"So, let me get this straight," Rin said as she cradled he forehead in her hand. "After fleeing England and coming here, you by pure coincidence found your long lost family, by pure accident stumbled into this demented war between super powered alien females all orchestrated by sociopathic man-child, and by pure bloody minded stupidity ended up marrying several of the aforementioned alien females before realizing you were participating in a mating ritual?"

I had to bite my lip to keep myself from automatically responding, but unfortunately Musubi took up the call in my stead. "He's also incredibly good looking, too!"

I sighed as Rin's eyebrow twitched, all the while the rest of my Sekeri nodded in agreement with Musubi's statement. All things considered, things had been going fairly well since Rin, Saber and I left the Izumi international building. Though I still wasn't clear on just how much my former lovers new about the current situation, they apparently knew enough that they weren't pleased when they realized that all the women who greeted me outside the building were my Sekirei. Fortunately, I managed to convince them to come back to the inn with me to explain everything after only a relatively small amount of yelling on Rin's part.

Unfortunately, the amount of yelling drastically increased when Tsukiumi, as she frequently did, asserted how the bond between Ashikabi and Sekirei is equivalent to one of marriage halfway back. The rest of the trip back was… unpleasant needless to say.

In any case, things calmed down after we all got back to the inn (and it's Table of Exposition as Troper liked to call it) and I managed to explain the series of events that led into my current situation. During my explanation, Rin had managed to calm down enough to let me talk, although she frequently interrupted to ask me questions. Saber on the other hand had mostly remained silent, though she did have a small frown on her face the whole time (that is, when she wasn't eating copious amounts of the diner Miya prepared or give the landlady speculative glances for some reason). While not as vocal about it as the tiny magus, she was not particularly happy about it ether.

Rin gave me a frustrated look. "You know, if you were anyone else, I probably would have beaten them senseless for telling me such a ridiculous and unbelievable story as to how it wasn't their fault that they married a bunch of cow chested bimbos." She ignored the indignant squawks from around the table as she continued, putting her face into her hand. "But you, you truly are so dense that you can have women literally throwing themselves at you and still not get the hint, aren't you?"

"Indeed," Saber added. "I might not be the best at understanding romantic intentions, but even I would have figured it out sooner."

I grimaced at their frank assessment. "Nice to know that being obtuse makes me more believable. Now that we've gone through the absurdity that has been my past six month, how about we talk about yours? Namely, what are you doing here?"

"Oh no, we're not moving off the topic off your 'wives' that easily." Rin said with a glare. "And furthermore, you still haven't given a good explanation as to who the hell that other you was."

I surpressed a sigh as I silently wished Troper was here so that he could both explain who he was to her and distract her from being mad at me. However, shortly before our group left for the Izumo House, he said that he needed to track down his Rin and that he would be out for the rest of the night doing so. When I asked him if he thought that the Clock Tower had captured her, he just gave a small chuckle and remarked that if they had her as a captive, they were probably regretting it by now. "He's an alternate dimensional version of me who is apprenticed to Zelretch and was dropped off in this dimension by Zelretch because the sorcerer found it amusing. What more of an explanation do you need?"

"You could start with why he felt the need to embrace me when we first met." Saber said.

I paused for a moment, trying to think of the best way to explain such a sensitive subject which I had limited information on. "He… missed you." I said. Saber gave me a look of confusion and I continued. "I honestly can't really tell you that much about it because he doesn't like to talk about it, but he and his Rin… lost their version of you at some point." The blonde swordswoman's eyes widened at this. "I can only guess that at seeing you so suddenly, his emotions got the better of him."

Rin and Saber were quiet for a moment, both understanding the pain of being separated from the one you love. I did not tell them that his situation might not be so different that what the three of ours was until today, however. I wasn't supposed to know that Troper and his Rin were looking for their Saber, though I still wasn't sure what happened to her. As such, I didn't feel it was my place to tell Rin and Saber about it.

I decided that we should move on from the subject. "Look, I don't think it would be right for me to talk about it anymore without him here. Besides, anything else you would want to know about him he'd have a better time explaining anyway. So, can we please talk about what you're doing in Shin Tokyo?" I had a few assumptions about why they were here given the situation and a few bits of stray information I had picked up during my fight with Eltanwise, but I wanted to be sure.

