As I sat on the porch the following morning, I felt, to put it bluntly, like shit. Sleep did not come easy last night, and the morning wasn't much better. After Rin and Saber had run out of the room I had been half afraid that they had run out of the inn altogether. Fortunately, that had not been the case, and Miya had simply set them up in a room at the other end of the inn. Aside from not wanting to be separated from them again, the city was becoming increasingly unsafe now that I knew that the Clock Tower was desperate to contain the situation. I'm not quite sure how they would respond to finding the two after their absence, but I doubted it would be good.

Of course the downside of the two of them staying in the inn was that breakfast had been an awkward affair, with the two of them refusing to come out of their rooms and my flock all confused as why things had suddenly become so bad between the three of us. The reason why my former lovers were upset with me was something I didn't think the alien women would understand, much less something I wanted to explain at the moment. It took and Asura mask to get them to stop asking questions.

I heard footsteps coming towards me, and I dully turned my head to tell them to go way. I couldn't be around any of my Sekirei at the moment (especially Akitsu) as they were the cause of problems with Rin and Saber. It wasn't their fault, and it was unfair of me to push them away but I just couldn't deal with it at the moment. However, rather than seeing one of my flock, I instead found Troper waking towards me, he himself looking somewhat disheveled. He stopped next to me, looking down at me with a critical look. "You look like hell." He said succinctly.

I snorted. "You don't happen to be in such a good state either."

"Yes, well, I was up all night and ended up nodding off on a bench for an hour or two. You on the other hand look like you were thrown into a giant washer and the spin cycle was set on 'despair'." He said, cocking his head to the side. "Miya told me that things got pretty bad between you and you other thirds last night. I'm pretty sure I can guess why."

"Oh, so now you're going to give me advice based on some terrible romantic comedy on how to get them back?" I asked with a heavy layer of cynicism.

Troper simply shook his head and extended his left hand. Looking at it, I notice it was holding two beers by the necks. I was taken by surprise for a moment before I reached out and took one of them. When I did, Troper just sat down next to me and said nothing, looking out into the garden like I was.

We sat like that for some time, taking sips from our respective drinks and watching the world go by. Oddly enough, it made me feel a little better. It had been a long time since I had a real male friend (Homura notwithstanding), but I think that this was the standard way men try to console one another when something has gone wrong in their lives. Get together, grab some beers, and shut up, because we all know nothing anyone said would make things better so why say anything at all?

Still, after about ten minutes, I couldn't hold back the comment "So that's a no, then?"

My counterpart gave a sigh. "Believe it or not, there isn't a trope for 'sleeping with an alien woman so Deus Sex Machina can fix her faulty biology so she won't feel emotionally crippled while estranged from your One True Threesome due to malevolent forces', so your guess is as good as mine on how to deal with this one."

I gave a small chuckle at that. "Maybe it's a sign that life isn't controlled by tropes."

"Bah. I refuse to believe such lies, no matter how much Rin insists otherwise."

I frowned as I remember the reason why Troper was out last night. "That reminds me, did you mange to find your Rin?"

Troper gave a frown of his own. "Yes, though I'm not happy about it. It seems in the confusion of the battle, the magi ended up taking her with them instead of yours thinking she was the one from this universe. We're just lucky that the people who captured us ended up dead before they could report that one of their own had been sneaking into the building with a bunch of shady looking characters."

"So you know where she is?"

"Yeah, it's in an office building that's being renovated downtown. Most of the magi retreated there after yesterday."

I sat up a bit straighter and a serious expression crossed my face. "So what's the plan?"

"The plan is to do nothing, apparently." He said with some annoyance. "I spend all night trying to track her down – which is not easy when she's behind a bounded field mind you – managed to infiltrate the building, sneak past all the magi to get to her, and she says she wants to stay to be a spy!"

I blinked in surprise at this "That sounds dangerous considering she doesn't know everything my Rin knows…"

"It is! And I tried to tell her such at great length but she wouldn't listen because 'we'll never get a chance like this again'."

I was about to reply before I stopped and thought for a moment. "Actually, considering what my Rin told me before… well, anyway it's probably a good idea to know what the Clock Tower will be doing next."

"Why? What did she tell you?" he asked.

