Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Dead Apostle Apostle ( Chapter 7 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Zekk_Skywalk 
The Dead Apostle was merely an apostle.
Anime/Manga: Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Fantasy / Hentai / Drama / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.29.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 405 | Status: Completed
The Dead Apostle was merely an apostle.
Anime/Manga: Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Fantasy / Hentai / Drama / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.29.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 2.7K | Visits: 405 | Status: Completed
AN: Random bit of nonsense: Rin needs to join Ouran Academy, marry Kyouya Ohtori, and together they will rule the world as Sorceress and Shadow King. That is, if they aren’t already related, considering their similar sleeping habits and personalities. That’s all I could think when writing one of the scenes here.
I’m seeing a great number of hits and favorites but not a lot of reviewing. Even if you just wanna bitch, please, click the thingy at the end and comment!
Escaping Fate
Chapter 6
Dead Apostle Apostle
I woke up to the throbbing of my hands.
It was actually the surprise of sensation that woke me. After returning home, Tohsaka had dipped bandages in some kind of solution and wrapped them around my palms and wrists; the sensation I felt then had instantly numbed. After applying the same to my stomach wound, we had both retired to our rooms and I found sleep to be easy after that.
My side was a little sore, but my hands felt rather prickly, so I carefully climbed out of my futon and decided I would roll it up later.
Unfortunately, the exertions from the night before caused me to sleep in, and although still fairly early in the morning, I could smell food already being prepared. After changing clothes—I hadn’t bothered to change from the night before—I went out into the living room to seek the purple-haired witch that had beat me to the kitchen.
Tohsaka, of course, was not a morning person. Yumi was somewhere in what I thought to be the “normal” range, as she did not wake up first thing in the morning, nor did she laze about if given the chance like Tohsaka. While it was after when Yumi normally awoke, considering it was the weekend I figured she would sleep in to make up for anything she had missed while school was in.
Sakura, of course, was just as much of an early-riser as I was and was well on her way toward finishing preparations for breakfast when I made it out. I poked my head into the kitchen, though she didn’t seem to notice, her back turned and humming slightly as she rolled fresh nori.
To save people so they could be happy was my warped happiness, but I don’t think anyone could begrudge me when I say that Sakura’s happiness was also mine.
“Morning, Sakura,” I said.
The humming ceased and she glanced over her shoulder, blushing slightly. “Good morning, senpai. Breakfast is almost ready.”
“I can see. Sorry I didn’t make it up before you.” I gave her an exaggerated frown. “I wish you would let me at least handle your weekend breakfast since you always insist on doing it for the rest of the week.”
This time, Sakura leveled an even stare at me. “Senpai, do you think I would let you bleed all over the food you wanted to make?”
I blinked, then glanced down at my hands. “I don’t think they’re that bad…”
Rolling her eyes, Sakura turned back to finish the nori she was preparing. “At least go replace them first, and wake nee-san. I’m certain neither of you have eaten since you left last night.”
“Okay, okay…” I grumbled. Whenever Sakura asserted herself like this, I also couldn’t help but listen. Compared to the person I had first met, one even more introverted and closed down than Yumi, I thought this forceful personality was probably more than a good thing.
On the flip side, sometimes I wish Tohsaka would lighten up.
My morning greeting of a pillow to the face was not exactly enjoyable, especially considering it was forceful enough to topple me floorward.
When the morning demon had been awoken and convinced to help me replace my bandages, she followed me back into the living room like a lost specter, a spirit of malice who couldn’t kill me because they wavered to and fro far too much.
Yumi was still absent, and when I popped my head into her room to check on her, found her still fast asleep. I tried waking her, though she merely mumbled in her sleep and rolled over, even after some prodding and promises of food. I decided she could afford to be lazy one day out of the week at least and didn’t press her further.
“So you wake me but leave her? I definitely got less sleep!” Tohsaka grumbled.
