If Shirou felt that that there was something different about the way that Yang was staring at him, he paid it no mind in favour of ignoring Summer who was floating beside him. Summer had gone beyond the stage of whatever emotional swings that she'd been going through, and had successfully entered the dead zone. Her stare was flat, and the light in her eyes chilling to the bone. It was the kind of face that one would make when one no longer had the ability to react, and he didn't know if that was a good thing or not.
On one hand, Summer wasn't doing anything to him, but on the other, she could just be plotting to do something to him. In either case, he decided that it would be best to mentally prepare himself for the worst. Women could be scary, and resistance often made them fiercer. Call him a coward, but the women that he'd met in his life weren't the kind that anyone would associate the word 'weak' with. One had been called a Witch, the other a King, another a Tiger, and the list just went on.
Regardless, he had to focus.
He picked Yang up, ignoring the way that she insisted that she was capable of moving on her own. He doubted her claim. Her twisted ankle that she was valiantly trying to hide in order to save her own personal image wasn't helping.
It was dangerous where they were standing, so he directly leapt high into the air with his arm rapped around Yang's waist. He wasn't even caring about holding himself back anymore in favour of guaranteeing the safety of those around him. In no way could he be proud to call himself a Heroic Spirit if he prioritized the safety of one individual when he had more than enough ability to save everyone.
That wasn't what a Hero would do.
The clothes that he had been wearing to obscure his features had largely been ripped and torn as he had partially dematerialized in order to phase through the bramble of the trees in order to reach Yang in time. From beneath the sturdy trench cloak, spots of red could be seen through the holes in the fabric. His mask, the most important aspect of his disguise had a crack that ran down the left side of his face. It could break at any moment, but that moment wasn't now because he reinforced the mask over his face in order for it to last longer.
His cover wasn't completely blown yet either because Yang wasn't too bright to pick up on the smaller details, or because there was too many Grimm attacking for others to care about his appearance.
It was fine by him. It worked better this way.
Wind whipped across his face, his sudden motion of jumping high into the air startling Yang who lost her grip on his traced dagger which clattered onto the ground.
"No wait!" Yang yelled, arms uselessly trying to reach for the dagger that she'd dropped. Inwardly she was screaming hysterically at herself for the blunder. Her eyes soon went bloodshot when she noticed a black cat suddenly swipe the dagger from the ground an instant later.
Shirou took notice of Yang's words and turned around only to see Blake still surrounded by Grimm. It would appear as if he had another person that he had to save, not that dropping Yang off with Ghira would take long anyway.
"Don't worry, I'll go back for her too," he assured Yang who must have made a new friend in his absence.
"Thief! Cat Burglar! Who needs you anyway!"
That wasn't the reaction that he was expecting, but Rin Tohsaka, an old friend of his, had acted the same towards him when they had first met. It must be a girl thing then. He chose not to dwell on the matter and quickly dropped Yang off with a surprised Ghira before speeding off to pick up Blake.
Blake hadn't expected how fast he'd be because as soon as she had seen him deposit Yang with Ghira, he was already beside her and bringing her to safety much to her parent's relief.
A Speed Semblance? Blake inwardly questioned before her cat senses kicked in, her ears perking up in alarm.
Blake knew that she wouldn't be safe if she remained standing where she was. The Grimm were dangerous, but so was Yang whose hair was steadily turning red while trying to make her way towards her with a bad ankle.
"Thanks for the help," Blake nodded gratefully to Shirou before directly retreating out of sight to another part of the group away from Yang. It was isolated and nearest to the forest path that Shirou had jumped out from in order to save Yang.
Once Yang could no longer track her, Blake tentatively took out the dagger that Yang had dropped and inspected it with a certain degree of expectation. It was the dagger from the folktale. It had to be.
Just like the Grimm fed on the negative emotions of Humans, the dagger was said to react to the emotions of the holder. Admittedly, Blake was a sucker for literature and stories. To suddenly realize that some of the fiction that she'd read wasn't so fictional after all, piqued her curiosity too the point of impulsion.
She just had to think deeply about a person, right?
One hand held the dagger close while the other held her weapon, Gambol Shroud, in a defensive stance against the Grimm.
'Adam, where are you?' With her and Adam working together, they'd been able to drive off plenty of Grimm over the course of the journey. She continued to think strongly in her head, not noticing as Adam irritably arrived in front of her from the forest where he'd pushed himself to chase after Shirou's figure.
