The world darkened as the clouds hid the moon once again.
A young fae was running as fast as could be. Fear gripping his heart. The sound of something slowly moving behind him filled the park air. Shirou could feel its eyes on him. It's intent to kill. He dare not look back at it. He had to look forward. Focus on not running into the trees, not the terror.
It was a miracle that part of his mind was still calm. The panic – the fear – was proof that he could still survive. If there was no hope, he would've felt nothing.
The calm part of his mind did its best to think and analyze.
He still had the trash bag in his left hand. It would have been wrong to leave it in the park. Thankfully, it was light enough to not slow him down.
Running the way he came wouldn't work. The thing was in the way, and there were people in that direction. He couldn't let people get hurt –
A shill scream came from behind. Composed by the voices of dozens of children tied as one. Anger. Rage. Sorrow. Unnatural. Wrong. Soul Piercing.
Blue eyes glance backward, instinctively pulled by the sound. So familiar was it.
It still couldn't be seen in the dark night – no, it was more than that. The world grew darker around the monster. The color of a night sky that never knew stars.
He could now see two eyes, both wrong. Equal parts beastial and hateful and dark.
Shirou couldn't stand their stare for more than a moment. His eyes turned forward.
If he ran this way, he would be less likely to run into anyone. He could avoid the monster through the alleyways. The creature was slow. It had to work.
His wings tensed, and they began to move forward and backward. Instinctively, he wanted to fly away. There was the danger of someone seeing him, but he knew he would be able to get away from the monster – at least for a bit… then again, it would've been better to play it safe. Kiritsugu taught him not to take such dangerous risks.
Shirou continued to flee on foot, reaching the edge of the park. A street in front of him, the modern buildings extending as far as he could see. There were no people around.
The fae didn't look both ways before rushing across the street, running and running, crossing into an alley and then another, and moving down street after street at top speed. He could sense the monster growing more distant.
Eventually, he couldn't continue. His breathing was harsh and irregular. Shirou had to stop, moving into an alleyway. Inhuman eyes searching for the monster.
It wasn't in sight.
He'd somehow escaped, right?
Shirou leaned against one of the walls of the alley. His entire body shaking. Slowly, he slid to the snow-covered ground, dropping the trash bag right next to him.
What was that creature? Looking into its eyes filled him with endless terror. He knew he had to run, or it would kill him. End him.
It wasn't a matter of will or strength. It was a truth that assaulted his soul. Curved its way into his instincts.
How was he supposed to deal with that monster?
Shirou looked at the way he came, noticing the footprints he had left in the snow.
It could track him if it wanted to. Chase him down and kill everyone around Shirou. He couldn't let that happen. His sister, the Fujimura Group, and anyone else. He would have to be an idiot to go to the cops.
He was on his own against something whose mere presence made him flee. But he wasn't powerless.
Shirou closed his blue eyes and fell back into his mind. The little bits of knowledge he'd gained since his transformation biting at the corners of his mind.
The warmth remained from when he first awoke from his sleep. No, that was wrong. He didn't wake from anything. It was more like he dreamt for the first time, filling him with heat to burn away the cold. Yet making the chill all the worse.
There was information he knew that he could use to defend himself. He just needed to put it together, then he could take out the creature…
'No, hurting others is wrong.'
Shirou's eyes sprang open. His hands gripped some of the snow beside him.
He was more than ready to kill the monster. Kiritsugu had mentally prepared him to be capable of killing humans, much less something so wrong. So why did he feel a great repulsion at the idea of harming it? Did it matter?
"It has to die, or it will hurt others," Shirou told himself as if conversing with himself. A feeling of calm washed over him. The repulsion he felt slowly ebbed away.
He should have expected this. The world is messed up, and it was only a matter of time before he faced something horrible. Worrying about it or moralizing about it was pointless. What mattered was doing something about it. He needed to plan –
Shirou paused as he felt something. The monster's presence was at the very edge of his senses. Drawing closer.
Shirou tensed, pausing for a moment before grabbing the trash bag and standing up.
The monster was still chasing him, and he didn't have a plan to deal with it yet. He needed to run until he could make one.
Shirou turned and ran out of the alleyway, leaving through the end opposed to the one he entered through.
The first street was thankfully empty. There was a large trash can on the far end. Shirou threw the trash bag he was carrying into it as he continued to flee on foot.
Shirou had a vague idea of where he was but didn't know where he should go. After thinking about it for a few moments, Shirou decided to head toward his home. To get there, he would have to cross the big bridge that connects the two halves of Fuyuki. It was a visible place that stretched on for a large distance to connect the city split by a river. The monster probably wouldn't want people to see it, and Shirou should be able to see it before it gets anywhere near him.