Yes, but the tradeoff of getting to see you in your morning glory is enough equivalent exchange where any beating I gain is paid for and more.
“Well, maybe this is a good opportunity anyway,” Tohsaka continued, sipping at the tea Sakura provided for her. “We can decide what we’re gonna do about a Dead Apostle showing up.”
Sakura paused halfway in putting the miso soup on the table. She looked as confused as I felt. “What do you mean, nee-san? Didn’t you and senpai defeat what you set out to?”
I started to answer, but Tohsaka raised a finger. “Shirou, did you notice anything strange about the vampire’s actions?”
“Besides its head reattaching itself?”
Sakura gaped at me.
Tohsaka shook her head. “I don’t mean its abilities. Last night was close to a full moon, so that much was possible in the first place…I’ll explain that later. No, I mean, how it behaved.”
There really wasn’t much to consider. It popped out of nowhere, staggered the both of us, and probably could’ve killed us if Curtana hadn’t held it in place. Tohsaka’s jewel magic was still suffering from the Grail War and even the explosion she had caused last night had been far short of the ones she had blasted Berserker with. I had a feeling she might have been holding back a little bit, to see if I could come up with something that would work, but, well, that was certainly a gamble…
“I can’t really think of anything,” I admitted.
Tohsaka leveled me with a stare. “You didn’t think it attacking us without provocation was strange? Or that it hadn’t attempted to feed on those kids we found in the park?”
Sakura gave us a bit of a wide-eyed look, and nodded. “It just attacked you? Like that?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that what they do? I mean, the whole ‘lure in a target with sex appeal’ doesn’t happen in real life, right?”
Both sisters shook their heads, though it was Sakura that spoke up. “But if a vampire was looking for prey, it would have still tried to isolate you. They don’t live as long as they do without being cautious.”
“You sure seem to know a lot about their behavior,” I said, surprised. Sakura rarely seemed to care much about magical concerns, even after ousting herself as a magus.
“All of my skills revolve around the sealing of elementals and the like,” Sakura admitted. “I’ve never had any reason to use it, but, a lot of information was provided for me on creatures it would work on, including living dead.”
Tohsaka had closed her eyes and crossed her arms, a sullen look on her face. “Anyway, Sakura is right in that just attacking us like that was uncharacteristic. Even though it wasn’t a full Dead Apostle, they’re usually smarter than that…and so I had to wonder, as it wasn’t a full Dead Apostle, whether it was commanded to do so.”
“Huh?”
The Tohsaka-sensei Lecture™ was back in full force, and I tried to refrain from rolling my eyes. And grinning. “There are a lot of inconsistencies about that vampire’s actions if it was old and strong enough to regain its head last night. That means it was certainly a vampire that bordered on the strength of a Dead Apostle. But if that were true, it probably wouldn’t have accidentally stumbled across the Ryuudou boundary field. And it certainly wouldn’t have just leapt into a brawl with us. A vampire of that age would have been able to detect the former and know better than to be sloppy enough for the latter.”
I nodded at that much. A hundred year old creature that would have had to avoid Church Executors and the like certainly would have to know its magical lore. And know not to attract undue attention with its attacks; if it were playing smart, it could have had those two lovers we had run across without us any the wiser.
“But then, I had to wonder too, it struck me first. Seems odd, if it were picking a fight, to go for the girl first, right? Unless it knew I was a magus.” Tohsaka gave a thin-lipped smile. “In certain cases, you’re certainly more dangerous, Shirou, but to a creature that can detect od or magical circuits, I probably seem like the bigger threat.”
“Well, in most ways, you are the bigger threat,” I said, and I had to revise my earlier thought. Though Tohsaka had not recovered all of her jewel magic since the war, I had no idea what she had learned from the Association. She could’ve gleaned any number of things to compensate for the slow process of jewel creation in the meantime.
