His name was Allen Miller, a man of unknown age, nationality, and motive, but one thing about his current lifestyle was clear. He was presently a Mercenary and working his ass off in a world that revolved around money. Without money there was no life, and he'd much prefer not to sleep on the streets again like the first time he'd found himself penniless and, in a place, that he had no idea where to go left from right. Only him. His life had never been straightforward and it was always one thing after another.

He grimaced and placed a hand over the bridge of his nose to better collect his thoughts. He was a quiet and reticent man, but that was only because he preferred to only show and say what was needed. In which case, he always had plenty of time to think which was what he needed to do now while readjusting the position of his M16 assault rifle aimed over the barricade he'd made around the city gone to hell in front of him.

Damn zombie ghouls.

He pulled the trigger and mowed down about a dozen walkers trying to make their way out of the city at his specific choke point. Other barricades were created all around the area and manned by trained mercenaries with relations to the residents of the Moon-Lit World, or stuck up prudes calling themselves Magi with a distinct classification known as Enforcer.

Honestly, he didn't know who he disliked more, the wandering and brainless low-tier ghouls, or the pretentiousness of his magically inclined clients. It was a hard choice really.

As the bodies of the ghouls splattered onto the ground, Allen eased his grip on his rifle before hearing a noise to his left. Instinctually, his arms moved to unclip his shotgun strapped over his back, but his mind quickly registered that there was no need for the big boy yet.

Well, fuck this shit.

He directly stood up from his post and unlatched the helmet he was wearing. He had a bushel of short messy blond hair cropped at the sides, and the cool, almost emotionless gleam of his emerald coloured eyes denoted a man who had experienced many events in life. He was wearing black with strips of white to better camouflage himself in his shadowed position, but really, he already knew he was going to be forced into action.

He irritably scratched the stubble growing on his chin while feeling the phantom pains of the scars running down from the brow of his left eye to his mouth throbbing. Not this shit gain.

In the distance, Allen all but verified what he'd heard. He could literally see it too based on the elevation of his vantage point. The sight of a plane's engine turbines roaring to life at the city's air port.

Not good. Not good at all. If he could see it, then his colleagues should be able to see it to, and that was even worse. If that plane took off, then the pay was going to get docked if the magi decided to take action, not that it was Allen's main point of concern.

He knew of magic. Hell, he'd been attacked and nearly killed by it, yet here he was again in another magic related incident doing his best to prevent any wandering ghouls from escaping the perimeter of the infested city in the middle of nowhere. It probably wouldn't be on the map anymore by the morning and those that had once knew of it would probably 'mysteriously' forget anything to do about it. Such was how the present world worked, and he was just trying to do what he felt was the right thing based on his own circumstances.

His eyes narrowed while listening to the distinct hum of the plane's engines roaring. In his right hand, he resolutely clutched onto a baseball-sized crystal channeling whatever power that he could from it as distant memories came to the forefront of his mind. He was resolving himself all while a single question played again and again in his head.

What are you doing Emiya?

He'd met the man, no Magus, on the field, and Shirou was perhaps the only Magus he actually had a good enough opinion of to call 'friend.' Still, this wasn't like Shirou to risk the lives of others by letting the potentially infected leave to another city. Maybe something went wrong, and he knew all too well what that meant.

Well, shit. He knew that he shouldn't have taken this job.

He loaded his guns and began to make his way to the airport. Better him to do the deed than a ruthless magus.

"What have you done?"

If Nanoha was thrown off by how bitter Shirou sounded as he approached her, she didn't show it as the majority of her attention was still on the fact that Shirou was like her. A Magic User labeled as an Exceptional Human by the members of the TSAB.

Her mouth opened, but she quickly found herself speechless not knowing how explain to Shirou about his extraordinary circumstance. Therefore, she aimed her gaze on the floor of the air port terminal and waited until Shirou drew close enough that he could make sense of her eventual stammers.