Rin paused for a moment before she began talking. "About a week ago I was contacted by one of Eltanwise's retainers with a proposition. He said that Eltanwise was currently working on a project in Japan and had suddenly found himself shorthanded. I know that I wasn't the only one who was extended such an offer, but I was picked in particular for my experience with the area." Of course by area, she meant Japan in general rather than the city. Considering how few Asians there are in the Clock Tower and how skilled Rin was as a magus, it's unsurprising she was chosen. "In exchange for my aid, I would get a certain amount of political weight within the Clock Tower."

I gave a nod, this basically confirming what I suspected. "Did he tell you what he was doing?"

"Not in detail." She responded. "All that was said what the he was researching some kind of new magical species. In any case, I accepted as the favors Eltanwise offered would have been useful in going toward getting your Sealing Designation removed, and it seemed like a good chance to visit my homeland while we were at it."

Saber spoke up. "It was also a good chance to try to look for you without looking suspicious." She looked to the side sheepishly. "We… thought it was likely that you returned to Japan and were hoping that we might have been able to get some leads as to your whereabouts. We both knew it was unlikely, but it was still worth trying."

"Ah, and even though you only had the slightest chance of seeing your lost lover again, you both traveled across the world without hesitation just for the possibility of being reunited!" Kazehana said dreamily, clutching a bottle of sake to her chest as she did so. "And now your hope has paid off with a destined reunion between lovers so cruelly torn apart!"

I could practically see Rin and Saber sweat drop at the wind Sekirei's rather flowery description of the three of us finding each other again. "Anyway," Rin said while looking at Kazahana, "It wasn't until we got here that we learned the details of just what the Sekirei were, though to be honest, it seems that the magi here are missing a few rather crucial bits of data regarding them." As she said this, she shifted her gaze to Tsukiumi and gave her a glare, who returned it in kind. As she was the one who was the most vocal about our status as husband and wife, Rin had taken to butting heads with her the most on the trip back to the inn. It didn't help that they were both very confrontational, so neither one was very good at backing down.

"So what exactly do they know about the Sekirei?" I asked quickly before the two of them could get into a 'tsundere-off' that would inevitably end in destruction. Not only did I want to avoid the wrath of Miya, but it was important to know just how much of a threat these people were to the Sekirei.

The small magus spare one last glare at the water Sekirei before she unconsciously adopted the 'Rin Tohsaka Lecture Position Number 1', with her right arm and index finger pointed upward and her right elbow supported with her left hand. "As far as the Clock Tower is aware, the Sekirei are species of magical creature of indeterminate extra-terrestrial origin. However, rather than thinking they are a completely separate species, they believe that all the Sekirei they've seen so far are hybrids of humans and the original creatures. They came to this conclusion due to the numerous similarities to humans they've observed in both physical appearance and the nature of their magical circuits."

I pursed my lips in thought at this. I suppose it made a kind of sense. I admittedly didn't know that much about other alien creatures, but from what little I've heard about the Types indicates that they are truly alien in both appearance and in nature. The Sekirei on the other hand are just so, well, human. A comparison could be drawn to how Dead Apostles could be seen as a sort of human/Type-moon hybrid, but that is probably not the best example as from what I've heard the True Ancestors look just like us. On the only hand, I had no idea what the original Crimson Moon was like. Really, the important thing me to realize here was that I had no experience in classifying alien organisms and should probably stop trying.

"Whatever the case may be," Rin continued, "It was determined that they are capable of with bonding with a human being in order to access more of their power, though it was thought that this relationship was more along the lines of simply symbiotic rather than… that." She said the last word with no small amount of ire. "Beyond that, they didn't really find out anything else. The Clock Tower doesn't understand why all the Sekirei are fighting each other or what exactly is their relationship with MBI."

"Yes, well, I'm still not quite sure what the relationship to the company is either." I remarked in annoyance. "All I already told you, the Sekirei are fighting because MBI tells them to, but I still don't have a solid motivation for it other than the Director is some kind of sadist." The man treated this battle royal like it was a game, so much so that even the Sekirei consider it as such, although they consider it a very cruel one. Sometimes I wonder why Takami didn't just shove him off the top of the building…

My train of thought stopped when I remember something from my lunch conversion with my mother. "Rin," I said, my voice becoming much harder. "Do you know what Eltanwise and his men did the Sekirei they captured?"

