AN: Sorry for the delay. Had some emergency time with the family that kept me away from the net a bit, and then the Taylor Bridge Fire in Washington is within walking distance of where I live.

Fate/Far Side: Synchronized Body

Chapter 8

Reality Within

Night had fallen. An automatic timer on Kohaku's desk lamp set the device on, and I could finally make out the maid's expressionless face from something other than the ghostly glow from the television. A bit of a trade-off, though, as peering out the window for signs of trouble no longer worked with the glare from inside and the darkness beyond.

"Ally of justice, huh? I think you'd have to have me as an enemy if you really wanted justice."

I thought about that, shrugged, tried to get the image of Tohsaka giving me a disapproving look out of my head. "It's kind of ironic, or fitting, or even contradictory, but I just want to save people. That's what all I do boils down to. I don't really care what you've done before. Even if it were a jail full of unrepentant murderers and rapists, I would still save them if given the chance."

Kohaku looked back to the television. "That seems really…naïve. And pointless."

"My world is a small one," I said, my fingers stroking through Kohaku's hair. "It always has been." He was always alone, intoxicated with victory. "I've always been seeking something, I don't know. Maybe just some kind of conclusion in my mind. But," I sighed as I thought back, "I'm sure there was a good reason for it. Maybe still is."

Kohaku tilted her head such that she could look up at me, amber eyes somehow brighter in the faint light despite the fact that the golden color in an iris did not actually shine bright like real gold.

"You said you want to burn everything; I have had everything burned. It's been pointed out to me countless times. I'm just abnormal like that. Fire was everywhere when I was born, and that's all that I've ever known. So when I see others happy, smiling, enjoying life…it feels right. It feels like the only right. So…if you say you're burning everything now, if that's what this all is, then that's fine. If you can come out of it smiling…well, I'll deal with putting the fire out, then."

She didn't say anything, though the look in her eyes was pretty clear: It isn't that simple.

I reached down and cupped her cheeks in my hands. "There. That's what I've been looking for. That's the expression I remember."

The maid blinked at me. "Hmm?"

"The fake looks, expressions, laughter…it confused me. I don't remember meeting anyone here with that kind of personality. But I do remember this, this person."

"Someone who is utterly confused by everything that comes out of your mouth?"

"Yep. I remember that too. You looked like you'd never seen an umbrella before."

The sound Kohaku made was something like a scoff and a snort and a laugh, like she couldn't decide what her reaction to that was. More and more, it was feeling like I could actually detect the real person here, one that was probably just as confused as anyone else under the age of thirty that has had many traumatic things occur in their life. Probably quite a few older than that too. "When Hisui changed, when she was suddenly serious where she once was carefree…it was a bit of a shock, to me and to everyone else. She used to be…energetic. Bubbly. Hmm, maybe not the right words, but, you understand?"

I nodded.

"So I told her that I would just trade rolls with her, because it really felt like that girl had somehow become a victim of…circumstances." She shrugged helplessly. "I'm not sure if she consciously chose to be like I remember I was in my youth, but it ended up that way. We just turned around and became each other. I wonder if this all…wasn't just to preserve that girl. I don't know."

She was repeating a bit from what she said before, but, again, there was something new here, something a little deeper than before. "I don't want to…harm that girl, if that's what you're doing." The idea of keeping another person alive—even if they weren't actually dead—made a lot of sense to me. It was, I guess, part of the reason I tried so hard to mimic Kiritsugu. And while I couldn't exactly mimic the others…I tried to keep in my head everything that they had once said, tried to make sure that what they felt and the choices they made were within me. Even if some of those things were really painful.

"No, I don't know…it's not like that quite anymore," Kohaku admitted. She gave another shrug. "We've been doing it for so long now, I'm not even sure what we're doing anymore. Maybe it is time to just…move on. Change, or grow up, or whatever it is we're supposed to be doing."

"Maybe."

She then came out and said it, the thing that I knew she was dancing around. "If…I'm really going to 'move on,' though, there really isn't much I can do, though."

"I'm sure the Japanese Public Security Intelligence Agency is looking for recruits such as yourself."

She laughed, and though it was closer to that fake laugh of before, there was an undercurrent of bitterness there that was irreplaceable. "I don't think an intelligence group is going to trust me when a young woman I've known all my life can't."

I didn't argue with her, though I felt like it. Tohno-san didn't seem like she was untrusting of Kohaku—or, she was, but for completely different reasons. The kind of untrustworthiness one held from being family. The same untrustworthiness I felt toward Fuji-nee. Or Tohsaka, I guess.

