"On three."

The ground was wet. Earlier in the morning, it had rained, and it was only in the late afternoon that the sky had cleared up enough. Enough to see the aftermath of the Second Battle of Alnus Hill.

Corpses.

Thousands of them. Human, demi-human, wyverns, and everything in between. Piled on top of each other. Burned. Limbs missing. Impaled into the ground with red spikes coming out of them. Almost every single one was dead, and those that weren't, were rushed to the medical facilities.

It was telling that Shirou only grimaced at the sight of it.

He had seen worse, as horrible as that sounded. His experiences in dealing with magi more often than not involved a lot of dead bodies. Either he had to clean them up, disposing of the bodies so that there was no tangible evidence for the mundane, or he had to clean them up by destroying them after they had become the puppets of a Dead Apostle.

It was gruesome work.

Therefore, it was only reasonable that someone like him, used to the corpse cleaning as it was, would lead the little group that was doing just that.

Of course, he knew that was only an excuse to get him as far as they reasonably could from the base.

"One, two, three." Two elves grunted as they lifted a dead wyvern. Already, he could see signs of deterioration, if only because he could smell it.

"Still usable." Hodor, having elected to come with them as well, observed the body with a clinical eye, "Put it in the cart."

"I'm guessing that you're going to be using the hide for better armor?" Shirou asked, even as the two other elves hoisted the body above their shoulders and onto the wooden cart. Hodor nodded, a hand on his chin.

"Yes, that and the meat will come in handy."

"You eat these?" The magus' eyebrows rose above his hairline. He was no stranger to eating exotic, but this had to be on a different scale. The blonde nodded, almost sagely, as he grabbed at one of the wyvern's motionless arms.

"If it's prepared right, you could probably live off of nothing but wyvern meat and still want more. You just need to roast it at the right temperature, and not too long before it becomes a bit too tough."

"...You'll have to tell me your recipe when we get back."

"Ha!" Hodor's laugh contrasted greatly against the backdrop they were in, as did the rest of their conversation, "You'll have to ask Tuka, my daughter knows a lot more than me when it comes to cooking."

"I'll be sure to ask later." Shirou chuckled alongside the other man. The levity in their conversation lingered for a while, even as Hodor and himself helped the rest of their group in hauling bodies. They fell into a rhythm, sorting through the bodies and laying them all into various piles.

One, for bodies that were mostly intact. Those would either be buried or cremated.

Another, for bodies that were unrecognizable. Those ones would need to be identified first.

And another for severed limbs. That the last one was getting larger and larger made Shirou scowl at himself, though he refrained from speaking out. Such was the reality of war. Cruelty, regardless of whether it was intended or not, would happen.

"Just so you know," One of the other elves spoke, a younger looking male, not that Shirou could accurately guess their age. For all he knew, the elf was over three thousand years old, "I think the men in green are wrong. You're a hero to us."

"I'm sorry?"

"The men in green." This time, it was Hodor who spoke, a frown on his lips, "We overheard them talking to one another - these ears aren't just for show, you know - about how you're a monster."

"But you're not." The other elf shook his head, "A monster would've left us to die to the Red Dragon, not gone up in single combat against it."

Shirou shrugged, "Frankly, I don't particularly care for their opinions." He had been called worse, "They're all entitled to their beliefs, as much as you or I are. That being said, thank you for your words."

That was all entirely true. Shirou, more than perhaps anyone else in the Clock Tower, was the target of more than one harassment campaign. With his status as a Japanese citizen, the nobles of the Clock Tower had looked down on him. They saw him as nothing more than a pathetic upstart that had wormed his greasy way underneath a similarly worthless student.

That he was an apprentice underneath Rin, who herself was the Kaleidoscope's student, didn't matter.

That Shirou had proven himself against several extremely dangerous Sealing Designates didn't matter.

That he had been recognized by the Queen of the Clock Tower, Lorelei Barthomeloi, didn't matter.

None of it mattered to them, and when all of their words of derision fell on deaf ears, they had resorted to more and more violent methods of getting rid of him.

First, sly intimidation. More than what Shirou bothered to count had come up to him to discreetly threaten him. None of it worked. It was hard to be intimidated when he had faced the sheer presence of Herakles right in front of him.

Then, came the assassination attempts. He had to admit, the escalation to straight up murder jarred Shirou when it first came to light. Up until Rin explained that this was admittedly pretty common, and was a miracle they had even waited this long to do so.

All in all, as much as people were offended on his behalf, words coming from strangers didn't matter as much when compared to assassin after assassin coming out of the woodwork trying to kill him.

Shirou blinked as a drop of water splashed against his eye. With a look upward, he sighed in annoyance. The clouds had gathered again, and the smell of ozone was prevalent, "Let's head back. Not like these bodies are going anywhere." Hodor had started frowning as well, noticing where Shirou was looking.

The rain came down hard.

With another sigh, Shirou made his way towards the cart. Ignoring the protests of the elves, he pulled at the card. The wyvern bodies made for a heavy load, and Shirou was somewhat surprised when he couldn't pull it as easily without Reinforcing himself.

He wasn't about to brag about it, but he knew he was relatively strong compared to the normal human. The cart only had around five intact wyverns, and yet, it felt as if he was carrying a lot more. A questioning glance at the ranger was met with a grin.

"Heavier than it looks, huh?" The elf made a motion with his hand and the protests of the two others died down. They instead started to help clear a path from the quickly muddying ground, "Things are dense, especially their scales. Must be some sort of inherent magic that helps them lift themselves from the ground."

"Must be." Shirou agreed as he started pulling. He could feel his heavy boots slosh in the mud, "Must make some fine armor with their scales, I presume?"

