AN: Sorry, was distracted by other stuff.

Fate/Far Side: Synchronized Body

Chapter 7

Dangers Surround

The evening was uneasy, like a hostage standoff, and the backwards way it all came together was somehow appropriate. Though the Touzaki and their secret weapon had withdrawn from within sight of the Tohno mansion, it was very clear that they had not come so far as to give up now. Supposedly, for all intensive purposes, Tohno-san was "in danger" from Kohaku and Hisui, so the Touzaki, next up in the ladder of family hierarchy, would be required to step in to maintain the stability of the clan.

I couldn't do much. There was excess feedback occurring in my connection to my body—the lack of Saber's supernova of a presence made everything I did feel sluggish and lethargic. I could still maintain control, but it was like a high-end car that required very refined gas suddenly being given the cheap, standard stuff the clunker down the road drove. It would work for a bit, but the vehicle would not like it, would not perform in its upper capacity, and would probably end with the engine choking up and dying if continually pushed.

From the upper-story windows I set up a periodic watch, moving to the different sides of the house to check for anything out of place. Though, for some reason, I had this sneaking suspicion that nothing like a surprise attack would happen. If that were so, they would have hired a sniper or some kind of shadowy assassin, not a battleship.

Although, I suppose they could just shell the entire place instead of kill individuals, if that was the comparison…

"He is a distant relative of the Tohno family," Hisui said. She apparently felt the need to try and pull me away from my self-appointed sentry duty, so she stood in the doorway as if she were waiting on me. "He stayed here for a time under Makihisa-sama's orders. Akiha-sama made him leave after her father's death."

"Tohno-san must have a lot of fun whenever the whole family gets together."

Hisui, of course, did not crack at that. "Emiya-sama, you should not get yourself involved in internal affairs such as this. It would only trouble Akiha-sama and nee-san further."

"I'm already involved, you know. I'm not exactly the kind of person that can just up and leave in this sort of situation. Or even leave a fight such as this unfinished." Forget dreams and ideals, I think I'd fail as a man if that were so.

"He has a point." Tohno-san wove past Hisui, flipping her hair in a gesture that still seemed directed at me. The red haze had yet to abate and now she looked vaguely like a heroine from some anime I had once caught. "Hisui, can you go make sure your sister isn't going to go throw herself outside in front of the bus? I don't really want to talk to her right now."

Though I swore that Hisui would have said something like no busses drive past the estate at this hour, the maid bowed and was gone without a peep. Either she was also concerned about her sister's mental state, or Tohno-san was going to do something scary and she felt it best to vacate the premises as fast as possible.

Tohno-san eyed my left shoulder for a moment; though I had changed clothes to get rid of the shirt with the torn sleeve, I had apparently made an impression. She was probably looking for signs of my body's fake nature, though now that the flow of energy through my body was re-regulated, it would not look doll-like without some kind of interference. Unless some kind of magic or mystery tore the illusion away, I'd be as normal as anyone else. Though maybe "normal" is not the right word.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

I shrugged. There was a lot more to it, but, I guess the answer was "Okay. I heal quickly." Though now, that sensation deep in the pit of my stomach was gone—I would not be healing that quickly any longer. "What about you?"

Tohno-san's eyes went up, as if she could spot her own hair in a way that was kinda cute, actually. It made her look confused and cross-eyed. "Probably better than someone who just got his arm ripped from his body. All I did was dye my hair."

Blatant lies, but that was fine. We both knew it. "I've only ever heard of people like you once or twice. I didn't even know if they would exist in such a…well, uh, normal state." Again, probably not the right word, but, whatever.

"What, you expected demon-bloods to live out in the wilds like animals?"

Well, that was scary. I didn't realize anyone's glare could frighten me more than Tohsaka's. Maybe it was the fact that I knew Tohsaka would never actually kill me—she couldn't embezzle my income that way—but I had no idea what Tohno-san would do. Although I had the impression it involved hot coals or fire pokers. "No, I just, uh…you know, you think of things like that, it makes you think of adults in a faraway land, not teenagers that live up the street." Saying it aloud like that does feel a little embarrassing in hindsight though, since the girls that lived near me turned out to be magicians and all.

"I suppose." Still, Tohno-san kept her arms crossed and watched me like a hawk, ready to pounce on any further ill move I might make. "The same could be said of magicians."

"Kouma Kishima, on the other hand, is about what I'd imagine. He hits like a freight train. Who is he?"