“So again, we’re back to an inconsistence in the vampire’s actions. But what if it were being controlled? Vampires not yet Dead Apostles still are bent to the will of their sires. Rather like a Servant that takes stupid actions because their Master is stupid…or because the Master is purposefully using them in a reckless way. Like Kirei using Lancer, since he never intended for Lancer to win the war.”
She covered it up pretty well, but I think the Master-is-stupid comment was directed my way.
Well, I wasn’t the one that had to use a Command Spell just to make my Servant listen to me, miss perfect.
“So you think a full Dead Apostle was controlling its actions just to test us out?” I asked.
Tohsaka nodded. “It makes sense to me. And what scares me is that it could have such control over an older vampire, one that can regenerate under the moon.”
“Again with the moon. What was that?”
“It’d take a lot to explain, but all Dead Apostles and their offspring are modeled after a power source from the moon. Those closer to Dead Apostle Ancestors—the oldest and best of the lot—are prone to being stronger under the light of the full moon. In most living dead, it doesn’t particularly mean anything since they haven’t been around long enough to resemble that power source, but one that has lived a long time…well, you saw it.”
Ugh. “So if all that is true, the Dead Apostle master is going to be even stronger than the guy last night. But why? Why here, now, us?”
“I’m not sure. Since they attacked me first, and not you, though, I also want to think that it has something to do with my family’s reputation. They might just be after me, period, and didn’t expect someone like you.”
While we had been talking, Sakura had absently been setting the table and was finished by this point. Tohsaka started in on her meal after a quick acknowledgement, and I had a feeling she welcomed the distraction. Or the excuse not to continue on that train of thought while she ate.
That dull throbbing from my hands earlier now struck my brain.
Stronger than the one we fought.
I glanced down at my hands. I could certainly heal them faster if I Traced a certain scabbard*, but the constant reliance on that would just earn me a faster death, really. That vampire was certainly not on the level of a Servant, but its master…
If I was going to do anything, I would have to surpass what happened last night.
“Assuming my theory is correct,” Tohsaka said, as if she couldn’t help herself, “The Dead Apostle will come for the next full moon, when its powers are peaking.”
And if I was going to surpass what happened, I’d have to do it fast.
That night, I went to Ryuudou Temple.
While the rest of the day was spent uneventfully fretting over the possibility Tohsaka had posed and trying to keep it from showing in front of Yumi, I decided I was going to clear my head and get started on that next hurdle-mountain in my way.
I went late enough that Issei and the others living there would be if not turning in for bed, unlikely to come out to do anything. The grounds were silent and peaceful with none of the sense of foreboding that had permeated the place during the war. Damage from Saber and Gilgamesh’s battle had long since been repaired, and the boundary field had also done its job in purging the mutation of evil that Angra Mainyu had created in the soil and lake.
But it was not hard to imagine that night.
Here, I had saved Illya’s life. Here, I had taken Kotomine’s life.
Here, I had set my eyes on the most beautiful sunrise.
All of my dreams were embodied here. To save, to sacrifice, and to see it all reflected in one who was like me, like everything I wanted. A brandished sword.
This body is certainly made of swords, and I needed to find a way to brandish them.
“I am the bone of my sword.”
I had to find a way to make real what was within me.
Omake
“I guess I never did thank you for being the one to kill it, and saving my life,” Rin said.
Shirou stared at her. “Uh, you’re welcome, but you don’t need to thank me.”
Rin slid up next to where he sat on the porch. “But I still need to thank you properly for us to be even. So, Shirou, is there anything you want me to do? Just this once, I’ll do anything.”
Shirou turned red.
“Anything at all, just this once. I’ll carry out any order or wish you make. Whether it’s world domination or eternal life or defeating Saiyajin sent to destroy the world, I’ll do it.”
Blinking, Shirou raked his mind for where that sounded familiar…
“After all, I’m a tsundere character.”
Shirou sighed. “Yumi never should’ve shown you anime.”