I gave him a summary of what Rin told me about the Clock Tower last night. In particular I told him how they were getting desperate and some were considering drastic measures to keep things contained here in Shin Tokyo.

Troper groaned and Face Palmed. "Considering that, it probably is for the best that she stayed. But don't tell her I said that." He looked back at me. "So, just how many problems does that add up to?"

"Well, let's see" I said dryly while holding up my hand to count fingers. "Rin and Saber hate me now, your Rin is getting information in the most dangerous way possible, the Clock Tower is probably going to bring down hell upon the city, Uzume's done a Face Heel Turn because her Ashikabi is being held hostage, and let's not forget the Sekirei plan in general, of which I still don't know the purpose of or end game to." I dropped my hand down to the side as I stared despondently back at the garden. "What the hell are we going to do?"

There was a moment of silence before Troper suddenly said "I got it!"

"What?"

"Let's beat the crap out of each other!"

"…What."

"I still don't see how this solves our problems." I remarked an hour later, the two of us standing in the middle of a clearing in Osaka Park.

"It doesn't. It distracts us from our current problems, which I think will be good for both of us." Troper replied, surveying the somewhat rough field around us. Thankfully it wasn't the exact same one in which we fought the Enforcers a few weeks ago, but I was starting to feel somewhat silly coming to this park over and over again to completely destroy another part of it with collateral damage. Especially this time as there was really no reason for Troper and I to be fighting at all.

Well, I guess that wasn't quite true. When Troper finally explained that what he meant was for the two of us to have a sparring match, he also pointed out that each of us only knew the basic idea of the other's abilities. We had seen each other in combat once, and neither of us had been paying particular attention to the other. This would be a good chance to see just what each of us was capable of in combat.

"Shirou-san! Do your best against Troper-san!" From the edge of the clearing, Musubi and the rest of my Sekirei stood watching the two of us (Save Matsu, who had given them some sort of camera so she could watch the fight in real time). I was a little nervous about having them here, especially Kuu-chan. Watching me spar with the landlady was one thing, but in this fight we would both be using our magic, which could definitely cause some unintended destruction to the area around us. However, the lot of them had been very insist, so I had settled for designating Akitsu to set up barriers to protect the rest of my flock if things got out of hand. Rin and Saber had of course stayed back at the inn, with Miya looking after the two.

Turning back to Troper, I said "Ok, but I think you're forgetting the fact that we're both exhausted. There's no way this can be productive if neither of us can fight at full capacity."

"I got us covered." He said. Before I could ask him how, he walked up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said "Triple Shifter."

There was a brief moment when I felt a foreign source of prana enter my body, but after I managed to keep my innate magic resistance from rejecting it, I suddenly felt a wave of energy enter my body, and I felt as if I actually got a good night's sleep. I blinked in surprise as I bounced up and down on my heels experimentally. "I feel great! Can you really use that trope in place of sleep?"

Troper gave an amused grunt. "It would take a lot more prana than what I just gave you to replace a good night's sleep." He said before he quietly muttered the phase again for himself. Indeed, he looked in much better shape after he did so. "This is just a temporary boost. It'll catch up to us later, trust me."

I frowned. Of course there was a price attached. "What do you mean 'catch up to us'?"

As he walked away from me, he said "Oh, we'll probably fall unconscious after we're done here, but don't worry about that right now." He stopped about 30 feet away from me and turned around. "So, are we going to start this or what?"

I gave a shrug and held out my hands. "Trace on." I spoke my simple aria as I traced Kanshou and Bakuya, Reinforcing my body as I did so. I gave a sight flourish with the blades before I settled into my standard stance with the blade pointed up at my sides.

Then a thought occurred to me. Wait, isn't his primary weapon-

That's as far as I got before he pulled out a revolver and shot me!

Well, almost. My sudden realization combined with my enhanced reflexes allowed me to dodge to the side in time, so the bullet merely grazed me. "Hey!" I shouted indignantly. I know that I of all people had no right to protest the use sneak attacks or a variety of weaponry, but that just seemed unfair!

"Oh come on!" Troper exclaimed. "If you had watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, you would have agreed that you clearly set me up for a Just Shoot Him. There was no way I could pass that up. Besides, we both have a Healing Factor, so you could shrug off a gunshot." He tossed the revolver over his shoulder and held his hands in front of him. "Invoke on." He said, and the same pair of pistols I saw him use the day we fought the Enforcers appeared in his hands. Getting a closer look at them, I saw that they were a kind of parody of my own weapons, with both being somewhat larger than the average pistol and one being black with a silver grip and the other silver with a black grip.

