Nasuverse Snippets from HELL

[SoulGriever13]

---
7 again
---

The black robe fluttered softly in the wind, the impervious quality it had displayed not moments ago seemingly gone as it settled around its wearer once more.

Well, this was ... he wanted to think, surprising.

He wanted to think, unexpected.

But really, that would be fooling himself.

It was ...

"Inevitable."

Two voices, as one, spoke.

***

"It was really inevitable, from that time three years ago, wasn't it?"

It could have been his voice ... but it could just as well have been the voice of the stone-faced man opposite, who stood beside the Servant Caster. Tohsaka really couldn't tell.

Since that night several days ago, she really didn't think she could be this frightened. She'd thought wrong.

There was no intent to kill, no malice ... from what she could see before, the two had always gotten along well ... unusually well for the stern and straightforward natured teacher and the calm, collected student.

But she knew, instinctively, that getting in between them now would mean death.

How could she have not seen this before? Of _course_ Kuzuki-sensei had been the one they'd been looking for. This wasn't chance, this was ...

"We're a lot alike, after all," Emiya said, still smiling that eerie half-smile of his, eyes glinting almost amber in the moonlight. "We're both of us covered in blood, so I'm not even going to ask if you know. It really doesn't matter at this point."

Kuzuki simply nodded.

"Caster."

"Saber."

The two Servants, either looking as confused as the other, tensed ...

"Stay out of this/Don't interfere."

... and blinked in disbelief.

"You too, Rin-kun." Emiya-sempai added after a moment, and Tohsaka understood.

Two Masters who really weren't fit for the role faced one-another over a field of concrete, under rolling clouds, and a blue moon as pale and translucent as if it were made of glass ...

It would be decided in one blow.

After all ... they really were so very much alike, in possibly the only way that really, truly, ultimately mattered ... Tohsaka Rin now recognized, and really wished she'd brought Archer.

A pair of perfect, first class killers.
---

 

[andaandyckas]

Whoaaaaaa....

Battle of Assassin.

How will it end? Don't Blink, cause you might miss it. *Hold Breath*

 

[SoulGriever13]

---
7 to the third power
---

The moon looks down upon us, as if scoffing at the foolishness, and the air is red with blood.

Or is it simply that I'm bleeding?

It hurts.

My shoulder is destroyed.

My collarbone creaks and cracks.

Fragments of bone that were once ribs make my chest look lopsided and rough, and my mouth and nose are leaking blood.

It hurts.

I like on my back, the torn pavement of the road digging into my back.

It's over.

In the blink of any eye, it was decided.

A shadow looms over me.

How?

Blood roars in my ears as I realize, and wonder ...

... that should have ...

... it was ...

I don't voice it.

Instead, what escapes me is a barely heard and unrecognizable rasp.

Heh.

Heh heh.

Hahahahahahaaaa ...!

I laugh, coughing up blood.

Magnificent.

It was magnificent from start to finish, and even though those were almost one and the same, it really doesn't matter - it's a moment locked in the forever of my mind.

In an instant, we both abandoned our lives and struck a killing blow.

I knew it.

Fast.

He is definitely faster than me. A certain-kill technique that was so impossible it came through any defenses unopposed. This isn't how he fights, this isn't how he wants to fight - I can see it in my mind's eye, but even with that, with his body denying it, the punch is flawless. Even with just that.

I knew it.

So I take the chance to take him down to hell with me, and kill the ground under our feet.

My knife goes flying as my right shoulder is pulverized, but the cracking, uneven, shifting ground offers ill footing and it _is_ my shoulder and not my head that is gone.

The follow up is even better.

This is how he fights, I see in an instant. This is his way, slowly, over time, like an insidious venom that wears the opponent down bit by bit to ensure a definite elimination.

But still ...

But _still_.

I am a spider, weaving in the dark, and so I move.

My ribs are gone as well.

I cough up blood.

We fall apart.

How?

How is he still standing when I ...?

"That was ..." Kuzuki Souichirou says, his face not blank. Under the light of the merciless moon, he looks like he's smiling.

And me, the one who is dead, the one who was dead, and the one who is dying, can only think - this is a good smile.

"A good," he chokes on the words, but his expression doesn't change. "A good night."

Kuzuki sensei falls to his knees, even as his arms are finally killed.