The boy began to run toward the bridge. There weren't any people in the street for some reason. Instead, Shirou could see people or signs in some of the buildings he passed. None of them noticed him running through the street. At least they wouldn't be in danger as long as they were inside.
Shirou turned a corner, only three or four turns before he could get on the bridge's walkway. The monster hadn't caught up to him, but Shirou felt it was still following him from a distance.
He went on to the large red bridge's walkway. Its bright lights seemed like they were trying to blind him. A chilly wind from the river blew past him as he slowed down to catch his breath. He continued to walk down the bridge, glancing back to see if the creature was in sight. It wasn't. It seems like he's bought himself some more time.
Shirou's wings slowly swooshed back and forth as he walked. Sensitive to the frigid wind as they were, they were starting to feel uncomfortably cold.
The fae paused as he reached the halfway point of the bridge. His blue eyes looked down at the dark water below. The light of the bridge illuminated only part of the river before it turned into an unbreakable darkness.
His new eyes could see so much more than they could before. The currents of the water seemed to move slower than they normally did. Shirou could see the individual beams of light defusing into the water. A large cargo boat was moving down the river; it had already passed under the bridge. Probably stopped in the harbor before going more inland. The containers on the ship's paint seemed twisted, slightly off. A foul odor rises up from it.
Shirou continued to look down into the river as he tried to plan how to deal with the monster.
He didn't know anything about it or its abilities. Shirou would have to plan about what he could do to the monster rather than what would work against it.
What could he do?
When he drew that circle, he felt the warmth inside himself changing. It made it easier to use. He would have to use this to make the spell work, or at least make it easier.
He also remembered when he tried to use the spell on the courtyard. He needed something to target something? No, that sounds slightly wrong. It was more like trying to define what was affected.
The understanding of how to do that slowly came to him. What he could choose to affect becoming known.
The next thing he needed to consider was what he could do –
Shirou's thoughts were interrupted by a sight he saw in the water. Hidden within the ripples left behind by the cargo ship. Something dark.
Shirou's fae sight focused on it, perceiving it.
A long and slender body shrouded in darkness. What little could be seen were scales, tainted. The being was slumbering. Corrupted and corrupting.
It wasn't 'here,' but it was 'there.'
Feeding upon the boat as it moved downriver. The ends furthest from the boat slowly began to fade from sight. Soon, the entire thing would be gone.
Shirou leaned forward, pressing against the ice-cold bars of the bridge's guardrail, hands gripping it. Curiosities led to him trying to get a better view of whatever was below him before it disappeared.
Was it a threat to the people of Fuyuki? Did it need help? He wanted to stop it if it was a threat to people, but if it was in need of help, he wanted to help it. It might look like some evil, corrupted being, but it could just be in pain, after all. He hoped it just needed help. A hero's job is to help those in need first and foremost; defeating evil is secondary.
Before he could get a better look, though, Shirou felt someone bump into him. It would have knocked him down if his hands were holding the guardrail.
Shirou turned toward the side with an annoyed expression. Instinctively, his wings ended up pressing against each other rather than staying in their normal position.
He was met with the sight of three grown men walking down the bridge. They had a disheveled and sickly look that only grew worse the more Shirou looked. There was something off with each of them. One was too big for his skin, while another was too small and had too much skin. The other seemed to have too many teeth.
The fairy looked at them and noticed something other within them. Darker, but not as horrific as the monster…
Shirou felt annoyance within himself. He somehow let his curiosity get the better of him and completely get sidetracked from what he was doing. He was normally more focused than that.
And he didn't notice these wrong people approaching. Now, he had to deal with them quickly before the monster appeared.
"You brat," the biggest man spoke, anger in his voice. "Stop blocking the damn road."
Shirou almost said something sarcastic in response but stopped himself. He was alone with three men who clearly weren't normal and probably were messed up. Even if he was on a public bridge, annoying them wouldn't be a good idea.
"Ok," Shirou responded, keeping his eyes on the men at all times. He wasn't going to let them out of his sight.
One of the other men scoffed, glaring at him. The man took a step or two forward, placing himself on the other side of Shirou. "You think that's good enough. Someone aught to teach you manners."
Shirou tensed as he saw the darker thing that coursed through the man seem to grow in pleasure, and the thin man started to grin in turn.
Really, what was wrong with these men? Walking into him and then blaming him for it, threatening him, and obviously planning to do something worse.
He didn't want to have to do what he was about to do, but given the current situation, it was the best option.
"My guardian is Taiga Fujimura of the Fujimura Group. They wouldn't forgive harassing someone under their protection," Shirou told them. He hated having to use the Fujimura name. It wasn't something to be used lightly, and even if they weren't bad people, they would treat threats harshly. Far more than Shirou would want. And to have to rely on someone else left wrong to Shirou. He much preferred doing things on his own whenever possible.
