EMIYA Shirou's Self-Centered Holy Grail War
Chapter 2 - Self-Sabotage
Tohsaka had arrived, with Saber in tow.
And Shirou, naturally, had invited them in to the living room.
Tohsaka Rin and Emiya Shirou had decided on a temporary ceasefire (mostly just Rin taking command, and Shirou going along with her), and as such, the two Servants had been left to guard the perimeter of the Emiya Estate.
Saber was glaring at him, on guard as she was against enemy Servants.
EMIYA just gave her a cocky grin, to which Saber scowled.
Well, Saber was still just as beautiful as Archer had remembered.
Seeing her serious expression, Archer had decided to tease her a little, expressing his thoughts.
"I see you're still as beautiful as ever, Artoria."
Archer hadn't meant for it to, but, surprisingly it had come out as sounding deeply fond, with a bit of nostalgic sorrow to his tone.
"What...?"
She blushed lightly, as she scowled.
For some reason, what he had said had made her feel surprisingly warm and happy, and a bit sad at the same time.
Her scowl deepened.
What kind of surprises mental attack was this?
Normally, she wouldn't be swayed or caught off guard by any such compliments or words.
Even Diarmuid, with his naturally charming and handsome Celtic face and his magical love spot, wouldn't have been been able to charm her or to move her heart with such words.
But for some reason, this Japanese heroic spirit, one whom she shouldn't even recognize, somehow felt familiar. And he had somehow had slipped past her cold heart's defenses almost naturally, without notice.
It even made her feel a little bit warm and happy for some reason, even though she normally would never care for such compliments.
She could only surmise it was of his skills or an effect of one of his Noble Phantasms. That would be the most natural explanation.
Shaking her head, she scowled at him, angrily.
Archer, for his part, had meant for it to come out mockingly, but it came out sounding surprisingly genuine, and even fondly affectionate.
Even though, in truth, he could hardly the affection for Saber he once had. But somehow, seeing her up close like this again, he found himself recalling the day she had saved him, and could now really appreciate just how beautiful she really was, as she stood before him.
Gathering herself and calming her heart and mind, Saber scoffed at him and his words.
"Don't think such empty flatter would lower my guard, Archer."
She rebuked sharply, as befitting a Saber.
Archer just grinned smugly as he shrugged his shoulders, dematerializing.
"I would would never dream of it, Saber."
He shot back, as befitting an Archer.
...
As their meeting ended, Tohsaka headed back to her place.
They were originally planning to head to the church, but Archer interjected as they were heading out, saying that he would explain the war's circumstances to his Master.
He understand the rules very well, after all. From both a Servant's perspective, with knowledge from the grail, and from a master's perspective from his own experiences (though naturally, Tohsaka didn't know about the second part).
(And it would be better this way - if he recalled correctly, this was about when Ilya would attack, and Shirou would try to save Saber. Well, since Rin was her master this time around, they'd probably be able to win or at least tie with Berserker, instead of Shirou foolishly sacrificing himself in order to save a greatly outmatched Saber.
But, that wasn't the important part. If he let them go now, then it was likely that Rin, in her softheartedness, would insist on forming an alliance with and protecting Emiya Shirou. And he couldn't let that happen.
And so, by cutting them off from each other now, Rin would have no excuse to justify saving Emiya Shirou later down the line.)
And so, for now, he explained everything to Emiya Shirou.
About the War, about Masters and Servants and Command Seals, and about the Grail and its ability to grant wishes (though not its corruption).
It was a lot for Emiya Shirou to take in, naturally.
He didn't understand why Magus would participate in such a thing willingly, and what they would want to such an extent that they'd even kill each other over it.
That's right, EMIYA reminisced, he himself had been that naive at one point, hadn't he? Long before he had to go through the hell of experiencing humanity's ugly side, their cruelty, over and over again.
Well, he didn't argue with Emiya Shirou, and just let him rant how that was wrong, and how they should everything they could to save as many innocent lives as possible. For now, EMIYA just stayed silent and nodded along, pretending to agree.
(Even though this Holy Grail War was such a petty conflict that he could hardly bring himself to care. At most, with the different Servants' powers, it would only escalate to a city-wide level of destruction and loss of lives. He found himself almost scoffing at that. That much was like a drop in the bucket, compared to true disasters and the potential loss of human lives).
Nevertheless, EMIYA acted the part of a good Servant, and agreed with everything Emiya Shirou said. And though Emiya was initially tense around him, likely owing to his sharp instincts, he seemed to relax as Archer agreed with everything he said. No doubt, probably doubting himself and wondering if he was just being paranoid around the man who had just saved and was to be sworn to loyalty to him.
Eventually, the time to sleep came, and Shirou was truly exhausted by the day's events.
About to head for bed, he questioned Archer.
"You're not going to sleep? Archer?"
"Servants have no need for sleep. Don't worry about me, and make sure to rest up well, for tomorrow."
Maybe he should've tried to put on a smile, or something, to give off a friendlier impression. But he decided against it. No doubt, it would look unnatural, and more likely than not, and put him more on edge than anything.
And so, he had simply delivered his lines in the most stoic and neutral expression possible, not letting any hints of emotion show.