With a flick of the wrist and tracing my fingernails down the lines on his forearm and shoulder, only just, only barely, maybe only imagining it ...

I couldn't kill him.

It's not that I didn't try. It was like he knew, somehow, what I was reaching for, and I had to do this instead.

The point on his chest is still there.

I just couldn't reach it, so I killed his arms.

It wasn't any sentiment. That would have been insulting.

Here, I realize, is someone who is closer than I would have been to realizing Death without these eyes of mine.

"Emiya-kun," Kuzuki speaks in a deathly rattle. "Thank you."

I don't correct him. Instead, I reach up with my left hand, and stab my index finger at his Death.

It wasn't that I was the better man.

We were, neither of us, men at this point.

It wasn't that I was the better killer.

I was simply the more monstrous of two monsters facing off beneath this crimson air.

It hurts.

A crack.

A shifting.

Flesh crawls, even as my sister's final gift to me, given on another night like this, gives the final proof of inhumanity for this unnatural body of mine. Fire and steel, and the coppery taste of blood ...

It hurts.

He who was called Emiya Shiki slowly, resolutely, gets back up.

The night is still young.
---

 

[Megaolix]

...Can you hear it? Can you hear that sound in the distance?

It's the sound of Awesome that come from reading this.

 

[SoulGriever13]

---
7 that hopes to become a threadjack to bring back Miracle. I mean, damnit Grunt ... damnit ...
---

She is mute.

She is lame.

That is to say, she neither speaks nor moves.

In that moment, she does not even breathe, and is absolutely still.

She is too shocked for even reflex, which would be to run to her Master and assure herself of his survival.

It has been two days since she was summoned, and in that time she has fought only once.

It is a contradiction, that a Master should fight and put their life on the line before a Servant, and that a Master could decisively defeat a Servant on their own.

No.

Her Master himself is the contradiction.

In this short time, she knows him at least a little. She was confused at first, how someone so kind and straightforward could be a Master. She was struck dumb when she discovered her Master's dispatching of Servant Lancer the night before she was summoned.

This strange, kind boy who smiles and talks about not disappointing his 'cute kohai Rin-kun's' faith in him.

This bizzare, ridiculous killer who ends lives with the sort of casual ease others breathe with ... far easier than even a battle-hardened Servant and king like herself ever could.

And in his dreams, this blood-stained figure who looks in awe at the beauty of people being saved.

How is it possible for him to have summoned her?

The name Emiya is a hint, but otherwise?

Servants are heroic spirits, and the summoned Servant relies on both a connection and a ... a similarity with the person who summons them. A righteous person will summon a noble Servant. A twisted-minded person will summon one only fitting for themselves.

But he has summoned her, so this must be the case.

It is a certainty.

So ... what does being summoned by Emiya Shiki say about Arturia Pendragon?

The girl who had been knight, who had been king, who had been hero, thinks.

***

After I get up ...

My shoulder will be alive again soon, and I can already feel the ants crawling up and down my arm. I feel the stinging, burning furnace of my ribs crawling back towards where they should be. This ridiculous body is her gift to me and my burden to bear, but it's at least useful for this, Emiya thinks. Nanaya tries not to, since what it is is a sort of anathema to him.

Shiki is even a heresy against himself.

It hurts, but my body can still move. In this way, it is the most reliable part of the person called Shiki. As long as Shiki wants it to, it will move.

I haven't forgotten the one who attacked me the night before last. It's really the why of this moment. More than that, what this confrontation was was merely a prelude.

Still, if it's this enemy, I really can't win on my own.

But it's a little surprising ...

I look around.

I stop and blink.

The black robe is folded on the edge of the cracked pavement, shaking. Rather, the Servant within it is shaking.

Huh?

Oh.

Gravel, well, what's left of the surface I killed, crunches underfoot as metal-shod feet approach.

"Shiki?"

Saber sounds surprised at something, but I'm moving before she can come closer.

That's right ...

It's silly.

Rather, it is more like being stupid in this situation.

The snide 'voice' in the back of my head says this.

"I hate you," the black robe says, turning up to look at me with empty eyes.

I'm weak against crying girls.

Maybe it's something from what Kiritsugu said, maybe it's just something that was always with me, but it's simply that I don't know what to do.

Girls shouldn't be made to cry.

