They moved at sunset.
The steelworks had seen far better days. Time had not been kind to the concrete building. Chunks of it had crumbled and nature had reclaimed the land, with vegetation climbing around the vertical cliffs of its maimed grey walls.
It felt like the carcass of a gargantuan beast and the crimson light of the rapidly lowering sun made it look like it had been slain not too long ago. All it missed were the maggots eating out at its flesh. Vultures preying on the body.
But they weren't there and neither was any other kind of wildlife. All around the place there was complete silence. Nothing capable of moving under its own power could be found in a mile radius. The ominous aura that had shrouded the place was a message spoken in an universal language.
Abandon all hope ye who enter here.
Only the bravest and the foolest would dare to ignore this warning. The members of the group that approached covered both categories. They had teleported some distance away from the building and covered the rest on foot. It wouldn't have been wise to appear smack dab in the middle of a monster's lair.
"This is the place?" asked Saber looking up at the building looming over them. "Yes. The old steelworks," Tohsaka replied. "There's no doubt Rider is here."
Servants usually reigned in their powerful aura in an effort t conceal their position from other Servants, and of course to blend with the general public. In this place, Rider was doing exactly the opposite, broadcasting so powerfully that everything kept a safe distance away.
It might not have been intentional on her part, though. Truth is she might no longer be capable of it.
"I'll take point," Saber decided, moving ahead of the group. "Then I'll watch the back," Caster offered.
"No, let me handle that," Shirou objected as he flexed the gloves of Twisted Embrace to make sure they were fitting correctly.
"I agree," Tohsaka added. "No offense meant Caster, but Saber and Emiya are the muscle of this group. If anything can sneak behind us and get in melee range, he can deal with better than you."
"Fine then," she huffed. As powerful a Magus she she was, she wasn't really a fighter. She prefer to leave the heavy lifting to others.
"Does anybody seriously expect Rider to circle around us?" Shirou asked. It sounded ludicrous. She had no talent for sneaking about even before her metamorphosis.
"Not really," said Saber. "And there shouldn't be any other threat here. However, far too many unexpected things have been happening as of late. There is no excuse for carelessness at this point."
"Yeah. Better not take any chances," Tohsaka agreed.
Despite all the time and preparations they had made in the previous months they had still been caught flat footed. Granted, what happened was far beyond anything they could expect, but that only proved how cautious they had to be going forward.
The huge iron gate had rusted and fallen off a long time ago, leaving the entrance wide open. A wound straight into the belly of the beast. The low altitude of the sun projected some light inside, but not by much.
The building was mostly empty, but the many columns holding up the structure limited their visibility. The light coming through the various holes cast irregular shadows that the naked eye tried to shape in a number of potential threats.
"Can anyone tell Rider's location?" Tohsaka asked.
"No, her aura has completely saturated this place," Saber replied. "It gets stronger the more we advance, so she must be further in. Keep your eyes wide open."
They footsteps echoed as they advanced. The only other sounds were the faint crumbling of concrete and a vague drip of water from several directions. The air was naturally mouldy and suffocating, making it difficult to breath. The presence of a mythological monster somewhere in there with them didn't help either.
They continued in slowly for a few minutes.
"Wait, hold up," said Shirou after a moment.
"What's wrong?" Saber asked. "Did you see something?"
"No. It's just that we are going about it the wrong way. What's the point of sneaking around when there's two Servants with us? Rider knows that we are here anyway."
"So, what do you suggest we do?" asked Tohsaka.
"The easy thing. We call out for her," he explained. "RIDER! WE HAVE COME TO BRING YOU HOME! SHOW YOURSELF, PLEASE!"
Shirou's voice echoed several times before the old silence swallowed it completely.
"That's... that's one way to do it," Tohsaka commented with her hands over her ears. "Too bad that didn't work."
"...go away..."