"Let's rock!" He exclaimed before opening fire on me. However, this time I was ready and dashed off to the side, my enhanced speed carrying me away from his shots. Troper's aim followed, and he continued to shoot at a steady pace while standing in place.

As I zigzagged between the bullets I mused how this was a first for me. Most magi and supernatural creatures used magic to attack at long range, and those that use weapons prefer archaic weaponry over modern ones. As such, I think this was the first time I was ever shot at. There were a number of things I could have done in response, but for the moment I simply dodged as there were two points that I wanted to make to my counterpart about downsides of modern firearms. The first was that a moving target, especially one that's supernaturally fast, is incredibly hard to hit at a range. The other...

Click click. The sound of two slides locking back was my signal to charge forward. One of the main downsides of modern projectile weapons was that they needed ammo. And seeing as how Troper's hands were both occupied with guns, there was no way he could reload even remotely before I reached him. I came at him with a diagonal slash, intending to show him his folly.

Unfortunately for me, it seems that's what he was counting on. With a grin on his face, he incanted "Lightning Bruiser." Suddenly moving faster than I anticipated, he ducked and moved toward me, moving inside my guard. Rather than trying to do something more harmful, he went for the fastest option and simply straightened, pushing up with his legs and shoulder checking me in the chest. It sent me flying back a ways, but I easily recover a short distance from him, silently cursing myself for not realized that he had enhancements of his own. Looking back at him, I saw Troper holding the pistols in front of him in a way that showed me the slides.

"Bottomless Magazines." With a pair of clicks, the slides moved back into position.

Crap.

We both began moving across the clearing at high speeds, with him running and gunning and me in pursuit. In spite of his efforts I was still closing the distance between us, as one of the few things harder than hitting a moving target is if both you and the target are moving. A person wouldn't be able to do it unless they had-

"Improbable Aiming Skills!"

Damn it! Coming to a stop, I quickly yelled "Rho Aias!", and the seven petal shield came into existence in front of me just before Troper's bullets could slam into my chest. I was coming to realize that I would have to up my tactics if I wanted to close the distance between the two of us.

"Come on, I've seen that already! Show me something new!" Troper yelled as he circled around me, tying to get around the immobile shield.

Seeing as how he had been controlling the fight so far, it was with some satisfaction that I noticed the look of surprise on his face when upon getting a clear view of me he saw the broadsword hurling at him.

He barely managed to twist out of the way before the blade could cut into him tumbling a bit before landing in a crouch. "I… did not know you could do that."

I gave a grin of my own as several more swords appeared out of thin air around him and shot forward to turn him into a pincushion.

Somewhat panicked, he yelled out "High Speed Missile Dodge!" In an impressive display of acrobatics, he managed to duck, weave, and dodge all the swords that came at him. However, the time spent dodging was all the time I needed to close the distance between us.

Even while dodging for his life, Troper managed to spot me as I moved towards him. Evading the last blade but not having enough time to escape, he settled into a bent leg stance, with both his hands at the left side of his waist as if he was in an Iaijutsu Practitioner. Wait…

At the last moment, I jumped over him as the katana materialized in his hands and he shouted "Absurdly Sharp Blade!" He let his momentum carry him around, spinning to meet me as I landed. I brought Bayuka up to meet his sword, and noticed how the katana managed to bite into the black saber. Troper smirked. "You didn't think I could only use guns, did you?"

And with that, the two of us danced though the clearing in a battle of blades, and I got the first real chance to analyze his enhancement. I had found it somewhat odd that he choose Lightning Bruiser to enhance himself given his preference for ranged combat, but it made more sense now that it seemed he had a more multi-disciplined approach to combat. In any case, our respective physical abilities were surprisingly close, but there were a few subtle differences that I mange to pick up. Namely, I seemed to be somewhat stronger and tougher than he was, but he was a bit faster and his strikes were even more accurate than my own. Remembering back to when I had seen most of his bare body, it occurred to me that the differences were likely caused by our different styles in general.

