Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Henshin ( Chapter 10 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Escaping Fate
Chapter 7
Henshin

A late spring shower brought me home early from my latest attempt at training, which I had relocated to Ryuudou after dinner when nobody would take notice.  From everything Illya had once said and Tohsaka kept stressing, the idea of visualizing my internal world was important, and doing so in the shed at home was sometimes a little off.  The shed now reminded me of when I first met Saber, and I like to think that I’ve changed since then, changed in those few days she was here.
Outside the temple was closer to what I was now.  
Without an umbrella, I was rather soaked by the time I made it home into the genkan* and under cover.  I picked up my shoes, though, and decided I would go close up the shed now before I changed into dry clothing.
The house was quiet; Sakura had probably already retired to bed.  Yumi was probably doing homework, as the television was not on when I passed by the living room on my way back out to the porch.
I thought about the training, about trying to create something I only had the vaguest of ideas of how.  Seeing where I wanted to go was easy—the concept itself made perfect sense to me—but reaching it was another matter.  I had a hard time producing more than seven or eight swords in a day, and the couple of times I had tried a shield Tohsaka had borrowed, it sapped everything I had in one go.  The idea of completely ripping time-space asunder and planting my own reality on top of the world was way more than I could even think of doing right now, even if I could envision it perfectly.
The rain was coming down harder even still, and I had to dash from the rear porch to the shed in one go.  But when I reached the doorway, I had to pause when I saw light from within.
Yumi was sitting next to my workspace, hands on one of my wooden swords.
“Yumi?”
The girl startled and turned to face me, backing up on her haunches in what looked like guilt.  I stepped in and caught her gaze.**  “What are you doing?”
This time, I think Yumi was not struggling to find what emotion to settle on.  It was more like catching a kid red-handed sneaking candy or extra desserts before dinner.  She stared up at me with wide eyes and no processing was going on behind them.
“I’m not angry, Yumi, just curious,” I said.  I moved in and crouched next to her, wishing that Tohsaka were here.  She would probably know what to do.
Yumi calmed down, taking a few deep breaths.  When her breathing was even, she stared back at me with a scary intensity and from there, I could tell.
Fate was being ironic and letting me be in Kiritsugu’s shoes for a little while.
“I’m practicing magic,” she said.
I sighed, settling down completely next to her.  I was pretty sure Tohsaka would have been against teaching her—at the very least, she would have talked with me about it first—and I don’t think Yumi could have learned much by watching me Trace swords.  I’m pretty sure no magus, no matter how talented, could ever learn anything by watching me, since everything I did was so idiosyncratic.   I regarded the girl as evenly as I could.  “Why?”
“Because you’re doing it wrong.”
Whatever I had expected her to say, that certainly wasn’t it.
“I mean,” Yumi amended, and she looked abashed at her blunt words, “when I was watching you try and change your swords around, I could tell why it wasn’t working.”
I watched as she picked up the wooden sword from her lap.  She stood up, holding the practice weapon at the hilt with her left hand, then reached into the collar of her shirt with her right.  I heard a snap sound and Yumi closed her eyes.
“Henshin.”***
I could feel the prana flow in her elevate, and suddenly, the wood in her hand was glowing.
Staring, I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.  It looked like the glow of a thousand fireflies crawling about every inch of the wooden length; it was not bright as a light bulb, for instance, but it certainly was more than any amount of reflection from polish could manage.  “How are you doing that?”
This certainly wasn’t Reinforcement, enhancing the properties of an item, or Projection, the creation of an object out of nothing.  It looked a lot more like one of the techniques I had been trying to achieve but failing terribly at: Alteration.
Although…
“I’m not really sure,” Yumi admitted.  “When I look at the magic I’ve seen you and Rin do, I just…know, I guess.”  She waved the sword around, now looking vaguely like a lightsaber, and handed it over to me.  “When I look at something like this, I can imagine adding something to it, something completely unrelated.”
I took the sword, admittedly filing the idea away that if I ever needed a torch, I now had a sword in mind that could do just as well.  “You’re doing Alteration magic.”
“Yes.”
A wry grin made its way on my face.  I was alright at Reinforcement, though even Tohsaka was more skilled at it than I was except in certain cases.  After realizing that what I did was not full Projection magic, it became apparent that except for my own brand of specialized skills, I would not be progressing much further than I already had in everything else.  I’m not sure how long Yumi had been working on this, but it could not have been very long.  “Have you tried other things?”
Yumi returned to looking abashed, though she added to it a blush that was apparent even by the dim light.  “Reinforcement.  I tried a couple other things, but haven’t had any success.”
“Well, that already puts you way beyond what I’ve managed,” I said.  “So, I’m doing Alteration wrong.  But why, besides showing me the error of my ways, are you doing this?”  I watched the blush fade from her skin and her eyes draw into what almost looked like a glare.  “You’ve seen what magic can do to people.  Even if you’re lucky like Tohsaka, it’s a hard life to take up.”
Instead of answering, Yumi once again deflected the question.  “What was Saber like?”
I stared at her blankly for a moment.  We had never completely discussed the Grail War with her, at least as a family, so either she had picked it up from little things mentioned here and there…
Or I really had to discuss things with Sakura.
Hmm, perhaps it’s a good thing Tohsaka isn’t here.  She’d probably be completely useless by now and doing that backpedaling-brain-freeze thing she did when sneak attacked.
