Chapter 16: Machinations

I do not own Fate/Stay Night and stuffs:

o. o. o.

Fuyuki City:

Emiya Shirou chuckled to himself in a grim fashion as he tinkered with the motorcycle that Taiga's grandfather had sent to him to fix. He wondered if this was what it was like for soldiers that were stationed at a place that they knew was going to get hammered in the very near future but the exact time and date were still unknown. Just waiting every day to see if hell would finally arrive, and in the mean time realize that everything else being done is either subtly frustrating the soldier to no end or is significantly more difficult because of those frustrations. When he wasn't training, studying up on magic, cooking, meditating, or tinkering with his latest project, Shirou's nerves would unfortunately get the better of him. Granted as time went on his nerves seemed to have numbed themselves enough that it wouldn't affect his work or cooking anymore, but the upcoming fight still preoccupied his thoughts…

It had been several days since he, Rin and Bazett had gone over his rather hastily put together set of tactics. While there had been some minor arguments and second thoughts, the group eventually decided to give it a shot. In order to increase the odds of it working, Rin had to do some practicing in a certain activity that she was not normally accustomed to on her own during the day time. However, given the circumstances Rin sparingly grumbled and complained about her task.

Meanwhile, Bazett spent most of her daylight hours either getting sleep or walking around the city in order to see if she could gain a quick heads up on Louvre's arrival before he had a chance to get the drop on them. She hadn't come across anything yet but at least she was getting used to the town in general.

Click. Snap. Whir. Clank.

Shirou absentmindedly worked on the bike, letting his hands move almost by themselves as his eyes traced and examined the vehicle's engine and inner workings. Tools entered and left his hands at a pace that even professionals would be impressed at, seeing as the boy could tell exactly what was wrong with the machinations of the equipment through his magic and how to fix it through his experience with fixing this same bike on multiple occasions in the past.

Shirou's hands were a testament to his dedication to his hobby. Both hands had rather thick callouses on the palms of his hands, and while he didn't have many scars thanks to Avalon, they had enough blemishes to indicate that he worked with them fairly frequently. They were strong yet precise; tough yet supple; they were the hands of a craftsman… an engineer… a blacksmith…

The teen had lost track of how long he had been in his workshop. It was at times like this that he had forgotten that this was the only place that he could truly be alone to think anymore. Rin was egotistical at times, but even she didn't dare trespass on his privacy and studies. Bazett was much the same way. Shirou was certain that Sakura would have attempted to get inside to wake him up had he slept in on a school day, however, his father had taken precautions against that early on by putting an alarm clock based bounded field on the shed that would wake up absolutely anyone inside that wasn't put under via drugs, in a coma, or in a critically wounded state at five in the morning every morning. That particular addition had to be made shortly after Shirou started his thaumaturgy training and had to be forcibly woken up from the shed in order to get to school on time for a month.

The memories of his father made him chuckle dryly. The things he knew of this father, the things he learned of the man's past, the way that other people reacted to his name... Shirou highly doubted that his general studying and training would have varied all that much had he not been tasked with the debacle of the next Holy Grail War. People hated and feared Emiya Kiritsugu to such a degree that Shirou would have had to learn how to defend himself at some point else he would undoubtedly be murdered by some random magi at some point. Shirou wondered how his father's enemies would have reacted seeing the Kiritsugu setting the kitchen on fire while trying to cook, or getting pushed around by a confused and drunk Fuji-nee on her sixteenth birthday party between a dozen men that were literally twice his size.

Shink. Wrr Wrr Wrr

Shirou tightened the last screw on the bike before brushing his hands on his work pants and reached forward to analyze his work. A quick structural grasping told him that everything would work perfectly, and the only thing left that needed tweaking was the plastic outer casing that did nothing but give the bike its aerodynamic shape and visual flare. Technically he could easily repair the frame with his magic, however he didn't have any real excuse to explain how he could do so. Replacing normal parts was fairly simple and cheap for anyone to do, but customized plastic parts were expensive and took time to obtain. He knew of several companies that could do such jobs since this wasn't the first time he had to fix a car or a bike, however, it always bugged him to leave a project not completely finished when he knew he could do more to help.

Looking around his workshop the boy once more mused at how odd his workshop was compared to how other magi set their equipment up. While most magi preferred a laboratory setup, Shirou preferred the engineer's or mechanic's setup. Where most magi were neat and organized, storing tomes and rare items for analysis and experimentation, Shirou had mundane objects scattered everywhere that held no real significance, magical or not. They were merely there either because he wanted to fix them or because he wanted to see how his magic could alter or enhance them. Though, he did have a couple of desks and shelves filled with tools and books, both magical and mechanical focused lying around the place, but they were in no particular order and were clearly not put away neatly if the few that were laying around were any indication…

A knock on the door interrupted his musings and brought the teen back to reality. "Emiya-kun…" Rin's voice warned from the other side of the door. "Someone's here…"

The temperature in the room dropped at least ten degrees at that instant as Shirou's somewhat calm, carefree, and relaxed demeanor disappeared and was replaced with one that was more appropriate for the upcoming encounter. Wearily picking himself up and walking to the door, the boy opened it to see Rin waiting for him with her game face on. "It's just one person…"

"He's either confident enough to take us on by himself or he's merely here to declare war and set up a more appropriate place to fight…" Shirou observed as he closed the door behind him. He didn't worry about anyone trying to sneak up on them should the fighting start now. His group had set up multiple sensory bounded fields all over the area designed to inform them of how many major magical sources entered them. If only one source was detected, then that meant that they were most likely dealing with a messenger at this point in time.

"That was what I suspected too." Rin agreed as she followed him to the front where Bazett was waiting for them. "I had hoped that we had more time to prepare and practice. But then again, we've had a fairly generous period of time to recover as well."

"Yeah." Shirou nodded in agreement. As they walked the boy went over the various tactics and approaches to situations that he had both taken from his father's combat and assassination records (which had been hidden inside the house for Shirou to find when he opened the box), and ones that Shirou had made up later with Rin and Bazett. He noted that Rin was wearing a longer skirt than she normally did, this one reached her knees instead of her thighs, which helped display her "absolute territory" as Taiga had put it, not that he understood what it meant. While the skirt would impede the girl's movements, if only by a small margin, it served a greater purpose in concealing the tools she would need to serve her in the upcoming fighting. "Are you comfortable using it yet?" He asked in an even tone that barely let his underlying concern show.

Rin frowned. "Have some more faith in me will you? I may not be a combat nut like you, but I am still a genius and a quick learner. All I need is a good opening to work with. It's you that I'm worried about…"

"Don't worry." The boy smiled briefly from under the red shroud. He had become familiar enough with the cloth to be able to use reinforcement on it to comfortably wrap it around his face and mouth with a tiny amount of prana, and alter it to just around his neck when he ate or cleaned himself. Had he enough time, he would have considered learning to alter it to be an undershirt of sorts so that there was less excess cloth hanging off of his body, maybe even a jacket. "I haven't died yet and I don't plan on dying anytime soon. I won't do anything risky if I don't need to…"

"Don't be disappointed if that doesn't make me feel any better…" The girl said, glaring at her friend accusingly.

"I'd be concerned if you didn't." Shirou mused as the two arrived at the front gate where Bazett was waiting for them.

"You two took your time." The enforcer grunted as she flexed her hands and made sure her rune encrusted gloves were on properly. "I hope you didn't forget anything…"

"I'm not as experienced as either one of you, but don't go thinking I'm some careless idiot." Rin coldly commented while keeping her eyes straight ahead.

"I have everything I need right in here." Shirou tapped his head almost mockingly.

"Let's hope you're right about that Shirou." The eldest darkly stated before narrowing her eyes. "He's just about here…"

Shirou and Rin nodded as they too could feel the presence of another magically capable individual extremely close by, a very strong one if the amount of prana he exerted was any indication…

For what seemed like hours the three waited in front of the doorway for their mystery assailant to attack…

So it completely floored them when said individual did not destroy the front door or attempt to dispel the bounded fields around the house when he arrived at the property. Rather, he instead politely knocked on the door like any other normal individual. "Oi! Don't shoot! Ahm just ta messenger!" A loud, deep, and distinctly familiar voice shouted from the other side of the doorway, causing Shirou and Bazett to blink in surprise and Rin to tilt her head in confusion.

"Who the hell is that?" Rin asked confused as Bazett moved carefully to the front door to open it.

"…Old man?" The Fraga asked carefully as she peeked through the small opening to see Sirius standing on the other side, still in one piece but looking a bit more exhausted than he normally did. "Is that really you?"

"Ya want me ta tell everyone about my surprise birthday gift ta you ta Shirou?" The giant asked with a raised eyebrow. "Like ah said. Ahm' just ta messenger. Tat prick Louvre is playin mind games wit ya by sendin me here as a middleman."

"Humph." Rin snorted. "How conceited of him. Just because he's an ancestor he thinks he can just flaunt his advantages like this…" She eyed Sirius warily. "So you're the mystic code crafter that I've been hearing so much about lately…"

"You can't escape his influence?" Bazett asked warily.

The old man shook his head. "Can't. Ahm under a geis to not escape in return fer makin sure tat ta lad an I doesn't get killed or turned undead."

"So that's the reason why they were so adamant to capture you Emiya-kun…" Rin mused. "They were using you as a means to control him…"

Sirius shook his head. "Look, ah don't have much time ta be here so ah'll make tis quick. Louvre is downright pissed tat ya killed his girl so he's here wit his son ta capture Shirou and kill ta rest. Is tere a place ya can suggest ta brawl tat won't get ya too much attention?"

The three magi looked at one another before nodding. "Fuyuki Fire Memorial Park." Shirou stated calmly, getting a look from the eldest one there.

