Author Note

Hello there and welcome to another chapter of Avalon Bond.

In this chapter, I focus somewhat on Tsukihime world, though I hope that I got the jist of Ciel's character somewhat. I did not read the VN of her, just some research about her and the world of vampire and dead apositles. Also, I plan on using another character from Tsukihime, though only the name and appearance will match. I do plan on focusing on Ciel's story later on, perhaps bring in a special enemy of hers, so that they can handle it together in the future. I am still working on the next missions.

Now on with the chapter.


Fate: Avalon Bond

Fate Stay Night UBW

Chapter 6 – Church


Three months had passed since Shirou and Saber met Ciel at the Church in Fuyuki.

At the time, the woman, although quite unnerving to them, had explained the nature of the work, more precisely, in hunting vampires and dead apostiles around the globe. They were introduced to this whole new world. Dead Apostiles, True Ancestor, vampires…The burial agency was responsible for hunting them down and kill them. Shirou had many doubts, mainly about the fact that the vampires and dead apostiles were once human beings who were turned by other vampires or dead apositles. He pondered about the possibility of 'saving' them from such a fate, which much to his chagrin, was met with Ciel's never-ending laughter. Saber had certainly expected that Shirou would ponder about the possibility, but she also knew that unfortunately there was no cure. Though Saber could not help but think fondly of him for wanting to save the undead.

The 'cure' as Ciel turned to explain would be for them to consume human blood to keep on living.

That alone had convinced Shirou since stopping them meant protecting the humans from being targeted.

In a sense, it was similar to how Caster in the last war took the population's mana to replenish her reserves.

Now, in regard to experience, Ciel believed it would be useless to give him a crash course or even bother with boring explanations. She was a firm believer that mere words would not expose the true nature of the work, hence why she much preferred to take them on a tour around the country of Japan. As such, the trio has crossed the nation doing their duties, hunting down vampires for a start. Dead Apostiles would come later on. Shirou and Arturia, meanwhile, had gotten to know more about the enigmatic female priest. When they first meet her, appearance wise, she was a tranquil looking woman.

When they started hunting, sort of speak, Shirou and Arturia got to see Ciel's true nature.

The more she 'took care of', the more twisted her facial expression became.

Shirou and Arturia then bore witness to a bloody massacre of the undead as Ciel butchered through them one by one, blood freely falling on the ground.

The king of knights was somewhat used to this level of carnage, but Shirou had to brace his stomach at the first time he saw the woman priest at work.

She would use what appeared to be three long and slender rapier-like swords with blades in the middle of her fingers in each hand. She would throw them with such pin-point accuracy and with enough force that the vampire's head would jerk backwards at the attack. The black key would then glow in a purple energy that would purify the vampires, reducing them to ash afterward. With his near perfect projection ability, Shirou was able to project the weapon. Even if he could not use it like Ciel, it would serve the purpose. He compensated by reinforcing it to the point that his black keys were harder than diamond. He even managed to somewhat mirror Ciel's method of throwing the black keys as he had adapted his archer like precision. This ability caused Ciel to look at him lecherously, earning a glare from Saber. The servant, for her part, used her sword to slash the vampires, but her weapon proved infective in outright killing them, needing Shirou and Ciel to use the Black keys to finish the job.

Aside from hunting vampires, Shirou and Arturia took the opportunity to know the more secluded areas of Shirou's home country.

Ciel was obviously more interested in hunting vampires, hence the woman would opt to stay inside her hotel room most of the time and wait for the sun to set. Shirou and Arturia would enjoy the country's cities: Yokohama, Osaka, Nagoya and many others. Arturia had especially enjoyed their time in Osaka. Being a port city and filled with street food vendors, she turned to enjoy it greatly. She would bath in the sea breeze and bask in the city's local cuisine. Shirou was simply indulging Arturia in every place she ever wished to be. They went wherever her curiosity demanded. He was just thrilled to see that expression of elation on her face. And her stomach demanded enough food for her to experiment every food single vendor in the region.