Rin dramatically put her hand to her forehead and swooned into Shirou’s lap. “Should I wear only an apron and make you breakfast? Isn’t it the desire of all men to view that from behind?”
“I’m going to throw the tv out next chance I get.”
Converting /tmp/php3qvdLn to /dev/stdout
I’m seeing a great number of hits and favorites but not a lot of reviewing. Even if you just wanna bitch, please, click the thingy at the end and comment!
Escaping Fate
Chapter 6
Dead Apostle Apostle
I woke up to the throbbing of my hands.
It was actually the surprise of sensation that woke me. After returning home, Tohsaka had dipped bandages in some kind of solution and wrapped them around my palms and wrists; the sensation I felt then had instantly numbed. After applying the same to my stomach wound, we had both retired to our rooms and I found sleep to be easy after that.
My side was a little sore, but my hands felt rather prickly, so I carefully climbed out of my futon and decided I would roll it up later.
Unfortunately, the exertions from the night before caused me to sleep in, and although still fairly early in the morning, I could smell food already being prepared. After changing clothes—I hadn’t bothered to change from the night before—I went out into the living room to seek the purple-haired witch that had beat me to the kitchen.
Tohsaka, of course, was not a morning person. Yumi was somewhere in what I thought to be the “normal” range, as she did not wake up first thing in the morning, nor did she laze about if given the chance like Tohsaka. While it was after when Yumi normally awoke, considering it was the weekend I figured she would sleep in to make up for anything she had missed while school was in.
Sakura, of course, was just as much of an early-riser as I was and was well on her way toward finishing preparations for breakfast when I made it out. I poked my head into the kitchen, though she didn’t seem to notice, her back turned and humming slightly as she rolled fresh nori.
To save people so they could be happy was my warped happiness, but I don’t think anyone could begrudge me when I say that Sakura’s happiness was also mine.
“Morning, Sakura,” I said.
The humming ceased and she glanced over her shoulder, blushing slightly. “Good morning, senpai. Breakfast is almost ready.”
“I can see. Sorry I didn’t make it up before you.” I gave her an exaggerated frown. “I wish you would let me at least handle your weekend breakfast since you always insist on doing it for the rest of the week.”
This time, Sakura leveled an even stare at me. “Senpai, do you think I would let you bleed all over the food you wanted to make?”
I blinked, then glanced down at my hands. “I don’t think they’re that bad…”
Rolling her eyes, Sakura turned back to finish the nori she was preparing. “At least go replace them first, and wake nee-san. I’m certain neither of you have eaten since you left last night.”
“Okay, okay…” I grumbled. Whenever Sakura asserted herself like this, I also couldn’t help but listen. Compared to the person I had first met, one even more introverted and closed down than Yumi, I thought this forceful personality was probably more than a good thing.
On the flip side, sometimes I wish Tohsaka would lighten up.
My morning greeting of a pillow to the face was not exactly enjoyable, especially considering it was forceful enough to topple me floorward.
When the morning demon had been awoken and convinced to help me replace my bandages, she followed me back into the living room like a lost specter, a spirit of malice who couldn’t kill me because they wavered to and fro far too much.
Yumi was still absent, and when I popped my head into her room to check on her, found her still fast asleep. I tried waking her, though she merely mumbled in her sleep and rolled over, even after some prodding and promises of food. I decided she could afford to be lazy one day out of the week at least and didn’t press her further.
“So you wake me but leave her? I definitely got less sleep!” Tohsaka grumbled.
Yes, but the tradeoff of getting to see you in your morning glory is enough equivalent exchange where any beating I gain is paid for and more.
“Well, maybe this is a good opportunity anyway,” Tohsaka continued, sipping at the tea Sakura provided for her. “We can decide what we’re gonna do about a Dead Apostle showing up.”
Sakura paused halfway in putting the miso soup on the table. She looked as confused as I felt. “What do you mean, nee-san? Didn’t you and senpai defeat what you set out to?”