"Tat place?" He mused curiously before shaking his head. "Ah… Louve ain't gonna like it one bit when he gets tere… its cursed badly… but it'll do." He looked at Shirou warily. "Speakin of curses… did ya open ta box yet lad?"

The boy's eyes narrowed and nodded. "I did." He stated in a calm yet irritated tone, clearly indicating that he wasn't exactly thrilled with what he found inside.

Sirius sighed and scratched his head. "Look lad. Ah know ya aren't thrilled wit ta blades but ta be perfectly honest it was yer old man's idea… and none of us knew about how deep ta curse was in his body till ah was halfway through makin tem. Fer what it's worth, ahm sorry ah did it, but it had ta be done." His eyes hardened. "Ta be blunt though… they're not gonna be enough ta fight Louvre."

The three younger magi froze at the old man's statement. "What?" Rin gaped in surprise. "Not enough? How the hell can those things not be enough?"

Sirius grunted as a bracelet on his arm flared warningly. "Ah can't talk about it much, but if ya want ta live through tis ya gotta fight him indirectly. Even if ya use Kiritsugu ya won't be able ta beat him wit his current equipment." He turned to walk away so suddenly that it even caught him by surprise. "Crap. Ah gotta go. He'll be waitin fer ya at ta park soon. Ah'd hurry tere if ah were you, but don't forget anything. Don't worry about me though, ahm made of strong suff! My hide's as thick as a cow's!"

Bazett's eyes flashed dangerously as the old man disappeared around the corner. "As thick as a…"

Rin looked at Bazett curiously. "I take it there was another meaning to that last comment?"

The woman nodded slowly. "Yeah, but it would be best if neither one of you knew what it meant at this point in time." She glanced at Shirou and Rin. "You two. I know you said that you were ready to fight, but seeing how Shirou is still dressed in his work clothes I think we could spare a few more minutes to prepare correctly…"

Shirou looked down and saw that he was still in his school's jumpsuit, covered in grime and oil from the bike he had been working on in his workshop. He had completely forgotten about it when Rin and called him out. "Ah… sorry. I forgot about this." He chuckled lightly and went inside. "I'll clean myself up right now and get something better on. Just hold up for a sec."

Rin sighed as she scratched her head. "We're about to have a fight to the death with a Dead Apostle Ancestor and to prepare he's taking a shower to wipe off the grime from fixing a motorcycle that is in his workshop. Please tell me you also see what's wrong with this situation too."

Bazett relaxed a fair amount and shrugged, but still maintained her mature demeanor. "While it is a bit odd, he isn't the worst case I've seen. I once encountered a Sealing Designate in America that went completely insane from his research and asked me to wait so he could finish his battle preparations… which was to ingest a bit of virtually every major illegal drug on the market."

"Are you serious?" Rin blinked. "Was that supposed to help him in some way?"

The elder snorted. "Normally it would have since he had a magic that enhanced his physical and magical abilities in direct proportion to how many toxins he had in his body, converting the chemicals and the poisons that his body made in reaction to them into pure prana, but the idiot had been doing those drugs for so long that he had completely forgotten to cast the spell before taking the drugs and ended up dying of an overdose less than a minute after he popped his third pill." A hint of an amused smile echoed on her face as she recalled the whole thing.

Rin's eyebrow twitched. "I see… you know, I'm beginning to think that most of the magic that the association banned was because it resulted in the ones studying it to become either crazy or stupid."

Bazett nodded her head reluctantly. "You'd be surprised how often the ones who break that rule are the latter, no matter how intelligent they are supposed to be…"

o. o. o.

The Collector:

Louvre had expected his prey to have a place in mind for his inevitable battle. He had expected traps, bounded fields, concealed areas…

He did not expect it to be in a park in the middle of the city with only the standard concealing and privacy barriers to ensure that no non magical aware being would be able to notice them… and the ground themselves being cursed with something insufferable.

He grimaced as he looked around. The entirety of the park was saturated with a dark spiritual scar that belonged to the natural, yet was unnatural at the same time. To an existence that was more sensitive to the workings of the planet such as himself, the field might as well been covered in raw chemicals or trash. It was a miracle that there were even trees and grass growing here, even if they all looked like they were half dead…

"Sister and I were concerned of this place as well when we first came across it." The younger vampire commented as he shifted from side to side, clearly as disturbed by the area as his father. "Whatever happened here… it was neither reasonable nor controlled… it is extremely unexpected for a place with such high natural mana concentrations…"

"This foul presence is repulsive yet at the same time it is anchored and bonded to this land." The vampire commented. "It is almost akin to a reality marble. Something not of Gaia's or Alaya's work… it is unexpected to come across such a deeply cursed land in the middle of a city." He closed his eyes and focused only to be immediately bombarded with disturbing and fowl images and concepts. "A curse on this scale… we will have to research this area it at some point once our business here is dealt with. Whatever caused it must be investigated thoroughly…" He opened his eyes and turned his head to look at Sirius who was casually sitting on a nearby bench and eating an apple. He was confident that with his geis in place the crafter would not try anything stupid lest he ruin his circuits, and took the large man's silence for resignation to his current position. "Care to tell us of what happened here blacksmith?"

Sirius shrugged as he chewed on his latest bite of fruit. "Ah heard tat this is where ta Holy Grail War ended about 8 years ago. Caused a real big explosion in ta process too. Ah wasn't told ta exact details, but from what ah've heard, sometin warped ta Grail an tainted ta contents in ta war before. Since ta grail was almost filled when ta war ended last time, ah can only guess tat sometin caused ta grail ta spill its contents here and tis is ta result."

"The Grail War? So that is why this city sounds familiar… this was the location of one of Kaleidoscope's larger projects some centuries ago." Louvre frowned as he looked around. "Several heroic spirits worth of prana concentrated at a single point… corrupted… and discharged at once… yes I can see how this place would be affected as thoroughly as it has been…" He shifted his cloak a bit, momentarily revealing his mace in the process.

"Does something else seem to be the matter father?" His son asked curiously. "You were a bit uncomfortable while we were traveling here…"

The elder shook his head. "It is nothing of importance." The Apostle mentally snorted at the message that he had received only hours ago from the princess of the dead apostles, Altrouge Brunestud, a woman with precognitive powers. Frequently she sent messages to the twenty seven when she predicted their deaths in order to let them prepare their next in line adequately. The one she sent him was no different.

Your end will be sealed by the Magus Killer's machinations.

He shook his head. The Magus Killer had been confirmed dead for years now and not once had he or his children encountered the man, not that he had bothered to remember the mercenary's name in the first place. Whatever plan the human had prepared pre-mortem had nothing to do with him. He had half a mind to declare that the princess' abilities were waning after he dealt with this situation, however it would be best to wait a while lest he incur the wrath of her supporters...

His musing were cut short however as he turned to the direction of something that triggered his senses. "We will talk about the processes and implications of examining this area later." His eyes rested on the slowly approaching forms of Bazett, Shirou, and Rin from the other side of the field. In the sky behind them, the full moon was shining brightly, bringing him some comfort from nature in this field of disturbances.

He took note of the boy standing on the right side of the group. He was dressed in thick dark blue carpenter pants that looked like jeans, a black shirt with long blue sleeves and collar, black fingerless gloves, and dark sneakers… however, the most notable part of his attire was the red shroud that he wore around his face and neck like some kind of ninja that human children seemed to be enthralled with this decade. Still the boy seemed to already be prepared for anything as he felt the child focusing a fair amount of prana into his body, no doubt in order to reinforce it if what his son told him was correct.

The two groups remained silent as the second party approached gradually until they were a healthy distance from one another and examined the other warily. "I hope we didn't make you wait long." Bazett stated in a calm and controlled tone. For a brief moment she looked at Sirius but didn't say anything. Talking to the blacksmith would only distract them at this point. Sirius was well aware of this as well, which is why he opted to remain quiet.

"I'd rather not spend any more time in this place if I can help it." Louvre frowned. "I take it you are the one that killed my daughter woman…"

"And your point?" Bazett frowned. "Enforcers have a tendency to hunt Dead Apostles and the like. Don't act surprised Louvre."

"Don't think that you have the honor of talking to me on the same level Fraga." The vampire glared with glowing eyes. "Your kin may date back to the age of gods, but you yourself are simply a normal human with some antiquated tricks."

"Let the old man go and leave us alone." Shirou stated calmly with unblinking eyes.

The younger vampire snorted. "Humph. Know your place boy. You are in no position to demand anything from us." He laughed and crossed his arms confidently. "Even if we wanted to, we can't do anything about his condition now. He and father have a geis set up, and nothing save for the contract's destruction, annulment, or death of one of the parties involved will change things."

Rin flipped her hair to the side casually. "Really then? Well that makes things easier doesn't it? All we have to do is kill you and our problems will be solved."

Louvre turned to Rin with a look of distain. "You are too overconfident about your situation girl." He pulled out his prized mace from his robes. "Your comrade's peculiar weapons and Noble Phantasm will be of no use here…"

"… Shit." Shirou swore as he got a good look at the weapon that was now firmly rooted in his inner world as his mind sorted out all the information about it in record time.