She became hooked into Japanese cuisine.

Their routine had not changed that much, despite travelling together with Ciel throughout Japan, keeping up their usual training session. Shirou would project themselves a suitable practice sword and then find a more secluded place to spar. Usually, the cities around Japan had mountains nearby with tons of secluded places to practice. Still, Shirou would place some ruins around their chosen location for a bounded field so as not to be disturbed by anyone. Of course, any mages worth their pedigree would spot the bounded field, but a regular human being would not.

Aside from practice, Shirou and Arturia explored their feelings for each other.

In Fuyuki, each had their own room, but during their travels, they had shared a room and slept together. While nothing major happened aside from actually sharing a bed, they had enjoyed each other's presence immensely with Arturia even using Shirou's chest as a pillow on occasion. She would just use her hands and draw circles around his chest in a soothing manner, earning a chuckle from him. Arturia was never very forward with this sort of thing, preferring to ease into it slowly.

Shirou for his turn respected her too much to even think about taking things faster than necessary.

He was absolutely thrilled to have the woman next to him, not only for her love, but also for her companionship. They had all the time in the world to take the next step and certainly Arturia appreciated it. Being involved romantically with Shirou made her feel very self-conscious about her as a woman. Her constant talks with Rin about the subject had allowed her to understand more aspects of female sexuality a bit, but it all seemed alien to her at least in theory. It did not mean that she did not feel pleasure at the prospect of going all the way.

For now, though, she was quite comfortable in progressing slowly.

Arturia had even used her hands to massage him just as he did as well.

She basked in the feeling of his trained muscles and she was elated knowing that Shirou enjoyed what she was doing.

Shirou would do the same thing, but give her a more thorough message, from her smoothing blond hair to the soles of her feet. She enjoyed how tender his hands passed through her skin, permitting her to simply forgo any concern and simply get absorbed in the feeling of tranquility provided by her lover. All in all, they both simply enjoyed the subtle pleasures that one provided to the other and both knew that in due time, they would consume the love for each other. Right now, though, no one was in a rush to go places.

Both were comfortable being where they were.


===xxx===

Right now, they were in busy old Tokyo as Ciel told them that they would be accompanying her on a Dead Apostile hunt today.

Arturia and Shirou closed the door to their room and went towards Ciel's for a small briefing before their mission started. When they knocked on the door, they heard their contact usher them inside and Shirou opened the door. When they entered, though, Shirou was surprised and turned his eyes away when he saw the woman dressed in only a sleeveless shirt and underwear. It was not the first time Ciel did this, as it was clear that she was hoping to get a rise out of him. Arturia by now was sick and tired of this woman's insinuation.

"Could you stop doing this and get dressed?" Ciel snorted, earning a look on indignation from Arturia and a sigh in dismay from Shirou.

"Oh, come on Saber, don't be such a prude here…I may be from the church and all that, but I'm no nun. Besides, it's not like you need to be concerned about your boyfriend over there. If he really wanted it, he would have already showed it by now. It's certain that he has eyes only for you, so I can dress like I want to in my own room." Saber could see that Shirou was treating this like an annoyance rather than trying furtive glances at the almost naked lady in front of them.

"…Fine…but I'm keeping my eyes on you…he will not do anything, but that does not mean you won't try." Ciel showed a predatory smirk while adjusting her glasses.

"Possessive, huh…I don't blame you. Shirou here is quite the specimen."

Frankly, Ciel was just a more devious version of Rin in her teasing. Though, Rin had never openly looked at Shirou like he was a piece of meat like that.

The man in question now stopped looking away and faced the women present in the room, though Ciel frowned as his eyes were focused on her face and not in her body.

"Come on Saber, you know she is just riling you up."

Saber looked at her boyfriend for a while and collected herself with a nod. Hopefully after this mission, they would part ways for a time.

