(A/N –This takes place during chapter 13, When Shirou is debriefing Rin and Saber. Chronological order? What's that?)

I gave a sigh as I checked the jewel again, and sure enough it continued to gently pull in the direction of the office building across the street from me, only a spare few lights on considering the time of night. I had been circling around the general area for about half an hour following the tracking spell, and had spent three hours before that just trying to get the general area. The spell one the one that Rin had taught me when we were first turning the jewel she had given me into a homing beacon, and she subsequently created another jewel to be its twin to link to. She carried that jewel on her person in case I needed to find her for a change. The spell was one of the very few I knew that belonged to traditional magecraft, which of course meant that I was terrible at it. Power over Tropes can be incredibly versatile, but it can often be too general for a specific purpose. Such as it was, I was glad that the search for Rin hadn't taken all night.

Which wasn't to say that I was in any rush to get back to the Izumo House. Alter!Shirou needed some time to debrief and reconnect with his Rin and Saber, and considering how things were probably going to go, it was not something I should or would be around for.

Returning my attention to the task at hand, I focused a small amount of od into my eyes and gazed at the front of the building, words and descriptions popping into my vision as I did so.

*Deflector Shields: Several Bounded Fields are in place around the building.

-Permeable, though it can be empowered to prevent physical objects and magic from crossing the threshold.

-Perception Filter: Prevents those without magic from paying the building any in depth attention.

-' '

-' '

I clicked my tongue in irritation at the last two points which seemed empty, a consequence of my ability recognizing that there was more but was unable to discern any other details. I could almost hear Rin give an exasperated sigh at my reaction, chastising me for being unsatisfied with my 'quasi-Mystic Eye nonsense' as she liked to call it. She would have been quick to point out that magi would kill for my ability to analyze magic (or just about anything else) with a simple glance from a distance, and given that it was my Reality Marble that gave me this ability, the person they would be killing would most likely be me.

Of course, I would have been just as quick to point out that it frequently doesn't work completely, just like my current situation. Not to mention the fact that the effect is entirely a visual one, and acts on everything I can currently see. Mentally filtering out the Tropes and descriptions that don't belong to the thing I care about is the hard part, which is nothing compared to actually trying to see things when I'm using it. Hell, I can't turn it on in a book store without going blind from what feels like millions of words jamming themselves into my eyeballs.

I cut of the flow of od to my eyes as I thought about the best way to handle the situation. It was a safe bet that this was a safe house for the magi in the city to retreat to if something went wrong (which it did today, somewhat spectacularly). Aside from the perimeter defense, there was no telling how many magi were inside, so anything obvious was right out. Furthermore, I still wasn't quite sure if they had figured out that the Rin they had with them wasn't from this dimension. I was confident in her acting abilities and sure that the personalities of the two women were close enough, but one could always end up asking a question she didn't know the answer to. If that was the case, they might have noticed the tracking spell I was using and this was a trap. If we were made, we could always just let it be known that we're apprentices to Zelretch, but playing the Z-card isn't exactly reliable. Most wouldn't believe us, and the Sorcerer himself gets rather irked at us when we use his name to get out of situations, and that results in… punishment.

I gave a slight shiver as I tried to suppress the memory of the last time he was displeased with me. I don't know how a universe came to be where everyone looked like zombified clowns and spoke in nothing but (incredibly bad) rhyme, but I do know that I wish I never knew such a place existed.

Shaking my head of such thoughts, I walked across the street to an alley made by the 5 story office building and the one adjacent to it. In any case, I had to get into that building, and I had to do it quietly. I wouldn't be able to take on whatever defenses they most assuredly had if I just walked in the front door, and I didn't know if I had enough time to set up any kind of decent plan. Once in position, I quietly invoked "Lightning Bruiser, Wall Jump." and proceeded to spring from wall to wall, scaling up the side of the building.