Adam was breathing heavily, his mind in turmoil from what he'd perceived of Shirou on the way. However, all his doubts and questions in his mind utterly vanished at the face of the situation in front of him. Admittedly, he could be a self-centered bastard, borderline egotistical, but even he hadn't fallen to the point of no return. He'd never killed, and now he saw that perhaps he'd never need to in order to implement world reforms for the Faunus.
Right now, there was hope for Faunus, hope for meaningful change in the form of Vermillion. Of course, he still had his grudges against humans, but it was also true that it was a human that had risked his life for Faunus everywhere, and was doing it even now.
Adam didn't know whether to glare or thank Shirou for his actions.
Adam understood just from the sight in front of him that Shirou had not been wrong in his assessment that Ghira and the others had been in danger. It was he who had been blinded by his prejudice that had immediately doubted Shirou's claims. Had he not chased after Shirou, then by the time that he came back from scouting, what if everyone that he had actually viewed as comrades ended up dead at his feet?
There'd no longer be anything tying him down. The darker part of his inner personality whispered suggestively from within him, but the inner demon was largely blindsided by newer developments in front of him.
Adam had ended up standing across from Blake who was staring so intently at a dagger that she didn't even notice him in her fervour. It was an odd spectacle.
"Blake?" Adam called out in confusion. "What are you doing?"
Rather than answer him, she recoiled in shock before staring at the dagger in her hands in wonderment.
"…" Holy shit it works. For a moment, Blake wasn't saying anything, causing Adam to dismiss the matter in favour of looking worriedly at the Grimm attacking his fellow Faunus. He unsheathed his swords and turned to Blake. She looked like she was trying hard to hold back some kind of excited outburst which was far from helpful.
Adam needed to snap Blake out of it. He did so by directly addressing how she presently looked. "Are you constipated, or are you going to help?" He asked gruffly. He was never one for words in the heat of the moment. Therefore, he'd said whatever was effective.
Blake spluttered and quickly took after Adam who dove into the fray. However, the two froze soon after.
Everyone did.
Shirou had not been standing idle.
Yang was safe within the protection of Ghira's group, but that didn't mean that Ghira's group could last against the onslaught of Grimm around them. Worse, Yang wouldn't be able to move very much with her ankle, meaning that if Ghira's group was ever routed, she'd be in danger.
He couldn't allow that to happen. Not only would losing Yang make his Master cry, but failing everyone relying on him would mean that he'd failed in his duty as a Hero.
"Archer," Yang called out to him, having stubbornly hobbled her way next to him at the front of the group after losing sight of Blake. "I can help."
Yeah. Right.
"No. No you can't," he admonished her.
She pursed her lips before knitting her brows. "And what do you expect to do alone? I may not be of much use injured but I'm better than nothing. Besides, what can you do with just a spear?"
In ordinary circumstances, there'd be nothing wrong with Yang's assessment; however, never judge the capabilities of a Heroic Spirit on just appearances alone.
"Yang, listen to me," She perked up at his voice, watching intently as he brandished the red spear in his grip. "Do you remember the stories that I told to you? Just because a weapon may look ordinary, it doesn't mean that there's nothing else to it. There's always truth in Legend."
Shirou lowered his stance, his magic circuits thrumming to life.
"In all of Remnants history, one thing is for certain, Yang," he tightened his grip around the spear's shaft. "Mankind, though weak and brittle, has always had the potential to be strong. Even in the dark ages without Dust, mankind still survived."
It was a will of tenacity and undying determination born of conviction.
"With weapons forged with nothing but ordinary steel and fire, man could make legend."
A crimson aura burst forth from the red spear in his arms with such intensity that air currents began to rapidly flow. The vein-like patterns crawling across the spear's surface pulsed as if alive. "Look close at this spear Yang, you already know of its name."
Bloodlust permeated around him, enshrouding him in an aura of savagery, his presence impossible to ignore. If the Huntsman of Red's Sword of the Sun was warm and welcoming, then the crimson spear was suffocating.
It screamed of murder and death, yet at the same time as he had flooded the crimson spear with magical energy, the Grimm visibly stiffened. Many had even begun to falter and back-peddle in apprehension much to the shock of everyone.
Grimm were not known to display fear. They were creatures of instinct, many mindless and uncaring of death.
This was different. It was a feeling born of deeply enrooted unease.
Beasts. Monsters. Ghosts. Ghouls. The residents of the Dead, the Damned, and the Evil.
"You do not belong in this world." The words that came from his mouth were said in memory of the true wielder of the crimson spear. "Shadows will remain in shadows. Beasts hunting beasts."