I started to answer, but Tohsaka raised a finger. “Shirou, did you notice anything strange about the vampire’s actions?”
“Besides its head reattaching itself?”
Sakura gaped at me.
Tohsaka shook her head. “I don’t mean its abilities. Last night was close to a full moon, so that much was possible in the first place…I’ll explain that later. No, I mean, how it behaved.”
There really wasn’t much to consider. It popped out of nowhere, staggered the both of us, and probably could’ve killed us if Curtana hadn’t held it in place. Tohsaka’s jewel magic was still suffering from the Grail War and even the explosion she had caused last night had been far short of the ones she had blasted Berserker with. I had a feeling she might have been holding back a little bit, to see if I could come up with something that would work, but, well, that was certainly a gamble…
“I can’t really think of anything,” I admitted.
Tohsaka leveled me with a stare. “You didn’t think it attacking us without provocation was strange? Or that it hadn’t attempted to feed on those kids we found in the park?”
Sakura gave us a bit of a wide-eyed look, and nodded. “It just attacked you? Like that?”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that what they do? I mean, the whole ‘lure in a target with sex appeal’ doesn’t happen in real life, right?”
Both sisters shook their heads, though it was Sakura that spoke up. “But if a vampire was looking for prey, it would have still tried to isolate you. They don’t live as long as they do without being cautious.”
“You sure seem to know a lot about their behavior,” I said, surprised. Sakura rarely seemed to care much about magical concerns, even after ousting herself as a magus.
“All of my skills revolve around the sealing of elementals and the like,” Sakura admitted. “I’ve never had any reason to use it, but, a lot of information was provided for me on creatures it would work on, including living dead.”
Tohsaka had closed her eyes and crossed her arms, a sullen look on her face. “Anyway, Sakura is right in that just attacking us like that was uncharacteristic. Even though it wasn’t a full Dead Apostle, they’re usually smarter than that…and so I had to wonder, as it wasn’t a full Dead Apostle, whether it was commanded to do so.”
“Huh?”
The Tohsaka-sensei Lecture™ was back in full force, and I tried to refrain from rolling my eyes. And grinning. “There are a lot of inconsistencies about that vampire’s actions if it was old and strong enough to regain its head last night. That means it was certainly a vampire that bordered on the strength of a Dead Apostle. But if that were true, it probably wouldn’t have accidentally stumbled across the Ryuudou boundary field. And it certainly wouldn’t have just leapt into a brawl with us. A vampire of that age would have been able to detect the former and know better than to be sloppy enough for the latter.”
I nodded at that much. A hundred year old creature that would have had to avoid Church Executors and the like certainly would have to know its magical lore. And know not to attract undue attention with its attacks; if it were playing smart, it could have had those two lovers we had run across without us any the wiser.
“But then, I had to wonder too, it struck me first. Seems odd, if it were picking a fight, to go for the girl first, right? Unless it knew I was a magus.” Tohsaka gave a thin-lipped smile. “In certain cases, you’re certainly more dangerous, Shirou, but to a creature that can detect od or magical circuits, I probably seem like the bigger threat.”
“Well, in most ways, you are the bigger threat,” I said, and I had to revise my earlier thought. Though Tohsaka had not recovered all of her jewel magic since the war, I had no idea what she had learned from the Association. She could’ve gleaned any number of things to compensate for the slow process of jewel creation in the meantime.
“So again, we’re back to an inconsistence in the vampire’s actions. But what if it were being controlled? Vampires not yet Dead Apostles still are bent to the will of their sires. Rather like a Servant that takes stupid actions because their Master is stupid…or because the Master is purposefully using them in a reckless way. Like Kirei using Lancer, since he never intended for Lancer to win the war.”
She covered it up pretty well, but I think the Master-is-stupid comment was directed my way.