Shirou watched the expressions of the three men, expecting them to back off. Only they didn't.
The one with too many teeth smiled wider than what should've been possible. A hint of hostility filled the air. "Oh, The local yakuza group? I wonder if they'd really care about a snot-nose brat like you."
Shirou glanced around, noticing that he was completely boxed in and unable to escape. There wasn't anybody within eyesight either.
"A creepy bastard too," the man with too little skin for his body added in, taking a step toward Shirou. He, in turn, tried to take a step back but ended up stopped by the frigid railing right behind him.
The newly emerged fairy was repulsed as the man looked into his eyes. The window to his soul grew darker.
Shirou had no clue what to do as the man grabbed his shoulder. He tried to escape the man's grip, but it was too strong. His grip painful.
"Yeah, what I would give to pluck out his eyes," the smallest man said, taking a step forward.
These people were insane. They didn't seem to care about the possible threat to their lives or persons. And weren't hesitating to try to hurt him.
"Let go," Shirou yelled as he tried to free himself again.
"Shut it," the man used his other hand to grab Shirou's neck while releasing the boy's shoulder. The man with too many teeth easily lifted Shirou up and slammed him against the railing.
Stars filled Shirou's head as he became dazzed. Choking while the world spun.
"We don't got time to deal with this," One of them – Shirou could tell who – said to the others. "Just toss him so we can go."
"But I don't want to. I haven't had any fun in a while," one of the men responded.
Shirou tried to claw at the hand, choking him. The men continued to talk, but Shirou couldn't make up what they were saying. It was impossible to breathe. The world was growing dark.
Then.
The boy felt his body move. The cold steel guard rail no longer ground against him.
The grip on his throat disappeared. He gasped for breath. He was falling. Falling. Falling.
Shirou blinked as he realized he'd been thrown off the bridge. He could see the wintry river approaching.
His mind ran faster than it ever had before. Everything not related to survival was ignored. He needed to slow down before he hit the water.
Blue and gold wings began to flutter, slowing him down. He tried to fly toward the coast of the Miyama part of Fuyuki. He was moving toward it, but not enough. He was almost at the river.
Then.
Pain filled his wings. The cold of the world lashed out at their warmth, twisting them.
A shout of pain escaped him.
He hit the water.
It hurt. Like running into a wall.
His body was still one. Not a single drop of blood was spilled. The fall weakened by his short flight.
But.
The river was frigid. Enough to kill.
His body hurt. Everything was a buzz. He was descending deeper. The darkness of the night river surrounded him.
Shirou struggled, through will not thought, to swim up. His body protesting.
Freezing water was in his lungs. He kept his mouth closed no matter what. He couldn't let more in.
His arms felt broken as he swam up. Broken wings dragged him down. Their weight made it harder to rise.
He still struggled. The surface of the water grows closer. The currents slowly dragged him to the side, disorienting him.
The surface broke, and Shirou coughed. Water trying to escape as he simultaneously tried to gasp for air.
The fairy didn't wait. Adrenaline pumping, he tried to swim toward the Miyama coast. The pain grew meaningless. The cold didn't matter.
He just needed to reach the shore.
Shirou swam, and he swam. He didn't know for how long. He couldn't. But he reached the coast.
He pulled himself onto the concrete that lined the river. He didn't bother looking where he was or what was around. His arms held him up as he lay on the ground.
Shirou coughed, more water escaping. It tasted wrong, polluted, disgusting. It was like he was vomiting up laundry detergent.
His arms gave out, and he fell next to the water he had just spit up. The snow that covered the concrete slightly weakened the fall.
Pain returned in tandem with the cold.
His red hair was soaked in cold water that dripped down his body. Clothing, soaked and tainted, reinforced the deadly freeze.
The boy shivered. The warm energy within didn't help with this cold.
His blue eyes stung from the water. It felt like half of his body was broken.
Shirou's breathing slowed as his mind slowly returned to him.
Struggling, he turned to look at his wings before anything else. His stiff neck hurt as he forced it to move despite the pain.
His beautiful wings were unnaturally twisted. Rather than the blood and gore you'd expected from a human limb being twisted like a Twizzler, it was more like misshapen play-doh. Distorted into a form that left them completely broken but whole.
The newly emerged fairy had to look at them for a few minutes before the sight registered in his mind. His expression morphed into sorrow. He had only just gotten his wings, but seeing them like this felt like he lost something that was always a part of himself.
Did this happen because someone saw him flying? Maybe even the men that threw him off the bridge? Was the world so cold as to destroy his wings for something as minor as that?
Shirou slowly turned away from them, returning his neck to its previous position. The pain never left him as he did so.
He kept his eyes open, refusing to close them for anything other than to blink. He couldn't fall asleep here. It would be so easy to, but he didn't know if he would wake up if he did.