Said like that, it really is stupid.

The Servant that would have readily killed me, or worse, two nights ago is gone in Shiki's mind, and what's left is a person shedding heartfelt tears.

"I really, truly hate you," Caster repeats, but doesn't move.

'It is inhuman, so it must be killed,' something wants. I could finally put words to the feelings after I'd gone ... home ... two years ago, but I shake it off easily now.

If that is something that demands uncompromising death, then Nanaya Shiki should have stabbed himself long ago.

If that is something that demands uncompromising elimination regardless of circumstance, then Nanaya Shiki would not be keeping 'her' memory alive after all this time without even a moment of hesitation.

"All I wanted was to live with him, and make him happy, so I really, truly hate you."

But if there's no malice to those words ...

I really can't stop it. It makes me feel angry.

It makes me feel sort of insulted.

"He was better than me in that way," I say, tersely. "He was perfect, so he was only happy when he could fulfill his function. So don't _cheapen_ it."

I don't really know why it is I say this, but I feel she's done some sort of disservice to ...

Who was Kuzuki-sensei anyway?

Well, it really doesn't matter.

To him, this wasn't important, so I won't make it important to me.

What he was counted, until the very end. In this way, the thing that started when two killers met one-another for the first time years ago and pretended not to notice is brought to a worthy end.

For me.

The scream is what Emiya would imagine a heart breaking to be. The attack is clumsy, hasty, unplanned and rough, with no real force behind it ... it just wants to deny.

It's really sad.

It's really pathetic.

Even the still wounded body of mine can stop it, despite the fact that it is made by a Servant.

So maybe that's why this Emiya Shiki stands there, and lets it connect again and again ... the lamentation of a crying woman who is striking at his chest with her hands as she cries into his shoulder.

For a little bit ...

... just for a moment ...

I'll stand here and let it happen.
---


Did someone mention the Tohno Shiki effect?

And yes, the Tsukihime events did happen ... sort of. Just that, they were very, very AU and part of them ended with Akiha dying to keep her cherished brother alive.

-Griever

 

[Muramasa]

Tohno Gland strikes again...

 

[Shaderic]

Let's count who's probably been effected:
Taiga-sensei
Rin
Sakura
Saber
And now: Caster! If Rider isn't gone, she's in the mix too. that three servants, two mages, and a milf. That's six. If Ayako is still alive, she's in there too, so possibly seven.
You know what, while we're dreaming let's include Bazette.

 

[elric]

Grunt is indeed a bastard.
Will Lichking!Shirou take Ri and Sakura as the royal Concubines/cosorts? :drool:

 

[SoulGriever13]

And the idea that wouldn't die ...

This bit is directly on the day following Shiki killing Lancer.

---
7 isn't it sad?
---

I'm angry.

Maybe because the day started off on a bad note, and things just seemed to spiral downwards from there.

Last night was something both liberating and annoying, but I didn't mistake it for anything other than what it really was.

The signal arrow.

The starting gun.

It's the second time in my life that I've experienced it, but the feeling that settled over me as I walked back home was like an old friend.

Part of me is eager.

Part of me is anxious.

Part of me ...

... turns around and walks away as soon as it hears.

It sits through homeroom.

It thinks.

It evaluates.

I get up, gather my things, which is easily done as I did not bother with unpacking them, and walk out, ignoring any attempts at conversation made by my classmates.

Fujimura-sensei. Fujimura Taiga. Fuji-nee. An acquaintance, almost certainly an older sister to me ... I find her and ask her. She hems and haws a bit, before ...

"I used to be captain until last year, you know, so I'm pretty involved anyway."

I'm smiling as I say this.

No, it can't really be called a smile, even if it looks like one.

After I get my answer, I still need to stop by a classroom on the way. Then we can go.

There's not much of an argument, since I'm still smiling when I come in, and she knows all about smiles.

It's not too long a way, so we decide to walk. No words are exchanged.

By the time we arrive, it's late afternoon. We take our time, since hurrying wouldn't really change too much.

I'm still angry when we get there and enter through the main doors.

Ignoring the reception desk, we board an elevator. Fuji-nee gave me the room number earlier, so it's convenient that I don't need to speak with anyone.

There's nobody there, but that's just as well, and the door isn't locked.

We enter.

