After his conversation ended with Philip, he was sent off with a smile and led by a butler through the mansion.

Emiya Shirou, or as he was now known as, Rudeus Greyrat, began to wonder why exactly his older second cousin was behind in her development, and what did her father mean when he claimed her attitude was her biggest setback.

'Maybe she thought an education was beneath her because she was rich.'

Back in Japan, he had heard his fellow students complaining about learning unnecessary material, especially students who would inherit a family run business and just needed a passing grade.

'Or she could be a lazy slob indulging in her expensive lifestyle. Her father didn't seem particularly worried about her education, but rather about her upbringing in general.'

The sound of a wooden door being kicked open reverberated around the halls as the metal handle chipped the stone wall it collided against, and a bundle of red energy exploded out from a doorway nearby

"I don't care about my stupid cousin! Tell me where Ghislaine is! I want to spar!" The bundle of red energy was actually a young girl with bright red hair currently dressed in rich looking, yet muddy, fabrics.

"Young miss, please, please let us change you before your cousin gets here!" A maid with brown hair and bunny ears stepped out the doorway next holding a small outfit.

Another maid with blonde hair and dog ears followed. "You must look proper, at least for your first meeting! If not then you'll scare him off."

"Listen to me, you maids! I don't care! Tell me where Ghislaine is right now or I'll rip up all my dresses again!"

The butter next to him audibly cleared his throat.

The young girl and the two maids shoot their gazes towards them. The maids looked defeated and the young looked visibly angry.

"It's you, right!?" She practically screamed as she stomped towards him.

'Well, she's not lazy.'

"Miss Eris, I'll be your tutor from now—"

He had to stop mid-sentence to take a step away as a fist came swinging through the air, a gust of displaced wind rustled his hair, but otherwise he was untouched.

"—on. I'm Rudeus Greyrat, and I hope we can have a pleasant time together."

He did have to dodge a few more punches, but he was able to finish his sentence uninterrupted.

Eris didn't seem to appreciate that she hadn't landed a blow on him, her face flushed a shade of red similar to her hair and some veins had become visible. Her eyes dilated and her nostril flared, as she gritted her teeth.

He didn't exactly have any experience with children throwing a tantrum, but he recognized that she was probably having one. Since he didn't know the professional way to handle one, he decided to just let her tire herself out.

She lunged at him again, and again he dodged.

It wasn't difficult, not only was she telegraphing her moves from the set up, but she wasn't even using her Mana effectively. It was practically pouring off of her, and the little she did use didn't seem to have a purpose behind it.

He did almost get scratched after he caught a good whiff of her Mana, it smelled like burning blood and scorching steel, the scent had caught him off guard for a moment.

As it turns out, Eris didn't have a small capacity of Mana. She had chased him all throughout the mansion and the yard as she was wasting Mana without getting tired.

Though, she didn't seem as furious anymore, instead she was smiling as she shattered the stone floor with a fierce lunge towards him.

Considering that behind him was a window overlooking the town from the third floor, he couldn't just dodge and let her fall.

After Reinforcing his body, Shirou shifted his feet into a more solid stance and met her open palms with his own, but as he gripped her hands, the Mana encasing her body swam out against his skin.

He felt a burning itch as the magical energy Reinforcing his hands vanished. If he didn't want his wrists to snap and fail to stop Eris, he had to allow his arms to fall back, but if he just did that, he would lose his balance and be pushed out the window with her

So instead, he crouched down and then allowed Eris' momentum to push him into the wall beneath the window.

He landed on his butt as Eris found her footing as she stood over him, her hands were like iron claws as they crushed his fingers. His bones cracked and popped as his flesh turned white and purple. Blood leaked from the tears in his pulled apart skin.

Eris was panting wildly, like a feral beast, as drool dripped from her mouth, her fangs were bared and her eyes seemed crazed as they wildly darted across her prey, him.

"Hah! Hah! Hah. Haah. Haahh… hah…. haaa…"

Her wild nature slowly melted away as the Mana swirling around her body dissipated, her eyes grew foggy as they rolled up in her skull, and her body went limp.

'Healing.'

Shirou silently casted Healing on his shattered and torn hands. Unlike his previous injuries and their recoveries, simple wounds and accelerated natural healing, this time he felt his muscles turn to steel as they pushed the shards of his bones back into places before they were knitted back together.

When he was fully recovered, his hands still felt a bit stiff.