"Y-You can use magic too?" She sounded unsure, disbelieving if not for the definite proof in front of her eyes. This was earth, her home world. Magic Users were supposed to be as abundant as there were people who've landed on the moon. In which case, that meant that Shirou's magic ability were as rare as hers. They were two of a kind, and now that she thought about it, his impression of her was probably rock bottom considering she'd shot him when they'd first met.

"Magecraft," Shirou corrected Nanoha automatically, but as far as she seemed concerned, they were the same thing which was odd since Shirou had taken her to be a fellow Magus. Then again, she may just be a third-rate like himself so he wouldn't discriminate her over her own ignorance when there was once a time that he himself was in the same boat. A friend of his, Rin Tohsaka had been the one kind enough to educate him.

The two fell into a silence, but that didn't mean inaction. While Nanoha fretted over how best to explain the importance of what Shirou 'was,' he was more inclined to stare solemnly at the loaded plane whose occupants were desperately trying to get the vehicle off ground. The noise and sight of the engine turbines themselves were drawing every ghoul in the city towards the air port.

The wired fences around the facility were twisting and groaning as the ghouls created from the blood of Undead Apostles or Vampires piled and pushed against the defensive barricades. They wouldn't last for longer than a minute at the rate the ghouls were pushing, and by then, it would only be seconds until they began charging.

This was good. They were all together anyway which saved him the trouble. He turned a palm up to the sky, fingers outstretched as circuit-like magical patterns flashed over the surface of his skin, bringing thought to reality upon the actualization of his magecraft.

"I am the Bone of my Sword."

Nanoha felt the hairs rise at the back of her spine, her magical senses feeling a disturbance in the ambient mana around her all converging upon a point above Shirou's hand. Any thoughts of explaining what Shirou was were suddenly tossed aside as she quickly realized that unlike herself in the past before formal training, Shirou already knew how to use his magic.

Amazingly, it was a type of magic that she'd never seen before. From out of thin air, the gleam of sharpened metal manifested in the form of swirling dots of energy that rapidly took shape and form: A sword, a twisted sword beyond anything that she'd ever seen before. Rather than see the sword's capabilities, she could practically feel it.

It wasn't ordinary. Not in the least. It held regality despite its warped features, the gold and blue colour hues of the sword's hilt standing strong and bidding all to know of its name. It's Crystalized Legend.

To Shirou, what he'd created was a Noble Phantasm, and yet to Nanoha, it appeared to be so much more. Her mind had connected the dots using her own world views.

Without a doubt, what Shirou held in his hand was a magical item. A Lost Logia of tremendous power, but different from the Lost Logia she'd seen before, this type was different. One look was all it took to understand just how much magical energy was practically waiting to explode from the twisted sword's form.

Her mind blanked, unable to compute what she'd just seen, and unwilling to venture upon the notion that she'd just met a man who could produce a Lost Logia at his leisure.

No. This wasn't the time to be shellshocked.

She hardened her gaze and focused instead on discovering Shirou's intentions. With the twisted sword in his right hand, he didn't waste a second to notch it over the black bow of his left hand. A flicker of hesitation manifested in his eyes, and it was instant later that Nanoha understood why.

At first, she'd believed that Shirou was intending on firing the Lost Logia towards the crowding undead, but her beliefs turned into horror when she realized just where Shirou was aiming.

"What are you doing?" Traces of unease suffused her tone, her pupils already dilating as her heart began to beat faster from within her chest. Surely, he wasn't thinking what she thought he was thinking on doing?

He didn't answer. In fact, the expression on his face had contorted into a reluctant grimace which was all the more reason for alarm. Any notion that Shirou was just playing a cruel joke on her was lost at the sheer build up of magical energy around him now surrounding Shirou in a thin torch-like shroud.

He was going to fire at the plane getting ready to take off on the launching strip. There was no doubt at this point.

"Soar." That one word was filled by the resolve of his intent. In reaction, the air itself began to bend and distort as strong winds began to blow with Shirou at the focal point.

Nanoha could recognize the lethality of an attack in an instant. She couldn't let it fire. No. She couldn't let him do this! Her legs pushed her forth before the motion even registered in her mind. Her ideals, her beliefs, one of the very reasons she became a member of the TSAB even after all of her affairs had been settled was in order to help those in need. What she was witnessing Shirou doing right now was going against everything that she'd ever trained to prevent.