Noting that the boy with the supposed Reality Marble froze the moment he took out his prized weapon, the vampire swung his tool hard before the child could supposedly divulge its secrets to his comrades. In the middle of the swing the weapon rebounded against the very air itself and caused a massive travelling distortion that rippled to the three magi accompanied by an unstable seemingly underwater echoing sound that assaulted everyone's ears…

Acting on impulse, the humans jumped away from the barely visible attack in separate directions while preparing counterattacks of their own. Shirou's materialized at least three dozen swords around himself and fired them off at a rapid but steady stream towards the vampires while Rin shot off her Gandr curse as fast as she could to accompany the blades. Bazett, in the meantime, simply waited in the starting position, no doubt ready to hone in on her target vampire the moment he was far enough from his backup…

The group however did not expect Louvre's son to take out a small jeweled staff from his own garb and counter the attacks with a highly concentrated wall of fire that incinerated the counter attacks and blinded their targets in the process. Taking advantage of their target's distraction, the son then shot off another massive fireball at Rin before suffocating the wall of fire to enable his father and himself to bolt after their intended targets with the inhuman speed that their kind was known for.

Bazett, the most experienced of the group managed to regain her eyesight fast enough to see the fireball closing in on the least experienced one there. "Rin! Move!" She managed to shout before a slew of smaller faster fireballs made its way to her and forced her to focus her time on dodging.

Barely managing to regain her senses in time, Rin saw that she was not able to dodge the oncoming attack. Acting on pure instinct, she accessed her magic crest's powers and erected a quick but fairly strong bounded field in front of her as a makeshift defense. Unfortunately the field didn't hold as well as she had hoped as the massive conflagration exploded with immense force upon colliding with her defense and threw the screaming girl a fair distance away.

"Tohsaka!" Shirou shouted in alarm before managing to somehow jump away from Louvre crushing his shoulder with the gold and crimson mace in hand. While the boy himself didn't get hit with the weapon, he shuddered as he watched the ground it did hit collapse from underneath as if it was a sinkhole that had just formed. The topsoil and the grass remained unblemished, but the area underneath had clearly just been immensely impacted…

Shirou didn't have time to react appropriately to such a marvel however as he instantly projected a small wall of swords in order to gain himself some breathing room and backpedaled away from where Bazett was fighting the younger vampire. The wall did almost nothing though as they were knocked aside from the mace wielding vampire as if they were made of fragile glass and continued to charge forward with glowing red eyes.

The Faker swallowed heavily as he got another good look at the mace now and took in all the information he could about it, feeling its copy become realized and constructed inside his Reality Marble. This was a very powerful weapon. Old. Potent. Valuable…

And absolutely useless in his hands.

The mace was made in the 11th century for a catholic bishop from England who was involved with the battle of Hastings. He had used the mace avoid drawing blood and to motivate his soldiers from behind. It had been lost upon the wielder's death, but the weapon itself had been depicted on a very famous historical tapestry and thus impacting history indirectly through the centuries, influencing the world's mass population to believe that priests used maces to not draw blood in battle when forced to fight. This in turn caused the once normal mace to turn into a conceptual weapon on a Noble Phantasm level despite its wielder's seemingly standard tale.

The tool's purpose was to deal internal damage and bypass the outer layers of its target. When applied to manifestations of thaumaturgy, it would cause the weavings of prana that caused the mystery to actualize and violently unravel, thus forcing the wild energy to destroy the spell from the inside out. Ranked as a B+ conceptual weapon, it was certainly a perfect counter for almost all magic and armors… however there were stipulations that needed to be followed in order for it to work, and if one of them was not met, then its natural power ranking would also fall to a D+ rank. Of course since Shirou could only replicate a tool of that level to a certain degree based on sight alone, the best he could trace would only be strong enough to be considered of an E+ quality.

The first requirement the mace had was that the user had to not draw blood in any fashion for a certain amount of time before, and during combat. This was self explanatory as the tool's intended purpose was to not allow such wounds from occurring. As a holy weapon, it would automatically detect if its wielder had done so and would react the instant something happened that was contradictory to its purpose.

The second stipulation however was what prevented Shirou from being able to ever use the mace to its full potential. The tool that was supposed to enforce "peace" and served as a sufficient replacement for standard weapons used in battle. The primary reason why its user had wielded it in war was because his status as a cleric forbade him from wielding a blade or an 'arm of war'. As such this limitation carried over to the weapon itself with regards to using its powers, meaning the wielder cannot use it properly unless he or she was not carrying with them an 'arm of war' on them at the same time such as a sword or a gun. Shirou, whose origin and element were both 'sword', was in himself an arm of war, and as such would not be able to use its powers unless both were somehow changed, which would in turn of course prevent him from being able to trace it in the first place.

"What's wrong boy?" Louvre growled as he bolted to Shirou with his naturally inhuman body and swung again, destroying the two blue and red blades the boy had been holding upon contact and sending him flying meters away. "Is my weapon scaring you? What does your twisted little mind tell you about it?"

Shirou didn't bother to reply as he picked himself up and tried to gain some more breathing room. He could tell that most of his ribs had been bruised by that last attack, thankfully his weapons taking the brunt of most of the mace's blow. He couldn't fight in close quarters if he wanted to live. That mace was too dangerous and its wielder was too fast. With the full moon out and his son nearby, Louvre was damn near impossible to compete with on a physical level.

In fact… as much as he hated to admit it, Shirou had to guess that part of the reason why he had managed to do as well as he did so far in evading the vampire's attacks was because he himself was experiencing a minor boost from the full moon as well in addition to his reinforcement enhancing his body. He could see clearer in the night without having to use magic and his body felt lighter than ever as he basked in the moon's glow…

He ducked just as another swing of the mace nearly crushed his limbs. That was close, he nearly let the adrenaline get to his head and distract him from the fight. Breathing out slowly he funneled prana into both his circuits and his crest at the same time.

"Model. Defined. Process. Refined. Sequence. Automate. Production. Start." He muttered as he backpedaled as quickly as he could while feeling his reality marble hum and echo with movement. Landing a small distance away from Louvre and flared his circuits.

"Trace! Overclock!" He yelled as a few dozen of average looking swords appeared around him and fired off at the vampire quickly, only to be replaced with another sword that was bolted from its starting position just as quickly… and was replaced by another.

While "Trace Accel" was a spell that could be considered an average machinegun that shot modified high velocity bullets, "Trace Overclock" was just the opposite in that it shot off normal bullets, but the gun was altered to fire at least twice as many rounds in half the time. Granted this variation was less suited for high level opponents and more for large numbers, however it was also good for buying time as the number of flying swords produced was more than a bit distracting for most living beings.

Unfortunately, this would not be enough as Louvre demonstrated by hammering the air in front of him with his mace and making an even larger shockwave than before. The ripple in the air rolled forward like a tsunami and overwhelmed the torrent of blades that attempted to skewer the vampire and were torn apart in the chaos. Continuing uninhibited, the wave of distortion crashed into the area Shirou had just been moments before and caused the ground to collapse into a massive crater at least 4 meters in radius.

Damn… this isn't good… Shirou panted as he glanced at the damage the mace had done before turning his attention back to the source. How much longer am I going to have to stall him?

Louvre's eyes narrowed as he stopped and focused his gaze on the boy. "… I see. I thought that something was peculiar when you came with that cowl on." Shirou's stiffening body was all he needed to confirm his guess. "I can feel it boy. My daughter's blood still runs in your veins, if only by a miniscule amount. That cowl you wear prevents your conversion into one of my kind, prevents your mind and soul from being truly afflicted, however your body has turned a small amount." The vampire's body relaxed while it flared a small amount of prana and caused Shirou to suddenly gasp in pain and grab his chest.

His heart, his lungs, his organs, his muscles, his bones. Everything seemed to be assaulted and writhing at once. "Wha…t… are… you… doing… to… me?" The boy grit his teeth and spoke between breaths when his organs would allow him to.

Louvre snorted. "Humph. I am merely causing my daughter's blood to become more active. As her father and the one who turned her in the first place, I am easily capable of such minor feats. While that cowl may protect your sanity, your body will eventually be converted to one of my own should I keep this up. Fortunately for you I am not able to do such a thing without repercussions, however it will do quite nicely as a method to keep you in line." He walked casually towards the boy. "You rely on my daughter's gift to fight yet you denied her life. You spurned her gift while at the same time using what you gained already for your own profit. Humans like you disgust me." His prana flared again, causing Shirou to scream out in pain. "I think I will put you in your place for a bit longer before I take you back for experimen…" Louvre's sentence was cut short however as a brief flash of light caught his attention from behind and caused him a severe amount of pain, forcing him to jump away from the boy and hide behind a tree. "What in the world?" He hissed in irritation. "This is sunlight! But how?" He glanced briefly from around the tree and cursed in pain, anger, and shock…

Sirius McGinty walked calmly from where he had been waiting on the bench to Shirou like a beefed up wingless angel. His skin glowed like a beacon and travelling across his body were countless runes, swimming across his body like individual fishes save for several dozen that were engraved across his limbs, were stuck on his chest, and a few on his forehead.

"Sirius-jiji?" Shirou panted as the Irishman stopped by his side to help him up.

"Ah was hopin ya would have lasted longer ten tat before ah had ta step in… but if ya really do have tat bitch's blood in ya ah can't really blame ya fer it…" The old man shook his head tiredly as the light emanating from him died down.

"What the hell are you doing?" Louvre shouted enraged. "Why are your circuits intact! Why are you going against me?"

The old man chuckled as he helped the boy up. "Ya made a mistake when we made the geis Louvre. Ah still had one code left on me when we made it, and ta deal doesn't apply to it. Ah still can't fight ya wit everythin ah got, but ah have enough legroom ta make sure ya don't hurt ta boy."

"Impossible…" The vampire growled through clenched teeth as he walked out from his cover. "We made sure to get rid of every tool you had on you! There's nothing else you have that could…" His eyes narrowed at the old man's form before widening in surprise. "… It couldn't be… you actually managed to turn…"

The largest man chuckled darkly as the runes across his body began to move faster randomly around his frame and he cracked his knuckles. "Yep. Ah turned my very skin inta my personalized code Louvre. Ta Lebor na nUidre." He cracked his neck a couple of times before hopping on his feet like a trained boxer. "Allow me ta show ya ta reason why ah was called ta Divergin Golem…"

o. o. o.