Rin paled, likely both at what I said and the tone I had suddenly taken. She looked down into her lap rather than answer me, her face becoming one of regret.

Saber reach over and clasped one of her hands over Rin's, giving her a reassuring smile before turning to me. "Yes, we saw the results of their experiments. We… disapproved of their methods." Saber said, clearly understating how she felt on the matter. "Rin has spent the whole time since we arrived trying to get the magi to use less destructive methods."

"But it's too late…" I heard Rin mutter. "I've known for years that the Mage's Association did things like this, but after seeing it…" She sighed and looked back up. "When we allied with Higa, I got the chance to talk to some of his Sekirei. They weren't the most sociable, but I realized that they didn't deserve what the Clock Tower was doing to them. When they brought in that Ashikabi and started talking about the experiments they would do to her, I just couldn't…" She trailed off.

I blinked in surprise as the pieces suddenly fit together in my head. "You're the one that freed Yukari?"

"Yes. My push to treat the Sekirei better had made me somewhat unpopular, such to the point that they didn't even tell that they were planning on luring you into a trap, though I suppose there were probably other reasons why they didn't tell me. In any case, when I heard the fighting start, I didn't know what was going on, but I realized that this would be the best chance to free the girl. She certainly seemed willing enough to take the chance when I met her, although the girl seemed to think my name was Sakura for some reason…" She gave me a suspicious look as I rubbed the back of my head. "Why do I suddenly think that it's your fault somehow?"

"It's… complicated." I said. I narrowed my eyes. "More importantly, I now must add 'almost vivisected my sister' to the list of reasons why the Clock Tower is going to suffer."

"Things are actually going worse for them than you think." Rin said. "Though Eltanwise kept up a strong front, this whole operation has been one failure after another. He thought it would be trivial to work around or simply overpower MBI, but they proved to be far more competent than was expected. MBI soldiers routinely managed to find their labs somehow, and the Sekirei they had directly under their employ were far more skilled that the others we encountered."

"No offense Rin-tan, but those magus guys are pretty stupid to underestimate the MBI." Matsu said. "It's the most powerful and wealthiest corporation in the world, with highly advanced technology and its own private army. Their unofficial motto is 'We only fear countries more powerful than us, and there's only three of those left'."

Rin merely grumbled at this, so I responded for her. "Magi have become very out of touch with the rest of the world. It's a natural consequence of secluding themselves to work on magecraft in secret. Not to mention the fact that they are in general rather arrogant. The end result is that they probably wouldn't even understand what the GPS locater chips implanted in the Sekirei were even if they found them."

"Locater what now?" Rin said in confusion.

"It's… a technology that allows MBI to track the Sekirei anywhere in the world." I said, simplifying things down for her.

"Eh? They can do that?" the small magus said in surprise. "How- no, nevermind I'll ask later. What's important now is how the Clock Tower will respond to this latest setback."

"What do you mean?"

"By my estimate about half of the Enforcers that have been sent to this city have been killed or seriously injured in some way. With Eltanwise dead, those remaining will likely report this to the Clock Tower Lords. Eltanwise hoped to keep this a secret until he has full control of the situation. Now it's likely the whole Clock Tower knows about the Sekirei."

"What do you think they'll do, Tohsaka-kun?" Miya asked with concern. While she still didn't quite believe that magic was real, it was good that she still considered the Mage Association a serious threat.

"I'm not quite sure," She admitted. "But believe it or not, things have the potential to get even worse. Some of the Enforcers I talked to considered all the Sekirei running around the city to be a major breach for the secrecy of magic. While they are technically wrong, the both don't know that and even if they did they would probably consider it close enough. It seems unthinkable, but they might try to silence the whole city if they think things have gone too far."

"Silence the whole city?" Homura asked. He looked confused for a moment before he paled. "Wait, you couldn't possibly mean that Blue lady Shirou was talking about?"

I lifted up my hands to placate the fire Sekirei. "Don't worry. Though she might have a temper, the Blue is not the kind of person who would blow up a major city for money." Still, I frowned to myself and looked down at the table in thought. "However, that doesn't mean there aren't plenty of other… unpleasant ways they can keep even a large number of people from talking."

There was a minute of silence around the table, everyone likely wondering what these people would do. Rin finally said "So, is that enough about what we've been doing for the past six months?"

"Um, I suppose?" I said uncertainly.