Shirou didn't have any fury or rage to latch onto to keep himself awake. All he felt was an empty sorrow. A melancholy pit of nothing.
His fight with his sister. Doctor Aki's words. His childhood home was replaced and forgotten along with all the others that once lived there. The defamed monument. That creature of despair. People willing to toss a kid off the bridge for no reason. His wings broken.
It was all so awful. Crushing.
Shirou shivered on the snow-covered ground, feeling so cold. It felt like all the cold in the world was trying to enter him and suck away all his warmth. Yet, he still tried to stay awake. The pain felt a little less than it did before.
He didn't want to give in. Losing wasn't something he could accept.
Shirou suddenly let out a cry of pain. His wings were filled with agony. Shirou could feel them slowly shifting against his will.
Shirou's consciousness teetered on the edge of nothingness, being pushed to fall by relentless suffering assaulting him.
The wings were so sensitive, like the nerves of a tooth.
The fairy clinched the snow beside him, holding back another scream.
He wouldn't lose consciousness. He wouldn't lose consciousness. He wouldn't.
Shirou turned back toward his wings. His neck was still stiff and painful but slightly less so. It was nothing compared to the burning pain radiating from his back.
His wings were slowly shifting unnaturally, untangling themselves. He could feel each movement every time his wings bent the wrong way. It was so gradual yet excruciating.
He couldn't do anything but take shallow breaths as it continued. He wanted to take deeper breaths but couldn't. His body didn't let him.
Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain. Pain.
It continued on for who knows how long.
His body stopped shivering, the feeling of the snow around him growing less acute.
Shirou watched his wings, the pain in his neck almost gone. They were almost back to normal.
Shift. Pain. Twist. Pain.
The fairy let out one last moan of suffering as his wings returned to normal. Their glow was no different than before they were twisted. Despite the immeasurable pain he suffered, Shirou let out a small smile at seeing his wings fixed.
Struggling, he slowly sat up. His body was still unnaturally cold but not in nearly as much pain. He felt sluggish.
He pulled up his damp sleeve to look at his arm. It didn't hurt, but there was a slightly blue hue to parts of his arm.
How did he heal so quickly? Was it because he wasn't human anymore?
Shirou shook his head, accepting it. It didn't matter why he healed; only that he did. He hadn't lost anything; everything endured the pain.
The blue-eyed fae looked around. There were benches and a few snow-covered trees. He noticed a path leading into Miyama town. It was impossible to get a general time from the moon since it was blocked by the clouds blanketing the sky.
Shirou stood up from the ground, stumbling as he did so. His frigid, waterlogged clothing and hair weighed on him.
At least he wasn't shivering. That must mean he wasn't dangerously cold, or he would still be shivering.
The boy stumbled once again as he took a step toward the road but managed to balance himself. As he walked to the road, he slowly regained the ability to walk normally.
The creature. Those men.
He didn't know how long it took him to heal, but it had to have taken a while.
There was no way to know if the men who threw him off the bridge would chase him or if they knew he lived. He could worry about them later.
Shirou coughed before he reached the walkway. He didn't recognize the part of town he was in. The buildings were shut down. They looked more like businesses than homes. He would have to wander around a bit until he figured out where he was.
The creature that chased Shirou shouldn't be able to chase him. If it happened to see him fall from the bridge, it was unlikely that it could tell where he reached land. There were no tracks for it to follow him. He would have to find a way to track it in turn, but it meant he had time to plan without being chased by the slow-moving creature.
The fae felt the river water within his shoes swishing. His numb feet were trapped with it by his soggy shoes and socks.
Considering his situation, Shirou decided to go back to the Emiya residence to change his clothing.
Shirou slowly made his way through the streets. He didn't figure out where he was until he started to walk to get a feel for where he was. The Western-style houses told him where he was. They were all massive buildings built in the style of Western homes rather than Japanese, like the Emiya estate. He would have to go across Miyama town to reach his home.
Shirou coughed as he looked around, continuing to walk in what he hoped was the right direction as he did so. He had never noticed how repulsive the pointed fences were before. They seemed to suck the color around them, destroying it more thoroughly than even the buildings from before.
Something about them was fundamentally repulsive to the fairy. Shirou did his best to ignore that feeling as he made his way down a street lined on both sides with those vile fences. A small amount of nausea filled his stomach.
Shirou stopped at a crossroad with three ways to go: forward, left, and right. He needed to figure out which was the right path.
The freezing boy looked around the three paths, a single dim streetlamp illuminating the crossway. Based on where he thinks he is, the right path might be the way to go, but –
The red-haired fairy stopped thinking as he felt a familiar feeling fall over him. Anger. Despair. The monster was approaching.