"True enough Shirou…she is just too easy to tease. Now, I guess I already explained to you about Dead Apostiles, correct?" To their nods, Ciel searched for a briefcase on the other side of the couch she was sitting and reached to grab a folder inside. However, she did so by bending on all fours on top of the couch showing a lot of her backside to Shirou and Arturia. Shirou could see that Arturia was already reaching for her sword at such a display of vulgarity and depravity and in front of Shirou no less. Certainly, the church lady did not stop her teasing material just because they asked her to. "Okay, well, the only means of killing them is through the black keys and as much as you two can win a fight against vampires, dead apostiles will simply heal. That being said, only a full-fledged member of the Burial Agency has the means to fully deal with them."

"Yes, you already explained that…"

"Okay, so you guys will be focusing on the horde of vampires and then meet me to deal with the apostile. This woman we are about to hunt is a particularly slippery one. Her name is Satsuki Yumizuka. She has already turned quite a few humans here in Tokyo to vampire and has some skills in magic as well. Whatever you two do, do not engage her unless I am around." Shirou and Arturia looked at a photo of this Satsuki and frowned. Twin-tailed brown hair and brown eyes, she looked like a teenager at school. "This actually is not the first time the church tried to hunt her. It is not even my first time either. Every time we fought, she would just send her vampires at me and escape, but this time I am hoping that you two will deal with the vampires long enough so that I can move in for the kill."

Shirou and Arturia nodded, now fully fixed in the mission ahead.

"She was last seen at Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden, a few miles from here." Ciel then shown a map of the region and instructed them on the possible entrances. "You two will enter the park from this entrance right here and I will take the other one. And don't worry about collateral damage…the area is closed to the local populace after the recent news of people disappearing once entering the park. The local police had sent some squads there, but bullets alone cannot kill a vampire. That being said, you two are free to run wild with the bastards…Shirou here can project as many black keys as possible, so he can rid the area of vampires. That will allow me to focus on Satsuki. Any questions?"

Shirou and Arturia looked at the map for a while, as they both remembered visiting this place when they first came here together with Rin.

"I guess not…we are going to wait for you downstairs then…" Ciel nodded as she got up and reached for her clothes as Shirou and Arturia left the room. Ciel turned to look at the peculiar duo leaving the room with a smile. Even though she constantly teased them about ogling Shirou lecherously, the truth was that she had indeed seen many positive aspects about him and yes one of them was sexual. The fact that he was so devoted to the blond girl made her opinion of him even more positive. Ciel has been in this world for quite a while now and men like Shirou were rare. It was a shame that he was already spoken for, though a woman could only hope, right. As she got dressed in her church attire, images of the shirtless red-haired magus kept picturing inside her head, earning a lecherous grin on her face.


===Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden===

When Shirou and Arturia first came here with Rin, Arturia had fallen in love with this park.

It was all so meticulously beautiful…the lakes, the small walking bridges…the well-conserved forest…everything. It certainly was a very beautiful and soothing place to have a picnic. Shirou's cooking brought even more joy to the ride. Tonight, however, as the two jumped through the closed gate, the feeling was completely different. The ominous feeling this place now exuded brought chills up their spine. Both now wore their battle suits and weapon of choice, with Shirou's looking like Archer without the red overcoat and Arturia had her top chest and arm armor up to her elbow, covering her entire hand. She also had legs armor up to her knee. Shirou's projected Caliburn strapped on her waist. They progressed through the now darkened park as they followed the heavy stench of blood and gore that permeated the air.

It didn't take ten minutes until they reached a bigger clearing and the sight before them was well…they were already used to it by now.

In the clearing, there were vampires roaming around and even zombies. They could see, though, that there were a couple of regular humans in the middle. Of course, they needed blood. Shirou and Arturia looked at each other and quickly devised a plan of action. Vampires would feel mana being used, but Shirou's projection took so little effort that neither felt until it was too late. Shirou had projected a rain of Black Keys, taking careful aim to take care of the majority of the vampires in the area, while Arturia would rush in to protect the humans from harm. When the vampires saw the rain, the majority screamed in pain as the black keys hummed inside of them, purifying their rotten spirit. In the midst of the confusion, Arturia had quickly slashed the ones who were circling the humans and took them away.