The crimson spear hummed with the sound of a thousand crows, representative of the watchers of the Gates of DunScaith, the Land of Shadows.
He leaned forward, the image of a feral hound manifesting in the aura that surrounded him, and that was all that Yang needed to see to understand just which weapon he was wielding.
"I will return you all to the gates from which you came." He dashed forward, his form blurring.
The monolithic gears of an unlimited armoury once more began to churn from within him. A wasteland bereft of life and whose sole purpose was to fulfill the selfish desire of a boy who'd only ever wanted to experience the happiness found within a smile.
He actualized that belief, because once upon a time, that boy had been him.
Magical energy surged through his body like a storm, creating a physical manifestation around him in the form of a blue flame-like aura.
When he kicked, he sent Grimm flying. When he stabbed, the ground shattered at his wake. It wasn't human, nor was it truly just the result of a Speed Semblance like Blake had speculated. It was much more.
The limits of a Heroic Spirit were far beyond the physical abilities of humans. Even E-Rank skills were ten times the base human level.
Within the blink of an eye, he cleared away the Grimm surrounding Ghira and the others and herded them into a large group by using the anti-evil properties of the spear in his hands.
"W-What kind of Mercenary is that?" Sienna Khan felt her mouth drying, but no one spoke to answer her, rather, they shivered.
The way that they were looking at him, it was like they were looking at a murderer.
Yang saw things differently. She could recall the story that she had been told about a tragic Hero who single-handedly dirtied his hands and killed countless people in the defence of his homeland.
A Child of Light hardened into a bloodstained tool of war.
Archer's situation was the same. While everyone watched on, he alone was fighting to protect them. Moreover, his words…
She clenched her jaw and gritted her teeth. Shadows will remain in shadows, wasn't that an allusion to himself? He who lived in a life filled with hardship, yet still fought for the sake of others.
An Antihero.
If the Huntsman of Red was the Hero that shone bright during the day, then Archer would be something like the disgraced Antihero prowling through the night. Somehow, she felt that it was something that an idiot like Archer who couldn't recognize his own self worth would do. Hell, for her sake, he'd stayed up all night to keep watch without even thinking about his own condition.
Oblivious to what others were thinking about him, Shirou was only focusing on the enemies before him, his gaze darting left and right to look for any stragglers.
He planted the butt of his spear in the ground, ducked low and kicked out with a leg that sent a Grimm careening away in the direction that he had wanted. However, despite his success, his expression was beginning to fall.
He was using too much energy. His Independent Action Skill could only conserve so much magical energy before he'd have to tap into his connection with Ruby. By that point, Ruby would definitely feel that something was wrong.
Knowing his Master, there was actually a high probability that she may just use a Command Seal to call him back out of fear that something had happened to him. Best case scenario was that she'd be too absorbed in making her own custom weapon to notice a dip in her reserves at all. Well, actually, that option was just as likely as the first option.
He clicked his tongue.
It was going to be a gamble, but nothing was ever certain with his Master.
He had to end things now.
Under the rapt attention of Ghira and the others, he braced his legs and took a forward stance on the ground. One hand held his spear, while the other was placed over in front of him. A maddening air enveloped him, cloaking him in a layer of sheer magical power.
The spear in his hand trembled violently, eagerly.
It had not known the joy of battle in years, the euphoria of the hunt, and the thrill of the kill.
It was a Cursed Spear of Barbed Death whose properties screamed for the annihilation of the creatures before it.
He would oblige.
Look up and see. Over the distant plains, the hills, the grass, and the swaying of the reeds, shine once more.
He was flying, his legs having pushed him up precariously into the air. The energy that suffused the spear in his hand resembled a violent flame as his arm cocked it back. A pregnant pause descended, eerily spreading out across the land now bathed in the crimson hue of potent magical light.
Hold it within hand and forge it within fire. The tale of a Hero who alone became the Shield of a Country. It's Child of Light.
It could have had just been a trick of the eyes, but the phantom image of a gate held closed by the hands of twin skeletons manifested for but an instant. It wasn't Dust. I wasn't Aura, but the sheer presence permeating throughout the area terrified the Grimm on a primal level.
A domain. A prison, A cursed land. It was the entrance.
The Gate of DunScaith, Land of the Dead.
There would be no escaping, and the Grimm would no longer have the luxury of death within the Gate's embrace.
Denizens of the Damned.
Shadows returning to Shadows.
A call beckons through the law of the world.
Return from whence ye came.
The spear was thrown.
"Gae Bolg!"
Thanks for reading!
Next Update: Vasto of White
P a treon. com (slash) Parcasious