It was a feeble voice, barely above a whisper, but it carried clearly to their ears all the same. Unfortunately, it was impossible to tell where it came from, precisely.
"Okay then," he nodded. "You heard her. Let's all go back." "What? Seriously?" Tohsaka asked flabbergasted.
"Of course not," he snorted. "Honestly, Rider. Do you really think we are just going to turn back? Give me a break."
"... you shouldn't have come at all. Leave this place at once... "
"You know perfectly well we cannot do that, Rider," said Saber. "We cannot just leave you be."
"... then advance at your own peril..."
"Alright, negotiation seems to have fallen through," said Tohsaka. "No other choice but doing it the hard way."
They resumed their search, getting deeper inside the steelwork. The atmosphere becoming more and more oppressive with every step they took. Despite that, they didn't relent.
"... you are all fools. Nothing good will come from this. Turn back now while you still can..."
"You are more of a fool than we are if you think we can do that, Rider," Tohsaka repiled. "Do us a favor and save us some time."
Yes, both sides knew that this confrontation couldn't be avoided. The stakes were too high for a rogue factor like Rider to be left to her own devices. She had to be dealt with, one way or another.
There was a tremor and a piece of a column not too distant fell to the ground with a loud bang that echoed through the building. The quartet stopped in place, examining their surroundings. Was that collapse spontaneous, or did something cause it?
Shirou felt the hair on the back of his head stand up and he turned around slowly. There was nothing behind him, but in the distance he could see the shadows moves and waver, almost slithering.
He nudged Caster with his elbow and tilted his head in that direction. She gave silent nod.
"Φως!"
An orb of light flew from her hand, zipping around the pillars like a playful pixie. The darkness retreated at its passage, but they saw no trace of the missing Servant.
"Emiya?" Tohsaka called out. Shirou narrowed his eyes. "She's close."
He turned to his left, where the darkness hadn't been disturbed by Caster's spell. He just kept staring into that black spot, holding a staring contest with the shadows. Then, there was a shift and a mass slowly detached from the blackness.
"Holy...!" Tohsaka whispered while Saber took position in front of her.
Rider's already long hair had grown even further and had turned into four python-sized snakes with a blood-red eye drawn in the middle of each head. They hissed and snapped their mouth menacingly at the group, divided between the instinct of attacking and defending. The humans might have been deemed prey, but the Servants had been clearly identified as threats making them hesitate.
For some reason, she didn't have her long gloves or her boots. She walked barefoot upon the dusty concrete.
At some point, Rider had returned to wearing Gorgon Breaker instead of the glasses that that Medea made to blend in with human. There was no point in doing that anymore. Rider could no longer pass for one no matter how hard she tried.
If her demonic hair weren't enough of a giveaway the outcrop of scales around her neck and jaw betrayed her inhuman nature even more.
"Here I am, as you wished," she said. "You would not leave in peace when I asked, so I assume that you are here to put me down, like the heroes you are."
"We will, if you give us no other choice," Tohsaka explained.
"What other choice is there?" she asked, mockingly. "This temporary incarnation would have died the moment the Grail War finished, but that is no longer the case now. This vessel will
persist until something else breaks it. You will destroy me, or I will destroy you. There are no other outcomes."
"Even so, it better later than sooner," said Caster. "You know perfectly well that any Heroic Spirit that dies will make things more complicated."
"Indeed, and yet you don't have that luxury. Even know, I wish nothing more than to render your flesh from your bones. It takes every ounce of my effort to keep my hair at bay and not lunge for you. This impulse is getting stronger by the minute. A single moment of absent-mindedness on my part and you will become my food."
"The Command Seal was useless after all?" Saber wondered.
"If not for that, half this city would have become a river of blood," she explained. "It restored my sanity and I came to this place, where there was nothing to tempt my appetite. At least until now. The longer you wait, the worse it will get."
"Not so fast, Rider. We can use another Command Seal to deal with that."