On top of a building nearby:

"Shit… so he's really using it…" Waver grimaced as he watched the fighting from a distance. His wincing was fueled by two things at the moment. The first was the current situation of course as he had just voiced.

The second was because he despised heights ever since Rider almost ditched him on top of the Fuyuki bridge at the beginning of the Fourth Grail War. On the bridge, the feeling of cold strong winds nearly pushing him to his death never really left him… and only came back with gusto whenever he encountered a similar sensations afterwards. He also still twitched whenever he heard thunder and saw lightning nearby as they reminded him of the near deafening sounds of the Gordian Wheel as it ran through the sky… without any way for him remain on the chariot save clinging to the side for dear life…

"The Lebor na nUidre…" Lorelei mused curiously as she used her magic to listen in on the fighter's conversations, not at all bothered by the wind or their current high position. "The Book of the Dun Cow. Supposedly it's the oldest known manuscript of Irish mythology discovered to date and made by one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland. I thought that it was being kept in the vaults at the Clocktower…"

Waver sighed. He knew that the woman next to him had indirectly commanded him to explain Sirius' actions. "Apparently about a century ago the old man managed to scrape off a few pieces of the tome when his family was called in for rune related artifact examination and preservation. He later somehow managed to create a form of fusion based thaumaturgy through alteration and using his family's knowledge of runecraft to assimilate his body with the pieces. The end result is that his skin itself is now like a living scripture that can create, channel, and perform almost any form of rune based thaumaturgy there is. All he has to do is think of the sequence of inscriptions and where to apply them and it actualizes almost instantly. It's what he's been using to prolong his life, however his advanced reinforcement skills did help a bit as well…"

The Barthomelloi didn't say anything as she watched the fighting progress in the park below. The Emiya boy focused on attacking Louvre while the blacksmith acted as a shield for the boy since apparently there was a significant reason for the vampire to avoid harming him. While the old man's display of power was impressive, she was somewhat disappointed in the boy's performance. The knowledge that he was tainted with inhuman blood merely added to her ire at the child. Other than performing some above average projection and reinforcement, he had yet to do anything that was notable or significant in the fight other than managing to survive…

Bored with the fight against the Ancestor, the woman turned her attention to the enforcer that Waver had sent here prior to his current predicament…

o. o. o.

On top of another building…

"This is an okay fight…" The young looking vampire mused as he sat over the edge of the 20 odd story building he was on, not at all concerned about possibly falling off should the wind blow hard enough. "But I don't see what so special about the boy Kirei. I mean he's somehow still alive sure, but so far the only notable things about him are his projection, reinforcement, and the fact that he partially turned."

Kirei Kotomine chuckled as he stood behind and to the side of the vampire, the very picture of calm and composed. "Do not be fooled by mere appearances Master Solomon. That boy down there has potential that has yet to be tapped. He is one to keep an eye on, much like how his father was."

"His father?" The vampire blinked curiously. "Who was his father?"

The priest's eyes flashed in amusement. "Emiya Kiritsugu. The Magus Killer."

"Oh? The Mage Killer?" The Dead Apostle Ancestor mused in realization. "I remember hearing about that one. He was really good at killing both your kind and mine. I've never seen him personally but I've heard that he did things so differently and efficiently that he was even hired by the church a few times for a couple of jobs. I wasn't aware he had a son…"

"Few do, which makes observing him in the near future even more interesting." Kirei commented casually. "If you talked to him about the right subjects, you'd find that his personality is rather intriguing to inspect."

The vampire chuckled. "It seems you've taking a liking to the boy priest. Don't tell me you're one of those types that we have to keep an eye on…"

The man frowned. "I'm afraid to disappoint you, however even if I was homosexual or bisexual I would not bother with attempting any kind of relationship with anyone seeing as I have no desire to, let alone with a child that is almost third of my age…"

"Ah yes, I forgot that humans these days are rather uptight about that sort of thing." The vampire waved off the priest casually. "It seems a bit excessive if you ask me. Why not even a century ago your kind wouldn't have minded one bit if a man older than you took a thirteen year old child as his concubine while having a woman barely older than her as his wife and impregnated them both by the end of the year. How times have changed."

"And for the better in my personal opinion…" Kirei commented. While he did get a very sick satisfaction out of other's misery, the idea of such a relationship was more than he could stand both in pragmatism and in personal beliefs. His irritation with his kind's history was momentarily put on hold as a small movement caught his eye. "Hoh?" He mused. "Well that certainly is interesting…"

o. o. o.

With Bazett:

The woman frowned as she dodged to avoid three small fast fireballs before shooting one of her fists forward to destroy a boulder that had been hidden behind the glowing balls, only to jump back as a small insect like familiar with at least a dozen sharp limbs nearly shredded her apart.

This was getting ridiculous. For every mystic code that she managed to figure out the general mystery of… or destroy, her opponent seemed to have at least another dozen waiting. The only consistency she noticed was that her vampire foe tended to resort back to fire based equipment, meaning that he was most likely a fire element aligned individual, but that didn't really help much.

There were too many codes being used, and Bazett figured because of that, neither she nor her opponent would be able to tell what the vampire's most powerful attack would be. Thus render her Noble Phantasm all but useless. Fragarach was a powerful tool and the ultimate counter spell, but in order to work right it needed to be used against the opponent's strongest attack.

She hated to admit it, but she wasn't in a good position at the moment…

"Bazett-san. Now?" A small voice asked her permission to act through a small seal below the ear lobe, established just before the fight had begun.

"Not yet." The woman warned as she destroyed the insect like puppet with a single punch before bolting towards her opponent. "Wait for something special. You'll be able to tell when you see it… I'll keep fighting till that happens. Don't worry about me."

"Damn…" Grunted Louvre's son as he swung his jeweled cane again to create a massive torrent of fire to protect himself. The man was no stranger to battle that much was certain, however he was getting rather frustrated with how this single woman was constantly putting him on the ropes. Most magi he encountered relied more on their magic in order to fight and handle obstacles. Manipulating the elements. Summoning demons and few actually bothered to enhance their natural abilities and physical skills to do combat and were often seen as crude imitators of thaumaturgy…

So why the hell was this woman who did nothing but punching, kicking, and running… overcoming everything he was throwing at her and coming back for more? "What will it take to make you stop already!" The vampire yelled more to himself than anyone else as he took out a new code from his pockets, a small round purple black ball covered in runes, and threw it to the ground in front of Bazett, who in turn jumped away just in time to escape the explosion of murky gas that revealed a tentacle covered demon that was almost 5 meters tall.

"Of course. Tentacles." The woman muttered irritably as she backed up even more to escape the thing's whipping moist limbs to escape its most likely enormous reach. "I was wondering when I would have to deal with those things in my career. Lord knows every female Enforcer has complained about them at one point or another…"

Landing at least 20 meters away from the… thing, the woman began to trace runes in the middle of the air in front of her. "Sowilo. Ansuz. Uruz. Ansuz." She muttered as she poured her prana into the physical based spell. As soon as her casting was finished, the four hovering letters shot forward until they inscribed themselves onto the beast and instantly immolated the hissing and screaming monstrosity in a massive pillar of flames. "The hell I'm letting that thing near me without at least doing that…" She muttered under her breath while breathing heavily. She didn't look away as she watched the beast shrivel up and turn into charcoal to make sure that it was really destroyed. She had heard of stories about creatures like this faking dead before, only to recover soon afterwards when their opponents turned to walk away and… yeah she wasn't risking that.

Bazett didn't very often need to rely on using her runecraft for anything other than enhancing her physical capabilities in combat, however a giant tentacle monster in her mind definitely qualified as an reason to deviate from that trait. Thankfully her lineage and knowledge in the runic arts enabled her to perform such high level thaumaturgy quickly even though she did not spend much time practicing it. Still, her studies were enough that she knew which combinations of runes would produce the largest explosions. "Now that the distraction is gone, where is little vamp junior?"

Her answer came in the form of a scimitar bathed in blue fire nearly cutting her in two from her right side, only to miss as the woman's experience and speed managed to save her life at the cost of getting a long cut on her back through her structurally enhanced suit and undershirt. She hissed in irritation and pain as the burning sensation pervaded her back painfully while she skidded to a stop a short distance away.

"I'm right here little girl…" The blood sucking man growled as he swung his burning blue weapon around casually. "Normally I wouldn't bother taking out this little trinket, but you weren't making things easy for me." He noted the woman's heavy breathing and smirked. "What's wrong? Feeling tired? Already?"

The woman grimaced as she realized that her od, her inner energy was noticeably lower than it should have been. Judging from how the man was mocking her as if he knew something, she guessed that he had used a code to somehow deplete her of her energy. Odds were likely it was the sword he was using now, but it could easily be another code that she didn't take notice of… scratch that, from the way he's twirling the damned thing and walking casually, it was definitely the sword.

"Something tells me that it would have been better if you and Shirou had switched opponents…" The disembodied voice commented almost casually from just outside the enforcer's head.

"Shut up. That sword is somehow able to get rid of the target's od. I'm starting to run low here." Bazett mentally snapped as she took a fighter's stance again and not once taking her eyes off of her overconfident opponent. "Just hurry up already. I have better things to do than smack around little boys who do nothing but play with their daddy's toys."

The vampire smirked. "You're just jealous because you want to play with them yourself!" He charged forward with the burning weapon and slashed rapidly at speeds that only his kind and few experienced enhanced humans could achieve, forcing Bazett back and jumping away.