Pushing that matter aside, it was clear to him that Eris' behavior wasn't completely normal. If she had acted like that constantly, then it would probably be a big problem.

With his healed hands, he lifted her limp body off of him and laid her down gently on the floor. Then, pushing the limits of decency and privacy, he decided to Analyze her unconscious body.

There were two odd things he discovered about her, but nothing immediately dangerous.

Firstly, her Mana Veins were an odd pattern.

As part of Roxy's research into the topic, she experimented with her and Sylphiette's sets, and she discovered some shared common structures, and some unique patterns.

According to her theory, the common parts were likely what allowed the use of mana for mages, and the unique parts determined one's usage.

The unique pattern in Eris was that her Mana Veins seemingly converged within her brain.

Secondly, her constitution was just slightly inhuman, or at least un-human-like. Her body structure, bones and flesh, were a bit more robust and denser than usual, and her blood cells seemed to be sending signals to each other.

Her biological make-up did also appear to be degenerating ever so slightly.

There was something else he noticed, but it didn't seem like it was worth mentioning in the same breath as the other topics. It was like mentioning someone had the flu, but they were also good at basketball.

Her Mana had a unique innate property of burning up foreign Mana. It wasn't like a Magus' defense of washing it out, but it completely incinerated his Mana as he tried to peek inside her Mana Veins.

He heard a rumble of approaching footsteps, a dozen or so shoes quickly tapping against stone as people were rushing over to them. He removed his hand from Eris' unconscious body and sat back down against the wall.

Shirou wasn't tired and Eris didn't need emergency help, but when he thought about how the scene would appear to the servants of the household, he decided that he didn't want to be standing over her body or holding her out for them.

…

…

A few days had passed without a repeat of Shirou's first encounter or similar incidents, apparently Eris' grandfather had been busy on the first day, and when he arrived here, the old man wanted to spend some time with his granddaughter.

Also, the man's name was Sauros Boreas Greyrat, and he ruled as the Lord of the Fedoa region. He also apparently didn't appreciate Shirou's end result of exhausting Eris, because he assumed Rudeus had been lying and in fact had knocked her out with force.

Apparently, it was a well known fact that Eris didn't get tired. She had limitless energy and she never even slept if she didn't feel like doing so.

So, Shirou wasn't even allowed to see Eris until he confessed to how he had knocked her out. His story didn't change, especially not since Eris had reluctantly corroborated it, even if she specified that she had pinned him down before passing out.

He had read about Mana Exhaustion in a book before, so he didn't understand why it was hard to comprehend that she simply ran out of Mana.

Since he couldn't see her, and was relatively 'locked in his room' so to speak, he had questioned the maids and butlers around him about her. Some were tight lipped about every detail, but most liked to gossip and they told him every rumor they've ever heard about her.

From what he could gather, after cutting out the wild rumors, her parents had unfortunately had their sons taken from them, so they spoiled their daughter. She was simply the result of a coddling mother and a lenient father.

Eris was supposed to be his student, however, it seemed there might be a few difficulties interfering with that future.

…

…

Endless gunfire and explosions, never-ending screams and shouts, the sounds of war and the cries of death echoed infinitely in the hell that was a battlefield.

For it to be described as a war-torn city, there should probably be a city left to describe.

Piles of stone rumble, of steel debris, of fresh corpses and rotten bones, had replaced buildings.

Bullet shells, missile casings, and even humanity's morals had been discarded and were covering the ground.

Black boots stepped through pools of blood and viscera, they stepped on the shells of humans as he ascended up a pile of cold rusty steel.

He couldn't see the sun, he hardly ever saw it.

Humans seemed to universally agree to fight under the cover of night when they wanted to commit most of their massacres against each other.

Whether it was for a tactical advantage or for their soldiers morale, he didn't know. None of them could probably stand the sight of their own carnage, and tomorrow they'll excuse their crime as a necessary evil of this world.

The innocent lives lost would be regarded as simple collateral. Or maybe it had been intentional, to cull the number of future enemies who would be driven by righteous fury, by ruthless vengeance.

He didn't know.

He didn't know why humans would commit their beings to mindless murder.

That wasn't his role, nor his place to ponder.

He had a simple task, one that he had promised to do.

From atop the collapsed steel tower, his eyes found his targets through the black smoke blending into the dark sky, and he lifted his bow.

His task, one that he performed without question, without hesitation, without end, was to simply mindlessly murder the murderers.