Don't do it!

Her heart leapt to her throat as her eyes noticed Shirou loosening his grip on the notched sword finger by finger, not a change in his expression. He was steel. Steel that knows no feeling, nor hesitation.

You're making a mistake!

He wasn't stopping. He wasn't stopping at all.

"Caladbolg," a name was invoked, shattering the calm of the area as the fabric of space itself began to twist and distort. It was the rainbow sword of Fergus said to be able to shatter mountains and hills with a single swing. To Nanoha, she had never heard of a Lost Logia with that name so she had no idea of its capabilities, and she didn't want to find out at the cost of hundreds of lives.

"NO! Stop don't!" She tackled Shirou on the side, an azure bullet streaking across the air and missing the plane on the landing strip by a narrow margin due to her sudden intervention. The look of surprise on Shirou's face showed just how much he didn't believe that she 'a fellow magus,' would intervene in his attack. Didn't she understand the weight of the current predicament? From the expression of anger in her eyes directed towards him who had nothing to say in order to defend himself, the answer was evidently, no.

The explosion that Caladbolg left behind in the sky over the horizon had Nanoha's mouth drying when she considered where the attack had been aimed at and just how much power it packed. It was already nearing the evening and the dark skies were entirely illuminated for miles upon Caladbolg's explosion.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING!" She snapped furiously at him, her hands grabbing him by the scruff of his combat vest and wringing him back and forth. "If that attack hit, you would have killed them all! What kind of Exceptional Human are you?!"

Shirou furrowed his brows. It was the first time that he'd been called exceptional, but he didn't need the praise right now. "I was doing what I had to do," he reasoned before Nanoha slapped him in the face, jolting him into a glower.

"Wrong answer," She glared. The grip that she had over the scruff of Shirou's vest only tightened the moment that she saw the look of sheer confusion on his face. "You can't just shoot it down and kill everyone on board," she clarified the reason for her anger.

He blinked his eyes before he hardened his features and pushed her away from him by grabbing her hands and wrenching her grip free.

"You tell me not to shoot it down, but what other method is left?" He gnashed his teeth, trying to maintain his cordiality. "You were the one who was supposed to stop them from boarding in the first place."

Nanoha winced, knowing the truth behind Shirou's claim. Even still, this and that were two separate matters. "Fine, I'm sorry for failing, but I couldn't just allow them to die either," she remained unmoving on the subject.

A flicker of empathy appeared in Shirou's gaze as if he'd once suffered under the same dilemma before. Nanoha continued, not noticing the change in Shirou's expression. "There were children, and whole families only trying their best to survive. If they didn't go to board that plane then they'd die. How was I supposed to stop them? Truthfully, I thought you meant that I was supposed to stop the ghouls from boarding the plane not fellow humans! No one has the right to say that someone has no other choice then to die!"

Shirou clearly agreed with her based on grudging light in his eyes; however, he was also looking at her as if she hadn't experienced all that the world truly had to offer. "But at the cost of other innocent lives?"

What? Shirou's answer threw Nanoha for a loop, and he wasn't even done.

"We can show mercy and compassion now, but what happens if that same mercy starts another tragedy somewhere else in the world that neither of us will be able to predict or prevent?" Shirou's lips thinned as he grimly stared into Nanoha's eyes.

Did she think that he wanted to kill everyone? What other choice did he have?

"B-But that's not fair," Nanoha's grip began to loosen.

After Nanoha had tackled him to the ground, the both of them had been sprawled out over the floor. When Nanoha had grabbed him by the scruff of his vest, she'd done so while straddling him and demanding answers. Hell, she was still on top of him and pinning him in place in case he decided to re-enact his earlier actions. With her grip loosened however, it didn't take much for Shirou to sit himself up and gently push Nanoha to the side.

She looked shell shocked, unable to deny what he'd just said but furiously trying to find a counter argument in order to refute him. She was failing.

