A/N: A/N: Volume 3 OP: "The World" by Jonathan Young

Chapter 4

Testing Progress

Team RWBY had a lot of reasons for wanting to fight Emiya Shirou as a group. Their unofficial fifth member was still a very secretive person even after everything that happened. While he had revealed a lot, it was clear that there was even more that he wasn't saying about his past and capabilities. While the former would come out only if Shirou wanted it to (and everyone was okay with that for now), if they wanted him as a member of their team, they needed a better understanding of what he could and couldn't do. While he seemed to possess a high number of incredibly lethal techniques that couldn't be learned about through a friendly spar, the full scope of his skill was something that could. While Ruby Rose had been training with him while he was using a variety of weapons for some time, there was a large difference between that training and an actual fight.

Beyond that, Team RWBY also wanted a good measure on just how far they had come and how far they had left to go. As things stood, most of their fighting had been against either the mindless forces of Grimm or people who were too far below them to be a good measure. While Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, and Yang Xiao Long had more useful experiences during the Train Incident, that had been nearly three months ago and they had only ramped up their training since then. With the Vytal Festival starting next month and Beacon's preliminaries happening in just two more weeks, this was the perfect time for a sort of pre-preliminary test. The fact that Shirou, due to not officially having a team, couldn't participate in the tournament made him even more perfect since they didn't have to worry about revealing their hand to anyone they might have to fight later.

As such, for the remainder of the week leading up to the fight, Team RWBY spent all of the time they weren't in classes strategizing and putting the finishing touches on any last minute training while Ruby worked diligently at crafting the spell circle for the bounded field. The Friday before the big day, Ruby presented her work to Shirou who approved it and the fight was officially locked in.

On the day of the fight, Team RWBY got up bright and early, having gone to bed earlier than usual to ensure a good night's rest, and made their final preparations. While these preparations largely involved meditating (something even Yang was doing, to the surprise of everyone) and other forms of relaxation, it also included breaking out the new outfits as there had seemed to be a silent agreement between everyone that they needed to update their look every time a climactic event happened.

Aside from her customary red cloak, Ruby Rose was wearing a black bodysuit underneath a lighter black corset that had the front strings loosened to allow easier breathing and greater flexibility. Her light black combat skirt would have been considered dangerously short had it not been for the black spats she wore underneath. As it was, the hem of her skirt came to just below the top of her black stockings that were held in place by dark gray leather garter belts (emphasis on belts). Around her waist was a large, dark gray belt that had a pouches on her left hip for her Scroll and various other things while on her right were loops for holding Dust cartridges or special Dust rounds for Crescent Rose. On either side of the silver belt buckle were two straps that went most of the way down her skirt and could be used to secure any number of things from extra equipment to snacks. She also wore light black gauntlets that had belts just below the wrists for support and same colored boots that went halfway up her calves and were secured by two belts just below the top. For accessories, she wore a black choker and had a large silver rose pin just in front of the pouches.

Weiss Schnee had decided to go for some more flair in her outfit this time while keeping her hair in its usual side ponytail. She wore a high collared, sleeveless tailcoat that was predominantly white with a red interior and was royal blue around the shoulders with a silver hem. The front of the coat had triangular fringes that were adorned with silver tassels that were clasped on with onyx inlaid in silver and the coat also had a black neckline. This was complemented with a light gray miniskirt with a white line running parallel to the hem and about an inch above. On her legs, she had a simple pair of silver-white pantyhose and a pair of light gray d'orsay shoes with a slight heel and straps that crossed the top of her foot and connected to one that ran just above her ankle. Covering her hands were black, fingerless gloves made from a light material that was admittedly more for style than protection. The centerpiece of her outfit was a four-pointed jewelry piece from Winter Schnee, like a charm on a necklace. Seemingly silver with a diamond inset, the metal was in fact the same as the sisters' swords and could hold a single, highly concentrated Dust charge in the compartment disguised as a diamond. A weapon of last resort, when all else had failed.

Blake, inspired by her new relationship status, decided to try something a bit more… sporty. She wore a black vest with a lavender interior that had a popped up collar and had only the middle two buttons secured, leaving her stomach exposed. The vest went over a white bodysuit with a black collar. Like most of her team, Blake also wore a black skirt, but hers had a small slit on the left thigh and had a purple stripe following the hem, as well as purple stitching following the seam above the slit. Her skirt was held in place by a lavender belt that split into two on one side; one half of which ran across her waist as normal while the second hitched up at an angle and went over her vest. Like Weiss, Blake went with white pantyhouse and she also had on wedge-heeled, thigh-high boots that started pitch black on the bottom but got lighter as they went up before stopping at a lavender trim. On her arms were a pair of arm sleeves. These, like her boots, were a gradient, starting at pale lavender on the bottom before fading into a light gray at the top. While both stopped just past her elbow, the left one was complimented by a black armband that continued to just below her shoulder. The bottom third of the armband was a crisscross of black bands while the rest was emblazoned in white with her emblem, a stylized flower. As per usual, her black bow remained firmly atop her head to hide her cat ears.