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Leave.

He was summoned elsewhere.

For it to be described as a war-torn town, there should probably be a town left to describe.

Rubble. Fire. Bullets. Blood. Limbs. Corpse.

He couldn't see the ground beneath it all, but he didn't need to.

He simply spotted his target and lifted his bow.

Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kill. Kil—

—

'Kill…'

"Hgkkk!"

'Kill…'

"Kch…….!"

Desperate nails could only scratch at the surface of his arm, so they moved on to clawing at his face.

Frantic claws slashed at his face, his left eye was torn to shreds alongside his left cheek.

The cold air, unfamiliar to the always burning battlefields of his nightmare, shocked his brain back into action.

A dark blue-ish purple face twisted with raging fury that was framed by bright red locks of hair. Crimson eyes, completely bloodshot and bulging out their sockets, were glaring up at him.

Reality crashed down on his mind like a storm of swords.

Eris Greyrat, his supposed student, a young girl not even ten yet, was being strangled to death by a red arm.

His arm was covered in red blood and he was pinning the small girl down on his bed by her neck, with his hand wrapped nearly all the way around and digging into her flesh.

He panicked and tried to release her, but the muscles in his arm wouldn't listen.

A weak hand clawed at his face again, and the nails scraped against steel before going limp.

His hand felt like it was on fire, like it was being scorched on contact with Eris' skin.

There wasn't time to think about the situation.

Eris' eyes, still bulging out, were turning glassy as her body stopped struggling.

The muscles in his hand and arm turned to steel, he couldn't move them.

Shirou used his other hand, he dropped a wooden sword he was holding by the blade, and Projected a nameless dagger.

He Reinforced the his weapon to its breaking point and then he pressed the back of the blade against the skin on her neck. With a swift upward motion, he sliced off his own thumb.

With one end of the vice holding her neck gone, he was able to bend his arm away to completely release her.

She spasmed a bit even after being freed.

'Let this divine power be converted into a satisfying nourishment, Healing!'

His healing did nothing but cause her body to jolt, and her skin had nearly reached the same shade of white as his sheets.

"Let this divine power be converted into a satisfying nourishment, Healing!"

Again, it did nothing but make her twitch.

He quickly tried Analyzing her body, but she still had a lot of Mana swirling around inside of her and it burned away his spell.

It didn't even take a second before he realized it had done the same to his healing spell, that her body had naturally resisted the foreign Mana trying to alter her body.

She was going to die.

He couldn't heal her.

He had killed her.

Anguish, confusion and desperation, a mixture of intense emotions shot through his skull at blazing speeds. The raw power behind them was completely unfamiliar to him.

Blood pounded against his brain.

Tears poured from his eyes.

Vomit almost spilled from his lips.

His soul was pulsing violently against his mind and body.

'What have you done?!' 'Why did you do this!?' 'Shut up! She's dying! She's dying!'

Visions flashed through his mind.

Of burnt corpses turned into char, of melted classmates turned into goo, of a beheaded teacher turned into a puppet, of rotting orphans mummified, of countless people struck in their vital organs with arrows.

With each flash, the visages of Eris' dying face as she glared at him was being seared into his mind.

Rudeus' muscles that hadn't turned to steel had turned to jelly as he collapsed forward atop the girl he killed, atop the corpse of his victim.

His bloody cheek collided with her face as he curled up, heaving and sobbing.

'Of course, I would always fail to live up to my borrowed ideals. I should kill myself before I make anymore mistakes.'

'Did I honestly think I could be a hero? I let Issei die! I let Taiga be killed! I killed Sakura! I failed to stop Illya from using her Dress! Did I honestly believe my sins would be washed away? That I could be a hero with these bloodstained hands?'

'A new world, a new start, a new chance, as if. I failed. I promised Kiritsugu that I would become a hero. I failed. I promised Sakura I would save her. I failed.'

An endless stream of repressed regrets flooded into his consciousness, and he almost didn't notice the faint sensation against his face, but the exposed nerve endings were extremely sensitive.

Something warm was brushing against his cheek, lapping up his blood.

It was a tongue.

Springing up and looking down, he saw that Eris was gulping down the blood she had collected.

He didn't think about anything else besides one simple fact.

'She's alive!'

Her body had regained some color, but it wasn't enough.

'She needs more.'

Shirou didn't think anything else besides that being the simple reality.

He sliced open his soft wrist and held the bleeding wound to her hungry mouth.