My companion wastes little time in going to the foot of the bed, while I stand beside the door and take in the scene.

Hospital.

The decor, the smell, and the atmosphere aren't likely to be mistaken for anything else.

I've never liked hospitals.

You could say I hate them.

It has nothing to do with why I'm angry enough to need to consciously restrain myself.

Emiya is in the back of my mind, because he's the one who's angry.

Body control. Emotional control. Focus. The other one keeps him in check. Keeps him from doing something that isn't calculated and deliberate.

I'm angry.

Looking at the figure in the bed, sedated and connected to monitoring equipment, I'm angry.

My companion is done quickly.

Well, she's only here because I can't afford not to be thorough.

She puts down the medical chart and looks up at me, smiling her old smile as she simply nods.

Tension drains out of my limbs as a matter of course, even though it's just a minute bit that made it past before I could contain it.

Tension is bad.

Tension makes you careless.

Tension makes you slow.

"Shiki-sama," my companion says as she walks towards the door, still smiling. Returning my smile. Or am I the one returning hers?

We know one-another's smiles by heart by now.

"Are you going to kill them slowly, Shiki-sama?"

"You don't even need to ask."

I reply, taking a last glance at the sleeping figure on the bed.

"Can I watch?"

"If not, I'll take a picture for you. It'll last longer, Kohaku."

We leave the recuperating Mitsuzuri Ayako to her rest.

I'm angry. Both of me are angry, for their own reasons.

Mitsuzuri Ayako has been someone I've called friend almost since the first time she set foot inside the archery range.

She's an important person to me, who has lost many important people.

She's an important possession to me, who has lost all possessions not just once, but many times. Only I get to break my important possessions.

Two trains of reasoning come from two different corners of my mind and arrive at the same conclusion.

'We're going to make whoever did this _wish_ for death.'

Judging by her expression, Kohaku agrees. Well, I knew she would.

It's only natural.
---

-Griever

 

[DKnight54]

Oh, Shinji-kun is SOOOOOOOOO fucked!

 

[nairit]

OOOOH Kohaku-chan!!!

*Ahem*

Sorry about, just my inner fanboy trying to take over me.

 

[Grunt]

:blink: How did I miss this?

Awesome work Griever :yay:

Miracle...uahh, yeah, I'm trying really...but somehow the end I had planned started looking pretty pathetic and now I'm revising and rethinking everything....

 

[Mercsenary]

Someone is going to die painfully for that...

 

[Megaolix]

Kohaku Win as usual.

Question: What does Archer think of him?

 

[elric]

:blink: How did I miss this?

Awesome work Griever :yay:

Miracle...uahh, yeah, I'm trying really...but somehow the end I had planned started looking pretty pathetic and now I'm revising and rethinking everything....

Try working on the Lichking!Shirou.

 

[SoulGriever13]

Right after 'isn't is sad?' ...

---
7 ways to win
---

"We're home!"

The door opens and closes. The walk back took long enough for me to cool my head a bit. Besides, there's really little I can immediately do about it ...

"Welcome back, Shiki-sama. Nee-san."

As usual, Hisui is there.

I say as usual, but it's both a little disheartening and not at the same time. Ever since I moved back here, and offered to take them with me, the two've definitely become better than they were at social things.

Actually, Hisui goes to school with us. She and Kohaku were placed a year behind me though, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure they're the same age as I am.

That's still an achievement, seeing as mostly, they're self-taught. That and a summer's worth of Fuji-nee's efforts at bringing them up to speed ...

They've been adjusting well, though I still almost never make it back home before they do. Hisui claims it just doesn't feel right to not be there to welcome me back, and Kohaku mostly goes along with it ...

We're sitting down to an early supper, which is mostly some quickly prepared odds and ends left over from yesterday's, when she asks:

"Ah ... did something bad happen, Shiki-sama? Nee-san? You look very serious today."

I share a look with Kohaku.

"We went to visit Mitsuzuri-kun at the hospital, Hisui-chan," Kohaku answers her sister's question simply. She really doesn't need to say anymore, given her tone of voice.

No, it's not that Kohaku's been keeping up pretenses, but more that she'd simply decided, at some point, that she liked acting happy most of the time.

She has a very serious tone of voice when she says this.

Before the tense atmosphere has a chance to really settle, though, we're interrupted by the usual:

"Shiiiiki! Nee-san is very cross with you for skipping!"

