Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Shores of a Distant Land ( Chapter 11 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Zekk_Skywalk 
Battle.
Anime/Manga: Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Fantasy / Hentai / Drama / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.29.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 6.3K | Visits: 311 | Status: Completed
Battle.
Anime/Manga: Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Fantasy / Hentai / Drama / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.29.2011 | Pages: 3 | Words: 6.3K | Visits: 311 | Status: Completed
AN: For those that, like me, tend to hear seiyuu in their head when characters are talking, I imagine that Yumi would be voiced by Kana Hanazawa (Kanade Tachibana in Angel Beats!, Suou Pavlichenko in Darker Than Black 2, Anri Sonohara in Durarara!!), magus Setsuka Yuushi sounds like Takahiro Sakurai (Cloud Strife in Compilation FFVII, Yuu Kanda in D.Gray-man, Suzaku Kururugi in Code Geass), and Yumi’s senpai Takumi Hoshino sounds like Yuuichi Nakamura (Tomoya Okazaki in Clannad, Alto Saotome in Macross Frontier, Ryuu Sanada in Kimi ni Todoke). Though Caren is officially voiced by Ami Koshimizu in Fate/tiger colosseum, I tend to hear Eri Kitamura (Ami Kawashima in Toradora!, Sayaka Miki in Madoka Magica, Saya Otonashi in Blood+) for some reason.
Yes, I am enough of a seiyuu geek to recall that off the top of my head. Just imagine: for my own original literary work, I even have it in my head what I would suggest if my books were, for some impossible reason, turned into an anime. My body is made of trivia. Seiyuu is in my blood and unimportant factoids make my heart.
Theme song of the day goes to this song on youtube: watch?v=9ubU9aOGU9w
Escaping Fate
Chapter 8
Shores of a Distant Land
I had to remind Yumi to focus on her schoolwork and not mage arts; the orphanage she had grown up in had left her with a spotty academic history and I wanted to make sure she could handle everyday life if she decided to forego the magical. Though I had a feeling that wouldn’t happen, if nothing else than Tohsaka and I being a bad influence.
As the days ticked on I kept an eye out on the news, watching for any signs that a possible undead was stalking the city and feeding on its population. Meanwhile, Yumi and I settled into a new routine, dedicating one hour to tinkering with her magic as she experimented with showing me what she could do.
Admittedly after just under a week of observing her abilities, I had to admire her talent. Though she had no particular abilities outside of Alteration in the same way I had none outside of Reinforcement and Projection, it was apparent she had a significantly larger well to draw from. I could only manage a handful of blades or a dozen Reinforcements before tiring; Yumi had yet to even reach a threshold. She had apparently been wearing some kind of magical limiter her arm under her sleeve that helped regulate the amount of prana flowing through her body at any one time, otherwise it overwhelmed her.
It must be nice to have excess energy to spare, instead of groping for every tiny bit from every corner of my body.
Yumi’s abilities were providing immediate results. After a few tests, I felt comfortable allowing her to try Alteration on some Traced weapons, and it was readily apparent that the theories behind my magic were correct: what I did resembled Projection, but wasn’t actual Projection at all. If I actually had Projection magic, the items I created were essentially transmuted air, given shape by my prana. As such, no other magus should be able to pour any kind of their own spellwork into it without the spell breaking, since the object was made out of my od.
But Yumi was successful, and we had tried a variety of weapons.
The theory, of course, was that with a Reality Marble, everything was within my own soul. If I could deploy the spell, reality itself would warp to reflect what was within me; it wasn’t a matter of prana being used to create weapons, but prana being used to create the world with weapons in it. The weapons themselves were just concepts within my mind, and in Tracing them, I was merely transporting them from within my world to the physical world. So, in essence, she was able to use Alteration on them as if they were untouched by another magus’ hands. In fact, that might be how I managed to Reinforce Kanshou and Bakuya myself, since doing two separate magics—Projection and then Reinforcement—on a single object should be either difficult if not downright impossible for me.
I phoned Tohsaka about the whole situation as well, and after the ringing in my ears cleared we decided to sit everyone down and talk about it once she was back. She grumbled over having to bring additional equipment and how much of a pain it would be to clear customs with it—I didn’t ask—and surprised both at Yumi’s apparent talent and that Sakura would have so clearly gone behind our backs on helping Yumi out. Though with the latter issue, I had the sneaking suspicion that Tohsaka seemed happy rather than upset.