The attack, though, made the rest of the vampires angry and they turned to attack the duo who dared interrupt their dinner.

They were close to fifty vampires before Shirou's attack, now only fifteen remained. Though, each one of them were a force to be recognized with. Shirou unleashed his bow and summoned more black keys as he evaded the attacks to the best of his ability. His pin-point accuracy with the bow managed to reduce the count to ten, but a couple managed to slice open his arm, forcing him to retreat just as Arturia came barreling like a train and faced the rest with enough might that the rest was sliced into pieces. Shirou then delivered the final blow with more projected black keys, thus eliminating all of them. When Arturia reached Shirou's location, he was already running healing mage craft.

"Shirou, shall we search for Ciel now?" Shirou looked at the humans they rescued and searched the area for somewhere they could hide the victims, until he found what appeared to be an abandoned construction nearby.

"Arturia, help me take them there first. I will place some ruins around and erect a bounded field to protect them."

The king of knights nodded, and each carried one person towards the building.

Shirou then did his magic to create a bounded field around the abandoned building.

"Now, how are we going to find her…this park is quite large."

Shirou looked around as Arturia closed her eyes. Being a servant, she could feel if mana was being used nearby. When she opened her eyes, she saw smoke and tremors a great distance away, meaning that the fight was under way. Arturia went ahead with Shirou following. Their movements were precise through the trees until they saw a destroyed clearing with many holes on the ground. In the middle of the clearing, Ciel was seen facing against what appeared to be their target, Satsuki. Ciel had her black keys in hand and Satsuki was fighting with her bare fists. They could see that Satsuki's hands were loaded with mana and was thrashing against Ciel's black keys. They could see that the holes on the ground were Satsuki's doing as she slammed her punches on the ground as Ciel evaded it and threw a black key at her in retaliation, though Satsuki dodged and kept on the offensive.

"Shirou, cover me…I will help her." The magus nodded as he summoned his black longbow and readied a rain of arrows to keep Satsuki at bay.

He fired one at her the second an opening was seen, though being a dead apostile, Satsuki merely turned her head dodging the projectile. Arturia took the opening provided and shortened the distance with her mana burst, swinging her projected Caliburn. Ciel saw the attack coming and got out of the way. She could spot Shirou standing on top of the tree two hundred meters behind their position. She then looked at Saber and Satsuki battling out, though it looked like Saber was gaining momentum against the Dead Apostile. Ciel quickly formulated the plan, counting on her partners to keep her occupied. Ciel summoned six black keys, three in each hand and closed her eyes, whispering an incantation she learned from the Church.

When Saber carved a huge slash on Satsuki's chest and Shirou's arrow lodged in her head, Ciel moved in for the kill, throwing her black keys while announcing the prayer.


I kill. I let live.

I harm and I heal.

None shall escape my grasp…

None shall escape my sight…

Be crushed. Those defeated, those grown old, I welcome you.

Devote yourself to me, learn from me, obey me and rest.

I am light and shall relieve all your burdens.

Ask for forgiveness here…

I, the reincarnation, shall swear.

Kyrie eleison.


By the time the last black key reached Satsuki's, her body had now turned into black dust on the ground. One good aspect of dealing with the dead apostile was that after dealing with him, every vampire that she turned into would be dealt with as well, though as Shirou and Arturia approached Ciel's position, she looked around and frowned. Usually, there would be a vampire of two lurking in the shadows in case Satsuki needed assistance. Which meant that these two had dealt with all of them before coming here. Turning to inspect Shirou and Arturia more closely, she could smell the stench of the vampire's blood on their clothes. Ciel smirked knowing that the Church had unknowingly attracted a good help against the Dead Apostiles if what she witnessed the girl was to be believed.

And while Shirou had played a support role, she could feel how strong the redhead was. He may have a lower number of magic circuits, but those were of high quality.