Though she had clearly taken inspiration for her outfit from her girlfriend, Yang was still, as usual, the most adventurous of the four. She wore a yellow, strapless halter top that just barely covered her breasts before coming down to wrap around her sides and back leaving nearly her entire stomach exposed. The top also had a black hem and her symbol, a stylized heart on fire, on her left breast. Over her top, she wore a brown leather duster jacket with a popped up collar that appeared to be split into a regular jacket and a skirt with the "skirt" being a slighter darker shade of brown and being longer on the back right side. The interior of the "jacket" section was dark brown while the interior of the "dress" section was a vibrant white trimmed with silver. The entire piece had a dark goldenrod line around the hem— further delineating the "jacket" from the "skirt"— and had her emblem emblazoned in gold on the bottom-right corner of the front where the jacket came together. It was held together by a brown belt with a silver belt buckle and numerous pouches on either side. While the sleeves normally went all the way to her wrists, Yang wore them rolled halfway up her biceps (to show off her guns, obviously), where they were affixed with dark brown straps that clipped into place with golden clasps. On her lower body, she had gone with a pair of black denim shorts that had both a yellow hem and a yellow stripe that ran down the outside of both legs. Following Blake's own asymmetry, Yang's burnt orange socks hemmed with black at the top were different sizes; the one on her left leg came halfway up her thigh while her right one stopped just below her knee and just over her heeled, steel-toed boots. These were leather boots that zipped up on the interior and came up to just under her knee on the inside and covered her knee on the outside. They were predominantly light brown in color but the color darkened near the top and at the toes. The soles of the boots, as well as the tract for the zippers, were golden. The very top of the right boot was the same gold and was hemmed with silver while the same area of her left boot was silver and hemmed with gold. Lastly, she was wearing black, fingerless gloves that were hemmed with gold and came to just below her elbows, and a burnt orange bandana scarf.

So dressed and mentally prepared, the girls exchanged silent nods before heading to the locker room where their weapons were stored. Team RWBY marched on with an uncharacteristically serious silence, returning greetings somewhat curtly and uttering not a single word to each other. Every word that needed to be said had been said already; every stratagem had been checked, double checked, and triple checked; and solemn goodbyes were even shared. Simply put, Team RWBY was ready to die.

Which meant that one Emiya Shirou was horribly confused by this grim procession approaching him in the clearing roughly ten minutes before the scheduled time. He had shown up thirty minutes ahead of time to set up a few low powered bounded fields designed to subtly repel people who wandered too close and then spent the rest of the time meditating. "Are you girls alright? Did something happen?"

"We're fine. We're just ready to fight you," Ruby said plainly.

Shirou blinked a few times as the rest of his team lined up before him a few feet away; weapons not at the ready but bodies tense as though that was a near thing. "Alright," Shirou said slowly as he began to stand up, not entirely sure how to take the situation. "It's a good thing that you're taking your training seriously, I suppose."

The tense mood was instantly shattered once Shirou fully stood up and the girls got a good look at his new outfit.

"Whoa, hey, Shirou! Love the new duds!" Yang said enthusiastically.

"Agreed. Your other outfits suited you well enough but this one fits you perfectly," Weiss added with an appreciative nod, a look on her face as though she were admiring a piece of artwork.

Shirou immediately facefaulted from the abrupt shift in mood and was blushing when he picked himself up. "Thanks. I like your new outfits, too," he said as he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

"Where'd you get it? Clothes shopping doesn't seem like your thing," Blake asked as she slowly circled Shirou to get a better look.

"It's not. I don't normally care about these things but this was a gift and I would feel bad if I didn't wear it at least once."

"A gift? Ooooo, from who‽" Ruby asked excitedly with stars in her eyes.

Shirou paused for the briefest instance as he formulated his response, "Team CFVY. I've been helping them with a few things lately and this was their way of repaying me." In truth, it had been a gift specifically from Velvet Scarlatina and delivered by Coco Adel. She had seen Team RWBY out buying their new outfits earlier and took it upon herself to get Shirou a new one as well. She had been too shy to deliver it herself and so had roped Coco into doing it for her. Shirou was actually thankful for this since he still had no idea how to act around Velvet after she had kissed him, other than to pretend it never happened. Of course, Coco had a few sharp words for him but, even though she kinda scared him, he'd take that over having to confront Velvet's feelings for him any day.

As for the outfit that Velvet had dubbed "Reaper", Shirou had to admit that it was pretty cool. It was very similar to clothes from ancient Japan and reminded him of what Assassin had worn. In the terms of his world, it consisted of a royal blue, samurai-style shitagi - a type of long undershirt- over which was a silver-white kosode that was reinforced with heavy stitches, was dark gray on the inverse, and was tied together by a gold obi sash with a black trim. Covering his legs was a pair of silver-white umanori hakama embroidered with a royal blue Chinese dragon going up the outside of his right leg. On his feet were a pair of white tobi and black geta and on his forearms were silver-white tekkou that covered the back of his hands. His sword and quiver would hang from his left hip and across the back of his waist but those had been left behind due to having no place in this fight.

"Man, you've gotta properly introduce me to them. If they can pick out an outfit like that then they've gotta be able to give me some tips," Yang said.

"Perhaps after the tournament we can all get together for a celebration. Wouldn't want anyone to be distracted, after all. Speaking of which, are you all ready?" Shirou asked as Blake returned to her team. When they all gave out an affirmation, Shirou turned to Ruby, "Ruby, if you will."