"This instinct is part of me, Princess of Colchis. You cannot make it disappear. A Command Seal can manipulate the vessel but has no sway over the mind of the Heroic Spirit itself. It would only buy you some time, and knowing myself not even that much."
"I'm not a fool. We have no intention of wasting a valuable resource that way. We are just going to make sure that you behave yourself."
Rider hissed threateningly. It wasn't a pleasant sound.
"I forgot you were nearly as much of a monster as I am, Witch. Finally you show your true colors."
"Thank you for saying that," Caster replied. "Had you stayed your tongue I might have felt a bit sorry for putting you through this. Shirou... go ahead and do it."
Shirou moved past Caster and Rider's unseeing eyes fell upon him. She had to know that he had survived her frenzy. Their minds were connect at all times, even if they made no effort to reach out to one another.
"Do you understand now?" she asked of him. "How foolish you have been until this moment? The madness that possessed you to believe in a monster? Do you realize what you must do to call yourself a hero?"
Shirou didn't answer. In fact, he hadn't said as much as a word since Rider showed herself. The others were looking at him sideways. They knew he had only begrudgingly accepted to go through with it because there were no better options.
"Shut your mouth, Rider," Caster snapped. "Shirou never wanted any of this."
"What he wants or does not want was irrelevant from the start," she replied. "We all have our roles to play. So long as he pretends to be a hero, he will have to strike down monsters like me. It is time for him to put away the nonsense and do as needs must."
Without looking up at her, Shirou held up his hand and curled it into a fist. The Command Seal on the back of his hand shone with latent power.
"Rider," he began, "by the power of this Seal I command you. You must never act upon your primal impulses...
Rider felt the metaphysical chains take hold on her, binding her with a force that belied description. Her face morphed in one of intense pain.
"... except with me."
"Wha-!"
The vocalization of Rider's shock was cut off by the Command Seal taking hold inside her brain. She clutched her head with both hands while her hair trashed around wildly. An impenetrable cage and been place around her mind with a single opening directed at her own contractor.
"Emiya, What the hell!" Tohsaka exclaimed.
"Are you completely out of your mind?" Caster bellowed, whirling around to face him, her face twisted in unprecedented fury.
Shirou lowered his hand and let out a sigh. He looked up at Caster and he didn't seem apologetic at all. He held her furious gaze quietly, as if he fully expected to this outcome.
He didn't glare back at her but neither he looked away. The Servant eventually scrunched her eyes and took her face with both hands.
"I should have bit my tongue," she eventually said. "I should have never extracted that promise from you."
"No you really shouldn't have," he agreed. "What were you thinking, giving me license to do as I please?"
"Clearly I wasn't!" she snarled. "I... hrrgg! The one time I get what I asked for, it has to turn out like this."
"ENOUGH!" Rider shouted, her voice loud enough to shake dust from the surroundings. "What do you think you are doing? What possessed you to think this was even remotely a good idea? Do you so enjoy being torn to pieces? Are you a masochist after all?"
"Hardly. I'm not one to enjoy pain. I'm simply doing what I'm supposed to."
"Explain yourself!" she demanded.
"There is a contract between Masters and Servants. A pact. We summon you into this world to act as agents of our will and by extension we are the ones responsible for their actions... and their needs. The moment I took you from Shinji it became my burden to bear. If someone has to pay a price, it has to be me and no one else."
Rider moved closer and Caster made to put herself between them, but Shirou held her back. "It's my responsibility," he told her, shaking his head.
He stepped toward Rider and dismissed the Mystic Code, reverting to his casual clothes. "Caster, are you sure about this?" he heard Tohsaka ask.
Medea's silence was an ambiguous answer.
One of Rider's snakes lunged at Shirou but Rider stopped it with one arm before it could reach it.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked. "Master or not, you shouldn't be putting yourself at risk for a monster."
Shirou snorted.
"Show me your eyes, Rider."