"Good. Then let's move onto more important matters." She proceeded to stand up and gaze at my flock, saying "Shirou's ours and we're not letting you have him!"

I groaned and face palmed as the assembled Sekirei began to protest her claim to myself. I suppose it was stupid for me to hope that she would be a little more considerate to my flock after she heard all the details of how we ended up together.

Through the clamor I managed to hear Saber say "Rin, that is not the best way to deal this. Whatever the circumstances, these women have come to care for Shirou, so we must use a much more reasonable approach to this situation." Ah, good old reliable Saber. She was always the more reserved and reasonable of my two lovers. Surely she would have thought of a more reasonable solution than to simply lock out my flock.

Unfortunately, I realized my hopes were in vain when she said "I shall face all of you in honorable combat. The winner gets to be with Shirou." I groaned even louder and add my second hand to my face. It seems the reserved swordwoman had no intention of sharing me with the Sekirei either.

"Yay! A strong opponent!" Musubi exclaimed as she stood up and got into a fighting stance.

"Hmph." Tsukiumi added, her cloths and hair starting to flutter around her as she stood as well. "That's fine by me. I am the strongest Sekirei after all!"

"Hah! That means nothing next to Saber!" Rin exclaimed, clearly approving of this idea. "She can take you all on no problem!"

"While I appreciate your confidence, I would still prefer this to be one-on-one with each of them." Saber remarked. "Also, I have to admit that Miya-dono could prove to be challenging."

Miya, who looked like she was about to unleash her Hannya upon everyone to keep us all from fighting, suddenly blinked in surprise. "Ara, and why would we be fighting Saber-kun? I'm not one of Shirou-kun's Sekirei."

Saber frowned at this. "Really? Why aren't you? From what I understand of your species, attraction is a sign that he's your Ashikabi."

Miya looked somewhat taken back at this. "W-who said I was attracted to him."

"From what Shirou's told me, you keep his Sekirei from being with him under the rule that there are no lewd acts within your house. However, given the way I've seen you look at him, it's clear that this is merely a pretense so you can have him for yourself." Saber stated with certainly.

To my surprise, Miya actually seemed flustered by Saber's assessment. "Su-such an active imagination you have, Saber-kun…" she said with a nervous smile.

Tsukiumi on the other hand gasped at this revelation. "S-so that's why you never let me and Shirou have our wedding night!" The water Sekirei was less than happy to learn that she (supposedly) had yet another rival for my affections.

Kazehana, on the hand… "Ah, so the lonely inn keeper who lost her husband has fallen for the brave young warrior she took into her home!" She clutched the bottle to her chest again and squealed. "Oh, this is so romantic!"

Matsu was simply giggling her perverted old man laugh. "A soap opera! A soap opera I say!"

I desperately tried to think of a way to convince my flock that Miya wasn't also contending for my affections. Saber was just misreading the situation.

I mean, if she was attracted to me, I would have noticed right?

Musbui, for her part, merely cocked her head to the side in confusion. "But Akitsu-san already-" that was as far as she got before she was struck on the head with a ladle, Miya suddenly appearing behind her in a bust of speed.

"Ara ara, it looks like you're all talking about unnecessary things." The landlady said with her customary crinkled eyes and smile. "It seems I must remind you all that violence and lewdness are forbidden in the Izumo House."

As the eldest Sekirei's Hannya began to take shape, the last thing I heard before I became paralyzed was fear was Saber commenting "Hmmm, impressive."

After all the nonsense in the dinner room, Rin, Saber and I went to my room. Miya kept the rest of my flock from following, saying that the three of us need some 'private time'. Some of them complained that we use this chance to get… reacquainted with each other, but that wasn't likely for a number of reasons.

"I'm still mad at you, Shirou." Case and point.

Rin gave me a glare as she lectured me. "It's bad enough that you ran off without us, but you also somehow married several women, plus a man and a little girl too, because you were to thick headed to realize what you were doing? I hope you don't expect us to simply be fine with this and join your new harem. You're still part of mine, damn it!"

Saber nodded in agreement. "I know you were just trying to help them, but I am not pleased with the situation either."

I sighed as I looked at my two former lovers. "What am I supposed do? Just cut them loose after the Sekirei Plan is over? The winging process causes them to imprint on me, so they basically have to love me for rest of their lives. To simply reject them now would be horribly cruel."