Ruby nodded and stepped to the center of the clearing while Blake and Yang walked to where the edge of the bounded field would be. Ruby then pulled out a sheet of paper with the magic circle drawn on it and crouched down, muttering the phrase that would turn her into a magus. Placing the paper on the ground, she then channeled prana into it until the circle began to glow and the paper dissolved. After a moment, the spell circle had been neatly transferred onto the ground and there was a slight pulse of magical energy as the bounded field was set in place. Ruby then gave a signal to Yang, who stood just barely inside the bounded field, who then proceeded to shout as loud as she could at Blake, who stood just outside of it. They were the sort of comments that, if she could hear them, would have turned Blake's face a bright red. After another moment, a notably not-red Blake shook her head causing Yang to stop and the pair reentered the clearing.

"It works perfectly. I couldn't hear a thing," Blake confirmed.

"It's so cool that my little sister knows magic," Yang commented with a grin that was as proud as it was mischievous.

"It's magecraft, not magic," Ruby corrected, which only made Yang's smile completely mischievous. Ruby groaned and rolled her eyes but any further conversation was interrupted by Shirou who had walked away until there was about ten meters between him and the rest of his team.

"Are you girls ready?" Shirou asked as he traced Kanshou and Bakuya, having already made the transition while Ruby was setting up the bounded field.

"Ready," Ruby called out after her team formed a loose line and drew their weapons.

Shirou paused for a moment as the tension in the air rapidly returned and rose to nearly explosive levels. Instead of calling the start right away, he decided to take the moment to examine his opponents and begin calculating the path to victory.

Ruby Rose was the person he had the most experience fighting. She boasted the highest movement speed of possibly the entire school but her current skill level with her Semblance meant that her combat speed was only above average. Likewise, her attacking speed was comparatively low due to her weapon but that very same weapon meant she more than made up for that with her attack potency. Her instincts and tactical acumen were also exemplary but the former was predictable while the latter was almost completely negated thanks to her opponent. Furthermore, while she had improved dramatically since they first met, she was of no real threat without Crescent Rose. While she also had a lot of experience fighting him, the fact of the matter was that Shirou was fully capable of exploiting her weaknesses while she had no real way of exploiting his. Threat level: Medium.

While Ruby was the one Shirou had the most experience against, it was Weiss Schnee who Shirou knew the fighting style of the best thanks to him being able to trace Myrtenaster. While she possessed good attacking speed, her attack potency was so low as to make that almost meaningless and her defenses were below average at best. Likewise, while her movement speed theoretically rivaled Ruby's, the restrictions placed on it made it worthless in melee combat and her combat speed was only average. On her own, she wouldn't be much of a threat but her true strength lay in her abilities as a support unit. While Shirou was busy dealing with someone else, she could easily use her Semblance combined with Dust to trap him or deal a devastating blow. On the plus side, Shirou being able to trace Myrtenaster meant that he was aware of every team attack that she was. Threat level: High.

Blake Belladonna was in much the same position as Weiss in that she was absolutely no threat alone. While she had the highest attack speed of her team, her attack potency was just barely better than Weiss' and her defense was about the same. Her combat speed was also the highest of her team thanks to her Semblance but Blake's Semblance usage was a bit predictable, Shirou was aware of the cooldown time, and her combat speed wasn't faster than Shirou's reaction speed. With her team, however, she became a real nuisance who could distract a foe and slowly whittle down their Aura so someone else could finish them off. However, that was something Shirou could easily account for. Threat level: Low.

Yang Xiao Long was theoretically the most dangerous thanks to having the highest attack potency of her team (and even placed highly in the entire school). However, her movement speed was relatively slow, her attack speed was barely above average, and her attacks were still extremely predictable. Shirou was aware that her team considered her the best solo fighter among them but he would honestly give that title to Ruby. While she could take out her enemies in the fewest amount of hits (ignoring Weiss with Lightning Dust since that could easily prove lethal) and could also take the most hits, any sufficiently skilled opponent could walk all over her (as Shirou himself had done in the past). Alongside her team, however, those weaknesses were lessened since they could easily distract an enemy and lock them down enough for Yang to land the decisive blow. Threat level: Medium.

Over all, Shirou found his odds of victory to be fairly good. Not an easy fight but also not his most difficult by any margin.

Just as the tension reached its breaking point and Yang started fidgeting from anticipation, Shirou fired the starting gun. "Begin."

(A/N: Play "Dog Days" by MAN WITH A MISSION)

Shirou waited just long enough to ensure that Team RWBY heard him before he bursted into action, kicking up the ground with his speed. The girls were stunned for just a heartbeat as he practically materialized in front of Weiss thanks to prana burst but that heartbeat was all he needed. Before the others could so much as blink, he trapped Myrtenaster at the base and tip with Kanshou and Bakuya before jerking them in opposite directions to disarm her while delivering a sharp side thrust kick to send her flying away. He then had just enough time to hit Myrtenaster in the opposite direction before he had to jump backward to avoid Yang's punch.

Shirou dismissed Kanshou and picked up Myrtenaster before rolling to the side to dodge the double slash from Blake as she appeared next to him. Rolling back to his feet, he parried Blake's follow up and stabbed at her chest with Myrtenaster before throwing out a kick behind him a heartbeat later. As predicted, Myrtenaster sailed through Blake's Shadow while the kick caught her by surprise and sent her tumbling away.