Yumi continued to watch me with that almost-glare expression and I decided that her own question was going to be connected to mine.  Somehow.  “Saber was…well, I’m not sure what you want to know.”
“When you were together, you had something to accomplish, right?”  Yumi asked, though it was more like a rhetorical question.  “And you knew that it would end with you parting?”
I nodded.  “Yeah.  She had to return…home.”
“And you accepted her decision?”
Scratching the back of my head, I glanced over at the alchemy circle still vaguely discernable in the dust of the shed.  “It was pretty mutual, once we understood—” I didn’t know how much she knew about the Grail, so I decided I’d be vague, “—that the goals we had earlier on were unobtainable.  We had to stop a Master and his Servant from causing rampant destruction, and it would force the end of Saber’s time here.  But neither one of us would stand by and let the two of them get away with what they had planned.”
“Were you happy with her?”
I looked at Yumi a little funny; getting lectured about my romantic life by a girl barely into high school was amusing.  “Yeah, I was.”
“That’s why.”
I blinked at her, baffled.  There was no answer in that for her actions that I could make out.  “I don’t understand.”
Yumi shrugged.
I’m being punished, aren’t I?  For recklessly charging after Kiritsugu first, and now Saber.  
Handing the sword back to Yumi, I glanced around where she had been sitting.  Now it became clear why things had all been just a little off whenever I came in here recently: though everything was where I had left it, occasionally it seemed as if they had been moved just so or somehow disturbed in a small fashion.  It seemed, though, that she hadn’t attempted Alteration on anything I might work on in the future, since two magi pumping prana into the same object would cause it to break down.
I gave up on trying to nail down her motivation for now—it didn’t seem like I would be understanding anytime soon anyway—and motioned to the workspace.  “So, what is it you have found you can do?  You just made wood light up like a glowstick, are you going to throw an exploding radio at me now?”
Yumi shook her head, though she smiled a little.  “I think that would actually be impossible, because the electrical wiring in a radio could possibly cause a spark large enough to read as an ‘explosion.’  So it’s already possible with a radio.  I’ve found that all I can do is add aspects to something that they have no possibility of actually achieving.”
She picked up a steel pipe from the workspace against the wall.  I couldn’t recall what the pipe was originally from, though I remembered that I’d salvaged it on the odd chance that it would be usable elsewhere.  Walking to the door, she once again took the object in her left hand and reached under the collar of her shirt, though this time I heard no noise from beneath.  
“Henshin.”
No visible change came from the pipe, though I watched intently.  Yumi then planted her feet, raised the pipe, and threw it out the door.
Oh, so she was going to pipe-bomb the house instead.
I followed the path of the pipe out into the rain, twisting end-over-end…
And then it took a sharp turn to the right.
I’m not talking about an arc, like a boomerang.  The pipe was flying on a course in the general direction of the house, but then veered at a ninety-degree angle as if the world’s most powerful magnet had just been turned on.  It fell a few meters after making the turn and did not move from where it fell, nor did it explode as was my first thought.
“What just happened?” I asked.
Yumi nodded, as if satisfied.  “I know you’ve been trying to work on making little changes to the swords you make.  I think I can help.”
Sighing, I put my hand on her head and mussed through her hair.  “You really should answer the questions you’re given directly.  If you answer obliquely like this to a teacher at school, you’re gonna get in trouble.”
A grin came up at me through strands of random white hair.  “I Altered the pipe to have the property ‘turn at a right angle after six meters of movement.’  Like how you can program a machine to do automated actions.”  
Something about that leapt up to the forefront of my mind, and I asked, “What was it you thought of when you made the sword glow?”
“I thought of a firefly.  You know, we saw a bunch of them a few weeks ago along the riverbank?”  I nodded.  We had taken Yumi to get her school supplies and had taken a long walk from Shinto on the way back.  It was starting to darken a bit when we crossed the bridge, and along the way we had wandered along the riverbank chatting about school and had seen some fireflies.  “I can imagine their glow in lots of inanimate objects.”
So, if I imagine a weapon that can defeat another weapon, she imagines an aspect that is inherently not a part of another object…
“I thought if maybe, you wanted to try, we could see if I couldn’t do something to one of your swords.”
I really wish Tohsaka were here now.  The thought of another person trying to mess around with one of the weapons I knew of seemed like a disaster waiting to happen: if two magi pumping prana into one object meant the object would fail…
Though…
Illya had said that my magic was not Projection.  Tohsaka was convinced that I was imagining the wrong things when I was Tracing.  We were convinced that what I had was instead an internalized world.
If that was true, the actual prana discharge was not within the weapon itself, but in the process of moving it from one place to another and localizing it in a world that denies its existence.  Not in the object itself…
I really had to call Tohsaka before we tried any of this, though, because I would absolutely refuse to do something that could literally blow up in our faces and hurt Yumi.  Reckless I may be, I was not going to let her follow those kind of footsteps.
“Maybe tomorrow, then.  I’ll need to talk to Tohsaka about it first.”
Yumi gave me this grin that I had to pause and take in slowly.  It was the kind of grin Tohsaka was much more used to wearing, though occasionally Sakura could manage it if she had managed to somehow convince me not to do something…
Oh.
…I get it.
Yumi no longer had to convince Tohsaka that she wanted to and was capable of learning magecraft, because I would be bringing the topic up first.  And would get the blunt of the assault.
Before I could recant my decision, Yumi said, “Thanks, Shirou!” and bounded out of the shed.
I sighed.
Maybe it wasn’t my footsteps Yumi needed to avoid.  At least, for my sanity.