"Why do you wish to see them? There is no point."
"If there is no point, then there should be no reason no to either. Please, let me see them."
"..."
Gorgon Breaker was dismissed and her glasses took its place, keeping her power firmly sealed.
"In what way are you a Monster, Medusa?" he asked. "In the way you ran here, where you knew you wouldn't harm anyone? Is it in the way you keep your hair from biting me? Is it in the way you have been crying all alone until now?"
It might have been dark in there, but even so it was evident that her eyes were red from all the tears she had shed.
"What difference does that make?"
"It makes all of the difference in the world. A monster revels in the misery it brings, it doesn't suffer from it. And besides... I have looked in the eyes of monsters before, Medusa. You are not one of them. You have the eyes of a woman with nowhere left to run."
Medusa's lip trembled. A hairline crack in the mask of her face. A small distraction. Just enough that one of her snakes could slip past her guard.
"No!" she cried out, but it was too late. It maws closed around Shirou's forearm, which he had raised in response.
"Shirou!" Caster cried out, but he held up his other hand to stop her from getting closer.
"Let go!" Rider called out pulling at the snake. It would not release its prey no matter her attempts and she was too busy holding back the other three to put any real force into it.
However Shirou stood calmly, even as his bone snapped loudly and blood started dripping copiously. He reached out with its other hand and put it over the snake's head.
"Easy," he said, stroking it softly. "You can have as much as you want. No need to be impatient."
The snake seemed to look at him with its scarlet eye. The hold it had around his arm loosened somewhat. After a few seconds it let released him entirely. More than that, it unraveled completely, going back to be Rider's regular hair, although blood soaked and still very much elongated.
"...what?"
The question came simultaneously from everyone except Shirou and Saber. Even Rider appeared completely baffled by this development.
The other three snakes also wavered, looking at each other before dissolving back into hair. The silence stretched, now no longer ominous as much as it was awkward.
Rider looked like she didn't know what to do with herself. She picked a strand of hair and examined it in wonder. It wiggled lightly, but it gave no indication of turning back into a snake anytime soon.
"I guess that's that," Shirou eventually said.
"Did you know that would happen?" Caster asked, approaching to heal his arm. "Of course not. How was I supposed to?"
"Then why did you do that?" Rider dared to ask instead.
He scratched his head with his good hand.
"The snakes are also part of you? They must have been every bit as scared as you were, or so I figured."
"I... I was not..." she started to say, but she didn't have enough face to finish that sentence and instead she looked down at her bare feet.
[br]
Something loosened inside of Rider's chest. An ever present jumble even she didn't know was there until it was gone. She knew what it was, though.
It was a cry for her help that had never been so much as expressed. A plea that she had never worded. Upon her had fallen the duty to protect her elder sisters. Upon her had fallen the curse that wound up consuming all three of them in the end. There had never been someone who could or would help.
Until now.
Sakura had called her into this world, but she didn't want the responsibility of being her Master. Rider cared for her because she reminded of herself. Shinji on the other hand possessed the will but he lacked everything else, least of all the means to sustain her.
Neither of them had ever won her respect.
"I see," she said, looking up. "You are my Master."
She had use that word before, but it always rang hollow. It was nothing more than lip service meant to assuage and stroke the ego. For the first time since coming into this world, it finally meant something.
He blinked at her, not understanding why she was stating the obvious. She suddenly felt very self conscious and didn't really understand why.
"Rider? Is something wrong?"
"Ah? No. I'm perfectly alright!" she said waving both hands in front of her face.
"If you are sure. We should probably go back home and uhh... maybe do something about your clothes?"
She looked down at herself. The changes to her body were more than just cosmetics. She had grown and not only in height. Her battle dress had not changed with her though, and was now way tight and a way too short. Now that the snakes were gone and her hair no longer hovered around and in front of her, the difference had become all too noticeable.