Shirou turned his head around. The smell of ashes and corpses filled the air. Down the street, he had just walked through was an ashen, skinless hand made up of random fingers gripping the walled corner. The main mass was hidden just out of view. Creeping slowly around the corner onto the road he was on.
There were two streetlamps between where Shirou was standing and the monster. Both were so dim as to barely light up more than the bare minimum under them, leaving huge swaths of darkness.
Shirou's body reacted slowly to his command to run. Sluggishly, he turned and ran in whatever direction he happened to.
His tired body ran left, for it felt like the right path to take.
In his wet clothing, he ran nowhere near as fast as he originally did. But he hoped it would be enough.
Shirou's breathing wasn't steady as he ran down the left street. He only managed to get a minute or two of running before he heard the sound of a scream – made up of dozens of voices. One of pain.
Shirou turned to look without thinking. It didn't matter where the scream was coming from or whose it was; it was a scream of pain, and thus he couldn't ignore it.
The streetlight he had been under had been knocked down, leaving the area dark. But Shirou could vaguely see a monstrous outline that was darker than the color of night writhing in pain.
Blue eyes widen in surprise at the sight, a bit of relief appearing in the unnatural iris.
How was the monster wounded?
Shirou started to run again while keeping his eyes on the creature to figure it out. It took him a moment, but he spotted it.
Just as the monstrous outline was partially visible due to it being darker than the night, the thing that injured the creature could be seen because it was duller than the darkness of night. A fence post was on the ground in front of the creature, possibly accidentally ripped off by it.
Did it somehow hurt the monster?
Shirou looked away, focusing his senses on running away.
If whatever the monster used was effective against it, then maybe Shirou could exploit that weakness…
If only that idea didn't leave him feeling appalled. Whatever the monster was, it didn't deserve to be killed by something so sinister. Something so… so… banal.
The logical human half of his brain thought that was stupid. They should exploit the monster's weakness, as Kiritsugu would, to kill it and protect people. The dark part of his mind agreed as well. Yet, both of those things mattered little to the former human.
The brighter side of his mind was already bending to let him hurt the monster. It wouldn't accept using whatever that fence was made of to hurt the monster, even if it meant death. The conviction formed and expressed itself through Shirou's emotions, coercing him via the heart.
The fairy's tired blue eyes blinked as he put the fence out of his mind. Rejecting it.
Shirou kept running, almost stopping when he heard the same scream again, but this time, he managed to not look back.
For a moment, at least.
He heard something going through the air.
Shirou turned to try to see what the cause was. He wouldn't make it in time.
A tormented howl escaped his mouth as he felt something go clean through his upper shoulder, leaving a near-circular hole. It had only barely missing his wings that were being together behind his back. The object thrown pierced the ground in front of him. He could see the flesh that had been gouged from him and pinned into the ground, whatever color it once had gone entirely.
It was the old metal fence. The pointed iron rod had been thrown with an inhuman strength to hit him from far away.
It took everything Shirou had to not collapse right there.
Some of the warmth within his body had been forcibly stripped from his flesh. A wound left in its wake that seemed to burn and blister. Hives instantly broke out around the wound.
The fairy stared at the bleeding wound for a few seconds before it truly registered. He almost put his hand in it to see if it was real, but then he heard a roar—no, more like a laugh—from behind him.
The pain was horrible. His body felt frozen. There was a horrific wound in his shoulder. But he had to run. So he did on nothing but willpower.
He was forced to flinch as he ran past the fence. His hand brushed against it, the mere act damaging it. The blistering wound mixed with the bluish hue part of his hand had taken on.
Shirou ran. Ran. Ran. Ran. Ran. Ran. Ran. Ran. Ran.
The monster should have caught him. His body should have given out, but he didn't stop.
Running. Running. Running. Running. Running. Running. Running. Running. Running.
His eyes widened as the black forest came into sight. The woods around the temple.
He ran into them, hoping to hide. He looked back to see where the monster was, but it wasn't in sight.
Why? He couldn't have escaped it in his condition, no matter how slow the creature was. So, why wasn't it behind him? Why hadn't it caught up and killed him?
Shirou's eyes widened as his frantic mind came to the only possible conclusion.
He fell onto his knees, only a short distance into the snow-covered forest.
It was playing with him.
That was the only thing that made sense to Shirou. The monster wounded him like an animal and let him go to slowly chase down. To inflict the maximum amount of pain and suffering.
Shirou began coughing. Blood covered the area around the shoulder wound on his left side. His left arm barely listened to him.
He needed to… he needed to… he needed to… he needed to…
Shirou's right hand went up to his shoulder wound as quickly as possible. Dipping it in the blood. The cold from the fence still lingered within the injury.
The circle that made magic easier.
He needed to heal himself quickly.
The way to do so filled his mind. Unburdened by the obstacle of rational thought since he could barely think at this point.
Understanding, he drew a circle with his blood in the snow before him.