"Life isn't fair, no matter how much one wishes to change things," he said with familiarity while gradually picking up his black bow which had clattered to the floor beside him. "If it's to save more lives, then it's a choice that must be borne. I will shoulder that responsibility."

For a moment, Nanoha saw the image of silver-haired man in a flowing red mantle superimpose over Shirou's image. Gone was the ignorance of youth, and slowly settling in was a beaten cynicism eating away at a man whose only motivation appeared to be the safety of others.

Shirou soon created an identical copy of the Lost Logia he had just fired right before Nanoha's eyes. Her mouth opened then closed; however, whether she was reacting to what Shirou had done or the way that he was getting ready to fire again was debatable.

In truth, only a single motivation presently existed in her mind.

"We can save them somehow!" She protested. She stood up and ran to where Shirou was standing. "Please, listen to me!"

Shirou glanced in her direction with his eyes before scoffing. "It's not possible," he replied tiredly.

Nanoha lost it. "We haven't even tried!" She directly screamed at his face.

He didn't rise to the argument. There was no more time to waste. Once the plane began to pick up enough speed, it was going to get air born. He ignored Nanoha and trained his next shot at the plane's center, the expected explosion should shatter the plane into smoking pieces.

"Soar." Just as the grip he had on his bow's string began to loosen at his fingers, he felt a sensation that he couldn't ignore. The sheer magical energy and penetrative power suddenly spiking at his side would surely deal far more than an injury to him should he suffer a blow.

He froze, his gaze glancing behind him to where he felt the tip of Nanoha's Raising Heart aimed at his person.

"Don't make me fight you!" Nanoha yelled. "I know this isn't what you want to do. I can see it. Your goddamned hands are trembling. You know that this isn't right!"

So, she noticed.

He schooled his features, but he already knew what Nanoha meant. He hated killing the innocent and at the core of his very being, he feared that he was already slowly becoming something that he never wanted to be.

"Please,"

Shirou was momentarily struck, his features growing pensive, but all that he could see in front of his eyes was a reflection of someone that he had once been.

She held her weapon at him at gunpoint, but he didn't care, rather, he felt a fog clearing from within him from the moment that she spoke next.

"There has to be a way to save them all!"

It was the simplest of answers.

His name was Shirou Emiya, and in all honesty, he didn't know what to make of the magus who decided to shoot his leg and then track him down only to apologize. It was odd, but really, his luck had always been shit so he'd learned that tolerance was the only real answer to life's curve balls. That, and not to expect anything to ever go exactly as he planned. In truth, he was still trying to accept the reality of the latter revelation.

Presently, he found himself staring Nanoha down while she in turn held him at gun point with her weapon.

They were at an impasse. On one hand, he was trying to do what he needed to get done, but on the other, Nanoha was reminding him of his growing inhumanity. The more he killed, the more apathetic that he became and the dirtier his ideals began to feel. However, in order to save as many innocent lives as he could, his current actions were for the good of all.

Not for those that you're going to slaughter. An inner voice criticized what he was becoming, and he didn't even have the justification to deny it. Regardless, he had thought that he had the ability to do what he needed to do, but when faced by Nanoha's earnest pleas, he was inwardly hesitating.

You can't concede. You know what happens the last time you tried. Again, and again, he kept trying to convince himself of his cause, and yet Nanoha got him at a single point. A single naïve phrase that broke through all barriers and struck him right at his center of being.

Save them all.

It was that same damn wish that had always been his very driving force. What more did he need to say? He lowered his bow, much to Nanoha's relief, yet his eyes never left the plane.

"How do plan to go about doing this?" He questioned. If she didn't have any reasonable answer, then like it or not, he was going to have to stop that plane. "Let me tell you now, but there are no known methods to cure a human once they're in the process of turning into a ghoul."

It was relevant information, and yet in the face of it, Nanoha looked as if she already had an idea in mind. To begin with, she wasn't alone. She still had her connections with the TSAB which Shirou did not know of at all. The both of them were having their own misunderstandings about each other and at this moment, it was playing to their benefit.

"Trust me," she nodded her head. "Even if there's no cure yet, there's no harm in keeping them in quarantine until a method is found."