"Don't underestimate me…" The woman growled as her right hand glowed with the runes on her gloves before hammering her fist into the ground. The small shockwave in the earth managed to stall the vampire enough for her to rip out a massive chunk of earth from the ground with unnatural ease and launch it at her opponent.

She didn't stop there however as she immediately traced two runes at the massive flying stone. "Eihwaz! Raidho!" She casted the speed and strength enhancing marks on the projectile just as her opponent was about to attempt to slash the seemingly loose clump of dirt with his blade, only to be surprised as the boulder suddenly bolted forward and hit him with the rigid structure of a steel building. A loud yell of surprise and pain graced her ears as she watched her counterattack crush her opponent. She didn't think that he was defeated just from that, but it was good to finally get a hit in for once. "Be ready…" She warned her friend as she saw a blue glow from underneath the rubble. "Your opening should be showing up soon…"

Moments later the ground exploded apart in a blue inferno and revealed a disheveled and clearly irritated vampire, evident by his fiercely glowing eyes. "Normally I like women who can put up a good fight, but this is beginning to get on my nerves."

"YOUR nerves?" Bazett frowned as she prepared to move again. "You weren't the one that had to deal with a tentacle demon."

"Be silent. Your issues fail to matter in the least compared to mine." He prepared the sword again. "I will kill you to avenge my sister Fraga. With so many codes on my person, even I am not aware of what my strongest attack is." The fire of the sword he held burned fierce and bright, indicating that he was pouring a rather large amount of his energy into it. "Your noble phantasm is of no use here!" He roared as he slashed down and unleashed a massive wave of blue flames at his target…

The attack was so massive in fact, that he could not see his target smirking… nor the dark haired teenage girl stand out from the sparse forest to the side of their fight and point something at his flames…

o. o. o.

With Shirou

When the Faker had first walked into the field that had been where he began the rest of his life that night, he had planned for many possible scenarios. Multiple vampires. Many mystical weapons. Undead. His death…

But he had not expected Sirius to somehow manage to find a loophole in his deal with Louvre and join him in a two on one battle against a dead apostle ancestor armed with a noble phantasm that could break almost any form of thaumaturgy there was with a mere tap.

The three fighters stood across from one another all panting to some degree and bearing wounds. Shirou, panting at an even rate, was sporting bruises and wounds from the initial fight, but for the most part had not gained much afterwards. Sirius was breathing much deeper and sported a few dark spots himself, but his most notable injury was his broken left arm which had swollen rather marvelously yet was still held professionally in a boxing stance. Louvre on the other hand did not look injured in the slightest albeit his clothes were a bit torn and his breathing was a bit shallow.

The old man and the teen had been dancing around one another constantly in response to their situation. When Louvre was on the attack, Sirius was in front armed with his enchanted skin and moving at speeds that if anything surpassed the greatly irritated vampire despite his massive frame and old age. Since neither the vampire nor the blacksmith could do any lasting harm to one another without losing their magic circuits, they both had to hold back greatly and focus on dealing superficial blows.

The term superficial however was used very lightly in Sirius' case however as the man displayed an unusual amount of variety with his code. One moment the man was glowing like the sun, the next he was blending in perfectly with the night, and the moment after that he was literally on and breathing out streams of fire. There was virtually no supplementary thaumaturgy in existence save for those related to the five sorceries that was beyond the old man's reach in his current state. While Shirou had been aware of the his teacher's capabilities having performed structural grasping on him multiple times before, to actually see him in action really made him thankful that he had never truly pissed the old man off.

Whenever the old man took point against the vampire, Shirou would in turn provide ranged support by spamming his swords. The boy didn't risk using many of his key weapons just yet, however he did constantly wield two copies of Natalia in his hands at all times so long as he was able to as a precaution.

The strategy was good and against most opponents they would have made some significant progress by this point… however…

Shirou and Sirius were still in a tough spot. Louvre's mace made up for the lack of numbers with sheer power. There were several craters in the earth where the vampire had tried to catch the weapon makers off guard by destabilizing the earth under their feet, and much to their surprise the man was capable of wielding the mace without it's passive powers without any indication, simply attacking with a weapon with a natural power of a B+ mystery, which was lethal but would not assure permanent damage which was perfect for fighting the elder opponent. Sirius' broken left arm was a testament to its strength seeing as he had his code protecting his body and still suffered the injury. He most likely could have handled that damage if he had been able to use reinforcement in conjunction with his code, but unfortunately his geis prevented him from using any normal form of thaumaturgy against the vampire, so all he was left with was his code…

"Tat time reversal power of his is startin ta piss me off…" Sirius grumbled as he tried to ignore the pain in his arm. "Ah forgot how bloody annoyin it is ta prevent his kind from recoverin from wounds… ahm too old fer tis crap…" He glanced at Shriou. "Oi lad. You thinkin of usin Maiya anytime soon? Tat sword could really help us out around now."

Shirou frowned. "I actually thought of using Maiya in another way that could help a lot. Problem is I need to get a good cut in for it to work." He looked warily at Sirius' arm. "I really don't want you to get injured anymore than you have already, but do you think you can hold him long enough for me to get a few cuts?"

The elder laughed as he put on a sadistic grin, lowered his body while increasing his prana output and causing the runes on his skin to move even faster. "Ah tink ah can manage tat bit lad. Just be fast wit it and make sure not ta bind me with ta prick. Ah don't wanna spend ta rest of my life wit an annoyin bastard like him at my side…" Before the boy could respond the old man bolted forward and suddenly glowed with a bright light, momentarily blinding everyone there and stunning the vampire in pain. The opening was all Sirius needed to get in more than a few solid blows and push the undead man away from the boy.

The Faker breathed heavily as he delved into his inner world. "Beginning tracing. Execute. Pause at Excelling Manufacturing Process. Incorporating concept of timeline stability…" His magic crest began to glow.

"When will you stop with this annoying foolishness!" Louve roared as he thrashed his mace wildly in order to keep the brightly shining Sirius away. "You are only making things worse for yourself blacksmith! I may not be able to do anything permanent to you after this, but rest assured I will see you suffer for this!"

Sirius in response simply spat in Louvre's face with the uncanny and fabled Irish accuracy that has been passed on for millennia, and blinded the vampire more than he already was before and rammed his massive good arm into his target's stomach, knocking the wind out the undead man. "Ah stuff it up yer dime sized arsehole Louvre!" The larger of the two men yelled before quickly weaving himself behind the man and twisting the arm holding the mace up behind his back painfully enough to force him to drop the annoying weapon. "Lad! Get him!"

Shirou didn't even wait for his magic to finish before bolting towards his target with sharp eyes. "Processing complete. Proceeding with construction. Execute." The hammer inside his head fired the two altered bullets he had produced in his mind and in an instant a pair of identical dark grey Chinese falchions with light brown vein-like designs along the sides. Despite the clear artistic beauty they held, neither one of them reflected light and seemed to blend into the nighttime atmosphere as naturally as shadows. Faster than what most eyes could follow the two weapons in the boy's hands struck downward in a cross strike at the struggling vampire as quickly as they had appeared…

"ENOUGH!" The vampire roared as he surged his own internal energies to deceptively high proportions, blasting Sirius and Shirou away just as the younger of the two managed to carve the first few inches of Louvre's chest with his blades. The force of the pulse of unrestrained energy destroyed the boy's swords in the process, though Sirius was still glowing like the sun. Wasting no time, Louvre turned to the elder of his opponents and glared at him, reciting an aria at a rapid pace. "My people are my tools. My pets are my property. Those who do not abide by my whim shall be put under or controlled. Tame yourself in the abyss my possession, or forever be broken."

Without any other warning, Sirius was suddenly surrounded by countless black chains that wrapped themselves around his cursing frame and restricted his movements before a large cloud of darkness enveloped the area around him, trapping the giant of a man inside a dome that was three meters in radius.

"Sirius-jiji!" Shirou shouted in alarm before noticing that the vampire had managed to pick up his mace again and sent another shockwave at him and forcing him to move.

"You are now without backup boy." The vampire growled irritably as he touched his chest to see how much he was bleeding from Shirou's attack. "You have managed to harm me more than I expected, and more than I will ever admit to anyone." He flared his prana once more to cause his daughter's blood in Shirou to paralyze the child with pain before walking forward menacingly. "Tell me boy. How are you so twisted? What happened to you that enabled such a worthless individual such as yourself to achieve a power that I desire so much? It is not loss since my daughter's death has yielded nothing. It is not hopelessness since I experienced that too when I was pushed to the brink as a human and resorted to turning myself to escape the worthless dealings of society, murdering my noble father, mother and sister in the process…" He stopped in front of the writhing child and picked him up by the throat, forcing Shirou to look at his assaulter in the eyes. "You have no more right to be called human than I do now. We are both something that is neither a product of Gaia or Alaya, but something of a separate design that denies both. Tell me boy. I know what I am, but what are you?"

Shirou struggled for air and relief under the demon's grip which prevented the blood from getting to his head and making him feel dizzy. His breathing was labored, his body was aching, and his mind was swimming. Still he struggled as he grabbed the arm that held him up and tried to relieve the pressure. Very briefly the image of the hill of blades flashed past his eyes, basking in the twilight of the full white moon and stars yet at the same time reflecting the blood red light of the evening sun to give it the illusion that it was all on fire…

"I… am…" The images of Sakura and Rin passed his mind, both smiling happily doing their own thing as they cooked or relaxed with him. He wanted to protect them with all his being. To make sure that they were happy. It was such a simple yet selfish desire that he would sacrifice himself without any hesitation to make it true…

"I am…" He repeated, more firmly as memories of his father was played in his head. The look of utter joy when they first met eyes. The look of remorse as he began to teach Shirou about magic. The look of despair he had as he attempted to stop the boy from acting out. The emotionless demeanor of the Magus Killer, the tiredness that seemed to emanate from his body as time went on… and the look of peace the night he died…

"I am not like you…" The boy growled as his grip on the man's hand tightened significantly, getting a momentarily surprised look from the vampire. The vampire blood in his body was weakening, claiming less influence over his inside's functions.