To that, I had to agree. Anytime Sakura showed initiative, I felt I had to support her. Even if it was initiative that might make things complicated.
“Just make sure neither of them feel like they have to join in on this Dead Apostle hunt,” Tohsaka had said. “I’m not sure even I want to get involved with it. No way should they even consider it.”
Tohsaka then arranged a return flight the day before the full moon so we could prepare for a potential attack.
Yumi had spent the weekend and first day of her Golden Week break getting all of her homework done and out of the way so neither Sakura nor I had the ability to complain that she should be concentrating on her normal life. Afterward, she had spent most of Tuesday testing various items and the sometimes bizarre effects she could give them, like making a hubcap to a tire fly through the air completely unaerodynamically or making a solid wooden sword bend like rubber. Upon this discovery, she decided she wanted to try that with a sword, and really, swinging a claymore with the tensile traits of a wet noodle really was something to behold. By the time Tohsaka was due home that evening*, we had any number of absolutely hilarious things to show her and earn that look of complete bafflement at what we were doing.
Yeah, I should probably have been trying harder on the Reality Marble. Although it really seemed like no matter what I did, I was years away from having the control necessary to deploy it. The fact that I now had it cemented in my mind that what I was doing had little to do with Projection, though, had helped, and already I was producing weapons more efficiently. I could probably handle two dozen now, if I was completely in the zone.
I braved town earlier that afternoon to get some extra food for dinner; I assumed that Tohsaka would be hungry when she returned home and probably didn’t want to deal with any crowds with the things she was bringing here. I decided on unagi since I’m sure she was tired of Western fare and would go for something purely Japanese.
Sakura got home early—her work was doing half-days for the holiday—and was apparently determined to help with dinner, so we compromised that I would get everything cut and prepared while she would do the actual cooking and serving.
“It’s after seven. Shouldn’t she have landed a while ago?” Yumi asked from the living room, watching the latest Juuken Sentai Gekiranger she had recorded. She really did love television, probably stemming from not having one in her time at the orphanage.
“I’m guessing the trains from the airport to Fuyuki are swamped. I’d honestly be surprised if she made it home before eight,” I said, fighting with the eel. It was sometimes quite difficult to slice just right.
Sakura was washing her hands, getting ready to take over. “If you need a snack, I can bring you some mandarin oranges,” she offered.
Yumi shook her head, apparently unwilling to turn away from the show. “Just wondering. Taiga said she was going to come by later to double-check my homework, though if dinner is going to be so late…” She drifted off and I grinned. There would be no homework check, just food mooching, and Yumi seemed to know it. I wonder if it really would have been better sometimes for Yumi to have been adopted elsewhere; the lack of responsible adults she had as role-models was probably going to doom her post-school career. And I’m including myself and Tohsaka in that count, since Sakura was the only one with an actual job, after all.
After cutting the eel and checking to make sure the sauce it was to be grilled with was just right, I handed the kitchen over to Sakura, hung my apron aside, and took a seat next to Yumi.
“Please don’t tell me you’re getting ideas from this,” I said.
Yumi grinned, that same Tohsaka-esque expression. I’m beginning to wonder if Archer’s sneer evolved out of too much time spent with Tohsaka in his actual life.
Well, I’d just have to hope I didn’t start doing it too.
We sat watching the show for a while, one of the sentai heroes apparently learning to use a hammer in battle and conversely discover that one had to enjoy themselves to fight at full potential**. I glanced at Yumi as the battle started to escalate, and not for the first time hoped that she, in fact, took something away from her attachment to these shows.
The world isn’t as terrible as you’ve experienced…
The boundary field surrounding the house clattered in alarm, and the power went out, sending the house into the faint illumination of the moonlit evening.
“Senpai!” Sakura was out of the kitchen in a hurry, and I jumped to my feet. I could recall the last time I heard that noise, and it was not a pleasant memory.
Yumi was looking around too, though she had yet to rise. Instead, she said, “What is that noise?”
“A spell that alerts us to danger,” I explained, grabbing underneath her arms and hauling her up from her seat.
“No,” Yumi said, looking even more confused. “I mean, listen carefully.”