Speaking of style, I was somewhat surprised to find his skill with the sword good but… generic. He had a solid stance with a good offense and defense, but there was nothing particularly outstanding about it. It was clear that while he knew how to use a sword, he wasn't anywhere as good as I was. The strain of keeping up with my counter attack style was clearly starting to show, a grimace on his face as he warded off my attacks. To his credit though he had realized the futility of trying to hit me and was instead focusing on my blades, letting his own Absurdly Sharp Blade wear them down. He probably knew that I could make new ones in an instant at this point, but I figured he was hoping to cut straight through them and attack me at the same time before I could summon the next pair. However, I knew just how to deal with this.

We clashed a bit more before Troper finally made his move, bringing down the katana in overhead slash yelling "Wrecked Weapon!"

Rather than trying to block with the damaged blades I instead let them dissipate back into od and thrust myself upward, Tracing a new weapon into my hands.

Ascalon, The Blessed Sword By Which Force Is Slain. The invincible sword wielded by Saint George which delivers it's wielder from those who would do harm.

Trope or not, there was nothing that could break that Noble Phantasm. My superior strength and sudden rush forward combined with the invincible weapon caused Troper's attack to be repulsed violently, knocking the sword from his grip and causing him to stumble backwards. I took the opportunity to follow through and strike him.

Just before I could do so, he pointed two fingers at me from his right hand and a small bolt of lightning shot out, striking me in my center of mass. I haven't been hit with lightning attacks often, but I could tell that it was fairly weak. Nevertheless, the electricity coursing through my body caused me to stumble and miss. This gave him enough time to jump away and put some distance between us.

There was a brief lull in battle as the two of us looked at each other and caught our breaths. As I looked at him, I thought of how something about the last attack seemed off. Namely, that he didn't call out the trope's name before he used it. Every other attack he's used so far he's called out the name as a sort of aria, but this time he didn't. I blinked for a moment and thought back to the beginning of the battle. No, wait, he also brought out that revolver wordlessly, and technically those pistols of his if you don't count 'Invoke on'. I had assumed that it was some kind of requirement for him, so why was he sometimes able to avert Calling Your Attacks-

I blinked in surprise as I answered my own question. "You're averting Calling Your Attacks." I blurted out, remembering how he had inverted the Absurdly Sharp Blade trope when he first arrived at the Izumo House. I had forgotten that he could use tropes differently other than playing them straight.

Troper gave a chuckle. "Yeah, I was wondering when you'd catch on. It costs a little more prana to do so, but it's faster and more tacitly sound."

I frowned a bit. "Then why haven't you been doing it this whole fight?"

"First, we're trying learn each other's abilities, so it wouldn't be practical to do so. And second," he gave me a sly look. "who says I haven't?"

I gave him a wary look as I thought about it, and realized that calling some of your attacks while hiding others could be just as effective at deceiving your opponent as not saying anything at all. Rather clever all things considered.

"That's quite the sword your holding." He suddenly mentioned, pointing to Ascalon. "A Noble Phantasm if I'm not mistaken. As were those other two you were wielding earlier if your magic resistance increase was any indication." I was about to ask how he knew about that before I remember his implication that he had been using other tropes during the fight which I had not noticed. He continued "I'm willing to bet that you have more than a few in your arsenal."

"Maybe." I replied noncommittally. "And you're keeping your arsenal close to the vest as well. I can think of a number of tropes that would have been useful in the fight that you haven't used."

He gave a shrug. "Aside from the prana requirements that would make them impractical or even impossible to use, there's a lot of tropes I just don't have enough practice with. Take that Shock and Awe for example. I have all the Elemental Powers, but that doesn't mean I can use them particularly well. And that's not even going into how difficult it is for me to use environmental tropes." He glanced back at the assembled Sekirei and observed the expectant looks on their faces. "Tell you what, why don't we finish this off with a big show?"

I frowned in confusion for a moment before my eyebrows shot up. "You can't mean your Reality Marble?"

"What? No, that wouldn't be remotely fair unless you could use yours too." He paused for a moment and cupped his chin in thought. "Actually, I don't know if we could deploy them at the same time. I don't think it's ever been tried before." He shook his head. "In any case, that would give Homura a heart attack. I was just thinking we'd use some of our more flashy abilities."