Tohno-san paled a little. It was subtle, though apparent compared to her almost-glowing hair. "A monster, so I understand. And now have seen firsthand." She turned her gaze out the window I had been peering through, as if we could see the man beyond. "My family has…a history. Tied to any number of other families with interesting ancestry. We kept an eye on each other, so I understand. Kouma was part of a line distantly related to my family, and according to my father, probably the most powerful person to come around in many generations."

Well, of course, that figures. It just wouldn't be fair if he wasn't the most powerful in generations. "What's he doing with the other family? The one with the suits and cars?"

"Touzaki is all about maintaining a certain amount of our history and lineage. They aren't the most influential, but they have more ties to this side of the family, the side that the rest of the world doesn't see. If this had to do with our monetary situation, it would be someone else," and Tohno-san shuddered at that, "but since my life is what's at stake, they're taking it as a threat to the blood lineage. That's the excuse, anyway."

She had argued them down during the fight somehow and I wondered about that. "So this guy has some vested interest there too?"

"Kouma was trusted by my father, so I guess that is the reasoning. I don't know if he would understand that the Touzaki would love to use him as an excuse, though. If I died in the collateral damage, they could just thrust responsibility on him." She rolled her eyes. "The business side of my family probably wouldn't interfere, then, since the one in charge of that family branch really have much say about the other side of this." She muttered something, and though I had the impression it was so under her breath it wasn't meant for me to hear, I could still make out, "I would rather die than have him interfere."

All this talk about family branches and different sides to the Tohno was starting to make me feel a little dizzy. I understood well enough, but the formalities were all starting to sound really shallow and motivationally annoying. "So, Kohaku…taking her is just an excuse?"

"Probably." Tohno-san sighed, her shoulders rising and falling much more than a simple breath. This was clearly a deep-seeded issue. "I don't know how much she's fanned the fire, though at this point I really don't care. And I'd just want to yell if I talked to her now."

"Why keep her, then?" I mean, not that I wanted Kohaku fired, or anything, but it seemed strange that Tohno-san would put up with this if it troubled her so.

Tohno-san looked clear away from me at that, though whether to hide embarrassment, anger, or anything else I couldn't tell. "Because I owe her. I can't really blame her for anything she's done…it's complicated. Maybe you should ask her about it."

"Well, I would, but she seems to be avoiding me, and I'd rather keep watch…"

She motioned to the light about her hair. "I can use it to create what you might call a 'boundary field' around the perimeter of the house. I can't guarantee it will do anything to Kouma other than singe his arm hairs, though, if I spread it out like that. I'm no Magus Killer."

"I see." It answered one issue, but between that and her talk of magicians earlier, it was starting to paint a picture in my head that this was more than just what I'd told them about my body. "So you knew who I was?"

"I had a suspicion. Your father's name was whispered like a monster to all kinds of beings, not just magi. When Kohaku first brought you here, I wondered if she had gone to the trouble to hire you."

Though in any other case that might have made me laugh, all things considered it would probably be in bad form now. "I don't actually have any of my old man's talents, and I'd hardly consider myself a Magus Killer." Though, I guess my abilities probably fell closer to that or an Enforcer than they would an orthodox magus. "I can't, for instance, generate my own boundary field, and I don't really have the tools to detect and break through them." Outright destroy, maybe. Break through them? No.

"I gathered as much. Watching you, it was clear you aren't really that kind of person. You don't seem like you can conceal a part of yourself."

I gave her a frank look. "What, like, being not fully human, or having experienced things even most magi never encounter?"

Tohno-san shrugged. "The way you talk about them, though, it's simple and straightforward, almost stupidly so. It was pretty clear during your story that you think of it nothing more than as a natural occurrence. It isn't some kind of abnormality that a normal person would be depressed over, or curse, or throw into the back of their mind and flee from even the mere thought of. That would be normal. You just talk about it like it was Tuesday."

Probably exactly what she was talking about, I shook my head. It really wasn't an issue that needed addressing at the moment. "Regardless, I'm not a professional in that way. I really did just kind of bump into Kohaku earlier. But, well, knowing now the other side of things somewhat…you know, they say that the supernatural tends to attract its own."

"I suppose."

I thought of Tohno-san's offer, her comment on creating a boundary field. From the little I could observe earlier and what I knew of demons and half-demons, it seemed rather like an ESP ability rather than magecraft, though. "If you do that, though…I mean, I've heard a little about half-bloods and the inconsistent control they sometimes have over magic." Though, really, at the same time, they often had way more ability than the average magi. It just came naturally to them.

"I'll be fine," Tohno-san said, huffing and crossing her arms. "It's you I'm worried about."