Rin grumbled. "Well, maybe if you thought things through, you wouldn't be in this mess." She gave a grunt. "I suppose I should thank the landlady for helping you keep your chastity intact, even if she did have her own motives."

I paused for a moment to think back to the dining room. I could tell that Miya had interrupted Musubi on purpose when the latter was about to reveal how I winged Akitsu. I was a little surprised considering how she usually liked to watch me squirm when it came to my female relations. However, we managed to share a few brief glances after her lecture had ended, and the look she gave me almost looked to be one of sympathy. I could guess that the time she spent married to Takehito gave her more insight into human relations than the rest of my flock, and she knew that my former lovers shouldn't hear something like that from one of my Sekirei.

Of course, that leads into the second reason why things weren't going to go well between me, Rin and Saber tonight. She shepherded us off to my room so I could be the one to tell them about it.

"There's… something else I haven't told you yet." I said slowly.

"Oh really? What else could you have possibly done?"

I looked off to the side as I considered the best way to tell them. "Akitsu isn't, well, wasn't a normal Sekirei."

"Huh?" Rin said, taken off balance by my apparent non sequitur. "What do you mean?"

"I mean that before I met her, she was something called a scrapped number. The short version is it meant that she couldn't be winged."

Saber furrowed her brow. "Are you saying you haven't winged her either?"

"No, I have, I just couldn't do it the normal way." I replied. "They general consensus said that the reason she couldn't be winged was because she became too powerful and winged herself. However, I found that when I kissed her, she still drained my od like the other Sekirei." I saw Rin's eyebrow twitch at the mention of kissing, so I hurried up my explanation. "Anyway, I ended up using magic to figure out what the problem was."

"So, what did you find out?"

"Originally, she had a crest on her forehead, which is where my od would go to and dissipate rather than going where is was supposed to go. I have some suspicions that her crest was tampered with to cause this state, but that's not important right now. The important thing is that there was a pause between my od being absorbed into the crest and it being released."

Rin cupped her chin in her hand, switching to academic mode. "Hmm… if it was tampered with, it's probably that the people working on it didn't quite understand how od worked, and couldn't find a way to naturally release it from the body. Given the time delay, the crest likely worked like some sort of converter, changing the energy into something that they knew how to release. Of course, the flaw with that would be that there's a fixed amount such a converter could absorb, so any extra would simply overflow and do was the crest was trying to keep it from doing. Overpowering the crest in such a manner is likely the easiest way to get around it, but didn't think that you knew any-"

She suddenly stopped, her eyes going wide. "Shirou," she said in a very small voice. "How did you wing Akitsu?"

I clenched my fists as I looked down at the ground, unable to look at my Rin and Saber. Somehow, I managed to say. "I used a tantric ritual."

I expected them to shout and scream at me or even hit me (or at least for Rin to do so), but they said nothing. I finally managed to look at them, and saw their shocked expressions. There was anger in their faces to be sure, but that was small compared to the other things they were clearly feeling. Hurt.

Somehow, that made it much worse.

"Wh… Why?" Saber eventually managed to say. "Why would you do that?"

I thought back to my conversation with Troper, about how I responded to that very question, but it all faded away when I looked at the two of them. What response could I possibly give that would justify my actions to those eyes? "She deserved to be winged." was the only thing I could say.

"Deserve?" Rin said while trembling, tears beginning to well up in her eyes. "What about what we deserve? We spend months worrying about you, looking for you, and you and do this! " she spat out with vehemence. "What makes it worse is that you didn't do it out of affection or even lust! You did it because of your fucking sense of duty!"

"Rin-" I began.

SLAP. Rin hand struck my face before I could say anything else. "Damn you," she said, now openly sobbing. "How could you do this to us?" With that, she turn and ran out of the room, slamming the door open as she did so.

I turned to Saber, who simply looked back at me with tears failing down her face. I could tell that she understood why I did it. The blonde swordwoman had a strong sense of duty herself, and realized the dilemma I had found myself in.

I could tell from her face that it didn't hurt any less, though.

"You should have waited." was all she said before she turned around and took off after Rin.

I was left alone in the room, the stinging on my face from where Rin slapped being nothing compared to the pain I felt in my heart. I sat and curled up on the ground, cursing myself for hurting the women I loved so much.

I slept alone that night.