but…" It seems his ability to resist Kuu's 'sad face' was about as good as mine, which is to say, not at all. With a sigh of defeat, he put out his hand and incanted "Inverted Absurdly Sharp Blade." Then, in a rather similar manner as my own tracing, a generic looking broadsword appeared in his hand.

""Yay! Sword!" Kusano exclaimed as she reached up for the blade.

"Kuu-chan!" Miya chided the younger Sekirei. "I've told you that little girls shouldn't play with swords. You could cut yourself!"

"Actually Miya, that would be impossible…" I said, looking at the sword Troper made with intense curiosity. "That is the dullest sword I have ever seen in my life. It's so dull that the dullness extends a few inches from the blade, making it impossible to touch." Indeed, Kuu's hands hand stopped a few inches from the blade, her efforts to reach it just pushing the sword further away from her. I heard a familiar rumbling in her chest as an angry "Fuuuuuuuuu!" signaled her frustration at the situation.

Before Kuu decided to rectify the situation with her teeth in his leg, the rest of my flock started to show up. The first in was Homura, who froze on the spot with a choking sound coming from his throat. Right behind him was Matsu, who rather than freezing, keep walking forward without taking her widening eyes off Troper. This caused her to walk into Homura and make them both stumble. They could have recovered from this, but Tsumkiumi, who was too busy in one of her usual arguments with Musubi to see where she was going, walked into the hall from the other direction and crashed into the pair. Then the three of them tried to grab onto Musubi for balance, which just caused all four of them to go down in a heap. Finally, Kazehana came in from the stairwell. She looked at the pile of Sekirei, shrugged, and dove onto the pile herself, not knowing what was going on, but wanting to be a part of it nonetheless.

One hand wasn't enough for this Disaster Dominoes. Cue double face palm.

"How?" I heard Homura's voice from the bottom of the pile. "How is it you keep finding ways to make things more absurd? There has to be a limit! Why do you keep doing this to me?" It seemed he was taking this latest affront to view of reality somewhat personally. The rest of my flock then began clamoring for answers as well.

"It's… complicated." I said weakly, but I was pretty sure that none of them could hear me over each other. As I was readying myself to take control of the situation, a felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Don't worry, I've got this one" Troper said, and he moved past me to stand in front of my flock. "Right. Introduction time. Dramatic Wind!" A breeze sudden sweep through the hall of the Izumo House, causing his longcoat to billow out behind him. The effect was quite impressive, and it caused everyone on the hall to stop talking and focus on him. He settled into a Badass Arm Fold pose and said "My name is Shirou Emiya! I am the Lord of Tropes, a Dimensional Journeyman, and an eternal Seeker of the Happily Ever After!" He gave a grin. "You can call me Troper."

My flock gave an "Ooooooo" of appreciation. Showoff.