"Er, well, the body will be fine if I have time to adjust, though there are a few issues that I'll probably have to figure out something creative to solve in the future—"

"Not what I was speaking of." She made a tisking noise from between her teeth. "From the things you told us about and just watching you from before, it's pretty clear you're the type to run in and do something incredibly stupid if left to your own devices. I really can't have that on my conscience if it was possible to keep you from dumbly charging into a situation you can't easily get out of."

"I'm not that bad."

…Anymore, at least.

"One last thing," I said, pulling myself away from the window. "If you owe her, or whatever, then…how far are you willing to take this? I mean, I really want to help, but…" the annoyingly cynical and practical side of me needed to know, though, "if I can't stop him…"

The fierce look in Tohno-san's eyes abated, and she somehow seemed—even though I gathered that she was younger than Kohaku and Hisui—like an elder sister concerned for their younger. "You put them first. That's what I always intended. Though," she let out a sound that was half-laugh, half-snort, "I'm not sure how much I can protect her from herself."

The mansion's emptiness began to bother me as I made my way to the kitchen. It suddenly felt like an old, foreboding place with all sorts of nooks and crannies for darkness to gather now that we had to wait for something to happen. Though I wasn't exactly scared, and it was still light enough out that the place had yet to take on a full gloom, it was just enough of a sensation to feel like something could jump out from some corner when one was not looking. The ticking of old clocks echoing through the halls only added to the feeling like something was waiting to happen and all we could do is batten down the hatches.

"Emiya-sama."

Hisui stood at the bottom of the stairway, a tray of food in hand. "Did Kohaku make dinner?" I asked.

"No. Nee-san is preoccupied." Succinct and straightforward, though even for Hisui, I gathered the situation was just too complicated to explain without going into a dissertation. The maid held the tray out and nodded toward one bowl. "I thought that it was still important that people eat, however, so I prepared something."

"Probably a good…thing." My statement wavered, though, as I took the offered dish. It resembled a French Onion Soup, but I could make out the scent of the broth, which, uh, smelled like curry. That made my stomach do flip-flops as it tried to decide what to make of it. "Is your sister down here?"

"She is in her room. I believe she wants to be left alone, but…" Hisui caught my eyes with an intense look of her own. There was something there that reminded me of how this girl had been the only one to not bat an eyelash at my arm earlier, and I had this feeling that she was about to surprise me again. "I think it would be different for you. Zero plus zero is still zero, and imaginary people do not have problems with impostors."

So, Hisui knew or suspected what I'd been slowly picking up on. I guess that was only to be expected, being sisters and all. "You'd better get that food to Tohno-san before it goes cold."

Hisui nodded, bowed, and was on her way. Though her words still bounced around in my head.

Only fitting, being a zero and all.

She was playing a video game.

The incongruity of it all somehow just settled in the back of my mind as only fitting and I let myself into her room when Kohaku didn't respond either way to the knock on her door. She simply sat with her back to the frame of her bed and stared at her television screen as a guy with a sword larger than his body slashed through a mob of enemies. It did not look like she was having trouble with the game, which was something I understood—this seemed like something she might do simply to have as background noise, something mindless and simple to drown out the myriad of thoughts and feelings that must have been running around her head.

I set Hisui's meal down on Kohaku's desk, noting with some amusement that Kohaku had an untouched bowl as well. I couldn't help but grin, and like the masochist I was, I took a spoonfull of it for a taste.

Hmm, someday, I would have to make this for Fuji-nee, just to see how she'd react.

Though I could make a joke, somehow I knew it would be met with silence. So I just set the bowl aside and sat on the edge of the bed, watching Kohaku as she mashed the attack button and her character corresponded by flinging an enemy back with a swing of a Berserker-ish sword. I glanced at the game case to see what exactly she was playing, and nodded to myself when I found it. The talk we had before about knights and damsels came into focus and I wondered if she had chosen this game on purpose or if it was entirely subconscious.

"You know…" Kohaku began with a completely straight, conversational tone, halfway distracted like anyone would be by playing a game that called for some amount of concentration, "when we were little, Hisui-chan and I were very different."

Though I hadn't met Hisui, the fact that what Kohaku had been like before and what she appeared as now clearly had not lined up. It had taken me a while to figure it out, but with all that had happened and all the thoughts of back home I'd been forced to recall, it had finally added up in my head. Sakura was like this, as I'd originally met her as Shinji's absolutely silent younger sister, though she had slowly opened up. I guess if Kohaku had been an actual part of my life, I might have been able to see that transition.