"Well, having you two here sure paid out in the end. Satsuki tried calling her vampires, but none came…figured that you two would have something to do with that."

"We had encountered all of them about to attack two victims a couple miles from here. Guess that all of them were quite hungry."

Ciel went to the place where Satsuki's body was and picked up her Black Keys and stores inside her robes.

"With this mission, I can safely say that you two had passed the inauguration exam. Welcome to the Church." Shirou and Arturia smirked at the praise, straightening it up at it. "I will handle the report to the higher-ups, and they will communicate the local authorities here. You two are free to roam around…go home…travel…fornicate…whatever…our job is done for now." Arturia and Shirou both fought the heavy blush on their faces. Ciel would choose the weirdest times to tease them. "Now, Shirou, stay tuned for your cell phone…I will call you the next time I am in need of your services."

"Will do…" Shirou and Arturia both released their mystic codes as soon as Ciel walked away.

"So Arturia, we still have time to kill…what do you wish to do right now?" Shirou by this time already knew what she most craved for, though he never not asked.

"I guess we can grab something to eat…I remember that we went to a good place that serves Teriyaki." Shirou smiled at his glutton girlfriend for always thinking about food.

"A good idea, though first we have to take the bounded field away and then we can go."

Arturia nodded as Shirou offered her to place her arm around his as they calmly walked throughout the park at night as if nothing out of ordinary happened.


===Next day===

Once the couple checked out from the hotel, Shirou and Arturia went for some quick coffee on the hotel restaurant.

The train back to Fuyuki would leave in a couple of hours, so they had time to spare. The hotel lobby's big screen tv was showing a news coverage of what happened in the park yesterday. The news said that no one understood what was inside the park that killed everyone that got inside or at least stated that those who entered never came back. As such, the news listed the names of fifty people that went missing. Shirou could see their faces on the screens, but he could not associate either of them with what he saw. His squeezed hand showed to Arturia how troubled he was at the notion that he could not do anything to save them. She remained silent for a while, however, knowing that this was something that he needed to process.

Like she said in the past, there will be times when nothing can be done to prevent people from dying or suffering.

They just had to do it withing in their own capabilities and find peace with it.

"Shirou…are you ok?" She heard his sigh, before he turned to her with a thin smile.

"I will be Arturia, thanks. At least we were able to save those two." They turned to the tv as the news finished reporting that, out of a miracle, two of the missing people were found this morning with no recollection of what happened. Shirou, after removing the bounded field, worked on some hypnosis spell on both, erasing the last events from their minds. It was standard procedure given by their boss, one named Tohsaka Rin. Though neither remembered actually acknowledging the black-haired magus as their leader, Arturia found it amusing to watch Rin trying to boss Shirou around and Shirou protesting every time, which in turn would make Rin even more bossy. It was actually one of the quirks that Arturia found most endearing in watching her friend and lover's interaction.

Shirou then looked at his phone ringing and smiled seeing it was the very same girl calling them.

At least once a week, the three of them shared a phone call to talk about their day just like they used to do while living together.

He answered and placed the phone on speaker for Arturia to participate as well.

"Hi there Tohsaka…"

"Hello Rin…"

"Emiya…Saber, how are two doing…how is the work with the Church coming along?"

"We finished our missions yesterday, Ciel stated that we had passed, and she will call when she need our services."

"Good…good, so Saber, did she stop teasing you two?" Saber's answer was a simple and angry 'no', earning a giggle from the other side of the phone. "So, what did she do now that's gotten you so angry Saber?" Rin had known from Saber how their contact in the church would look at Shirou with great depravity in her eyes from time to time. Shirou had simply rolled his eyes at the phone conversation as Saber explained what exactly happened yesterday in Ciel's hotel room. Shirou could hear Rin laughing uncontrollably at the words used by Ciel to describe him, probably imagining the scene as it happened. Shirou could see Arturia getting red but this time was more out of anger for Ciel than being teased by Rin. Actually, Arturia much preferred Rin's…

"Oh my…Saber, you need to step up your game then. After all, Ciel certainly will not be the only woman who finds Emiya a fine specimen…"

Scratch that...now she did not know who was worse.