The thought of the witch back home—or, well, both witches back home—gave me a bit of an idea. One that probably would be funny in other circumstances, since the idea only came to me when prompted by the idea of family and trust and images of Fuji-nee and Tohsaka left in charge of my place. Again, though, I kept quiet, since really, I should run this past said people first. Things in life had already conspired to see previous loved ones forced out of my life, and I didn't want any of the same things leading up to that to happen here.

So I said, "I'll trust you."

The laugh that rose from her throat was a lot more bitter this time, though there was something to it that also made me think I'd somehow cracked through her façade for good. She leaned into the side of my leg like all the tension in her back had gone out. "That'd be pretty silly too, Shirou. I haven't told you complete truths either."

"Then, you didn't like The Last Samurai. I have you now."

"Mm, I liked it fine. Your nori, though, was terrible."

I stared at her. I mean, I really stared, like I could bore a hole into her head with my eyes. "You can't mess up the taste of nori. It's nori."

"It wasn't the taste, it was the technique you used to roll it around the sushi."

I couldn't help but growl low in my throat. "You're distracting me from some kind of bomb you're about to drop, aren't you?"

Kohaku's sigh was one of suffering, a martyr's sigh. "They need to stop educating boys. It becomes such a hassle when they can see right through anything you do. Or at least, they should not allow them to play games like Shogi or Othello."

"It wouldn't help. I'm absolutely useless at Shogi." Although Othello was a different matter. I think that had too much to do with some kind of cosmic irony, though.

"I hate video games."

I blinked at her. "So the truth comes out."

"I hate them." She gave me this look, though, that said that despite the declaration against such a mundane, silly aside, it really was something she felt. "I hate them with a burning passion."

"Why?"

"Because you can win against them. It makes you feel like you could actually win in other things. Even in story-driven games that end badly, you accomplish the feat of reaching the end."

I clamped my teeth down on any kind of response I had to that. There we were, closer to what I thought might be the truth, or some kind of truth, a truth…something. I wanted to refute that, argue with that, but something about the way she looked at me told me I was better off keeping quiet.

"I don't really know what I'm doing. I don't really have even a goal in mind anymore. I did things to keep my mind turning, but…you know, I never really thought about what would happen at the end. I never even considered to consider that ending." She paused, probably to think on that last bit and whether it even made sense, though it made sense to me. "Games all have a nice, wrapped-up conclusion and end result. I don't think the world is like that at all." She'd turned to face me at that, though she now leaned back toward the television as if she could use her head to point. "With movies, maybe I don't feel as bad with them because I'm just watching. I'm not really participating."

I liked it fine, she had said about the movie. Because she was watching it as an observer.

She was participating in this, these plans she had, but had no sense of a conclusion. But she also liked movies when she was outside of the action…

The distance she had on everything was somehow familiar, a paradox not unlike mine, I guess. She distanced herself to feel better, but in being distant she's not fully invested, but by participating, she has no goal…

"You're like a watcher," she said, leaning up, planting her hands on either side of me like she was going to corner me into some kind of confession. "You see this all from the outside. I think I have you to blame for this all falling apart, you know."

"I'm sorry," I said, swallowing hard.

"You look at me and everything I see there says you're somehow forgiving, like what I am isn't terrible, like I'm not some kind of monster bred by monsters. But if I pull you in, if you get involved, you're going to see something different, and there's not going to be some kind of clean goal or ending, you're just going to get used up and burned out…"

I snorted at that. Nothing to burn out here, really.

"You know, I'm not that girl, though…I'm really not." She met my gaze steadily, though the sad acceptance in her eyes was once more something I recognized—it came from that same place, that same girl that just viewed the world completely differently than I could ever wrap my head around. "Another lie, another thing I don't really know. I was joking about being pure, you know, because, I'm…I'm not, and I don't think you should trick yourself into believing it. I'm really not a damsel. I think you're still convinced that I am, even if I keep telling you I'm the dragon."

"You might be surprised at how backwards 'dragon' and 'damsel' are in my head," I said. Or how oddly close I can view them, anyway.

"I'm also more calculating than that," she said, her voice lowering. "I don't really…I'm not the type of person that decides things on how they feel." She looked sad for a moment, before her face colored. "I also know that if you're going to keep this up, if you're going to think about facing the people outside, you…will need help."

"I…yeah, that's probably true…" I wasn't sure I liked where this was heading.

Suddenly, the way she was leaning over me was a lot more intimate than I really thought it was to begin with. It didn't help that I was on her bed or that the large, empty house really helped emphasize how much privacy we had. Even with a scary oni-demon-person-thing possibly waiting outside.