By this time, Yang had caught up and began a series of attacks that Shirou flowed around. While dodging her still wasn't difficult, he was impressed to see that not only were her own movements more fluid but that she didn't appear to be getting frustrated at all. Her eyes remained calm and violet as she continued her well timed attacks with a smile on her face.

Shirou was then made aware of Weiss getting back within range of her Semblance while Blake was getting back to her feet. Knowing what was coming next, he swung at Yang with Bakuya during a brief pause in her attacks. She brought up her arms to guard but was surprised as Bakuya faded away before it hit and Shirou transitioned from his slash to an elbow strike to her right bicep. That bought him just enough time to retreat but he couldn't go far as he ran into a glyph that appeared behind him.

Yang took advantage of that brief lapse in his guard and came at him with a right hook as Blake got within range of her Semblance. Shirou rolled to the side to just barely avoid it and used his free hand to spring out of the roll to dodge the following roundhouse kick that otherwise would have collided with his head. Now that he had some breathing room, Shirou prepared the next step of his plan.

There was one trick he had been practicing with during the week. In theory, it was sound, but it had yet to produce a result he liked. Still, at this point in the fight, it was all cards on the table. Bringing up the blueprints of Myrtenaster in his mind, Shirou quickly went through the first six steps before stopping short of full projection. With its growth and accumulated years prepared, he forced those parts into the actual weapon just as Yang started to attack.

Shirou took a long step forward as he crouched low, letting Yang's jab just barely go over his head, before making a hard thrust as her solar plexus. The attack hit home and slightly knocked Yang back as Shirou quickly spun around and transitioned into a rising slash to parry Blake's attack. He then assumed Weiss' guard stance which made Blake hesitate just long enough for Shirou to lash out with a dance of attacks as he nearly perfectly copied Weiss' fighting style. While Blake managed to repel his attacks, her confused hesitation was just enough for him to break away with a side hop to dodge Yang's leaping punch. It was clear that neither of them had expected the dodge as Blake let out an "eep" and was forced to use her Semblance to avoid being hit by her partner.

Shirou was forced to stop his movement as another glyph appeared but that had also been expected as he had put just enough force into his movement to only slightly bump into it rather than slam into it again. In the split second it took Yang to spare an apologetic glance at her girlfriend and round on him and Blake's Semblance to recharge, Shirou opened Myrtenaster's cylinder and extracted the vials of lightning, earth, and ice dust. He then swayed to the left to avoid Yang's punch before transitioning into a backflip to avoid Blake's followup. Weiss created another glyph behind him which he gratefully used as a wall to kick off of and slam into the still midair Blake with a shoulder charge.

The two of them sailed past the worried Yang and tumbled to the ground with Shirou managing to recover a hair faster than Blake. He used that time to thrust at Blake before rolling backward as her Shadow vanished and she attacked from above. Shirou came out of his roll in a one handed handstand while throwing the vial of ice dust at her feet. He sprung away before the ice trapped him and was pleased to see Blake's legs trapped in the ice.

Behind Blake, Shirou saw an angry Yang move to break the ice. He charged toward her but quickly transitioned into a baseball slide as a near frictionless glyph appeared under his feet and a wall glyph appeared in front of him. The one below him helped him maintain his speed to just barely slide underneath the wall. Once past it, he threw a projected vial at Yang and watched her dodge back and to the side before slamming the vial of earth dust into the ground. The ground erupted beneath him, sending him spinning away to land on his feet while Yang was forced to retreat further.

"Whose side are you on‽" Yang yelled at Weiss.

"I'm trying! It's like he can read my mind!"

"He's predicting you! Mix things up!" Ruby counseled from where she was carefully watching the battle. Her instincts were screaming at her to rush in to help but she forced herself to remain calm and wait.

Their short conversation as they tried to plan gave Shirou ample time to carefully feed prana into the last vial in his hand and shape it into a throwing knife. With a spin, he threw the vial-knife at Weiss before projecting a second copy of Myrtenaster into his now free right hand since taking Yang on with just Weiss' skill would only result in a loss. While Weiss blocked the knife with a glyph, Shirou met Yang's charge and the two entered into another exchange.

While it had seemed like a good idea at the time, Shirou was forced to admit that dual wielding Myrtenaster had been a mistake. Weiss obviously had no experience dual wielding anything, let alone rapiers, or even fighting with her right hand and his own experience was with slashing weapons, not piercing ones. The result was that his movements were sloppy and awkward which let Yang actually get a hit in, her right jab landing solidly in the center of Shirou's chest. Shirou rolled with the blow and came out of it with Yang practically in his face.

Acting quickly, Shirou altered his copied Myrtenaster to turn it into something resembling a saber before ducking underneath Yang's haymaker. Yang had clearly improved more than he expected, however, as she seamlessly transitioned the wiffed blow into a spinning reverse hook kick, her heel catching Shirou in the side of the head. It was clear that Yang's anger was slowly starting to get the better of her as the strength of the blow actually made Shirou's vision white out for a moment.

Shirou was sent tumbling away but his attempt to recover was cut short as his head slammed into a glyph. The double hits to his head left him in a daze and he lashed out with the altered Myrtenaster more out of instinct than anything. While his wild swing missed, it delayed Yang's approach enough for him to recover.