"I see." Shirou said.
He still felt a bit uncomfortable around Archer, but that was probably just his own paranoia and jumpiness from nearly being killed twice in one day.
"The, goodnight, Archer." He said, paying his proper respects to the man.
"Yeah." Archer said back. "Goodnight, Master."
Deciding to try smiling as a show of good will, his expression instead came as more of a sadistic and sarcastic grin.
If Emiya Shirou was disturbed by it, he at least didn't show it, or comment on it.
But as he went to sleep, he couldn't help but feel as though there was something a little off with the Servant he had summoned, and the way he was acting.
...
Archer sighed, as Emiya Shirou finally went to sleep.
Now here was where his plans really began.
First, he had decided on using poisons to kill Emiya Shirou, but what type of poisons would be best to use?
Potassium cyanide probably wouldn't work for same reason as previous attempts didn't work. It would be too instant, easily reversible.
Slow acting poison would be better, as that would be much more difficult for The World to reverse the long-acting effects of.
And if it was possible, it would be even better if Emiya Shirou somehow died on his own, by his own stupid decisions in his weakened state, regardless if Archer was there or not.
Or even better, if Archer was actually putting some effort into defending him, but he still died anyway, by his stupidity.
Yeah, that sounded good. And if it was slow-acting poisons, then there multiple possible choices. He didn't have to use any particular one. He could maybe even mix them together, or alternate between to make their effects more multi-faceted and harder to reverse, so long as it that didn't accidentally increase their lethalness and the speed of their effects.
The problem now was simply a matter of how to get poisons.
EMIYA could trace weapons and weapons with curses, but not poisons, or poisons that were on weapons. Maybe there were a few Greek, Arabian, or Chinese blades that had poison as part of their myth or inherited legend, but there were none that he could think up of right away, off the top of his head. And even then, their effects usually manifested as a "curse" (which was easy for the World to reverse, as an abnormality), instead of as a "poison" (a natural part of the world, easier to reverse.
And even most of those blades were blades with fast-acting poisons. It's not like blades with slow-acting poisons would even be noticed or recorded, after all. Slow-acting poisons were usually used by backstabbing politicians and feuding nobles who didn't want to be traced back to it. Not the weapon of choice for heroes, legends, or even professional assassins.
EMIYA sighed. Well, that just meant he would have to do a little bit of research is all, and stealthily sneaking into some black market locations.
EMIYA readied himself, and headed out, silently.
...
EMIYA's first instinct as he snuck around the black was wanting to do a little bit of killing on the side, and burning up unnecessary harmful drugs, as that would help out the local community as a whole.
But he refrained from doing so. Even if did do such a thing, it wouldn't help much in the short-term. That would just lead to other criminals, potentially worse, taking over the area, and local turf wars by criminal organizations that might even harm the local civilians, if they accidentally got caught up in it.
Well, he could just kill the criminals in the area for long enough and for as many times as it took for the local criminals to get the hint and became too scared to do business there, attributing it to some sort of curse the area.
But that might just lead to increase in crimes elsewhere nearby, to make up for loss of sales in one area.
And plus, truth be told, he just didn't want to put in that much effort, just for the world to end up looping him right back to the beginning, anyways. And supposing that he actually succeeded in his mission of ending himself, then it would no longer be his problem anyway. The local could probably keep things under control (assuming they hadn't been bribed off), it wasn't really Emiya Shirou's problem to be particularly concerned with, anyway.
Silently sneaking out a few small bundles of different slow-acting poisons, he managed to slip away completely unnoticed by any of the criminal organization's hired hands.
'I make for a surprisingly good assassin,' EMIYA mused to himself, 'I'm surprised other heroic spirits haven't used such methods in their battles to the death.'
Well, maybe a few them did resort to using (fast-acting) poisoning methods, but none that he knew of.
Well, that did make sense to some degree. They were mostly heroes, after all.
And the magus that participate in silly small-time rituals like these Grail Wars were usually either diehard traditionalists that kept to pointless magus traditions of battle, or completely unprepared and unresolved rank amateurs, like Emiya Shirou and Matou Shinji.
The fact that Grail Wars usually only lasted around two weeks or so was also likely part of the reason why most of them didn't resort to such methods.
Most probably wouldn't even think of, or even want to poison enemy masters, even if they could do so via inconspicuous or brainwashed decoys and hired hands. Only underhanded people like himself and old man Kiritsugu would pursue such underhanded but effective routes.
Internally, Archer laughed at the irony of it all.
It was Kiritsugu's ideals that had set him off on his path of becoming an Ally of Justice, and now it would be Kiritsugu's methods that ended that very same path.
How fitting, like poetry. Like a finely-weaved tapestry of irony, despair and hopelessness.
...Well, setting that aside for now, it was time to head back.
And, it was finally time to give Emiya Shirou what was coming to him.
Chapter 2 - Self-Sabotage
END
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Author's Notes:
Also, just fyi, the third chapter for this story has Ilya finally show up, so stick around for that!
Also, Shirou finally dies! Again! But for good, this time! (Maybe?)
So make sure to stick around and look forward to it!
Thanks!
'Till next time!