*A genkan is the recessed entryway to a Japanese house, like a mix of a foyer and mudroom.  It is where a person removes their shoes as one does not enter a Japanese house with their shoes on.  The Emiya household makes this especially true, as it is a traditional Japanese house.

**Servant, Archer, has come forth in answer to your summons.  I ask of you, are you my Master?

***•Ïgis read “henshin” and means “transformation.”  Yumi, not bilingual, would need to stick to Japanese for her spell stanzas.  Additionally, “henshin suru” would literally mean “transform oneself” which is thematically appropriate, and “henshin” itself is very commonly heard if you watch sentai shows like she does.


Omake

“Shirou, I do not understand.  What is this place?”
Shirou grinned.  “This is called the Tokyo Big Sight.  It’s a convention center.”
Saber blinked as a variety of cameras went off in her face.  She regarded the crowd surrounding them with the same suspicion she might an enemy force.  “Is there supposed to be a Master here?”
Scratching the back of his head, Shirou gave a weak chuckle.  “It is possible.”
“Should we not clear these people out, then?”  Members of the crowd were calling out to her to try and gain her attention.  “And why is it they know my name?”
“Er, this is called Comiket,” Shirou explained.  “These are all fans of manga and anime.”  Shirou shrugged.  “I thought we might find some entertainment here, some manga and doujinshi to take home and enjoy.”
“I still do not understand this obsession you have with treating me like this.  I am a Servant, and my purpose is battle,” Saber said.
A variety of the cameramen were whispering and murmuring to one another, words such as, “She’s even in character!” and “What dedication!”  Shirou regarded them with a quickly-fading smile as Saber’s glare drilled into the side of his head.  
“And why do they know my name?” Saber repeated.
“Um, you sound exactly like a very popular seiyuu?”
“Shirou, I am beginning to feel very unnecessary anger.  I cannot help but think you are making fun of me.”
At that moment, a cosplayer passed by them, and the crowd of cameramen all crooned in excitement as another woman passed by.  She was dressed not in blue and white like Saber, but a black tank top, short plaid-patterned skirt, and zettai ryouiki over-knee socks, though she had a wig identical to Saber’s hairstyle.  She smiled at Saber, then her smile widened at Shirou.  “Wow, you look just like him!  Can I get a picture with you?”
The cameramen cheered in excitement as suddenly the naturally-blond woman before them somehow produced a glowing golden sword.
Shirou achieved his dream that day of saving lives.  By picking up the stylish cosplayer and running in the opposite direction of the crowd as an earth-scorching blast was fired.
Converting /tmp/phpXA9aRO to /dev/stdout