It was then that a loud shot rang out as Ruby fired an HE round into the ice that trapped Blake. Blake had already managed to chip through a fair amount of it and the shot was enough to shatter it utterly.

With Blake now back in the fight, Shirou overloaded the projected Myrtenaster with prana until it broke as he sprang away from Yang and hurled it at her. Yang brought her arms up in a crossguard and grunted in pain as the weapon exploded against her, her feet digging into the ground as she slid back a couple feet. Shirou didn't have time to breathe, though, as Blake was now on him, attacking from every angle with all the speed she had, her efforts redoubled as she came to Yang's defense. If Shirou still had Kanshou and Bakuya projected, this wouldn't have been an issue but Blake knew Weiss' fighting style well and Shirou wasn't receiving any attribute bonuses from Myrtenaster as he already outclassed Weiss in every way. As such, while he was able to fend off most of her attacks, a few were still slipping through. Not helping matters was the fact that he had to keep his stance firm and rooted to prevent Weiss from making him slip.

With a growl of frustration, Shirou spun Myrtenaster's cylinder. When Blake went to block his next attack, he pulled the trigger and let the blade erupt in fire as he carefully used prana to guide the Dust along. While the attack was still blocked, this new move surprised her enough to let Shirou bullrush her. With Gambol Shroud occupied, Blake was helpless as Shirou grabbed the collar of her shirt and yanked her to interpose her between himself and the charging Yang. Yang's eyes widened as she tried to pull back but her first was already in motion and her momentum was too great as her attack collided with her girlfriend's back between her shoulder blades.

Blake's back arched as she coughed up spittle and Yang cried out her name. Distracted as she was, Yang didn't even see Shirou remove the vial of fire dust until it was suddenly in her face. The resulting explosion sent Yang flying away and Shirou staggering backward as he had been unable to fully get out of the blast radius in the time he had. The damage he had taken from that move was minimal, however, as his living shield had taken most of it.

Shirou dropped Myrtenaster and pulled his now free left hand back and prepared to finish the stunned Blake off when another shot rang out and he was forced to let her go as a bullet impacted his wrist. As he let out a pained cry, he spared a glance at Ruby who was lowering Crescent Rose in rifle form and threw the vial of gravity dust he had palmed alongside the fire dust in knife form. Ruby was fast enough to jump to the side to avoid it but the knife impacted the ground where her feet had been before going off, the increased gravity yanking Ruby painfully back to the ground and effectively pinning her in place.

By this time, Blake had recovered and was surrounded in the purple aura of her Soul Surge. "Certain Ki—" Before Blake could finish, Shirou seemed to grab the air before yanking it and somehow pulling Blake forward. Her eyes had just enough time to make out a thin string connecting her shirt to Shirou's hand before he threw his entire body into a slash with Kanshou that tore down her torso and followed it up with a spinning side thrust kick. Blake groaned as her aura faded with a wave, her Aura depleted.

One down, three to go.

"Full Release:" Shirou shifted his attention back to Yang and watched as she started to charge at him, her Aura growing thicker until it started turning into a Chinese dragon. He started to move but idly noted his movements slowing to a near halt as a clock glyph appeared under him. A glance at Weiss showed that she had moved to about seven meters away so she was near enough to use a glyph that powerful. Looking back at Yang, she leaped into the air and pulled her right arm back as her eyes flashed red. "Roaring Dragon Fang!"

An interesting thing about Weiss' time glyph was that, while it slowed down physical movement, it didn't slow down thought. While it had stopped him from activating his magic circuits back with the Paladin, that change had long since happened in this fight and the time dilation did nothing to stop him from completing nearly every step of a projection.

As Yang was about to cross the threshold of the time glyph, Weiss released it. In that instant, Shirou quickly raised his right hand toward Yang. "Rho Aias!" Two petals of the Ultimate Shield unfurled before him. Yang's ultimate attack was effortlessly blocked, not even damaging a single petal as the dragon dissipated against it. She and the others were so stunned by this turn of events that no one could do anything as Shirou projected Bakuya and finished Yang off with a furious combo.

Two down, two to go.

The next obvious target was Weiss. By this point she had retrieved Myrtenaster from where Shirou had dropped it by cleverly using a sequence of miniature glyphs to push it toward her. While she only had wind dust left, leaving her up while he dealt with Ruby would be problematic. While he hadn't been hit too much, Yang hit like a truck and it combined with the hits Blake got in made his Aura lower than he would have liked. While Ruby wasn't a difficult opponent if he were fresh, he might be cutting it close at this level. Whatever it was he was going to do, he knew he had to do it fast as the gravity dust had finally worn off and Ruby was picking herself up.

Just as Shirou was about to charge in, he heard Ruby shout "Spiral Strike!" He paused for half a heartbeat since neither he nor Weiss knew that they could do that combo move with Ruby nearly prone but, despite that, Weiss didn't even hesitate as she chambered her wind dust and hurled Myrtenaster at the glyph that formed behind Ruby, the wind dust letting the weapon fly straight despite its shape.

Shirou couldn't let this attack go off as it shared too many similarities with her Soul Surge.

While her back was turned, Shirou charged her at high speed thanks to another prana burst and lashed out with his own spinning strike. He bit back a curse as Weiss had predicted this and blocked the attack with a glyph as she skated out of the way to give Ruby a clear line. Ruby herself was already being propelled forward by the tornado that had erupted from the glyph behind her. She staggered for a brief moment before regaining her balance and pushing herself even faster before letting the tornado aid her Semblance to make her spin so quickly that her form was little more than a blur with Crescent Rose in its scythe form ready to completely destroy anything in her way.