"Oh?" Louvre frowned as his grip tightened. "You think you know more than a man over 500 years your elder? Do tell me then. What makes us so different child?"

Shirou met eyes with the demon and chuckled. "Because… you kill people to keep going. You're body is already decaying, dead and corrupted and you only do things for yourself… but I'm still alive… I want to save people… and my body…" His circuits began to flare and it was too late for the vampire to realize that he should have knocked the boy out when he had the chance.

"My body is made of blades…" Shirou stated with absolute conviction as the entirety of his skin was instantly converted into countless miniscule razors that meshed together like chainmail, slashing apart the vampire's hand and arms where the Dead Apostle and the boy had respectfully grabbed one another.

The resulting pain caused Louvre to shout in surprise and throw Shirou away wildly. Focusing more on his injured appendage he hissed angrily. "You stupid child. It was a mistake to try and converse with a freak like you in order to find out anything." He reached out with his power to spur on his daughter's blood in the boy, only growl in irritation as he realized that not a drop of his daughter's remains were left in the child… only the slightly warped blood of the boy remained. "What? Where did my daughter's blood go?"

Breathing heavily and picking himself up from the ground, the younger monster returned his body to normal. "Let's try something different…" He muttered and in an instant materialized dozens of massive swords that embedded themselves into the ground around the enraged vampire randomly, setting the man in the center of a forest made of steel and iron.

Louvre spat in irritation. "Since you cannot defeat me through skill you resort to petty tricks? How childish." He looked at his injured hand and chest with disgust, annoyed that the boy had once more injured him, minor as they were. Channeling his prana into his body, he attempted to heal himself by reversing his body's condition to a previous state in time… and felt his very being lurch in a way that for a moment he had honestly believed he had gone insane. "What… on earth?" He gasped out as he grabbed his head and chest in order to attempt to stabilize himself. "Why can't I heal myself?"

"So you finally noticed?" Shirou's voice chuckled from the forest of shining metal around the man, seemingly coming from multiple directions. "That time trick of yours was getting annoying, so let's just say I evened the scales a bit at one point."

Louvre frowned as his eyes darted around to look for the boy while at the same time trying to figure out what the child could have done to perform such an unheard of mystery. It only took him a few moments to recall what was done differently before and after his previous recovery time. "Those peculiar tools you cut me with…" He growled as he stood up and examined his body internally. Within seconds he discovered and realized that his personal connection to the timeline had been virtually fused, or to be more accurate entangled, with the natural world's timeline. If he even attempted to try and heal himself with his normal methods, he would simply end up tearing his very existence apart. "You somehow fused my personal time space to Gaia's flow of time… I have never heard of such a thing before…"

There was a brief silence before Shirou spoke up again. "I will give you one last opportunity to give up, leave, and free Sirius McGinty. If you don't, I assure you that you will lose something you value something very precious in this fight, victory or not."

The vampire snorted and held his mace in his non injured hand. "All words boy. Nothing has changed. The blacksmith can no longer help you and even if I am injured I am still far more powerful than you are. Your achievement of actualizing such a high level mystery on me is commendable, however it will not save you from my wrath." He focused his prana. "Begone from my noble sight, tools of the peddler." In an instant all the swords around him were dispersed by a focused spell designed to nullify all low level thaumaturgy around him. He looked around to see the boy standing at the Sirius' prison and readying his hands. "That is your plan boy? To cut free the blacksmith?" He barked out in disgust. "Do not insult my ability! That bounded field is far above something a simple projected blade can pierce!"

"Sacrifice and save, blade of the cursed hero." Shirou muttered, ignoring the vampire's insults as a black long sword with blood red stains and bright brown veins was traced into his hands.

Time stood still for Louvre as the man instantly felt something was drastically different about this sword in particular. It was beautiful. It had power…

It was cursed with the same dark feeling the park was flooded with.

"Kiritsugu!" The boy roared and activated his prized sword's power as he plunged it into the edge of the bounded field…

o. o. o.

With Bazett:

"How many codes did this idiot bring with him?" Rin wondered in disgust and awe as she took out another artifact from the dead vampire's pockets. She did not let the fact that the man's orifices were all leaking blood or the fact that half his chest was caved in rather brutally, distract her from examining her potential spoils of war for a few seconds. "Honestly, I mean it did give him the ability to use them without risking getting pegged by your Noble phantasm, but I doubt that he even knew what he was attacking with half the time…"

"You make it sound like a bad thing." Bazett stated calmly as she stretched her limbs and cracked her neck. "Come on. We can collect our spoils later. First we have to help out Shirou and hope he isn't dead yet."

The Tohsaka sobered quickly and nodded with a calm face before they both ran to where Shirou was fighting on the other side of a small line of trees. "Same plan as before?" She asked warily.

"If you aren't needed to heal someone yes." Bazett agreed. The two were just about to reach the fight when an enraged bloodcurdling scream reached their ears. "Well at least we know that they didn't spend the entire talking..." She muttered. " That was Louvre's voice…" Her musings were cut off as a massive shockwave echoed throughout the area and tore up a good portion of the trees in right of the females.

"What have you done to me boy?" Louvre's significantly distorted and feral voice roared across the park in rage. Had there not been a bounded field around the park there would have been no doubt that all the police and armed forces would be racing to their position right now. "What have you done to my circuits?"

"This doesn't look good..." Bazett frowned as she ran forward again to provide backup. "Though from the sound of things it seems that Shirou used Kiritsugu on him."

"Look at the bright side." Rin laughed nervously as she moved to the foliage. "At least he doesn't know that we killed his son yet."

"At this point I doubt it would make much of a difference…" Bazett sighed before nearly doubling her speed and entering the warzone.

Rin stopped by a tree and shivered at the destruction being done to the area. Louvre had abandoned any and all form of restraint as he swung his mace in any direction he damn well pleased. Troughs, craters, and trashed equipment littered the area as the vampire tried to kill Shirou to the best of his abilities. With her magically enhanced eyesight the girl saw that the undead man was bleeding a bit from several parts of his body including his mouth, left arm and chest. Roaring wildly, the blood drinking man rammed his weapon as hard as he could against the air and made a blast of distorted air so large that she knew that it would have caused major damage to the nearby buildings had the attack not been aimed in the direction of the local river. Thankfully his intended target was fast enough to dodge the attack... but even she could tell that her friends wouldn't last long at this rate…

She watched as the vampire had turned his attention onto the very odd looking old man with glowing skin and unleashed another massive wave of distortion at him. In turn however, the giant stopped and his arms glowed with more symbols running down their lengths. Before the girl could even guess what he was about to do, he crossed his the massive limbs and unwound them in a wide circle just as quickly. With his hands pointing towards the attack as he spun his limbs, he traced at least three dozen runes in the air rapidly through his palms as if they were printing out what had been stored up the length of his body and completed a large and complicated Celtic circle.

Rin was not much of an expert on rune based thaumaturgy, but even she knew that the man had just performed an absurd feat as she felt the vastly complicated spell take form at a record pace. She estimated that he had just prepared a mystery that was the rough equivalent of a seven count aria in a single second when he slammed both of his hands in the middle of the seal and made one last large seal in the center of the array, and blasted out a massive wave of chaotic wind to counter the distortion about to kill him.

The two forces collided with enough force to blow the teenage girl back from where she had been standing and cover her eyes to protect them from the dust. This was the guy that was teaching Shirou? She mentally yelled in disbelief as she noted that both mysteries had canceled each other out with the dying wind. Reaching out with her senses and recalling what she knew of wind based thaumaturgy, she managed to deduce what had just happened…

The spell the old man made was layered. He used a large wind based thaumaturgy to shift the flow and kinetic energy of the oncoming attack into multiple directions as the primary function of the first layer… while the second and inner layer of the spell was focused on delivering pure ramming power. Somehow when the attacks met the vampire's spell focused on the second layer of the old man's magic and was influenced greatly by the first.

She straightened herself out, dusted off her clothes, and briefly contemplated convincing him to teach her few things after this… after all there was little doubt that he was a better teacher than the fake priest…

"Tohsaka!" Shirou shouted as he ran around the vampire at a reasonable distance and speed, no doubt thinking that she was there from the fact that Bazett had just joined him. "Use the normal rounds!"

The genius blinked in disbelief momentarily before she was unbalanced by another shockwave made by the vampire. "This is getting ridiculous…" She grumbled as she shook her head and took out her borrowed weapon out from her pocket. At this point she didn't even bother to question what was going through Shirou's mind. Barely even paying attention to what she was doing, she cracked the tool open along the hinge in the middle and fed it a single large object before snapping it shut again. "Attacking a Dead Apostle Ancestor with something like this…" She continued irritably before she stepped out, briefly looked around to see that none of the fighters in the area were near her, and pointed her non armed hand at the demon, smiled a shit eating grin, and fired off at least several dozen Gandr curses at the vampire.