"You know…" She kept leading off like that, and really, I didn't know, and I was really starting to pay for it. "There's a reason Akiha-sama isn't like Kouma. She has demonic ancestry as well, but unlike Kouma, she can keep it controlled."

"Er…" From where she was going before, I didn't exactly see this coming. "That's…neat?"

"What if I told you that the reason she can do that is that Hisui and I are magi as well. Different from you, but surprisingly similar in a few ways?"

Kohaku moved over me, slowly, and I couldn't help but back up in turn, until my shoulders hit the wall her bed was flush with. "I would say that I'm not exactly surprised. There's a lot about this family to find out about."

Nodding, Kohaku moved until she was straddling me—something that made my eyes waver from hers a bit. Wearing a kimono like she did, to spread her legs like that meant the outfit rode up on her until I could make out the pale skin beneath. "You said that as a magi, your power is built around one thing and one thing only. Hisui and I, we're like that too, though our power doesn't influence the world around us. It can only affect individuals."

Actually, that did make a fair amount of sense. Demonic heritage, from what Tohsaka had told me, was a rare case when it came to manifestation because it was so overpowering. Either it showed up in tiny ways to a lineage that snuffed out in a generation, or it consumed the person to the point that they became more animal than man. "You can help her contain it?"

The maid nodded. "It's why we're here. To keep the Tohno bloodline under control." She leaned forward on her hands again which brought her face very very close to mine. "It isn't just with demons, though. We share life force. From what I understand of spellcasters, that's one half of your energy source, isn't it?"

Other conversations I had with Tohsaka were suddenly running to the front of my mind. Things she had considered doing when confronting the situation between Saber and I. Things she had considered after the war to help me maintain the body I now inhabited. Things she even had to consider when it came to regulating Saber's energy, which was like a nuclear reactor next to my tiny motor. "Actually, it's all of my energy source. I don't…er, I'm kind of a terrible mage. I don't use the Greater Source, I only interact with it."

"And that power is decreased after the last fight."

"Yeah." I could swear that sweat was going to become visible on my forehead. "Kohaku, I'm not…that's not…I don't, er…well, I mean, I do, but…" Sharing life-force required either some kind of magical contract, or it required…a kind of other contract, between bodies.

She tilted her head. "Whatever do you mean?"

Oh boy. If she was going to yank the rug out from beneath my feet now, I was never going to live it down. "I…what you're suggesting…I kind of get the picture…"

"And?"

"And…um." I really hate how the transition between my brain and my mouth often just didn't really do things justice. Really. It wasn't a wonder that my ability with foreign languages was horrible. "I…it's not like, I don't want to, or, um, that it has anything to do with you, but, you know, I just…uh, I, uh, I don't want you to feel like, well, obliged, or something, because that's kind of what it sounds like, like you'd be doing it because I'm getting myself involved, and, that's not why I'd want to, um." Thank you brain, I can already tell you're doing your best to emasculate me.

Again, I caught a glimpse of something beneath all of Kohaku's front, something equal parts sad, angry, confused, and hopeful, though it didn't last very long. She settled on something closer to sad, though there was a bit of amusement there too, probably coming from adding up all of the stuttering. "Just because there are different reasons, Shirou, doesn't mean we can't."

She kissed me then, hard and demanding, like she was convinced I really was going to be put off by her presence and make a run for it at any moment.

Well, to hell with the niceties. Really, if I could consider the finer details of my argument amidst that, I was probably not fit to call myself alive.

My arms came up to hold her until she was no longer over me but atop me, her hips settling down onto my lap and her body firmly to mine. Her hands went up to glide up my neck and around the fringes of my hair, making me shiver—or making her shiver, I really couldn't tell.

I wished it could be different. Something in me said that, in other circumstances, this really should be different. That for Kohaku, anything but desperation would be a better situation for this kind of thing to occur in. I would have liked to explore that more, was even thinking that I should just forget getting back home or looking around town to just be around her, let this all come more naturally. I thought that she deserved that, or wanted that, or maybe even that I wanted that, considering everything else.

But something else told me…

That I might not have another chance, nor another way, to let her know any of that.

She had my shirt off before I really knew what was going on, though she stopped to trace her fingers along the invisible seam where my arm had been detached from my body. It looked like nothing was amiss there, though the touch that Kohaku gave was absolutely perfect in where it had occurred. She must have paid close attention. I'm not even sure I could have visually identified it—it took a sense of feeling it to know.

"It looked like it hurt," she said.

Before I could respond, she lifted herself up onto her knees and pulled the trailing ends of her kimono up. It was all I could do not to just sit and stare, the lines of her legs coming up to meet, a thin set of cloth the only thing covering her. What was striking was the fact that I'm sure she didn't wear such kinds of underwear normally: transparent, slightly stringy, something one wore to be seductive.