Shirou had to act quickly. If that attack hit, it was over. Rho Aias could block it with ease but not only did he not have the time to project it, his prana was so low from projecting it already and the two prana bursts that he wasn't sure he even could without massive consequences. Then he had an idea. It was a stupid idea that probably wouldn't work but it was his only hope. Ruby had turned herself into a bullet so he just needed another bullet to turn the tables.

Skipping some of the steps to get it out faster, a jagged, purple dagger appeared suspended in the air next to his head. It was completely worthless as a weapon but its unique qualities might just be his salvation.

With expert timing and aim, Shirou fired the bullet known as Rule Breaker while dropping his Aura. The dagger shot forward and slipped through the extremely brief opening in Ruby's spinning scythe to strike Weiss' glyph. At once, the glyph was dispelled and the tornado was stopped, slowing Ruby significantly as gravity started to take over and her scythe started cutting through the ground. That alone wasn't enough, however, so Shirou jumped backward and to the side while bringing Kanshou and Bakuya up in a crossguard and reinforcing his body to its limit.

Ruby's attack hit home and Shirou found himself caught up in a flurry of slashes that launched him into the air. He hit the ground hard and tumbled to a stop, his body and clothes covered in cuts but, crucially, his Aura was unbroken and so he was still in the fight.

As Shirou picked himself back up, Ruby came to a stop and started staggering, clearly dizzy from that reckless attack that threw away all notions of defense. That little trick left Shirou with almost no prana so his current copies of Kanshou and Bakuya would have to last him throughout the rest of the fight. As it was, he was already having to use the dense mana of Remnant to maintain them.

While Ruby was still dazed, Shirou charged forward at Weiss. While attacking Ruby would normally be the best option, in this case, leaving Weiss alone would only result in a loss. His tired state from surviving that attack and lack of prana was showing, though, as Weiss was able to keep up with him if only just. Needing to end this exchange quickly, Shirou shifted to his false opening style. She fell for it almost immediately and was once again disarmed. It didn't take much after that until her Aura broke and she was out of the fight.

Three down, one to go.

Ruby had now recovered and the two stared each other down. While the interrupted attack and the gravity Dust had clearly taken something out of her— Ruby having used an unrefined prana burst that was highly inefficient— she was still more or less fresh while Shirou had to put some effort into keeping his breathing even. While he had known of this strategy from the start, he had to applaud her in that he had been unable to find a reliable counter to it without doing something drastic.

That being said, Shirou was still confident that he could win. Especially since he took this moment caused by the staredown to feed what prana he had into Avalon to replenish some of his stamina. It wasn't much but every little bit helped.

Shirou briefly looked away to bait Ruby into an attack which she took in an instant. Recalling how he had done the exact same thing in his first training session with Saber, Shirou rolled forward and let Ruby's swing harmlessly pass over him. He came out of his roll with a rising slash that nicked Ruby in the arm as she tried to fight her own momentum to sidestep it. She went for another swing but Shirou flipped the paradigm as he dropped Kanshou and Bakuya and simply grabbed Crescent Rose by its shaft. Ruby's eyes widened in shock but she still immediately tried to pull Crescent Rose toward her to both break Shirou's grip and hit him with the blade. This proved to be ineffective, however, as Shirou let himself be pulled along and nailed Ruby on the bridge of her nose with a headbutt.

Ruby's head snapped back from the impact and Shirou took that chance to deliver a sharp knifehand strike to her throat. This had apparently been a feint, however, as Ruby let her body go slack as she rolled onto her back and pulled her legs up. Shirou found himself dragged along and in a familiar position as his stomach was now resting on the soles of her shoes. Unlike with the monkey Faunus, however, Ruby didn't stop to smirk and immediately pushed with her legs to launch Shirou back and into the air.

While the move had been unexpected, Shirou was still enough of an experienced fighter to not let it phase him as he righted himself in the air and landed on his feet, his feet gauging the earth as he slid back. Ruby had kipped up while he was in the air and charged at him with her Semblance the second his feet had touched the ground. Weighing his options, Shirou stepped into the attack before hopping into the air. The result was that he was hit by the shaft instead of the blade and the force of the attack sent him flying away behind her in the direction of Kanshou and Bakuya.

Shirou hit the ground in a roll and came up with his weapons now in his hands. Ruby fired a few shots at him but he easily deflected the bullets even as he went on the offensive for a change. Ruby went for another horizontal slash with perfect timing but Shirou flipped over both it and her, striking her shoulders along the way. Once he landed, he immediately continued his offensive with a string of strikes aimed at Ruby's defenseless back. He only managed to get a few hits in before Ruby surged forward with another prana burst. Such a move had been planned for as Shirou hurled Bakuya at her the second it happened.

Unsurprisingly, Ruby parried the attack with the butt of Crescent Rose while turning to face him, blocking the followup attack in the process. Shirou knew that Bakuya's return wouldn't surprise Ruby but that had never been the point to begin with. With only one weapon, Shirou pressed his attack, using his shorter reach to stop Ruby from being able to use her weapon effectively. He also kept maneuvering himself to keep Ruby's back toward the path of Bakuya's return trip. He smelled the increase in Ruby's prana flow that signaled another prana burst but he stopped it before it could begin by making a stomp aimed at her instep. While she moved her foot out of the way in time, it left her in a stance that'd make retreating with high speed movement awkward at best.