Both Sakura and I froze in place, trying to listen for whatever it was Yumi was talking about. And after shunting out my own beating heart, I could hear it:
Moaning.
I could not help but think of the last time the field was activated and the bone-clattering that had followed when Caster had sent her golems in for an attack. This time, instead of golems, I had a feeling I understood what it was that surrounded us in a disturbingly similar fashion.
If I ever could convince someone that my life was in fact real, I would now get to explain that on top of falling in love with an ancient reverse-gendered British King, surviving a stabbing from the Hound of Ulster, fighting the greatest of Greek Heroes, and stopping an evil priest bent on unleashing literal hell on our city, I had faced a zombie apocalypse.
“Get into the shed and close the door,” I said, looking to Sakura. “Everything else is way too exposed.”
Once again, she did not know what she was supposed to feel.
Excitement. Fear. Determination. Unease. Anger.
Sakura took her by the hand and was running before she could process it all. Out of the living room, past the deck, out into the yard.
Between us and the shed, a figure.
It was human, but not. It had human shape, stood like a human, wore clothing and everything. But its eyes were glassy, its movements animalistic, its presence…full of death.
She did not even think about it. With the same command she had perfected over these weeks, she loosed her blouse ribbon and flung it at the not-human.
The ribbon struck right at neck level. It continued right past the figure without stopping, and in its wake left a gash suited to a razor-sharp knife.
And as the not-human creature flinched, Sakura brought her leg up, skirt and all, and kicked.
The lack of musculature connection at the wound caused the creature’s head to fly right off.
Sakura pulled Yumi past the body into the shed, though instead of closing the door, they both looked out, watching.
The yard was now starting to crowd with more not-humans, and Shirou came out after a moment, bow in hand. He ignored the figures starting to surround him, however, ducking past swinging arms and body-checking them if they closed in on him, his attention focused to something out of sight from the shed.
This time, I was ready.
The bow I traced was reminiscent of the bow I had shot at Berserker with. Though improvised at the time, it was still better than the practice bow Sakura had used for Archery Club and was generally better suited for shooting my peculiar ammunition. I had Traced it some time ago and Yumi had gone about Altering it, giving it some form of metallic durability it never had in reality. It was like the magical equivalent to the carbon fibers and laminate that modern bows used compared to the wood of ancient times.
Tracing the end result of what Yumi had done resulted in a bow closer to what Archer had used.
Curtana was in hand almost in the same moment, already narrowed and significantly lengthened for firing. The undead swarming me were of no consequence; I was a good shot.
The target stood on the deck between the house and guest house, figures weaving between us. I sidestepped a charging living dead, saw my chance, and let fly.
My target disappeared.
That wasn’t quite right—he was in sight again almost instantly, but a good six meters to the left. It did look like he had disappeared, like watching right down the starting line of an Olympic sprint and refusing to track the runners’ progress beyond the initial take-off.
“…Damn.”
Estimating the speed from the vampire earlier, I had thought that any difference between master and sired would be offset by shooting the Phantasm from a bow. But I was wrong, and this Dead Apostle was the real thing: a being truly taken to the ends of human reflexes and skill.
This guy, whoever he was, started casually walking my way, as if to mock me.
Fine. Mock away. I’ve still got a few things up my sleeve.
“Trace, on!”
If a shot holy sword was not going to work, then I would have to try something completely different.
All I had to do was get close enough.
I did what I could to Reinforce my legs, charging across the yard as fast as I could, zigzagging past the dead this monster had brought as meat shields. The Dead Apostle regarded me carefully, though he halted his own movement. He steadied his stance and I thought he could probably avoid anything I swung at him and would blow me apart with the counterattack while I was still suffering tunnel-vision from the charge.
He could avoid anything I swung at him.
So I would have to thrust instead.
No sword appeared in my free hand, and when I was within a sure range, I flung myself headlong into the fastest, hardest center-mass thrust I could manage.
“Gaé Bolg!”
Causality reversed: the spear caught him through the heart first, and my spear thrust went second. Arrogant as he was, the Dead Apostle merely “dodged” to the right into the blind spot over my shoulder.
“Guh!” the Dead Apostle grunted.
I managed a tight smile—
And then the Dead Apostle grabbed the spear, lifted it, and before I could let go, pulled it out and flung me across the entire yard.