A logical idea. Shirou himself actually found himself nodding before coming to a blatant problem. "And where would you do that?" He questioned. Nowhere was really safe. Assuming that the people even manage to get out alive from the plane and survive, Shirou was more concerned about what the magi would do to people who've been exposed to the presence of magic. Silence them. It was the obvious answer. However, somehow, someway, Shirou could tell that Nanoha was not going to give him that sort of answer.

"A place that I'll take you to after all this is over," Nanoha promised matter-of-factly. "It should be safe there for them as well as help clear things up about what to expect for your future."

"Right," Shirou eyed Nanoha weirdly, but didn't choose to pursue her choice in words. After all, he was more concerned about getting a handle on the situation. They couldn't afford the time to argue or discuss for any longer. He looked hard at Nanoha before letting out a sigh. It had been a long time since he'd decided to act stupid. "I'll trust you," he found himself saying.

Nanoha immediately brightened before his next words caused her to deflate and grow more serious. "Whatever you have to do, keep that plane from flying," he instructed while beginning to limp off towards where the ghouls were piling by the air port's fences.

"Hey wait, where are you going?" Nanoha called out. "You shouldn't even be moving around with an injured leg."

"To do what I must," he replied back without missing a beat. "Don't worry about the leg, and just make sure that you do your part this time."

Nanoha nodded stiffly, fire lighting in her eyes as she grasped resolutely onto Raising Heart. "As if I'd need the reminder now," needless to say, Nanoha could already predict what he would be forced to do if she failed. Therefore, failure wasn't an option.

Nodding to Nanoha, Shirou began to make his way towards his intended destination, flooring Nanoha when she realized just where he was going.

Wait, he was going to combat all the undead on his own?

Nanoha felt the need to convince him otherwise, but she had a feeling that she shouldn't be wasting anymore time. If Shirou chose to believe in her, then surely, he must expect her to believe in him.

She pursed her lips. If push came to shove, then if she was quick on her end, then she could move to support her fellow extraordinary human. With that in mind, she no longer looked in Shirou's direction and began to bolt off in search of higher ground. She found it by shattering the glass window of the airport terminal and hovering to the roof while riding on Raising Heart.

She assumed a vantage point and in a single motion, Raising Heart shifted to into its Shooting Mode. The gold section of Raising Heart's head dematerialized and formed into a squared shape with two prongs extending out for support against Raising Heart's recoil.

Magical energy quickly began to build at the muzzle of Raising Heart's head and formed into a sphere of writhing light. A sequence of magic circles formed a linear line, one in front of the other to channel the magical power into a straight beam. Meanwhile, Nanoha adjusted herself in order to aim, a translucent lens flashing over her right eye which helped highlight her intended targets.

The plane was picking up speed. The pilots and people on board had been slow on the uptake and the plane was still in the process of taking off. Just like Shirou had asked of her, she had to stop it from flying. To do so was simple at this point.

Aim for the wheels.

Glowing circular reticules highlighted the joints of the wheels attached to the plane making it impossible for her to miss. Let's get it over with. She needed the plane stop to make it easier for the TSAB to send people for pickup.

She took in a breath and leveled her body flat on the ground in a sniper's position. She didn't intend on blowing up the plane so she had to reduce the output of her attack.

Minimizing.

A loading bar manifested in her sight and only when it was low enough did, she tentatively pull Raising Heart's trigger. The mechanism shifted and activated the magic circles at Raising Heart's head which exploded the gathered magical energy outward into a branching beam that struck all of the plane's wheels.

In the distance, Shirou watched the attack with a mixture of awe and relief that Nanoha had been able to follow through on her end.

The plane skittered to a stop, the screams on board indicating that the people were still alive, and hopefully not too injured. Back on the roof of the airport, Nanoha deactivated Raising Heart's shooting mode and stood up while pressing a finger to her ear and activating a magic device.

"Nanoha requesting large-scale pick up," she signalled on her intercom. "Unknown magic event taking place on Earth. Suspected case of a Jewel Seed, but now uncertain of the direct cause. Further investigation is needed."