Shirou caught sight of Bakuya hurtling back toward him and could tell that Ruby was aware of it as well. He'd have to act quickly and decisively if he wanted this to work.

Shirou traced the katana he used to practice with which cost next to nothing to reproduce and slashed at her with it despite the somewhat awkward range. Ruby was surprised by this as she had figured that he was tapped out of prana but still managed to block it with her arm by letting go of Crescent Rose with that hand. Shirou used that instant of her weakened grip with her right hand to make a followup strike with Kanshou aimed at that hand. Ruby managed to jerk her hand down to block the attack with the shaft but Shirou powered through, knocking Crescent Rose into her other arm and shattering her guard.

This was the moment. One way or the other, this fight was over.

Shirou was enveloped by a faint aura of silver as he stopped holding back and let his Soul Surge activate. Rather than using it for a special attack, Shirou simply dismissed the katana to grab the hilt of Kanshou with both hands and used the increase in his attributes to throw himself into a full power attack. The instant that Kanshou made contact with Ruby's right side, Bakuya slammed into her left. Shirou finished his movement behind Ruby and silently held his left hand out to grab Bakuya as Ruby pitched forward, a wave of red passing over her body.

All four down. Trace, off.

A/N: Before we begin, don't bother saying anything about Rule Breaker, it'll be explained in the next chapter. Also, vinayakdj1, I see that you've let a lot of reviews. There are too many to reply to here but I've sent a couple of PMs with replies to a couple of them. If you would be so kind as to respond or send me a new PM, I would be more than happy to address as many of your complaints and concerns as possible.

Now, let's get down to business and talk about power scaling and Emiya Shirou. Making this as clear as possible will be necessary going forward.

As I said in the last chapter's author's note, Shirou is one of the overall strongest characters currently in the story. Among the heroes, the only ones introduced so far that completely outstrip him are Ozpin (conditionally) and Qrow. If you take a moment to actually think about everything, you'll see this to be true. Do keep in mind that Shirou tends to underestimate himself for the sake of safety (if he finds a path to victory while lowballing himself, his victory is basically assured) and he has a low opinion of himself in general so statements from the narration when its from his perspective aren't always 100% accurate. Let's start from the top.

V1C1 opens up with Shirou killing ten Beowolves in the span of a few moments over the course of one paragraph. Fast forward to V1C3 and it took Ruby and Weiss a fair bit of time in order to kill twelve. Shirou then went on to just solo an entire town of Grimm off screen.

The seemingly low range on Shirou's bow-sword is because it's a short bow and it's also a sword. I don't remember exactly where I pulled the number from but I'm pretty sure a world record was involved.

Sticking with V1C3, we have the Death Stalker. A full power hit from Ruby couldn't even completely deflect one of its claws. Jaune couldn't hurt it, Ren couldn't hurt it, Pyrrha hurt, and Nora couldn't hurt it that much. In canon, it took concentrated effort from Team JNPR in order to sever its stinger from its tail. Shirou, meanwhile, effortlessly severed it with one regular arrow. He was the only one who was shown to actually hurt that thing without Soul Surge and he wasn't even using anything special. Then you have the giant Nevermore fight where Shirou with a lightning arrow has the exact same AP as Weiss' lightning glyph and Shirou can fire off his arrows faster, with greater range, and with greater accuracy than Weiss' glyph.

Could Shirou have solo'd these things? Absolutely. However, doing so would be the opposite of helpful as him doing so would accomplish nothing in the grand scheme of things. The others needed to test themselves and come together so Shirou just played support.

Now for the Roman fight. There is not a single moment in that fight where Shirou is not in complete control. In canon, Blake and Sun working together were getting trounced by Roman. Blake then got trounced by Roman in V2 and Ruby lost to him in V3. Shirou, meanwhile, with just his nameless bow-sword, could have beaten him. Shirou, fighting at basically his lowest level of skill and strength, could beat him. When Neo entered the scene, Shirou had to trace K&B but then he went back to winning. Even without Ruby, provided Neo had no Semblance, Shirou would have won. When Neo did use her Semblance, as the narration states, Shirou could have busted out Hrunting at any moment and rendered it meaningless. With Ruby's help, however, Shirou didn't even need that much in order to win. Even when a Bullhead was about to fire at him with its guns, Shirou was prepared to counter with Rho Aias. The reason Shirou didn't kill them is because he wanted to capture and interrogate them.

Moving on to V2, we open on Shirou just clowning on Ruby and he then clowns on the others off screen in one-on-one fights before then clowning on Yang a second time in order to prove a point.

Now we have the Paladin fight. I already explained a chunk of that in that chapter's author's note but the reason why Shirou miscalculated the strength was because he couldn't possibly know exactly how much a Paladin bolstered the rider's Aura. He made an educated guess and was a bit off. The guy also tanked two salvos of missiles to the face and was just knocked unconscious. Don't know why people are complaining about that.