"Tohsaka, remember me to never introduce the two of you…I don't think that Saber here will hold her impulses otherwise."

The King of Knights was crossing her arms and imagining how good a little scratch from her Excalibur would be in each of them.

"Just kidding Saber…I miss the two of you, so cut me some slack…none of the people here has any sense of humor. But I guess that's London for you…pretty stiff people most of the time, no offense Saber."

"None taken…"

"Actually, the reason I'm calling is to tell you two that I had arranged a meeting with one of the Assocation's Enforcers. She had agreed to meet you two in a couple weeks, though the problem is that she is not inclined to meet you two anywhere else but here at the Association." Both Shirou and Arturia frowned at that. Getting inside the lion's den like that was a huge trap in their eyes. And Rin knew the silence meant that her friends were not too comfortable in walking amongst the Association's halls with a servant turned familiar. "I can tell what you too are thinking without even asking, jeez. Do not worry about anything…Saber looks very different from the war and people here will not do anything out in the open like this. If the Vice-Director gets wind of anyone here trying anything, she will take care of it. And Bartholomei Lorelei is not a person anyone here wishes to antagonize. The Enforcers are a branch that she pays special attention to."

"Okay if you say so Rin, I guess we can cancel our tickets back home and book a flight to London, right Shirou."

Shirou had enough interaction with Arturia to see past her collected expressions. He could hear the subtle word 'please' in her phrase quite clearly. But who was he to deny obliging such a request? Arturia deeply missed Fuyuki and miss Taiga, but the prospect of visiting her old country was simply too much to pass by. Also, both her friends Rin and Sakura were the and Arturia missed hanging out with them.

"I guess we can, Saber. Tohsaka, I have to hang up now, hopefully we can arrive in London in a couple of days. I will text you as soon as we arrive…"

"Oh perfect...you two can stay here with us. There is a room we are not using after all. Plus, we all miss your cooking. Sakura sure means well, but you are undefeated." Saber giggled at that, while Shirou released a sigh in dismay. She too missed Shirou's cooking. Ever since they started the missions for the Church, they stayed only in hotels. She now salivated at the thought of Shirou's culinary skills regarding european cuisine.

"And here I thought you missed my company rather than being the cooking staff, Tohsaka…"

"Don't be like that you dolt. You know we love you. I have to go now, anyway…Lord El-Melloi II is holding a conference tonight and I promised to go. Bye and see you in a couple of days."

Arturia had heard of Rin's teacher and was surprised to see Rider's master from the Forth Grail War becoming a teacher at the Magus Association. At the time, he looked scared of about anything, though having to put up with such an unstable servant, Waver's behavior was not without merit. She may have respected the man as king of conquerors, but a servant should not have placed the master in dangerous situations like that. Arturia calmly drank her tea as Shirou hang up and then focused almost exclusively on his phone for a while, cancelling the train tickets and then purchasing their flight to London.

Meanwhile, she was busy trying to remember the scenery of her own time with the pictures she saw of modern London.

Eventually, Shirou had booked their flight and they marched straight to the airport, heading towards the next adventure.


Author Note

Well, a bit of Tsukihime here…I apologize in advance for maybe not describing either Ciel or even focusing on Satsuki. I have researched about Ciel's personality previously, but frankly, I wanted to find a true dead apositle for their first mission and her name appeared in my research. Now, Shirou and Arturia are slowly but surely progressing in their relationship. As I recall from FSN and Fate, neither of them were very forward with their feelings for each other, which is okay in the end. It's not like they are in any rush to do so. Above all else, Shirou and Arturia enjoy being with each other and for me is specially trilling to write about them together. Even if in UBW, Rin's the girl that Shirou falls for, he has always showed more closeness with Saber.

That's even true in Good Ending when Rin complains that Shirou pays more attention to Saber than her in his house dojo.

See ya next chapter and please let me know what you think.