I looked up to her and, though her cheeks were red, she said, "I told you, I'm more calculating than you'd think."

Brain-and-mouth division only rapidly expanding, I blurted, "Did you think you'd need to seduce me?"

The startled look she gave me seemed genuine, though I couldn't even begin to fathom the why. And I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to figure it out even with a full blood supply to my brain.

My hands came down until they met revealed skin, sliding along her thighs before coming around to the flesh of her rear and sliding beneath a rather daring backside. I suddenly had the desire to just consume her somehow, pull her close and tight to me until there was no separation possible.

"I…didn't know if you thought I was attractive," she said, barely a whisper.

I blinked at that, unable to process a coherent thought, and though she blushed at the confession, it did not keep her from continuing. While my hands held her clothes aside, she pulled at mine until they were open, helping me slide them off until I could kick everything off with my feet. She allowed the same to be done with her, though when one leg was clear, I could no longer resist and pulled her back tightly until we had to move to one another only by touch.

I held her body to mine, my arms locked around her waist. I held her there as long as I could manage, until I was sure our breathing was in synch, the blood pumping through our bodies the same. The natural way she responded as I started to rock up into her was practiced, intuitive, until she was moving absolutely in time with me.

Though she never said exactly what had happened…I could guess.

There really wasn't anything I could do to make it up to her, to even keep this from somehow reminding her of something no person should ever have to experience. Again, if I had some kind of words that could console her, I'd voice them, but all I could do was something that—

"Just like this," Kohaku whispered in my ear, like she was reading my mind, "and it'll be fine." She rocked her body slowly, the lines of her body swaying perfectly, her hands brushing up the back of my head and through my hair. Even with the gentle motions, though, she would tighten herself around me, pulling at my body greedily, until I was certain this would end all too soon.

I tried to shake off the feeling that this was all for me, though, despite the way Kohaku seemed to control the pace—I pulled at the tie to her kimono, started pulling at the fabric surrounding her. She gasped and tried to stop me, though the fact that I was a man and just had more strength than she could manage was to her detriment. She flushed red as I pulled the clothing from her shoulders until she was nearly as naked as I was.

"You're terrible," she muttered.

But the way she squeezed around me as I pressed my lips to her bared skin told me that I probably wasn't that terrible.

The voice of the one who cursed me echoed through my mind.

She will die, it said, and there is nothing you can do to save her.

No, not even that. It amended itself, an amused laugh bubbling up, like the sound she used to make when he did something silly in the kitchen, or when Fuji-nee would make a joke. You can save her. But she will only destroy herself.

She will destroy herself, like everyone else you failed. Like Illya, like Sakura.

And your life, which "needs no meaning" will return—once again—

To being alone on that hill.

I jumped awake.

The faintest light from the early morning greeted me.

Growling at myself, I clambered out of bed and threw on the clothes that had been left discarded all about the room. No sign of Kohaku, and I had a feeling that I knew why, but I also knew she could not be too far ahead of me: the bed was still faintly warm from where she had been. Too, though I didn't know exactly how Tohno-san's ability worked, I had a feeling nobody could just walk right out of the mansion without something happening that was obvious to everyone inside.

I spotted the tray of drugs on the nightstand next to the bed as I finished dressing. Chemistry was never my strong point, though, and I'd never had access to any kind of medical schooling, so, what it did I could only guess. Why it wasn't working, too, I could only guess, and that list was way too long to consider. I did still feel kind of groggy, though that might just be from not getting much sleep in the first place, or the fact that my sleep-depravation before was countered by a mystical device that could make you immortal.

In shooting out of Kohaku's room I almost slammed head-first into Hisui. The maid was probably coming to find her sister, even. "Kohaku's already up, I have a bad feeling, go get Tohno-san," I said. Or at least, I think I said. It kind of came out as a jumble.

Before Hisui could respond, I was down the hallway and around the corner. There were windows there that faced out toward the main gate. Though I couldn't see anything beyond the everyday early morning glow from outside, the urgency I felt didn't diminish. I made for the kitchen to make sure I wasn't just going crazy—

Empty. It looked like nothing had been touched since cleanup the previous night.

"He's outside!" came a shout from elsewhere in the house. Tohno-san's voice. I could feel a prickly sense of warmth rise up at that, part of the boundary field that Tohno-san had erected from what I could tell.

I didn't make for the front door, or any doors for that matter. Instead, I bolted for the nearest staircase to the second level and toward the front face of the house. There were windows overlooking the grounds that I needed. The only conclusion I had come to from thinking about the last fight was I needed to play this as smart as possible for any chance to come out ahead.