Then there's the Pyrrha fight. Pyrrha is established as being this once-in-a-generation prodigy and possesses a pretty OP Semblance. Not only does Shirou draw "first blood" during their spotlight spar, he comes pretty close to winning at the level they were fighting at. In their proper fight, Shirou fights her to a simultaneous KO and this is with him being somewhat cautious about using magecraft in an obvious way that'd break the rules of his "Semblance." There's also the fact that most of Shirou's weapons would either maim or kill Pyrrha so those options were obviously off the table.

Finally, there's the climax to Volume 2. Shirou was sent to exterminate a base of terrorists and was doing so very well. The guy fought with minimal breaks for about 28 straight hours and was still able to keep pace with Team RWBY despite that. In order for the Train Incident and the final fight to have any tension, I had to heavily nerf Shirou by having him be running on fumes in terms of prana and be physically exhausted from the nearly constant fighting and the fact that he hadn't gotten a full night's sleep in two days. Despite having such massive nerfs placed on him, he was still keeping pace with everyone. Oh, and I also had to have Shirou place a pretty massive nerf on Roman so that way Blake could beat him and, even then, she needed Soul Surge to do it.

All of that leads up to this fight that you just read where Shirou pretty handily beats Team RWBY. Once Weiss was down, Shirou had won. Also, if this had been a death match scenario, it would have been over in moments. Hell, the only reason it came as close as it had was because Shirou had been playing around with Myrtenaster and had miscalculated when projecting the copy. If he had traced, say, Bakuya instead, his victory would have been a lot cleaner.

With all of this laid out, I hope I can finally put the complaints about my Shirou being weak to rest. I know I won't but you can't blame a girl for trying. If you want a story with a crazy OP Shirou who scales to the rest of the Nasuverse, go read Heir to the Blacksmith. I, meanwhile, am keeping my Shirou scaled largely to the original VN before the power creep made everything insane. With that being said, keep in mind that we are on Volume 3 of 12. We are less than one quarter of the way through the story I have planned. My Shirou's going to be pretty damn OP by the end of this.

One last note regarding Salem: The reason Shirou can't just go kill her with Harpe has nothing to do with my changes to the power scaling. If that was the only change I had made, once Ozpin learned about Harpe (which he does know about), he would have dropped all of his plans, called up Ironwood, told him to get his army ready, burned every favor he had to get as much military might as he possibly could, and put Shirou through the most grueling training possible before kicking down Salem's front door and having Shirou kill her. The story would have ended before V1C1. That didn't happen, however, because Shirou is currently incapable of killing Salem in practice. The reason for this is something I had planned from the very beginning as I knew I needed a good justification as to why there was any real story. The reveal won't happen for quite some time but, when it does, I'm pretty sure you'll all agree with me.

Now that we're finished with that, I had a massive scare this week. Yesterday, my power flickered and that somehow caused my laptop to start running as slow as molasses. I ended up having to reinstall Windows to try and fix the problem and it doesn't seem to have done so but it almost made me miss my upload time. I had the chapter ready to go over on AO3 but I couldn't here on due to that site not having updated its UI since I first joined back in 2009. Anyway, have an interlude and I'll see you next week! Oh, and Ruby's Origin is Hope, in case you're curious.

Interlude 10
The Origin of it All
Before V3C4

"Hey, Shirou, I have a question for you," Ruby Rose said as she entered Emiya Shirou's room.

Shirou turned around in his chair until he was facing her, "What's up?"

"So, I was reading that book on magecraft you gave me and it mentioned something called an Origin but it didn't say what it was and it didn't come up in the rest of the book, either."

"Ah, I see. Do you remember what I told you about Elements the other day?"

"Yeah, they're the building blocks of the world and are really important to magecraft," she answered dutifully.

"That's correct," Shirou said as he slipped into what he privately called his Tohsaka Mode. "A person's Origin is somewhat related to that. Simply put, they're the starting points of all people and shape who they are while directing their actions."

Ruby's eyes narrowed as she went over this information in her head, "So, your Origin is, like, your destiny or something?"

"Yes and no. The whole thing is pretty complicated but it's less that you're destined for that thing and are more inclined toward that thing."

"Can you find out what my Origin is?"

Shirou actually grimaced at this, making Ruby somewhat worried, "I could but I recommend against it."

"How come?"

"Awakening to your Origin is a double-edged sword. On one hand, you'll be able to refine your magecraft to get the best possible results when filtering it through your Element. On the other hand, it'll become almost impossible to stray from its path. It's not quite to the level of giving up your free will but it's dangerously close."

Ruby paled somewhat at that, "Yeah, I can see why you might not want to do it. I think I'll be fine not knowing. Do you know what your Origin is?"

"I do," Shirou said with a nod. "It's Sword."

"Isn't that also your Element?" Ruby asked with a tilt of her head.

"It is. I'm a very rare phenomenon known as an Incarnation. From beginning to end, I am a Sword." An amused smile came to Shirou's face as he added, "Or I guess you could say that I am the bone of my sword."

"What does that mean?"

Shirou chuckled softly, "Don't worry about it. Those words are meaningless to anyone but me."

"Alright. If you say so. What does that mean for your magecraft?"

"It means that I'm hopeless at basically everything that isn't in some way connected to swords. It's why I needed magic circles to place down even the simplest of bounded fields. One day, you'll be able to set those up with just an aria."

"Something to look forward to, then! Thanks for clearing that up, Shirou!"

"Anytime."