The four of them slowly made their way through the battlefield. The rain was getting even worse. The ground became stifling, the cart getting stuck more than once. Shirou had eventually decided to just Reinforce the entire cart, fearing it might break from the amount of force pulling it out of the mud repeatedly.

They were around halfway through when Hodor held up a hand. Shirou could see the elf's ears twitch, before he turned with a frown. He motioned to one spot, gesturing in a way that Shirou had learned was shorthand for 'lift that up'.

The two other elves, as Shirou hummed to himself as he realized he hadn't even bothered to ask their names, obliged without question. Shuffling through a bunch of limbs, and several bodies that those limbs may have belonged to, they came across quite a sight.

It was someone. Someone alive. Important too, going by his armor. Whereas most of the enemy forces wore relatively light armor, this one wore full plate. Gleaming red, stained only by the blood that flowed from a stump of an arm. Furs, ones that were more than luxurious, around his neck, with an eyepatch covering one eye.

Hodor whistled, even as Shirou prepared to use his Structural Analysis, "I'll be damned, I recognize that armor. We've got the King of Elbe on a silver platter."

With his magecraft, Shirou could see exactly what happened. The man, Duran, truly was the King of Elbe. He had donned the armor quite a while back, all the way from Elbe, and had not taken it off since. It was built to last, despite its flamboyant appearance that a good archer would take notice of immediately. Made of high quality steel, the kind that you would be worth ten times its weight in gold. Not only that, but it had numerous enchantments on it, runes inscribed on the underside of the leather.

A set of armor fitting for a warrior king.

Except it had one issue. Or several, depending on how you look at it.

It was made with fighting in mind. That the wearer would be fighting at the front lines. It would withstand blow after blow from even the strongest warriors. Swords and arrows wouldn't even scratch the surface of it.

And it lived up to that promise. Despite the ruin around it, the armor was perfectly intact. Certainly, the worst parts of it only looked like a bit of soot had stuck on it stubbornly, with it probably coming off with a good scrubbing.

The same could not be said of Duran himself.

The armor protected him from shrapnel, but it didn't protect him from the shockwaves that came from being almost directly hit by an 81mm mortar shell. The amount of force that the armor was able to withstand was impressive. The human body, not so much.

Nearly the entirety of the man's left arm had been pulped, having taken the brunt of the explosive. Then came the left leg, barely attached by a small sliver of flesh. It was a gruesome sight, made all the more impressive that the king continued to breathe.

Without another word, Shirou Projected a small sword. It shot upwards, going into the sky before exploding in a shower of colored sparks. Though the JSDF were wary of him, they were still obligated to come help.

"So, are we killing him then?"

"No." Shirou leaned down and started inspecting Duran's injuries. It was one thing to look at it through the clinical lens of Structural Analysis, it was another to see it in person, "We'll be taking him to the clinic, first off. Then he'll likely be held as a POW."

"Ahhh. Political hostage, got it." The three elves with him nodded sagely, and no matter how much Shirou wanted to deny that, he realistically couldn't. Capturing an enemy king like this usually was very political, and it would likely have some repercussions that he didn't know the extent of.

He just didn't particularly care. Too many had already died for this. Too many because of him and him alone. If he could truly save someone, then he would take it.

"So, Zelretch-san, welcome back!"

"It's good to be back, Hinamori-san, and it's wonderful to see everyone feels the same way!" The crowd cheers and claps, the grin of the old man infectious.

"Now, onto business. When you came on last week, you were telling us about the many thought-of fictional stories that turned out to be true."

"Yes, I remember that very much. I also remember you fangirling over lion girls after that." The audience laughed alongside the hostess.

"Can you blame me? You showed us a picture of Atalanta-san, after all!"

"True, true. I must admit, I'm more partial to fox girls myself." Another round of laughter.

"Anyway, last week you mentioned that you knew Emiya Shirou-san fairly well. Our viewers want to know, do you have any stories to tell about him?"

"Hmmm. Well, I suppose there's one or two things I can tell." There was an audible shuffling from the audience as everyone shifted in their seats.

"Please, do tell. I'm sure our audience will very much appreciate it."

"Let me think…Ah! I've got one. Do you know of the Black Forest in Germany? Well, it started with…"

"Hinamori?"

"Zelretch-sama!" The woman bowed deeply as the old man walked towards her. They had finished the show around ten minutes ago, after a good two hours of talking.

"How are the sales?"

"Up by over a quarter from last week, sir." She told him as she stood up as she spoke.

"Good. I want a report on our financial status on my desk by the end of the week. And schedule a special interview on Saturday."

"As you wish, sir."

"Good day, Hinamori."

"You too, Zelretch-sama."

As the man glided out of the room, Hinamori let out a shuddering breath. When the man - and she was fairly certain he wasn't even human - approached her all those weeks back, she hadn't thought that she would need to do all this.

She had expected the man to make a move on her. She was fairly attractive, and Zelretch was likely the second most known man in the world by then, next only to Emiya Shirou. People like that would often get what they want when they want it. She was prepared to vehemently deny him, her hands already on her phone, ready to start recording.

She hadn't expected him to offer her a job.

She still didn't know why she accepted.

Overnight, Hinamori became a household name. She became the face of her own talk show, all because she interviewed Zelretch. The amount of viewers in that first night was staggering, and Hinamori almost had a nervous breakdown on stage. She was just a salarywoman, for God's sake!

And yet, weeks later, here she was. Making more money in a single night, from selling merchandise and whatnot, than she did in an entire year.

Hinamori didn't know what she did to deserve this, but she wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Especially when all she really needed to do was portray both Zelretch and Emiya in the best light possible.

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

And a special thanks to: Oliver vazquez, brutalcrab and Tassimo. Stay safe out there, storms are getting worse and worse.