The circle represented spring, the beginning of the cycle of seasons. The most powerful and only one that mattered.
He imagined the spell. The embodiment of life. The water of life from which all sprung.
Where does he affect? Himself?
No, that didn't feel right. Shirou directed the spell at the snow within the circle of his blood.
Shirou barely felt the warmth working, hidden as it was under pain and numbness. His mind was barely capable of understanding what was happening, even without those two things.
He reached down and ate the snow within the bloody circle. A feeling of warmth spread through his entire body. Pleasant and comforting.
Unlike the painful healing, he felt his body peacefully mending itself.
Shirou blinked, suddenly finding his mind calm and put together. The sudden transition was jarring.
The blue hue of his skin returned to normal as his body temperature returned to what it should've been. His breathing no longer felt restricted and messed up. The hole in his shoulder slowly closed up, and the entire process was soothing.
By the end, the only signs of his injuries were his still damp and freezing clothing, the bloody hole in both sides of his shirt, and the marks on his hand from… when it hit the fence as he was running.
Shirou stood up and ran.
Everything after being speared in the shoulder got slightly fuzzy, but he could still remember a few things.
Realizing the monster was toying with him. Casting the spell. Where he was.
Shirou shuttered as he suddenly felt the darkness of the monster behind him. It was already behind him. Did it know he cast a spell, or was this just the moment it decided to hunt him again?
He could hear the sound of it chasing him, moving behind him.
Shirou didn't look back at the monster as he focused on running through the forest of dark trees. At least, until he felt a build-up of heat at his back. The sound of the creature moving behind it stopped. The world lit up behind him.
The fairy turned to look.
Flames gathered around. Burning everything around the creature. The creature's body wasn't there. Instead, there was just fire. No. Within the flames, Shirou saw death. Burning. Corpses. Destruction. Nothing left. Everything gone.
Shirou felt the memories of the fire rising to the surface. Everything he lost. His breathing increased. Rapid.
He turned and ran again, not waiting.
The fire started spreading. Burning everything, even the snow. The forest caught fire. It would all burn.
A cry, the sound of fire, came from the monster behind him. Announcing the destruction.
Shirou ran as fast as his healed body could. Trying to outrun the flames and smoke. The unnaturally spreading flames moved too fast. He couldn't let the fire consume him, or the monster get him, or he would die. But it was faster than he was.
The fire reached his shoe. The flames burning it.
A familiar pain he hadn't forgotten – from that day – hit the back of his foot. He could feel his flesh cooking. Agony.
The Fae almost stumbled but managed to right himself by flapping his wings.
He couldn't fly through the trees. There were too many to easily fly through with wings as large as his. He needed to go above the tree line, but that risked someone seeing him.
Shirou only just endured his wings being destroyed and the pain, but if he didn't, then…
Blue eyes quickly glanced at his burned foot. He couldn't run with it. His only option to survive is to fly.
Shirou made his decision to fly up, hoping no one was looking into the forest and the smoke would cover him if they were.
The fairy moved faster while he was flying, and he didn't have to worry about the trees. Shirou flew as low to the tree line as he could to lower the chance anyone saw him.
Shirou glanced back as he flew as fast as he could. The fire was spreading, moving so fast. It was impossible to tell where the monster was within the inferno. He couldn't pick it out among the flames, even with his inhuman sight. The creature probably wasn't near the edges of the flame unless it suddenly grew faster, but that didn't narrow it down much.
He glanced forward. The temple was far in the distance. It wouldn't be long till they saw the fire.
Shirou coughed, the smoke causing his eyes to water. Where should he go?
He couldn't keep this chase up. All it would take was one person to destroy his wings and kill him, and his wings couldn't keep flying at this rate for long. He doubted he'd be able to make it to the temple before being too tired to fly.
He needed to find somewhere to hide between where he was and the temple. It was his only option.
Shirou flew up, escaping the smoke and flames for a moment. Risking only a few seconds to look for someplace to hide. Scanning everywhere, he could see only one place to hide.
The cave he explored the day before.
It was close enough that he could reach it with his wings, and it had an escape. The tear in the world. He didn't know where it led, but it wasn't leading the monster directly to a place Shirou knew had people. It was his only chance to escape and protect lives.
Shirou decided to take the chance he saw, diving down and flying at top speed. He could feel them heating up and growing tired as he did so. Protesting the movement.
The fairy quickly reached the cave and entered it. He was forced to stop flying once he was a few meters into the cave. His burned foot rang in pain as it touched the cold cave floor. The corruption still ran through the entire cave. Trying to enter him but failing.
Glancing back, the fire was approaching. He didn't have much time.
Shirou pushed through the pain in his foot to run down the cave path. He felt the pain of each step, the uneven and sometimes sharp ground trying to cut into it but somehow never being able to.