Sirius bolted to try to help the soon to be assaulted girl the moment he saw the orbs flying from a direction that did not come from Shirou, Bazett or himself. "Damn it lass! What ta hell do ya tink yer…!" His enraged warning was cut short however as he saw the seemingly foolish girl swing forward her other arm and instantly knew what was about to happen. "… I see…"

The black orbs, each with the force of a bullet rammed into the area Louvre was in, causing him to yell in pain and irritation. He should not be having so much trouble with an old man, a boy, and a woman! He should not be rendered unable to heal himself! He should not have a fourth of his circuits rendered useless! And yet more salt was rubbed on his wounds as a small girl of all things somehow developed the gall to try to attack him from behind! Roaring in absolute rage, he turned to the newest offender violently, already in the middle of swinging his mace…

And in turn stared down the barrel of a modified 1967 Thompson Contender single shot hunting pistol.

"Get off my property." Rin growled as she pulled the trigger.

Time moved slowly as those with truly enhanced senses barely managed to follow what happened in the following split second. Rin's aim had been true as the single large bullet she shot flew straight towards the enraged vampire. Louvre's speed and counter attack had also been dead on as he swung his mace to intercept the bullet and most likely kill the girl in the process with another shockwave, under the assumption that his mace would simply overwhelm and counter the projectile as it had done with virtually everything else thrown at him since obtaining the tool…

However there was one mistake he had made with this. He had assumed that the girl had shot something special at him. He had assumed that as a magus she had attacked him with something that contained prana that would perform some sort of mystery designed to harm him on impact…

The bullet however was none of those things. It was simply a large .30-06 caliber Springfield bullet, and that made all the difference.

The Mace of Odo was indeed a powerful weapon. With its ability to bypass external shells and deal damage to the interior of its targets, it was the ultimate tool of destruction against anything possessing mana, prana, od, or intricate inner workings… delivering all of its B+ ranked power into the interior while leaving the outside unharmed…

Unfortunately it's greatest weakness was that it's the effectiveness of its powers were significantly reduced against simple base objects. A slab of metal would only have its insides warped while still maintaining its general shape. A two by four would have its insides reduced to sawdust, but still have enough outer structure to be considered fairly rigid…

A bullet flying at an extremely high velocity would have the solid lead alloy interior shifted around, but its gilded metal jacket unharmed in the slightest… altering none of the power behind the projectile while taking the entirety of the blow without issue…

Clang!

The bullet shot with greater power than that of a magnum collided with the mystical artifact and knocked it out of the stunned vampire's grip, sending it flying a short distance away before landing on the ground with a thud.

"… I can't believe that actually worked…" Rin, Bazett, Shirou, and Waver muttered under their breaths in relief and or mild disbelief.

"Bloody hell!" Sirius laughed and panted hard as he landed where the mace fell and picked it up and inspecting it casually. "Sometin ah made years ago actually trumped a Noble Phantasm! Ah must be betta then ah thought! Ahahahah-argh…" The blacksmith winced as he grabbed his side in pain. "Damn… fergot about ta broken ribs…" He obviously didn't take into account the fact that half his face was swollen, both his arms were broken in at least two places, and one of his legs had been at least sprained. There was little doubt that his mystic code was part of the reason why he was still moving as there were several seals glowing on any part of his body that looked injured, however it was still impressive that he was moving at all.

"McGinty!" Louvre roared as he surrounded himself in a cloud of pure corrupted energy and chaos. "Return my mace to me immediately and I may go easy on your punishment!"

The oldest human there glanced at the vampire as if he had just said something impossibly stupid. "How about "No" ya dried up cunt bucket? Ya may be strong, but without tis little trinket here… yer done fucked." He turned to his comrades and waved the mace casually at them as if it was a flag. "You brats finish Louvre off while ah keep tis damned thing away from him!" He shouted to the rest of his group before running in the opposite direction. "He fights like a magus so you fight him like yer father would lad! Try not ta die!"

"Is he serious?" Rin yelled as she approached Bazett, reloading the original Magus Killer's gun with an origin bullet this time. "I thought he would at least fight with us using that thing!"

"He probably can't." Bazett frowned as she kept an eye on Louvre who was swearing profusely and building up more magical power. "He's old and injured Rin. In his prime he probably could have taken on Louvre with the mace on by himself, but my guess is that he's at his limit now. He'd be a liability if he fought anymore, plus someone has to make sure that Louvre doesn't get his hands on the Mace again."

Rin shifted around nervously as the air thrummed with mana. "How much power does he have? I mean even though Shirou used Kiritsugu on him he's still able to cast a spell on this level without issue?"

"Enough that he was chosen to be an Ancestor in the first place…" Bazett replied before she saw Louvre suddenly turning away from them to where Shirou was standing alone and tired. "Shit! He going to go after Shirou!" She yelled before bolting to her student and younger brother figure with Rin quickly behind her.

"My keep is made yet my stock is still to be filled. Come my subjects, for the leaves are falling and the harvest is upon us…" The vampire growled as he forced his remaining circuits to draw upon the cursed air around him.

His circuits and his very soul had been harmed and flawed somehow by the boy. He didn't know how, but somehow it had happened and he was suffering for it. He had trouble remembering various facts now, and any effort to recall them only caused more damage to his being. He remembered that he had a son and daughter, but he couldn't recall their ages, habits, and other various things about them. He knew that he had made an agreement with the mystic code crafter that had stolen his weapon, but he couldn't remember the specifics other than the old man had to be kept in one piece and he would get more codes in return.

"… Under the harvest moon you work, tirelessly for your lord's benefit, for if he prospers then the land does so as well." The vampire continued quickly as he set his sights not on the two females to his right, but to the boy… no, the mistake of nature right in front of him. The freak had ruined him in a way that was impossible to recover from. His daughter was dead. He could feel his son's presence no more. At least a fourth of his circuits were rendered useless and his soul was rendered unstable. He was through. At the back of his mind he realized that there was in fact a reason to not kill the child, however his rage and the damage to his pride had rendered him incapable to restrain himself at this point…

Shirou breathed heavily as he saw the vampire building up his prana for something big and was aiming at his direction. Whatever it was, he knew that Kiritsugu wouldn't be of much help since against something this big it would only result in a double kill. Knowing he had only one shot at saving his skin at this point, the boy began to channel his own prana. "My body is made of blades…" He growled as he reached into his world and grabbed the object he needed from the hill basking under the sun and moon…

"Should one fail his duties then shame is brought onto all, so sacrifice yourself for the noble cause of protecting and serving your better!" The man finished his aria and fueled his spell with his energy and let it pulse around him. The following moments were filled with loud echoes as dozens and dozens of odd objects ranging from spheres to blades to guns appeared floating behind the caster who was looking rather insane at the moment… and all facing the frowning boy with red going grey hair. "Feast of the Ruler's Pilgrimage!"

Feast of the Ruler's Pilgrimage, a spell of Louvre's own design that utilized his origin of "possession" to return to him all of his greatest treasures at once in order to be used against his opponents, regardless of where they may be in the world at that time. While warping objects across such a distance so quickly is normally placed on the pedestal of high class magic, Louvre's condition as a dead apostle ancestor enabled him to work further outside of Gaia's reach than most humans are capable of…

The only way to prevent an item from returning to him is if it is in the possession of another who is capable and powerful enough to disrupt the spell from forcing the object from being teleported in the first place, or if it is in a bounded field that can produce a similar effect.

"He actually teleported all his mystic codes here?" Bazett blinked in surprise as she tried to get to Shirou in time. "That's borderline true magic! We have to get out of here! Fragarach can only counter one of those things! It can't stop them all!"

"Who cares what it is!" Rin snapped as she watched the hundreds of mystic codes begin to glow menacingly just as the girls reached the boy just as the weapons fired. "Shirou! Run for it you idiot!"

"Die!" The vampire roared as his arsenal was let loose all at once at the threesome, filling the sky with countless objects and hundreds of life ending sounds…

"Rho Aias!" The faker roared in defiance as he held out one of his arms and projected a seven layered bounded field between his group and the oncoming tsunami of death.

A massive series of explosions echoed throughout the park as the enchanted weapons collided with the Shield of Ajax. The earth shook, lights blinded the fighters, and a war occurred within seconds. Fire, ice, wind, light, stone, demonic, holy, ether, assaults of these elements and more rammed into the red and golden wall relentlessly at once, yet when the dust cleared only three of the petals had been destroyed.

"That was…" Louvre seethed in rage and shock. The only thing preventing him from taking a step back was his own pride. "How?"

Fire is my blood… and Glass is my heart…

Shirou panted as he felt the damage done to Rho Aias reflect onto his already wounded body. His legs and head were heavy. His arms even more so… however he did not bother to think about them at the moment as he took a step forward and dispelled his shield and past his stunned partners.

"Sh-Shirou…" Rin attempted to stop him, worried that he might be pushing himself too far, only for him to shoot her a sharp glare.

"He's mine… don't stop me…" He stated bluntly as he walked forward without looking back.

"But…" The Tohsaka began to argue before Bazett grabbed her shoulder gently.

"Don't." The elder woman sighed. "You'll just get in the way at this point." She looked at the weapons readjusting to the boy, ready to fire again at any time. "Right now the smartest thing we can do is get away and not distract him."

The girl looked back worriedly towards the boy before relenting and backing away. "You better live Emiya-kun, or else I swear I will practice necromancy so I can bring you back just to kill you again."

The teen didn't respond as he was too busy focusing on the vampire.

"That girl is annoying you too it seems…" Louvre snorted before aiming at one of his cannon shaped code at the retreating females. "I'll fix that for you…"

Shirou didn't flinch as he instantly analyzed the weapon in particular. He couldn't trace it, but that didn't prevent him from knowing its capabilities inside and out. The instant after he did so a weapon from his reality marble shifted…

The firing of a cannon was heard as the code launched a massive spinning boulder at the retreating females at an incredibly high velocity… and was cut in two as a blue and red Chinese falchion materialized right in front of its path, causing both halves to fly away to either side of the retreating women.

"You're better off focusing on me right now." Shirou stated calmly.