Her underwear was exposed
"Kya!" a shameful shriek escaped her mouth and she yanked down at her skirt to cover herself. That did not help as two other things popped out from the top in all of their bouncing glory.
A strangled grunt came from Shirou, whose eyes widened like saucers. "Don't look!" Rider cried hiding her chest with both arms.
"I... I'm not looking!" he said putting a hand in front of his face and turning to the side. "Here! Cover yourself with this."
Keeping his eyes firmly closed, he shrugged off his jacked and handed it over to her.
"You gotta be kidding me," Rin groaned, slapping a hand across her face. "If you are quite done with the comedic act, can we go back already?"
If Rider's face could spontaneously burst into flames, it would have done so as of that moment. Wanting to die wasn't anything new for her, but it was the first time out of embarrassment.
Not even her bullying elder sisters had managed that. [br]
At last, Saber lowered her invisible sword. She shoot her Master a sidelong glance, understanding what Rin was feeling when she let out a long, frustrated sigh sigh. They had come prepared to face down and tame a mythological monster, and instead wound up rescuing a damsel in distress.
Of course they were relieved that things had turned out this way, but it made things more complicated that if first appeared. Rider might have partially reverted to her normal self, but how long would it last?
The transformation into the Gorgon was a natural process, according to Caster. Maybe Shirou's unorthodox methods could stall it and perhaps it would take years for her to reach the point of no return. At that point, she would either have to suffer until she was driven to
death or someone would have to put her down. The tragedy had not been averted, only postponed.
And there was something even more important to worry about. Emiya Shirou's apparent lack of care for his own well being. His behavior went past what classified as courage, straight up into martyrdom.
More than anyone else, Saber believed in the concept of laying down her life for an ideal. However, he took it one step further. One step too far in her opinion. Something was very wrong about this young man.
This problem needed to be addressed, because it would take only one slip up for everything to come tumbling down.
"Let's go home," he said once Rider had safely recovered her modesty.
"Yeah," Rin agreed, although it was evident that she had plenty of things to say. It wasn't hard for Saber to imagine what. Rin's reservation were probably similar to her own.
Caster donned another cloak and through it they teleported away, leaving behind the dead building, now completely empty All manners of creatures would eventually return to inhabit it, but not for a while yet.
The presence of the Gorgon would linger on in that place, just like its threat kept dangling above their heads.
[br]
Elsewhere, in a dark basement, thousand of worms gathered together, giving form to a hunched human shape. Matou Zouken reappeared after spending weeks scattered all over the city.
Once the involvement of his waste of a grandson exposed their continued participation in the Grail War, the centenary Magus decided to make himself scarce. With someone of Caster's caliber considering him a latent threat, he thought it wiser to make himself impossible to track.
He scattered his body in the familiars it was originally made for weeks, reforming every so often just to keeps his sense of self, right until he was certain that Caster's attention had shifted elsewhere. And what event could prove more distracting than what had happened the previous night?
He didn't like what he saw one bit. At first he thought it would be better to sit out this anomalous war, but that was no longer an option. The Servants had agreed to cooperate, triggering the backup function that would have turned the Grail War from a battle royale into a two-sides war, if not for all the damage already done to the ritual derailing the entire thing.
All because of the Einzbern, of course. Not only they had lost the Third Magic. They didn't even know how to meddle properly. Their repetitive tampering had damage the Grail beyond the point of no return.
There wouldn't be any Grail War after this. The system was far too compromised and only the cooperation of the three families could hope to restore it. Unfortunately, what was left of the Tohsaka would be completely useless and he doubted that the Einzbern would be willing to put their pride aside one more time.
This was Zouken's final chance to realize his wish. True immortality without any drawback, unlike this accursed vampiric existence. There would be no holding back this time. He would have to use all of the tools at his disposal without exception. But first and foremost, he needed a Servant for himself.
Let it not be said that the Makiri were any worse at meddling that the stuck up Einzbern. [XXX]