I raised an eyebrow at this. "Is that really necessary?"

"Necessary? Who cares! Rule of Cool, damn it!" He stated enthusiastically. "Alright, Lightning Bruiser, Made of Iron, Supernatural Martial Arts, Battle Aura!" He told a deep breath. "Up to Eleven!"

Suddenly his whole body lit up like a flood light, and I could feel his presence emanating from him. The light around him then died down a bit, instead becoming a yellowish haze that rapidly ascended upwards. The other most notable change was that his hair, while originally quite spiky like my own, was now sticking straight up and bleached blonde in color.

My knowledge of anime and manga might be vastly inferior compared to my sister, but even I could recognize the resemblance to one of the most popular characters in Japan.

"What."

"Less talking, more fighting!" With that Troper punched the ground and a wave of earth suddenly rose up and surged towards me. I just managed to jump over it when I saw my counterpart bringing back his fist. Taking no chances, I brought Ascalon in front of me and, sure enough, he fired some kind of Ki Attack which the sword managed to absorb. As I landed, I let the blade dissipate as I cast out my hands, yelling "Enkidu!" The length of chain appeared and shot out from my hand, wrapping around Troper as it did so. I was hoping that it would hold him long enough till I thought of something, but he almost immediately used Breaking the Bonds to free himself. Whatever his appearances might be, he was still just a man, so the chains were only as strong as normal iron and shattered easily.

I cursed to myself as I ran around him, firing more swords at him as I went. Unfortunately for me, he simply shot them out of the air with more Ki Attacks. I even tried firing a few Noble Phantasms at him (nothing too prana intensive, but he did say make it flashy), but he just managed to deflect, parry or dodge them with no apparent harm to himself.

I was running out of ideas when he suddenly dropped his stance and brought his hands down beside his waist as if he was cupping something. The position looked vaguely familiar for some reas-

Oh no.

"Kamehame-"

Oh you have got to be kidding me!

"-Hadoken!" Troper thrust out his hands and a beam of blue light, not nearly as big as some of the more prominent examples from the show it was based on of but intimidating nonetheless, shot towards me across the clearing.

I was about to dodge it when I realized I was making this a lot harder than I had to be.

Just before the beam hit me, it simply disappeared, as if into a void. Troper looked on in surprise as a small dagger with a round hilt floated above my shoulder. "Fargarach." I said, and I fired a yellow beam back in kind.

Troper's look of surprise lasted only for a moment before a grin split his face. "Alright! Beam-o-War!" With that, he fired a second beam which intercepted my own at (of course) the point equidistant between both of us.

The two blasts pushed against each other for a few moments before a large explosion erupted at the center point, throwing dirt and smoke up everywhere. For a few moments, I couldn't see anything but I remained alert in case of a sneak attack. When the smoke finally cleared, I saw Troper standing in the exact stance he had fired the beam from, but now not visibly powered up.

A moment later he gave a groan and collapsed on to his back. "I really shouldn't do that. It takes way to much energy."

I grumbled back at him, still standing in a fighting stance. "So are we done?"

"Not quite." He replied, still looking up at the sky. "You want to know what trope I used to make the revolver at the beginning of the fight?"

"Fine. What?"

"Chekhov's Gun." Blam!

I griped my shoulder in pain and looked at where the bullet clipped it. Looking back at Troper, I saw him pointing the gun he had thrown away at the beginning of the fight at me, a grin on his face as he did so. "By the way, I total could have made that a kill shot."

"With the way you hands are shaking right now, I'm surprised you didn't accidently." I remarked with some alarm. "Also, you can't seriously tell me you just happened to fall on that just now."

If he were standing, I'm sure Troper would have shrugged. "It's Chekov's Gun. Of course I did." He made a move to sit up, but was summarily defeated by gravity. "Umm, a little help here?"

I gave a weary sigh as walked over to his prone body. Or at least I tried to before I was tackled by a hyperactive battle maniac. "Shirou-san! That was amazing! That was even better than the fight between you and Miya-sama! And Troper-san was so amazing too! He shot laser beams, and was strong and fast and-"

"Musubi!" I exclaimed I exclaimed while squirming in her embrace vigorously to keep her from dragging my head into her love pillows. "Why don't you try congratulating Troper then?"