In my brief climb upwards, I quickly went over the Tropes that might be useful in the next few minutes. Anyone who had browsed TvTropes would consider this either a very daunting task, considering the vast number of Tropes that exist, or very easy, just picking a very extremely powerful ones. In either case, anyone who has the slightest idea of what I'm capable of would consider me a huge threat of unknown capabilities, which is an idea I like to reinforce. The list I was going through was on the shorter side, though not for the reason some might think. The truth of the matter was that the selection of Tropes I can actually use in any kind of meaningful way is a really small fraction of the total number that I know. My exact skill set is somewhat scattered, due to power requirements, personal preferences and training, and a number of other strange little rules that I sometimes have trouble keeping track of. However, I do have what I consider to be my primary Tropes, which are tropes for which I have the most skill, experience, and power to use, and those can be categorized in a simple (if somewhat embarrassing) sentence:

My primary Tropes are the ones used by 1990's action movie heroes.

Like many other things, I blame Archer for this. Given how he basically acted like a 90's action movie hero for the entirety of the Grail War, it seems that those Tropes were the things I ended up absorbing the most from him during out battle. It's a very useful skill set to be sure, and I've both broadened and strengthened it through training and experience, but it always reminds me that the things I can do are far outnumbered by the things I can't.

With a final jump, I landed as lightly as I could on the roof, cutting prana to Wall Jump but keeping my physical enhancement active. Walking quietly to the rooftop door, I gently put my hand on it and felt for the bounded field. Though I couldn't be certain, it was almost guaranteed that the field could detect whenever something went in and out of it, so just walking in would announce my presence. With care, I pushed a small amount of my od into the field. I wasn't nearly skilled enough with Bounded Fields to think of disabling it or bypassing it; all the little burst did was disrupt the flow of prana a bit. Someone watching the field was sure to notice, even if they didn't know what it meant, and they would come to investigate.

Which was what I was counting on.

I stepped off to the side to a dark spot on the roof, turned on my Trope vision, and waited. Sooner than I thought, I spotted a crow flying up over the lip of the building, and my vision confirmed that it was a familiar. Mentally, I invoked my magecraft.

Avert Calling Your Attacks. Improbable Aiming Skills. Guns Akimbo + Abnormal Ammo: Tranquilizer Dart.

As I felt the familiar weight of the two pistols settle into my hands, I snapped off a quick shot at the crow, hitting it in the side. The effect was almost immediate, with the crow swiftly falling to the roof, but otherwise unharmed. Hopefully, that will cause the magus who owns that familiar to come investigate, but won't concern him enough to raise some kind of alert. Ideally, he wouldn't know what to think.

Hell, if I had the skill for it, I would have used Mushroom Samba darts. I don't know what a crow would hallucinate about, but I pretty such it would confuse the hell out of the magus connected to it. Inciting confusion and chaos in my opponents is how I prefer to operate after all; I barely ever know what I'm doing, so why should they?

I moved again, this time lying down on the small top of the roof entrance. It was about a minute later when the door opened, and a man stepped out carefully scanning the rooftop. As I was up and behind him, I was out off his field of view for the moment, and peering over the edge of my own position into the stairwell behind him revealed that he was alone. Deciding to not wait and see if he had some kind of sensor ability, I fired a second shot in the man's neck and he crumpled to the ground. I proceeded to swing myself down and head down the stairwell. Now anyone else watching the field would think that I was magus I just tranquilized coming back into the building. It wouldn't be long before they got wise and realized they couldn't find him, but it would give me a few extra minutes.

Unfortunately, an extra few minutes turned out to not be nearly enough time to search a five story building while avoiding any magi I happened to run across. The building itself appeared to be under renovation, which is probably why they were able to use it with impunity (at least after hypnotizing the construction workers anyway). Magi were restricting themselves to the completed first three floors, and there were about two dozen of them by my count. Sneaking between the cubicles wasn't too hard at first, but when word spread that one of their own was missing, my job got significantly harder.

I ended up back on the 4th floor, quickly finding myself trapped as magi were in every stairwell. When I here footsteps behind me, I stiffed a curse and ducked into the nearest room, which appeared to be a copier room. The floor wasn't quite finished, but it was close enough that they had started moving in office equipment, as evident with the copy machine I shared the room with. As I carefully looked out the small glass window in the door, I saw that the magi were systemically searching each room they came across, and my own was not far away. I franticly looked around for a means of escape, but found none. Sure there was an air vent, but the size of the grate made it clear that this air vent was much too small for an Air Vent Passageway, something that made me feel highly indignant. In my opinion, all air vents should conform to the Nakatomi protocols, damn it! That just left me, some stacks of paper, the copy machine, the box the copy machine came in…

…Oh what the hell, it always worked for Solid Snake.