He just needed to make it down this cave path.
A small amount of relief filled him after a few moments of running. He couldn't hear the monster chasing after him, the heat of the fire, or the suffocation of smoke yet. The creature must not have been as close to Shirou as he thought or something, or it would have already entered the cave.
Shirou managed to reach the tear in reality. The dark forest on the other side. He found himself pausing despite the emergency.
A sense of wonder broke through as he was about to enter through a tear in reality.
Shirou's wings fluttered as he decided to fly in and immediately go over the trees and thorns that surrounded the clearing on the other side.
The fairy took flight and entered. As he crossed the threshold between worlds, everything changed.
His senses heightened, nowhere near the dream he had of the garden, but still more than a human could comprehend. It was like everything was one degree beyond his colored sight of the human world.
His body felt free from a prison he never realized was there. He felt slightly faster, healthier, and more energetic. Tiredness lessened. A mist within his mind dispersing the tiniest bit.
The fairy's soul felt a primal connection to this world. One that laid frayed and unused for over a millennium.
Shirou Emiya didn't find himself questioning the feeling. It felt genuinely natural, so why would he question it?
He barely managed to maintain his flight as the change happened, rising further into the air. He flew over the trees and thorns that surrounded the clearing. Blue eyes surveying his new surroundings.
The night sky was clear, but there were three different moons in the sky, one in each of the cardinal directions except for the west. Each was a different color: silver, red, and yellow.
The tear was in the middle of a clearing, meaning there was no cave or even a hill on the other side of it. There was just the corruption that Shirou now felt affecting the land around the portal. Before, it never could truly enter him, but now he could feel the cave's taint through his connection to this world.
Shirou felt a bit of anger, enhanced by the world he now inhabited. He couldn't do anything about it now, but he wouldn't forget about it.
The fairy continued flying above the trees until he couldn't no more. The trees of the forest he was in were so close together and connected by thorny vines that he couldn't risk resting on the ground. Instead, he ended up stopping on the top of one of the trees. There were a couple of trees far thicker and taller than the other, with branches tick enough for him to sit on. He chose the closest one to take a break from.
He sat upon the high-up branch, a dozen or so meters higher than the top of most of the trees. His eyes were focused on the direction he had just come, looking for any sign of the monster.
Shirou slowly caught his breath after the exertion of flying. He glanced down at his burned foot. The flesh was scorched. The few moments of flames gave it what looked like second or third-degree burns. Yet, he watched the flesh heal bit by bit before his eyes. The process would take a while, but it would get better.
His gaze turned toward his wings. Their appearance had only grown more beautiful and otherworldly in this different world. Shirou could feel how hot they were from the efforts of flying and the inferno they escaped. Fatigue made them heavy.
He rubbed his wings, ignoring the concern he had about them getting messed up. If they could heal from being twisted into a pretzel, a touch wouldn't break them.
There wasn't any sweat on them.
Shirou frowned in displeasure. Sweat helps people cool down, but he doesn't think butterflies sweat, and it doesn't look like his wings do, either. So, how did he cool them off?
The fairy glanced down at his shirt.
The flames had dried most of his clothing, but his shirt was still damp. He didn't want to risk the time it would take to take off his shirt to use it as a coolant rag, but his sleeves might help a little.
He attempted to use his soggy sleeves to cool his wings by running his arms against them. The feeling of cold against the sensitive, warm wings was soothing, but it only helped a little.
With a frown still on his face, Shirou glanced back toward the portal in the distance.
Where was the monster? It shouldn't take it so long to chase him into this world. Was it toying with him or something?
He didn't want to wait to find out.
Shirou considered the issue with his wings for a few moments.
The cold air in this world would help them naturally cool off, but it would take a while, and they get fatigued quickly. So, waiting for them to return to a normal temperature wouldn't be good when the creature could appear at any moment.
His mind flashed back to when he was thrown off the bridge and almost drowned – two facts he chose to throw in a mental box for now and process later. He managed to slow himself down before his wings were messed up. Maybe he could try that again.
An idea formed in the infant fae's mind.
If he flew high enough, he could glide down or, at the very least, flap his wings less, letting the cool air chill his wings before regaining altitude. As long as he didn't try to do the flying equivalent of running, it should work. He also wouldn't have to worry about the monster getting them up there.
There was the issue of someone seeing him and his wings getting messed up again, but this wasn't the world of humans. It was somewhere else, one that his new form was meant to exist in. Shirou not being able to fly made no sense.
After a few more moments, Shirou decided to go with the plan.
The fairy wings clapped together before he intentionally fell off the tree branch he was sitting on and started flying up. He made sure to do it at an angle so that he'd move further away from the tear in reality as he did so.