Well, I wasn’t the one that had to use a Command Spell just to make my Servant listen to me, miss perfect.
“So you think a full Dead Apostle was controlling its actions just to test us out?” I asked.
Tohsaka nodded. “It makes sense to me. And what scares me is that it could have such control over an older vampire, one that can regenerate under the moon.”
“Again with the moon. What was that?”
“It’d take a lot to explain, but all Dead Apostles and their offspring are modeled after a power source from the moon. Those closer to Dead Apostle Ancestors—the oldest and best of the lot—are prone to being stronger under the light of the full moon. In most living dead, it doesn’t particularly mean anything since they haven’t been around long enough to resemble that power source, but one that has lived a long time…well, you saw it.”
Ugh. “So if all that is true, the Dead Apostle master is going to be even stronger than the guy last night. But why? Why here, now, us?”
“I’m not sure. Since they attacked me first, and not you, though, I also want to think that it has something to do with my family’s reputation. They might just be after me, period, and didn’t expect someone like you.”
While we had been talking, Sakura had absently been setting the table and was finished by this point. Tohsaka started in on her meal after a quick acknowledgement, and I had a feeling she welcomed the distraction. Or the excuse not to continue on that train of thought while she ate.
That dull throbbing from my hands earlier now struck my brain.
Stronger than the one we fought.
I glanced down at my hands. I could certainly heal them faster if I Traced a certain scabbard*, but the constant reliance on that would just earn me a faster death, really. That vampire was certainly not on the level of a Servant, but its master…
If I was going to do anything, I would have to surpass what happened last night.
“Assuming my theory is correct,” Tohsaka said, as if she couldn’t help herself, “The Dead Apostle will come for the next full moon, when its powers are peaking.”
And if I was going to surpass what happened, I’d have to do it fast.
That night, I went to Ryuudou Temple.
While the rest of the day was spent uneventfully fretting over the possibility Tohsaka had posed and trying to keep it from showing in front of Yumi, I decided I was going to clear my head and get started on that next hurdle-mountain in my way.
I went late enough that Issei and the others living there would be if not turning in for bed, unlikely to come out to do anything. The grounds were silent and peaceful with none of the sense of foreboding that had permeated the place during the war. Damage from Saber and Gilgamesh’s battle had long since been repaired, and the boundary field had also done its job in purging the mutation of evil that Angra Mainyu had created in the soil and lake.
But it was not hard to imagine that night.
Here, I had saved Illya’s life. Here, I had taken Kotomine’s life.
Here, I had set my eyes on the most beautiful sunrise.
All of my dreams were embodied here. To save, to sacrifice, and to see it all reflected in one who was like me, like everything I wanted. A brandished sword.
This body is certainly made of swords, and I needed to find a way to brandish them.
“I am the bone of my sword.”
I had to find a way to make real what was within me.
Escaping Fate, Dead Apostle Apostle, End
*There’s another reason for this story that Shirou won’t constantly spam Avalon, so hold off on any questions there. It’ll be addressed.Omake
“I guess I never did thank you for being the one to kill it, and saving my life,” Rin said.
Shirou stared at her. “Uh, you’re welcome, but you don’t need to thank me.”
Rin slid up next to where he sat on the porch. “But I still need to thank you properly for us to be even. So, Shirou, is there anything you want me to do? Just this once, I’ll do anything.”
Shirou turned red.
“Anything at all, just this once. I’ll carry out any order or wish you make. Whether it’s world domination or eternal life or defeating Saiyajin sent to destroy the world, I’ll do it.”
Blinking, Shirou raked his mind for where that sounded familiar…
“After all, I’m a tsundere character.”
Shirou sighed. “Yumi never should’ve shown you anime.”
Rin dramatically put her hand to her forehead and swooned into Shirou’s lap. “Should I wear only an apron and make you breakfast? Isn’t it the desire of all men to view that from behind?”
“I’m going to throw the tv out next chance I get.”
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