He was just within the perimeter of the grounds. Just from a glance, it seemed as if he had torn down the gates with brute strength. Kohaku was slowly walking out toward him, and I brought to mind the various plans and strategies I'd been considering yesterday.

"This isn't 'moving on' if that's what you're planning, Kohaku," I shouted, pulling the window open.

"You should stay in bed, Shirou," Kohaku said. She turned to look over her shoulder up at me. "You're in no condition to come out here."

The single eye of the demon-man came up to glare at me. I readied myself. "Coming out there wasn't what I had in mind." I put as much strength into my voice as I could and said, "Kouma Kishima, you'd better turn back now. I don't want to hurt you."

He regarded me not with amusement like some arrogant gold-plated men might, but with cool deliberation and a sense that screamed it's always the quiet ones. "Pain is ephemeral. You threaten no one unless it is with death."

I guess that's all there was to it. I pulled the bow I had made previously in preparation for any attacks that would be made on the mansion and brought to mind the first weapon I wanted to start this show off with. The black sword twisted and convulsed into a jagged form like lightning. "Crimson Red Vermillion, meet the Scarlet Hound. Hrunting!"

The shot hit him before he could move out of the way—this guy moved like a Servant, but I doubted many Servants could avoid it at this range. Unfortunately, at this range, I also couldn't break it, else risk enough of a force backlash that would just wipe out the entire grounds here.

That might have been a mistake.

When the dust the arrow had kicked up cleared, Kouma was still standing. He had an arm raised—the weapon had pierced clean through it between elbow and wrist, but had stopped shy of hitting him at the shoulder where I had been aiming. He then reached up with his free hand and tore the arrow right out of his body like one might peel a bandage off a small cut.

I shoot a bullet that surpasses Mach speeds, and he still manages to block it. Shit.

The demon's eyes came up to glare at me. If what I saw before was anything, it said that he was a pragmatic fighter and would eliminate a threat like me as a priority instead of taking Kohaku and running. Said action would put him on the defensive—but if he took me out, that would leave him unmolested.

He made for the mansion and I knew I was in trouble. When he bounded up to grab the crown of the front doorway, I knew I was screwed.

Unlimited Blade Works was not an option. It took time to deploy, time I couldn't afford when fists were flying at me. The golden Servant was one thing—he stood back, never pressing the attack more than a burst of weapons at a time. Kouma was not like that at all: a whiff of blood and he was on his game. He knew not to play with his food. And then, even if the demon was in a sporting mood, I was already in the red with energy. If I could manage it, it'd pull all the energy I had left out, and the boundary field would only last a few moments.

I was going to have to rely on Projection-only—

Kouma took one swing from his arms, flipping up into the air and coming down with his feet onto the windowsill that I had fired from. In that time, I managed to back up, discard the bow, and had another weapon in hand, one that was untested and would probably fail at an inopportune moment—

But I needed the chance it might give me.

The demon was before me as fast as before, his fist ready to pound me at sternum height. The sword I had created knew to block, had instincts far superior to my own, and instead the fist met the flat of the blade just above the blade-guard where the sword was widest. A shock went up my arms from the blow and even with just that, I thought I might have heard something break in one of my wrists.

Oni before me, dragon-slayer between us. Arondight was imperfect just like any elemental-forged weapon, but its memory and history might be able to contend with this monster. Saber's presence, in those long and lonely days since the end of the war had confided in me the fact that if one wanted close range superiority, I had to go with him instead of her. And Archer's shot on Berserker had given me that one glimpse I'd needed to make that happen.

The demon reared back and struck once more. The blade of the perfect knight flew faster than I could react myself and slashed at him in turn, parrying aside his blow.

I heard footsteps behind me and could only guess that Tohno-san or Hisui had rushed up to check on the situation. I tried to shout, "Get back to safety!" but the moment I devoted any semblance of brainpower to that action, Kouma blocked one swing from the black sword and, in one fluid motion, struck it with his free hand in the direction I had been swinging. Braced against his iron skin, the weapon groaned, bent, and then broke as my image of it failed.

And when my eyes raised to glance up at the wound in his arm the sword had managed, I caught a glimpse of red flaring into the black halo of his head.

"Shirou! He's inver—"

Akiha Tohno's voice was cut off as the hand to Kouma's unharmed arm came up, grabbed me by the face, picked me up in place, and brought me crashing back into the floor like a rag doll.

I heard and felt a crack from within my body, and the world went dark.

Synchronized Body, Reality Within, End