In the game, Kohaku mounted a dragon and took to the skies to shoot down her enemies in some medieval equivalent to a dogfight. "I was quiet. I didn't say much. Watched everything seriously, like an adult. Hisui was the opposite. She could run and play and be free. She smiled all the time and played with Akiha-sama and Shiki-san."

She was silent for a long while after that, blasting targets away with fire. I'd never really played many games like this, though I could see it was something of a cathartic experience. A part of me wondered what Saber would have taken from it.

Out the window, the sky finally fell to darkness and over the sound of the game I could hear footsteps occasionally move either past the doorway or elsewhere in the empty house. I made sure to keep my ears to the ground, metaphorically speaking, if for some reason we did come under attack. I could vaguely sense that Tohno-san had in fact somehow surrounded the house with a sort of field—it, well, sort of felt like her, stern and unyielding but not unnatural or unpleasant either—though what it would do if that beast charged in here was unclear.

"I don't really know what to describe it as. Nothing really fits. I hate this place, but I love things about it. I hate the Tohnos, but I love Akiha-sama and Shiki-san. But I hate them too, for never doing anything and being happy instead." She expertly wove past her foes and dashed headlong to her chosen targets. I had the feeling she'd played this level multiple times until she had memorized the computer's positions and strategies. "You know, I've read books on how a spouse will often ignore it if their husband or wife is abusing their children. Or how spouses often enable their other when it comes to excesses or addictions. I've always wondered if the same could be said of siblings or children that aren't directly involved."

Yeah, I figured as much. The distinct absence of Tohno-san's parents was foreboding enough. The fact that I'd added up how Tohno-san's father's room was next to Kohaku's only completed the thought. Usually a servant would have a separate quarters, not a room located like a wife or mistress might.

A sad girl in the rain, somehow shocked that anyone would just offer her an umbrella.

She is like the one you couldn't protect. The one who became an empty vessel for me to inhabit. The one whose insides were torn away by a madman's violation every day, while you sat perfectly happy in your pursuit of a fool's dream.

Without Saber's presence, without the fuel to the barrier of light still in my chest, the whispers of that curse trickled down into my ears.

Truth's voice burned from my fingertips inward. If you are a savior, you would have been here for this one. Instead, now, the evil that tormented her is gone. She is now the dragon, a poison-bearer and pariah. To save her is to save the dragon, not the damsel.

The lies came from within—they weren't her thoughts. If you saved her, you would be saving me. Saving me like you could not have before.

"I tried mimicking Hisui-chan. When she found out…it upset her. I thought, if I acted like she did, she would remember what it was like. It became…I don't know. Second nature. Some kind of act that we lived all the time."

The game came to a break. Kohaku let it sit without continuing onward.

"I've been doing things against the Tohno since then. I tried to pull Shiki-san back here, tried manipulating Shiki-san and Akiha-sama's family into situations, and when everything else wasn't working out, started to slowly poison Akiha-sama's food. It…none of it worked, and Hisui never tried to regain her old ways." Kohaku's head leaned into my knee, though if I had to give a reason as to why—it would be impossible to explain. It wasn't a desire for comfort, or even an expression of closeness. It was…

Something drawn into one of its own.

"I tried to ruin Akiha-sama…ruin the Tohno name…and when Hisui was far away, I was going to kill that name." A shudder ran through her, though I doubt she even noticed. She wanted to, but didn't. The same cycle of impossible reconciliation. Nothing was going to come up as a solution because there was no black and white path. Everything was jumbled up and complex. "I just…I…"

I didn't know what I was doing in the first place. It was unsaid, but I could add it up. It's a thought that has sat with me for a long time, always in my head in the years since the war. What it meant to follow Kiritsugu, why I was so driven to do so even after everything that had happened, how everything even Saber said about my goals being wrong only served to push me further.

Fronts. Faces. Masks.

Imaginary personas and impostors.

"Even so," I said, "what's important is the now."

She looked up at me, slowly, as if realizing for the first time that I was there. No overblown expression on her face, no sense of a façade. She just looked sad and confused. "I told you, didn't I? I'm no princess, no damsel. I'm the one that wanted to burn everything."

She is now the dragon, a poison-bearer and pariah.

"I was afraid this…that this would happen, that you'd get caught up in all of this because of me, that you'd—"

I interrupted her. "I have a dream, you know. Actually, well, that's wrong. It isn't my dream. I'm not even sure what the dream is supposed to mean, to be honest. My dad told me that he wanted to be an ally of justice. So I've wanted what he wanted. For a lot of reasons."

She blinked up at me.

"So, well, there's really nothing you can say. I want to get caught up in this. Because it's what an ally of justice would do."

Synchronized Body, Dangers Surround, End