Concrete. It was perhaps the most common building material of the modern world. The literal foundation that mundane society stood on. Cities made with concrete would last for hundreds, if not thousands of years, far outstripping their ancestors' own wooden cities of ages long past.

Yet, there was one problem. Concrete still aged. It would weather, chip and break given enough punishment. Towering buildings could become nothing but rubble as an earthquake shook it. A home might be washed away with high floodwater as rains pelted it from above. Yes, concrete, for all its strengths, had its weaknesses as well.

One exception was Roman concrete. Unlike modern concrete, Roman concrete had lasted for thousands of years, holding strong despite the sheer amount of elements it'd been exposed to. The Colosseum was one such marvel of Roman concrete.

But the method to create such concrete today was much more expensive than just doing it with modern materials. Nobody made Roman concrete anymore, despite its strength.

So imagine Shirou's surprise when the path he was walking on was a true, Roman concrete road, paved just under three months ago.

'How long have they been planning this?'

Indeed, the road was just a testament on the logistics that needed to come about when invading another world. The Greco-Roman foot soldiers undoubtedly prepared themselves to fight a similar, if not weaker, enemy to themselves, unprepared for the assault to go as badly as it did.

He could see the remains of foodstuffs, camps, and even a sandal or two spread across the road. A quick Analysis imparted feelings of panic and fear, many of the items left being done so because the owner was fleeing in a rout.

He was wondering where the rest of the soldiers were when they attacked. Now he knew. They'd run back as soon as their comrades were taken down. An unsurprising development, all things considered.

Shirou continued to walk through the Anomaly as he thought about the situation back home. He'd entered what the media had been calling the Gate without any permission. He'd just snuck behind everyone and walked on through.

That needed to be addressed. If he, a tall, white-haired man wearing bright red, could get past security without even using any esoteric means, then security was either too lax, or they were slacking off. Neither boded well.

Regardless, Shirou was under no illusion that Zouken had gone on through as well. He'd managed to kill a few Crest Worms that had been placed within the Anomaly itself. More than a few of them were hiding in the shadows, and he would have missed them had he not been actively looking for them.

More than that, he knew exactly why the Matou would want to go through. He could feel it in his bones. The farther he walked, the more powerful his Reinforcement became. The hold that Gaia had on the World was slipping the closer he got to the other end.

More than likely, as Zeltretch had told him before he left, the World beyond the veil was in the midst of an Age of Gods. An Age where mana was ripe in the world, where Phantasmals roamed freely, where magi stalked the lands unabated.

It was a terrifying concept to think about.

He'd already been walking for an hour, the end was nowhere in sight, but the effort he needed to put into Reinforcing his body had been reduced by half. What more when he'd reach the end? And how would it affect the likes of Rin? Just how powerful could they be?

They were questions that Shirou didn't like not knowing answers to.

He knew now why Zelretch could only have him go through. Any other magi would have lost themselves in the feeling of power that came with being in an Age of Gods.

Him? He had a one-track mind, that much he could admit. He couldn't care less about the power, because the power he already had was enough. Anything more would be a detriment, as he now had to be careful about the mana he shoved into himself, as the same amount of effort now produced results that were too much for him to handle.

He'd need to work on that.

Another three hours later, he could finally see light at the end of the tunnel.


The sun was high in the sky. That was the first unexpected thing. He'd entered the Gate at around eight in the evening, so he'd expected to come out in the middle of the night. Evidently, that was not the case. Time between Worlds must not be synced up, or if it is, the moment of them syncing was different in each World.

The second unexpected thing was the army still sitting around. The worst part was the contingent that was preparing to head into the Gate, not two feet away from his face.

'Shit.'

Arrows flew towards him as alarms blared throughout the encampment. He could see black wyverns start flying up, riders with bows and spears riding upon them. Shirou Traced a line of swords and shot them towards the flying lizards.

Three immediately went down, but the others were far enough that they had time to dodge. He broke into a sprint, Tracing the Married Blades in his hands. A few more heavily armored soldiers rushed towards him, two wielding heavy greatswords, while three more with warhammers.

He blocked the first blade with his own, as he kicked the shaft of the warhammer towards another. The warhammer smashed the unfortunate soul's head in. A scream of rage from the one he was holding in place was the only warning he got before the man let go of the blade and tackled him.

Shirou quickly cut him down even as he went down. He rolled as the remaining two men with warhammers pounded down on where his head previously was. His nose picked up a faint sense of sulfur, and he immediately dove to the side as fireballs broke the ground next to him.

Magi. In the distance, he could see an Enforcer's company's worth of magi preparing various spells. He didn't know what those were, but he sure as hell didn't want to be on the receiving end of any of those. He dismissed the blades in his hands and Traced a chain, just in time to catch the warhammer coming down once again.

He wrapped the chain around the head of the hammer, as well as the hands of the man wielding it, before pulling the man straight into the path of a blade of wind. The man was shorn cleanly in two, armor and all. Shirou dropped the half he was still holding, as the wyverns finally reached him.

The first of the flyers dove straight to him, the maw of the great beast opened in a roar. The last warhammer wielder was still to his left. He spun the chain into motion, staring straight at the wyvern rider. As soon as he built enough speed, he spun around and threw the chain into the unsuspecting warhammer wielder.

The chain wrapped around the warhammer, and he pulled it clean off the man's hands and into his own. Shirou spun with the momentum of the hammer, before throwing the weapon straight into the head of the wyvern. It died near instantly.