Or not so usual, as I don't really skip all that often. Well, not _that_ often. Maybe. A little. Sometimes.

Hey, life's too short to get bogged down sometimes. I should know.

The fearsome Tiger of Fuyuki's scolding of me is momentarily delayed when she's distracted by the food, though.

As neither myself, Kohaku, nor Kohaku's 'student' were here early today, it's not a very long distraction.

Come to think of it, -

- well, it's none of my business.

The moment I think this I want to smack myself in the head a bit or slam it into a wall. It really is my business, but I have other things to keep in mind. Like ...

"Fuji-nee, I'm going to be taking some time off from school starting tomorrow," I time this so that she's taking a bite when I say it. As a result, the interplay of hungry Taiga and outraged Taiga takes place, and the former wins out, sparing our eardrums.

She still glares at me a little though. I'll need to make it up to her by cooking something good tomorrow, I guess.

It happens after Fuji-nee leaves, and we settle down for the evening.

Clatter.

The lights go out.

The wooden chimes -

- clatter.

The world is bathed in odd unlight and time seems to freeze.

Or, Hisui and Kohaku do.

My limbs still move, thought they don't listen to me as they have me stand.

What?

I move through the darkened house, out onto the patio, and slide one of the glass doors open.

Stop.

Stop it.

Stop it before you are killed.

My body walks out into the yard, even as my mind strains.

Body Control. It's something instinctive, but ...

The darkness is ominous, and clouds cover the moon.

Early winter's cold seeps into the skin of my face and the backs of my hands like pins and needles.

A shadow waits among the other shadows of the yard, darkness coiled around it like a shroud ... or is that an actual shroud that simply enhances the darkness?

"So simple," the wind says. "Why would one as weak as you have a Conceptual Weapon that powerful?"

My mind realizes the situation before thought is formed ... and it helps that I've heard this before, from another source, on another night ...

Conceptual Weapon ... well, if you want to think that.

I weigh my options, calculate the risks, and decide the course of action in a heartbeat's time.

Rather, I did so as soon as I realized I was moving against my will.

I don't offer resistance, since it would only tighten the noose, but ...

Body Control is something instinctive that I learned how to use consciously. It's also needlessly complicated when you do it like that.

But it's not something you'd expect to be faced with, and not something that can really directly hurt anyone but the user themselves, so -

"Trace on," I mutter with numbed lips.

I analyze the sensation, visualize the effect, and reason out the cause.

A blueprint is created by my mind.

Pathetically for someone who wanted to follow in the footsteps of a magus, this is the only thing I can do in that direction.

Two perfectly useless abilities ... to anyone else.

To me, it's simply a tool to make conscious the processes that were purely instinctive before.

I insert the burning rod into my backbone and make a faux connection directly between my conscious mind and my right arm and face.

Muscles twitch.

I grab the muscles in my face and use them to dislodge my glasses.

Realize the location. Imagine the source, Conceptualize the cause, then Overlay ...

I look at myself.

My brain is turning into a collection of flashing lights.

QUICKLY! DO IT!

I see the point of connection, and the connection's 'point'.

My right arm's muscles tear as they move the limb without any of the brain's imposed limiters active, and the knife I'd palmed pierces it.

With a sound like the snapping of a thread, the connection between me and the magus disappears, and I let the 'nerve' go.

"What?"

Probably startled because I didn't use my 'conceptual weapon' but a simple tableknife.

I move.

My legs pump.

Retreat, reevaluate ...

I cover the yard in two leaps, as the night flashes alive and nearly scorches me.

The motion is instinctive. I know this place like I know my own body, and if it were somewhere else, I might not have a chance.

This enemy is just that strong. If I couldn't tell by just looking, I can certainly tell by the feeling of 'lines' crawling across my body.

When I look at their body, it reminds me of the man-thing I killed last night.

The realization of human/not human doesn't make it any easier, but ...

I change direction instantly, down to all fours ... all threes, since my right arm drags ... and perpendicular to my previous course.

It's almost enough.

The edge of the blast - something that looks like condensed electricity and feels like a sledgehammer - picks me up and throws me into the air.

SLAM.

Crash.

Thunkthunkthunk ...

I manage to shift my pain-numbed body enough to hit the door of the storage shed, but that's about it ...