I managed to flip the box and slip under it just before I heard the door open and a light British voice say "Not in here."

Unlike the box of the implausibly cloned super agent, the one I was in didn't have a convenient handle hole to look through, so I had to make do with just my hearing. I heard a second, deeper voice speak up. "This is getting very suspicious. Are you sure the field showed Lawrence coming back into the building?"

There was a pause. "Well, something crossed the bounded field after he left it."

"I don't like it. Do you think MBI has somehow found us again and sent one of their little pets?"

"So far, they've used teams to assault us," the lighter voice said, "but I'm starting to think that's a definite possibility."

"I still don't see why you're dragging me around for this." A third voice interrupted. This one was female, somewhat haughty, and very, very familiar. 'Well, the good news is I've found Rin…'

"Because you still haven't been able to explain why you were down in the loading docks when the attack came," The first man said with a slight sneer in his voice. "And considering how you were butting heads with Eltanwise ever since you got here, well, it doesn't exactly put you in a good position."

"So what, are you saying I'm your prisoner now? I won't stand for this!" she said, channeling the patented Tohsaka indigence.

"Considering your circumstances, I think you should be happy that we're just keeping an eye on you," said the second. "At this point, it wouldn't be unbelievable if you were accused of betraying the Association. After all, how did MBI mange to find us so many times?"

Rin simple gave a huff, her footsteps audible as she strode into the small room. "You should be happy that I'm putting up with this nonsense at all."

I gave a small grimace as I thought about the current situation. They definitely believed that she was this dimension's Rin, but recent events had made her suspect. That would make it harder to get her out of the building. My mind raced as I tried to think of a plan.

Of course, that became a little more difficult when she sat on me.

It took ever bit of willpower I had to not shout in surprise when the box crumpled down a bit and I felt a heavy weight settle on my upper back. I knew it was Rin, as I was sure that if either of the two men tried to sit on me, my now precarious crouching position would be more along the lines of sprawled out on the floor. I wasn't sure, but I think I felt Rin stiffen after a moment of sitting on me (it was difficult to tell as I had to do so through a layer of cardboard and had only her behind to go by).

Whatever the case, it seemed that the other two mean didn't notice as the second man said "Anyway, we need to put everyone on alert. One of those things could be in the building with us. Get everyone you can who can use sensor magic and run over the building again. I'm going to go check the roof."

I grimaced some more at this. There wasn't much I could do against sensor magic while trapped in a sat upon box, not to mention that they would soon find the unconscious body I left. It looked like I would soon have to abandon subtly for a more direct approach. If I moved fast enough, I could grab Rin and jump out a window before anyone knew what was happening. The magi would of course pursue, but hopefully I could lose them in the city, and it wasn't like I had many other options.

I briefly tensed and listened for the right moment to act, but was quickly derailed when one of Rin's leg's idly kicked the box, giving me pause. "Well, you can do that without me." She said. "I'm staying right here."

I heard an angry growl. "You've clearly yet to learn your place, Tohsaka. We're not going to ignore orders just because you're having a fit."

"My place? It would be a disgrace on the Toksaka name if I let you lackeys drag me around like a dog on a leash for any longer!"

There was some more irritated grumbling before it stopped. Then the second man spoke up, a hint of smugness in his voice. "Fine. If you don't want to be on a leash, how about a cage?" With that, I heard the door slam shut.

"Hey!" Rin said as she got up off of me. "What are you doing? How dare you lock me in here! Let me out!" She started pounding on the door, but it died off quick enough. I heard a light huff. "Well, I suppose that works too." She said.

From in the box, I heard her footsteps coming back towards me, and thankfully she didn't sit on me again. Unfortunately, she started kicking the box instead.

After brief scuffle and one sound muffling Bounded Field later, the two of us found ourselves looking at each other rather annoyed. "What the hell was that for?" I asked in irritation.

"That's for sneaking into a Clock Tower safe house in a cardboard box." She replied coolly. "I don't care how popular Metal Gear Solid is, that doesn't actually work in real life!"

I gave a grunt. "Well, it was working just fine for me until you sat on me. And for that matter, how did you know it was me? Theoretically it could have been anyone."