It all took a grand total of twelve seconds.

In that time, Shirou had killed half a dozen people. A brief Analysis on the remains of the weapons nearest him, the five he'd fought off were some of the better soldiers he could find, as these weapons were each specifically made for their wielder. An elite unit, perhaps?

Didn't matter anymore, as they were mostly dead, though the last one was just warily looking at him with no weapon to show for.

In fact, everyone was now warily looking at him. The wyvern riders had stopped their advance while the magi held their hands in preparation to fire spells. None of them made any moves towards him.

Shirou gripped his empty hands into a fist. These people, as much as they were just soldiers, were more than willing to come into his home country and cause havoc. If these really were Romanesque soldiers, then slavery was more than likely an outcome for anyone they might capture.

They didn't deserve mercy. They deserved what they got, and if it was death, then so be it.

At least, that's what he kept telling himself.

He took a step forward. They took a step back. He breathed in. They took that as a signal to break into a rout.

"Trace, on."

The ease by which he could Trace had improved by a ludicrous amount. He'd always had a weakness when compared to the likes of Gilgamesh when Tracing weapons. There was always a delay. He needed a second to fight against the decaying influence of Gaia, before he could solidify his Trace's influence upon the world and make them a near permanent feature.

Now, the delay was non-existent.

It was jarring, to Trace something into instantaneous existence, as if he was using his Unlimited Blade Works. But not unwelcome.

Three dozen blades popped into being. They were launched in the same breath. Each found purchase into a fleeing enemy. The moment they struck, another dozen blades were Traced and fired. He started to walk around, blades flying towards any soldier that caught his eyes.

By the end of it all, he'd chased an entire army off by himself.

Bodies littered the site of the hill he found himself on. All of them had some sort of sword wound on them, nearly all of them in the back. Shirou pushed back the bile rising to his throat.

These men were preparing for another attack on Ginza, of that he was sure. They wouldn't be here if it wasn't for that. That's what he knew to be the truth. Still, the sheer number of people he'd killed…

It wasn't the first time he'd had to kill people. On the contrary, being an Enforcer, it was kind of the job description. But the number today had been beyond what he'd ever done in the past. He'd routed a division of nearly ten thousand, and had killed nearly half of them in the process.

That was a horrifying thought to think about. But he couldn't that stop him. His job was to stop Zouken, and bring him to justice, dead or alive. He'd already seen a few corpses start being devoured from the inside, the people already being infected by Zouken's Crest Worms.

He'd burned them immediately.

Zouken had been through here, and that wasn't a comforting thought. If anything, that was even more worrisome, as he essentially had free reign over anywhere he pleased without worry of being caught. Now the main issue was actually finding the bastard.

With all of the chaos in the fighting, he hadn't seen hide nor hair of the ancient magus. And now, he had no leads. It was frustrating to say the least. Shirou wouldn't be able to do anything until he showed his face again.

For now though, he had an entire encampment full of corpses to deal with. As much as they were enemies, leaving them to rot in the open was something even he wasn't a fan of.


It took maybe three days of cleaning and hauling corpses back and forth. He'd dug a mass grave a few hundred meters away, and had Traced a cart he'd haul bodies onto. His Reinforced body could haul a total of around three hundred bodies at a time.

While this meant that it was trivial to carry them to the gravesite, it also meant having to pick up the corpses he'd left. Which was something that turned even his stomach. Usually, the Mage's Association dealt with the clean up of anything he'd leave behind during his hunts.

This was the first time he'd had to do so himself. But he was undeterred. The job was messy, but someone had to do it. Surprisingly, when he'd gone out to forage for food, he found that he'd recognized quite a bit of the wild plants he'd found as those from rural Italy.

It was another thing linking Rome to whatever this place was. Another thing was that he'd found a small village in the forest. He'd snuck around, careful not to be spotted and had listened in to several conversations when he realized they were speaking Latin.

Whoever they were, these people really were Romans in just about everything.

He'd had to leave quickly after that realization, as his nose picked up a rather potent scent of pure mana coming off of two people. An old man wearing a stereotypical wizard hat, and a blue haired girl. Magi, if he had to guess. Thankfully, he'd not found a Bounded Field anywhere in the small town, so that meant he was relatively unknown.

As far as he knew, at least.

His ears picked up sound from the Gate. He sighed internally in relief as one last look around confirmed that he'd gotten all of the corpses out of there. It would not do anyone good for the first thing to be seen are a near literal mountain of dead bodies.

A truck came on through the Gate, before stopping and letting out six green-clad figures. The JSDF had arrived in the New World.

"You're late."

In normal circumstances, Shirou should not be letting these people know he was here. But he had no choice, not anymore. The Romans, as he'd come to call them, were a hostile force bent on attacking Japan, to what goal, he didn't know. If he didn't work with the JSDF, then the possibility of being overrun was a very real possibility.

As powerful as he felt in the New World, he had no doubt that he was still no match for the full might of whatever kingdom, or empire, or whatever the Romans came from. He was still just one man.

So he'd work with the JSDF. He'd work with them to protect his country, and more importantly, Sakura, Rin and everyone else back in his hometown. He'd be damned if he couldn't even do that much.


A/N: If you like what I do and want to support me, check out my P-atreon at P-atreon•com(slash)Almistyor.

Special thanks to: jadrien pang. Your support really helps a lot. Thank you again.