I stop when I hit the far wall, and see stars for a moment when the back of my head hits said wall.

I'm out of my attacker's sight.

Which, I realize, would be good ... if they weren't throwing around enough power to just blow the shed to pieces ...

The last thing I see is a flash of light.

The first thing I see is ... blue?

And silver.

The shed's wall is gone, and the moon has come out from behind the clouds.

In the moonlight I see a girl in armor standing before me, the remnants of whatever my assailant had thrown my way crackling across the silvery metal of her cuirass and gauntlets.

"I ask of you."

A voice clear and powerful and beautiful like a bell.

"Are you my Master?"
---

Caster underestimates Shiki. Shiki _still_ gets his ass handed to him, even with Nanaya!Speed?, and is saved by the Deus Ex Machina.

-Griever

 

[nairit]

Hmm... Question, If Shiki was in the fire, then why are Kohaku and Hisui with him right now, and why exactly did he let himself get adopted by Emiya?

 

[SoulGriever13]

Hmm... Question, If Shiki was in the fire, then why are Kohaku and Hisui with him right now, and why exactly did he let himself get adopted by Emiya?

Because *points off to the side* ... oh, hey, is that some actual plot?!

*escapes*

*ahem*

Anyway, it's because I play fast and loose with the ages a little here, for one thing. I'm just going to go with the Arima family going to Fuyuki for holidays and ending up in that fire when Shiki was eight-to-nine, meaning almost immediately after he was sent to live with them after the 'accident'. Akiha was the only one to still insist that Shiki was alive (due to sharing half her life with him), but Makihisa ... well, we all know just how 'stable' Makihisa was ... so she was only able to actually find him once the Tohno patriarch had died.

Other than Fujimura, Shiki is pretty much by his lonesome at the time, as Kiritsugu is dead by then, so he takes the chance at unearthing some old memories and decides to go back to the mansion in his second year of high school.

Tsukihime event mishmash happens here, with a mix of Near and Far moon events and a halfway point of SHIKI being killed and Roa using that to take over and reconstruct the body. Ultimately, Akiha sacrifices herself to 'revive' Shiki via the transfer of the rest of her 'life'. Cue final battle against Roa. Afterwards, Kohaku and Hisui leave the Tohno mansion behind and move to Fuyuki with Shiki.

Two years after that, the Grail War starts ...

Yes, needlessly convulted, but I did invoke the Rule of Cool in the first snippet.

-Griever

 

[nairit]

mou, I wanted to see Akiha-chan. >.<

My next question is: Is there going to be Arcrueid and Ciel in this? I mean, you did say it was a mixof the Near and the Far sides of the moon.

 

[Eternity]

been rereading these.

Spotted something interesting in Griever's last one.

Kohaku has a student? is this Sakura by chance? this possibility fills me with equal parts terror and anticipation /laugh

all in all I'm eager to see where most of these continue.

 

[toraneko]

I suspect Sakura is Kohaku's student in cooking. Kohaku's skilled at both Western and Eastern dishes, after all.

Then again, she might be teaching Sakura how to kill Shinji and make it look like a suicide or an accident.

Either way, go Kohaku.


Speaking of her, I think she might indeed be less crazy than she was in the original. After all, all her "targets" are now dead.

 

[SoulGriever13]

@nairit: You really expect me to answer that? ^^

@Eternity&toraneko: The obvious answer is, in this case, the correct one.

As for Kohaku ... yes, that and being away from the Tohno mansion certainly helps. She's still not what anyone would really call _sane_, but she's good at faking it. And not nearly as unhinged as the other version knocking about in my head. That one is something I'm keeping for a special occasion.

Now, because I ran into some annoying nerd-rage while browsing a bit earlier today; next one in chronological order:

---
7 holy paths to hell
---

The momentary sensation of being somehow separated from the flow of events passes when the air becomes heavy with concentrated mana again.

Questions, it seems, can wait.

She explodes into motion with all the suddenness of a cannonball, moving with such speed that she appears as even less than a mere blur.

There is nothing deceptive to it. No element that would make the action seem as anything other than an advance, but it isn't a simple headlong dash either.

So, somehow, even lying here and looking on from the sidelines, I can tell ...

... she could be faster.

The black robe spreads and flutters on nonexistent wind.