"How many times will you continue to humiliate me?" The elder swore as he took out a blue flaming sword that he barely recalled was a favorite of his son's from his arsenal. While his spell and his codes were powerful, they was also extremely cost heavy in terms of prana, especially if he used them all at once. Considering he could no longer heal himself and a fourth of his circuits were fried, it was reasonable to say that he could no longer waste energy attacking relentlessly anymore. "I will kill you boy!" He roared as he charged forward with dizzying speed and attempted to decapitate the boy.

Clang!

The vampire's sword was interrupted as it met a faint blue and deep red sword in the boy's right hand, somehow managing to repel his blow with raw strength despite the fact that the defender was human and the attacker was not. Louvre barely registered that the opposing blade had for a moment attempted to actualize something onto his own before he jumped away in order to prevent a twin of the same weapon from biting into his side held by the child's other hand. Grunting in frustration, he jumped forward again with more speed this time, aiming to overwhelm the teen with an overhand blow towards his unprotected head. Surely even with reinforcement the boy cannot handle such an attack unguarded as he was from this stance…

The vampire had made a big mistake in his assumption however. Despite the fact that he was indeed larger, faster, and stronger than Shirou, he was also far more inexperienced in close quarters combat. Louvre fought most of his battles through the overwhelming power of his magic and his codes. In his rage he had completely disregarded the fact that his own close ranged combat abilities were lacking, as well as the possible idea that a boy whose only spells seemed to originate from projecting swords may be far more competent in the field than he was…

His mistake cost him dearly as the Faker shifted to his right side at the last moment. Not stopping there, Shirou parried the blue flaming sword with the blade in his left arm… and cutting off Louvre's left arm with the blade in his right at the same time.

Roaring in pain but not blinded by it, the vampire abandoned his tool and retreated with Shirou in fast pursuit. "Enough of this!" He roared as he threw out his good arm. "Rho Aias!" He activated the conceptual weapon that he had retrieved from his daughter's body just as the boy was on top of him and forced the Faker back with rapid fire from his codes, causing him to run away from the attacks in order to prevent getting hit. Louvre didn't care about saving energy now. He just wanted the boy gone at this point…

Yet Shirou had other plans as he instantly dispelled the blades in his hands while running at speeds that no human could match… and projected a single black sword that flew at the vampire and impacted his shield.

Louvre's world went white with pain again as now a third of his original circuits self destructed and destabilized his soul.

▅▅▅▅▅▅…

He remembered spending time with a young boy and girl that were like him. Were they family? They seemed so familiar…

▅▅▅▅▅▅…▅▅▅▅▅▅…

His treasures were accumulating now and he was confident that he would soon gain the recognition he rightfully deserved. Through them his research could be completed… research… what was he researching? Was he a scientist?

▅▅▅▅▅▅… ▅▅▅▅▅▅… ▅▅▅▅▅▅…

He was confronted by a dangerous looking man made of animals. He seemed to know and highly respect him. He was offered some sort of position that made his dead heart jump. Could such a thing as a possible rank actually make him this elated?

He found himself on the ground gasping for air before he was even aware of the world again. What had happened? Had he been fighting? All these objects around him… yes… they were his. He couldn't remember what they did or where they came from, but they were without a doubt his. His prized collection…

Pain. His body was in pain. He remembered that he had two arms before… but now he only had one. His lungs were filled with fluid and more than half of his magic circuits were now destroyed. What happened? Why couldn't he reverse his time and return to normal? Why was this happening to him? Why why why why why wh…?

The sound of a series of light footsteps brought him to reality and prompted him to look up. There was a boy walking towards him. He looked to be in his teens with his red hair going grey prematurely and an odd red cloth wrapped around his nose, mouth and neck. For some reason he knew that this child… no… this abomination was the reason for his current condition. The very sight of him filled him with rage unlike anything he had ever known or remembered. "Y-You…" He spat out blood and pushed himself up with his remaining good arm. "You are the reason why I am like this… you have ruined me… destroyed my work… you freak!"

Shirou didn't say anything as he approached the pathetic looking demon gradually. His body was tired. His limbs were worn and oversaturated with prana. His head was foggy, and he was fairly certain that several of his bones were broken. His circuits themselves were all quite warm, however oddly enough they were the least strained part of his body at the moment seeing as he had only used at most sixteen of them to a moderately strained level. "Your collection is impressive Louvre." He spoke up in emotionlessly as he stopped a few meters short of the man and looked down at the small field of random tools lying useless around their downed master. "Power… variety… history… quality… There's just one problem with it…"

Through countless battles I forever wait, alone on the hill of blades…

"S-stay away from me!" The man roared insanely, spitting blood and spit everywhere as he put pressure onto his bleeding stump of an arm and tried to crawl away while he strained to levitate his codes again and attack Shirou. He managed to get about fraction of them off the ground and aimed at his hunter before the strain began to get too much and focused on priming them at the boy. All in all, of the roughly four hundred codes the man had summoned, only about eighty of them were about to be used "I don't know what you are, but I won't let you win! My collection is absolute! It is infallible! What is wrong with my treasure that I cannot see that some lowborn fool like you can?"

For Hell's hands to bear…

The teen stopped in his tracks and looked at the vampire without any emotion on his face at all.

"It's not big enough."

For Heaven's hands to temper…

All 27 of his natural circuits flared full blast and all the blades inside his reality marble moved at once. An instant later the sky above him was filled with dozens… no… hundreds, maybe even a thousand of swords, knives, clubs, daggers, spears and every other possible melee weapon imaginable made of stone, plastic, metal, crystal, bone, and unidentifiable substances… stunning everyone who was watching. Most if not all of them were simple tools without a shred of thaumaturgy to them, but what they lacked in power they made up for in sheer numbers. Louvre recognized more than a few copies of codes that he had just used to try to kill the boy with hovering among the arsenal of death, shocked that a mere child could humiliate him to such a degree.

Before the vampire could respond, the blades had struck down on his own arsenal before they could fire, crushing each and every single code there relentlessly regardless of the code's quality, history, and ability. There was a limit to how far the quality of anything could go before it would eventually be overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Screaming in anguish the man was bombarded by the rain of blades and the shattered remains of his prized collection, piercing his body in every area and every direction possible, spraying his blood in proportion to the damage he sustained. His other hand was torn off after the third sword hit it. His other shoulder had been caved in by a gold and crimson mace. Half of his left foot had been severed at the touch of a faint steel blue falchion with a deep blood red stained design on the edge… the injuries accumulated in the span of seconds as the single wave of shining death passed and left a graveyard of blades and broken tools standing in front of the panting boy.

In the middle of the graveyard, the only organic target coughed up blood, butchered in every direction and pinned to the ground by at least a dozen sharp implements. "Impossible…" He whispered. "What… are you?"

Shirou stared down at the dying man pitifully, panting hard with magic circuits so hot that his breath actually steamed outside of the shroud around his mouth. Lifting one tired arm in front of him, the boy traced one last sword in his hand and pointed it at Louvre's neck. "My name is Shirou Emiya… and I am the Magus Killer's son."

Louvre's eyes widened in shock as he recalled the message he received from the princess of the dead apostles just before the fighting started…

Your end will be sealed by the Magus Killer's machinations.

"I see… so you are my death…" He whispered in realization and amusement just before the boy swung...

o. o. o.

A/N:

Thanks to Maximorph1 for betaing this. You really did a good job.

Please note before reading the next section that I do appreciate people who give me reasonable critiques and point out problems in my style of writing, however also please note that this is something I simply do to kill time and because I enjoy doing this. I am good yes, however like everyone else on this site I am not doing this to get paid, become famous, make the best fanfic story ever to grace the eyes of every man, woman, child, and sexless existences who stumble across it, or anything else like that. I am an engineering major and I have an engineering job and I plan on keeping it that way…

(Cracks knuckles and neck.) Time to piss off a few haters… and people who actually enjoy the elections.

So I was bored a few days ago and I checked out some random forums to see what people think of ffd. And I laughed. The story gets brought up on a few sites which I won't name, and all of a sudden three fourths of the people there start complaining about "how bad it is" and how cheesy the plot is, or how long it's taking to get to the war because that's the only part that matters… and it went on for pages… and days. And I laughed even harder because this means only one thing: even though the story is apparently a giant piece of crap to them… it's the only piece of crap worth talking about…

Kinda like the participants in the Presidential Elections…

The point really is this. People can complain all they want… but until someone makes something that can top what I do with this particular series (or at the very least makes a good story and updates as much as I do) at this point in time… odds are they're still going to be talking about it, and there's not a damn thing they can do about it…

Like the participants of the Presidential Elections…

… For some reason I feel like Ron Paul right now… or Rick Perry… whichever one matches the situation better at the moment…

On another note, thank you everyone on the other forums who actually enjoy the story and don't simply brush it off to the side because it's a bit longer than the normal fic and actually enjoy reading outside of the box.

And for those who care, I try to base my writing style on George RR Martin, not Gabriel Blessing. I know that old bastard hates fanfiction with a passion, but he's damn good at what he does… when he gets off his ass to do it at least.

Bottom line, if I made a glaring mistake, by all means point it out… but don't go through the story with a fine tooth comb.

Anyways. Onto important news. I'm going to start grad school for power based electrical engineering next week in addition to doing work so unfortunately my writing will be stalled even more as I balance my jobs and education along with writing for the hell of it. It shouldn't be that bad since its related to what I'm doing at work now, but it should still eat at a good portion of my free time.

So… I think I've pissed enough people off with this A/N. Time to go hide… I mean hit the books. Yeah, totally that second one…

Review! Worship the log! For God's sake get off Tohsaka's Lawn! And Review again!