He stopped once he was 100 or 200 meters up in the air. He would probably try to go higher for now, but he'd rather try gliding first. Rather than flapping his wings as fast as he could, he began to sustain himself by clapping his wings together and making slow but powerful lifts with his wings. The action, mixed with keeping his wings out, let him glide over the dark forest.
The place he was flying over wasn't particularly pleasant—in fact, some parts of Shirou found the whole place abhorrent—but the act of flying felt great. The chill wind in the air did wonders for his wings.
Shirou began to slowly climb into the sky, climbing several hundred more meters into the air. He did this to make it harder for the monster to track him – and not because he just felt like it.
The fairy looked down on the forest, flying past it without much thought or planning. He just took in the sight. One of calm and silence.
Shirou let out a breath and closed his blue eyes.
A sense of calm filled him. From up here, nothing could hurt him. He could safely figure out how to deal with the creature without danger or interruption.
Shirou opened his eyes again.
The dark forest was gone. Completely. Shirou was somehow somewhere else altogether.
Of course, because nothing can go right.
There was no forest—or land—below him. Just a flowing sea of water seemed to flow in every direction, including up. None of the water reached as high as Shirou was at this point, but he could see the water going as high as six—or seven-story buildings. Circular tubs of water entered and exited the vast expanse.
An island – not as good as the one from his dream – was a distance away. It was a large island, with blue palm trees littering it and sand that seemed to glow like diamonds. The sun…
Shirou looked up and noticed instead of the three moons there was now a small sun in the sky. From what he could see, it looked like it was the size of a house, but it somehow seemed to be brighter than the Earth's sun.
The fairy looked back down at the island and thought that he could see people on it. It was difficult to tell due to the distance, bright sun, and blinding sand.
He didn't know how everything changed in the literal blink of an eye, but whoever was on that island might. And at least the bright sun, along with the ocean level of water, would be helpful against the monster if it appeared.
Shirou slowly descended down to the island. A small hope in his heart that this doesn't end in him being attacked or almost drowned.
AN:
Hello! And welcome to another… well, this is at the end, so I shouldn't be welcoming you to another chapter if it's over. Thanks for reading!
This chapter was difficult to write due to me not being good at chase scenes or long 'action' scenes like this, but I still wanted to practice them. It wasn't the best, especially toward the end when I wanted to wrap up the scene.
I set out writing this chapter with some goals:
Establish the creature/monster as something Shirou mentally and physically can not fight yet. It is slow enough for Shirou to possibly run from, but it will chase him down and brutally make him suffer in the worst ways it can. Toying with Shirou to do this. I honestly found it difficult to write it as scary/something whose mere existence is enough to drive even Shirou Emiya, of all people, into running, while Shirou could run from and 'escape' from it several times. But I hope it came out all right. Also, the reason the monster didn't change Shirou into the cave was that it wasn't stupid enough to run into that cave, its animalistic instincts knowing there was something horrible – even by its standard inside. Instead, it was waiting outside for Shirou to emerge so it could continue to torment him.
I also wanted this chase to exhibit all of Shirou's weaknesses. Due to the fact that he has (is) Avalon, he has the advantages that brings in WoD terms. This means he can regenerate, is essentially unkillable, and nothing can spill his blood. At the same time, anything that doesn't spill blood is fair game. Drowning, Fire, extreme heat, or cold are all things that can kill him because they don't spill blood. The restriction against bleeding can also be bypassed by cold iron, which, in this case, goes with the C20 definition of it being wrought iron along with iron ore, which also counts.
It should be noted that his wings being messed up is a result of him being seen, but that is a unique issue with wings/things without a 'real' world counterpart and not something that would happen if he uses magic in front of people, especially with the protection of the mist.
Also, I depicted the Well of Life spell – the spell Shirou used to heal himself – as more powerful than it probably should be by removing a gaping shoulder wound caused by iron ore along with most of his other injuries, but seasonal arts are meant to be super powerful and rare, and I wanted to demonstrate that.
Fun fact: The being Shirou saw in the water wasn't something I made up or comes from the WoD. In F/HA, Issei mentions that an angry dragon god is said to live in the river that runs through Fuyuki, and it is the duty of spiritually powerful monks to put it to sleep for generations. It's not clear if this is just folklore or not, but given the Red Riding Hood story from F/HA is used in F/SF, as well as the nature of the WoD, I thought it would be interesting to include it. Especially since in the scene where the dragon god is talked about, Shirou even thinks about how the pollution in the river must be affecting the dragon if it's real, which just fits perfectly. (10/9, 'towards the school festival' if anyone wants to check the scene.)
Also, thanks to all the guest reviewers who wrote reviews. I can't respond to them directly, but they were still nice to read. It was nice to read people's reactions, and I will consider some of the speculation/ideas included in them.
Have a wonderful day, everyone! And see you next time!