Ozone.

Scorching heat.

Skin tingling and itching and a thunderclap that drives air from the lungs,-

...

...

-, the silver knight strides through it all without as much as flinching. There is an undeniable sense of purpose about her, and her every motion, that even the magics of my almost-slayer cannot derail.

Though not for lack of trying.

In the unreal starkness of night, with the light unnaturally filtered by the Bounded Barrier Field that the black robed assailant had spread across the grounds, the knight in silver and blue strikes.

Her hands hold nothing visible, but the shape of the attack, the motion of the body ... yes, what she is using is definitely a sword.

The invisible sword shatters past defensive sigils and slashes through the black robe with contemptuous ease.

Cloth tears.

Glass shatters.

That's what it sounds like as the knight's target is suddenly not there anymore. Rather, two pieces of woven shadow are slowly falling apart in mid-air as the artificial stillness of the Barrier Field is banished.

Or should that be, the Field was banished because the pieces are falling apart?

And it had been a powerful one, especially for something established quickly and without on-site preparations. I couldn't make even the least of these - the one that warns the people of the house here was Emiya Kiritsugu's - but I did know one or two things about them. Enough to draw conclusions. The one that had been laid on top of the house's detection ward had not only separated it from the surrounds, not only presented the illusion of reality to the outside ...

I look at the shed's wall and door, both still, or again, intact.

Reconstruction.

Or was that a shifted phase copy?

Either is impressive enough in its own right, even to the layman here who can't really do anything but identify them.

I stand, slowly.

My right arm is hurting quite a bit, despite my having instinctively disassociated my consciousness and perception from its state. It's warm. It's almost like the blood flowing through it was boiling it from the inside out.

But that has been normal for me for a while now.

It's almost comforting.

'Your stupid older brother has gone and gotten himself hurt again.'

I open the door to the shed, and I see her.

"Tch," says the knight. "No wonder. It was just a shadow."

Then she turns around.

I know I can't afford to, -

I know I really shouldn't be, -

Hair like spun golden silk, eyes of jade.

Her beauty is like an ever-distant utopia ... is what I'd like to say.

In fact, it's more than faintly nostalgic.

My right hand still hangs mostly useless, but my left is holding a knife and ... yeah, this definitely feels familiar.

Just what is it with me and killer blondes in the moonlight?

***
/disillusion goes here/
***

As expected, there is no sign of anything out of the ordinary having happened here. The moment the 'fake' magus was dealt with, and the kekkai broken, the damage was made to never have occurred in the first place.

That is, the damage not dealt to me.

Of course.

I'm not worried about that right now. It's in the back of my mind, so I'll be getting there eventually, but more importantly ...

"Master?"

Maa, don't say something like that with such a serious expression ... is what I want to say, but before I can,

"Shiki-sama? Where are you, Shiki-sama ...?"

Kohaku freezes as she steps out into the yard with her sister in tow.

"Stop!"

A momentary flash of _something_ on the knight's face has me saying this.

Was I seeing things?

No, I hadn't imagined that.

"Hisui, Kohaku," I say after taking a deep breath, wincing at the dull throb in my temples. "Get back inside, please."

With some hesitation, they do.

Good.

It was only a flash, but when they came out, I swear the knight had been preparing to respond to the interruption ... violently.

"You are a magus, correct? You summoned me, and you have the Command Spell on your arm ..."

The what?

I don't look down, instead bringing the one arm I can up, and there, on the back of my hand, three red sigils glow against the skin.

"Why don't you start from the beginning?"
---

-Griever

 

[nairit]

Just what is it with me and killer blondes in the moonlight?

Yay!

 

[nick012000]

Hmm... Arcuied has to repress the vast majority of her power, right?

Odds she could help Saber maintain her form after the Holy Grail Wars are over by helping her "recharging her prana"?

 

[SoulGriever13]

Hmm... Arcuied has to repress the vast majority of her power, right?

Wrong.

She has to _use_ the majority of her powers to suppress the blood drinking impulse ... which gets more and more powerful as she ages.

Plus, IIRC, that way to recharge magical energy only works if the two parties are of opposite genders. So no, that way wouldn't work.

Edit: There's a really obvious way of doing this available, though. Two, actually, with one not requiring much, if any, of the ol' bump&grind.

-Griever