"Ah! Good idea!" With that she got off me and proceeded to jump on Troper's prone form, electing a cry of "Troper-san!" from her and a yell of panic from him, and soon he found his head buried in the valley is so narrowly avoided. As I looked at the scene, I felt I should probably feel some anger or jealousy at the sight of one of my 'wives' giving someone else such a detailed tour of her chest, but seeing at how Troper's legs were starting to fail with the lack of oxygen, I was just glad it wasn't me.

A shadow cast over me, and looking up a saw the oddly familiar sight of a pair of racy panties from underneath a kimono. I blushed and averted my gaze. "Could you help me up, Akitsu?"

No sooner than the ice Sekrei did, I found Kuu-chan wrapped around my leg. "Onii-chan has magic swords!" she exclaimed. "And he doesn't even need his hand to use them!"

"He shouldn't have to use them!" Exclaimed Tsukiumi as she strode towards me. "Shirou, while your skills are very im-impressive, I don't want you doing anything that dangerous again!"

I gave a sigh. "Worried about my wellbeing?"

The water Sekirei blushed and looked of the side. "O-of course I'm worried. You shouldn't have to fight."

"Ah, but he's so manly when he does so." Kazehana chimed in.

I was about to respond when I noticed one of my flock members was missing. "Hey, where's Homura?"

"Oh, right where we left him." The wind Sekirei said, pointing back to the edge of the clearing where Homura still stood, his mouth gaping open and his body slumped.

Sometimes I really worry that I'm going to give that man an aneurism one of these days.

In any case, Troper at some point managed to convince Musubi not to asphyxiate him, and the latter was supporting the former by the waist as the two walked to the rest of the group. "That part where you started to glow was my favorite Troper-san!" Musubi said. "You should do that all the time!"

"Sorry to disappoint you, but that little Super Mode of mine falls into the Awesome but Impractical category." He replied. "Aside from consuming far too much prana too fast and leaving me useless afterwards, all of those attacks you saw me do are incredibly inefficient. Shirou himself proved that they can be dodged or countered. Really, I just did it because it looks flashy and I wanted to put on a show."

As the lot of us started to walk back to the edge of the clearing, Troper turned his head to address me. "So, I'll admit, I didn't think too much of your ability when I figured out your Origin, but now I am officially impressed. Are you really creating Nobel Phantasms from scratch?"

"No, I can remember any sword I see and make an almost perfect copy of it instantly."

"Any that includes some pretty powerful swords." He remarked. "Not to mention you figured out how to launch them at people like a certain someone we both knew…"

I gave him a wiry glance. "How did you think I beat him?"

Troper suddenly stiffened in shock, and then a look of giddiness crossed his face. "Shirou, are you telling me you countered the Gate of Babylon by cranking Shoot the Bullet Up to Eleven with an identical Storm of Blades?" I gave a nod and my counterpart burst in to laugher, his eyes watering from tears as he did so. "Oh, that is just beautifully poetic! Gilgamesh must have been pissed!"

It was at this point we had gotten close enough to Homura that he could hear us, and Troper's comment had snapped him out of his stupor. "Wait, Gilgamesh? As in the first hero and king of mankind? The man who was two thirds divinity? You fought that Gilgamesh?" I sheepishly rubbed the back of my head, giving him his answer. "Graaah! There has to be a limit! You can't possible have anything more absurd about you!"

Troper gave a snort. "Please. I only have a vague idea about his past and I can tell you there are at least two or three more ridiculous things about him."

"Like what?" Homura exclaimed.

"Like who he learned his fighting style from."

Homura paused in confusion for a moment. "I thought he created his own style."

"Yep!" Troper replied with a grin, as if he knew some kind of inside joke (which he did).

"Who taught you your style, Troper-san?" Musubi asked with curiosity.

"Oh, I stole it. From myself. From the future."

Homura just stared at him dumbfounded for a few moments before giving a sigh and Face Palming. "Well, at least I know that your answer can't be as crazy as that, right Shirou?" When he didn't hear me respond, he turned towards me to find me once again looking off to the side and rubbing the back of my head sheepishly.

"No," he said in horror. "No, that's not true. That's impossible!"

Troper spoke up, his voice noticeably deeper as he did so. "Search your feelings; you know it to be true."

"Noooooooooo!"