Rin arched an eyebrow. "Besides the fact that I knew you would be trying to find me, what do you think the odds are that someone else would think to do that?"

I opened my mouth to respond, but then I closed it in a frown. "Ok, fair point." I conceded. "In any case, I don't know how much time we have. I left an unconscious body on the roof which they'll be finding any second now."

Rin gave it a moment's thought before saying "If you stay in here with me, I should be able to hide you from any sensor magic they might use. I doubt they'll be looking in here again anyway since the decided to turn it into my impromptu cell. They'll be sending scouts out in the morning, so that will be the best chance to leave."

My frown deepened at this. "Alright, what were you thinking of? I'm sure we could get out of the building fast enough if we had to but-"

"We are not leaving." She interrupted. "You are."

"Huh? What are you talking about?"

"I mean that we won't get another opportunity like this to have someone on the inside of the Mage's Association here in Shin Tokyo. They already think I'm one of them, so I'll be able to tell you what their next move is."

My expression became darker. "No. Absolutely not. It's far too dangerous. I heard those other two magi say that you were already under suspicion. You can't possible hope to imitate this dimension's Rin under scrutiny." There was no way I would allow her to take that kind of risk.

Rin, however, didn't budge. "You know as well as I do that the Clock Tower won't give up after this. They're going to try again, and this time they won't try to be subtle. Any information I can learn about their plans could save lives, and you know it."

I clenched my fists in frustration. "What about your life? I can't let you do something so risky! Not when-"

"-it was your idea to stay?" She completed for me. My mouth snapped shut and she continued. "When are you going to learn to stop taking everything on yourself? You can't expect me to just sit on the sides every time you try to help someone and nearly burn yourself out doing so. You're not the only one willing to take risks you know. I'm here for you, anytime you need it." Her expression softened a bit and a wiry expression crossed her face. "Besides, I want to help that hopeless other you as well, if only so the other me can beat some sense into him."

I stared at her with girt teeth for a moment before giving an exasperated sigh, covering my face with my hand as I did so. It was times like this I wish my lover wasn't so brilliant. She usually was better at arguing and logic than I was, not to mention stubborn. I could tell that I wouldn't be able to get her to budge on the issue. Eventually, I muttered "I'm pretty sure she's doing that right now."

"Oh, so you did find her." Rin said. "I must say, I was rather confused at first when the magi started acting like I should be here. Just what did happen?"

I gave her a brief rundown of what happened after we lost sight of each other. The trap, Eltanwise's death, Uzume's betrayal, and this dimension's Rin and Saber.

She gave a mirthless laugh at the last one. "That's not going to end well, is it?"

"Who knows," I replied. "Maybe it will be Play for Laughs."

She gave a sigh at this. "Shirou…"

"After all, there's only a slight chance that one of them will start to Murder the Hypotenuses."

Her tone became slightly harder. "Shirou,"

"On the other hand, maybe he'll just go crazy and sleep with them all at once. Miya won't be able to stop him if she's a part of it too."

Now she was frustrated. "Shirou."

"It will confuse people if you keep calling me that. So long as we're here, I'm Troper-"

"No you're not!" Rin suddenly yelled, her voice carrying enough of an edge that I took a step back from her. "Damn it Shirou, you've been acting like this more and more since you got here!"

"L-like what?" I stuttered.

"Like everything's a joke! Like nothing actually gets to you!" She looked me in the eyes as she said this, as if daring me to deny it. "You're acting like Archer!"

I felt my entire body stiffen as she said this. Archer never did take anything seriously, only rarely bothering to put any real effort into anything. He was a little like Gilgamesh in that regard, but he was more apathetic about it rather than arrogant. In truth he was a much more bitter and cynical man, for all his power unable to change his story. For him, nothing really did matter.

I couldn't have been acting like that… was I?

Rin gave another sigh at my shocked expression, her shoulders slumping as she did so. "I'm sorry. I know that's just how you behave to throw people off. It's just… you've been doing it more and more. I'm starting to worry that someday you'll just lose yourself in it. I'm worried that you're losing hope."

I turned away from her not sure what I should feel. Was it true? Had it been so long looking for Saber that I had begun to lose hope? Was I turning into that shell of a man whose ending he could never change?

The rest of the night was spent in an awkward silence between the two of us. I just wish I didn't have to do it in a dark box.