Her piece said, Nanoha cut of communications and immediately decided to position herself at an angle to provide Shirou with cover fire. She'd hardly used any of her magical reserves yet, and just like Shirou was thinking, she found it convenient that the ghouls had gathered together. Shirou wasn't the only one capable of unleashing devastating explosions like he'd had before. A couple blasts should be enough. Raising Heart floated in front of her while awaiting instruction.

Buster Mode Activa-

The command halted in her mind as she noticed an abnormality.

Why did it suddenly grow dark? The light in the sky had abruptly dimmed as if a shadow of a cloud had abruptly manifested. She looked up, only to find herself reeling in disbelief. That wasn't a cloud.

Radio static, tremors in the air.

"I am the Bone of my Sword." It was that line again.

Steel that knows no feeling, and steel that's only used for a single purpose.

Dozens of swords blanketed the sky, their sheer mass shadowing parts of the world beneath, yet through it all, Nanoha was focusing on a single point. Of the swords and weapons hovering in the air, many produced a similar feeling as the twisted sword that Shirou had launched before. Didn't that mean…Lost Logia?

Her mind halted at the sheer magnitude of the revelation. The fact that one of the TSAB's main duties was to recover Lost Logia was not lost on her, and yet, what sort of situation was this? She swallowed. How could one man possess so many ancient relics of a lost magical civilization?

Her superiors were going to have a field day.

Shirou had been feeling weird lately. It all began from the moment that he'd picked up a blue jewel that he believed that Rin may be interested in. His Traced projections didn't feel as taxing as they'd used to be, and it was like he had more energy at his disposal than normal, not like he was complaining at this point.

If he didn't eliminate the ghouls in front of him now, then his other colleagues that he was working with securing the area would. He couldn't allow that lest they find out that he'd been secretly saving people when he should have been killing them with the ghouls as part of protocol. Moreover, he didn't want them to realize the true depth of his Tracing. It was better for others to continue mistaking it as basic Projection for his own safety.

It was a good thing that the majority of magi had left in pursuit of the Undead Apostle that had already fled from the area. Only the minor ghouls were left behind, but even weak as they were, their presence in a crowded city alone was catastrophic.

It was time to get this over with. He could deal with what to do with the civilians in the plane afterword.

Trace On. Continuous Fire.

The swords that he'd projected high up into the air angled themselves down before falling in a rain of steel, gravity increasing their lethality and reducing the magical consumption required to propel them forward.

He mowed the minor ghouls down in the dozens while actively feeling his reserves dropping with each Traced sword. Sweat matted his brows and a wave of fatigue was hitting him, but different from past missions, he was able to hold out.

Stop.

A single inner command had his Traced projections halting in their tracks as he assessed the damage in front of him where the ghouls had been congregating by the fences. The area was now mottled with holes and bits and pieces of powdered debris. He took one look at the blood and mangled bodies minced in the craters and he was certain that he'd completed his task. Besides, it wasn't a pretty sight.

His job done, he began making his way to where the plane had skidded to a grinding stop, Nanoha meeting up with him at the half-way point. He raised a brow.

What? Why was she looking at him like that? Was it something that he did? Most magi disdained his magecraft and Nanoha should not have been close enough to differentiate his Tracing from Projection.

"Is there something wrong?" He questioned her inquisitively.

Startled at being called out, she fell into a fluster as traces of red began creeping up her face. In many cultures, it was rude to stare, and Nanoha was aware of such customs. Embarrassed, but still caught up over what she'd seen, she ended up not knowing how to answer.

"N-No, nothing," she fell into her own thoughts and ignored everything else around her for a brief moment before banging her head on a sign post. Rather than care about the bump forming on her head, she seemed more inclined to focus all her attention on him.

Weird woman.

Now then, his expression hardened: The matter of the plane.

Thanks for reading and apologies for the shorter chapter. I've just finished a midterm today and have been feeling heavily drained. That being said, I still wanted to get this out so I hope you all enjoyed the read.

Next Update: TBA (To be Announced)

P a treon. com (slash) Parcasious