Twisting in midair, I tried to take the impact on my Reinforced legs as I crashed into the dojo wall. I hit hips first, shoulders second, probably throwing my spine completely out of alignment but lessening the impact to my upper body and head enough that I only wanted to throw up instead of roll over and die.
When I hacked out a cough, it felt like I was spitting broken ribs out along with the rest of the air in my lungs.
“Do not think, little magus, that your faker weapons are enough to kill me,” the Dead Apostle said in a pompous voice with only the faintest hint of an accent. “While your presence certainly was a surprise when I first observed this city, it is comparable to the presence of an irritating bug one does not expect to buzz in one’s face.”
So, maybe I was wrong. Maybe villains do like to talk long and eloquently, and the vampire we killed earlier was the exception.
“I am the Knave of the Ancestors, one who serves many of the Apostle Ancestors directly. Know that even the Hound of Ulster Cú Chulainn’s spear is useless against Dmitri Alkaev!” He raised his arms like crucified, and even from across the yard I could see the wound over his heart healing. “The Servant of a magus has nothing on the servant of the oldest beasts of the world!”
Or villains were contractually obligated to be giant hams.
The good thing was it gave me a moment to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. Gaé Bolg hadn’t worked, though it had pierced his heart. Tohsaka had told me that destroying Dead Apostles was not unlike killing humans, as they technically functioned on similar rules, but this one apparently was different.
I glanced up at the evening sky; the moon was up, nearly full. Maybe his strength was still enhanced by near-full moons and normally it would have worked.
Knave of the Ancestors…
A knave was comparable to the Jack in a deck of cards, a court servant to royalty. The Dead Apostle Ancestors were essentially vampire royalty. If he was what he claimed, I suppose he would be stronger than average, probably gunning for a position in their ranks himself…
Two of the living dead charged, and I stumbled to try and get up.
“Shirou, down!”
Tohsaka’s voice cut through the haze of pain and I hit the ground just as a wave of her Gandr shots smashed into the undead from behind. The both of them groaned, crashed into the same wall I hit, and I rolled forward to avoid being buried under them.
The Dead Apostle stopped and turned in a way that reminded me like a wind-up toy, over-dramatizing like he were part of some kind of melodrama.
Tohsaka stood on the perimeter wall in almost the same exact place Gilgamesh had once upon a time, holding jewels between her knuckles and staring down the Dead Apostle.
Climbing to my feet, I glanced about to check the rest of the living dead, but all of them also had their attention on Tohsaka. Their ambient moans grew in pitch and turned disturbingly desperate, a little like…
Must not think about it.
“Rin Tohsaka,” the Dead Apostle said, his own voice taking on a different tone. “I am disappointed. I had intended to kill everyone here before you returned, so you would have a welcoming gift. It seems I underestimated the transit crowds today.”
“What do you want?” Tohsaka asked.
If he was going to kill us here, I hoped to every god I knew that he wasn’t going to quote a movie right now.
“Honestly? Just to see what you were hiding here,” the Dead Apostle replied. He took a pose that melodramatically told anyone looking that he was thinking, one arm crossed and the other bent at the elbow and stroking his chin in consideration. “It is said that you won the Holy Grail War between magi and my child, the one you so unceremoniously slaughtered, detected a great presence here. I wanted it.”
Though they had closed the shed door, they had cracked the window open and were watching from within.
And what the attacker said…
Somehow felt ominous to Yumi.
Never let anyone call me unpractical.
While the Dead Apostle’s attention was on Tohsaka, I readied my bow and started Tracing again. I slowly crept to my left to get a better shot on him. If I could get him maneuvered into just the right spot, I might manage to corner him.
Like an expert card shark, Tohsaka never once gave me any kind of attention. She continued to address the Dead Apostle. “I don’t know where you got your information, but I wasn’t the winner of the Grail, nor was any kind of wish made.”
“You cannot hide it, young one. I can smell it with you even now.”
There. His back was still turned, and that would give me the time I needed.
“The celestial court sends this mandate of rule.”
What formed looked more like an oversized Kanshou, long and curved, though the pommel had jade inlay. I nocked the blade and it narrowed and straightened, ready to fire, and I took a deep breath. I’d never used this weapon before, though I understood its history. This was either going to work perfectly, or I was going to literally eat my own words—
“Thuân Thiên!”
By the time the aria was complete, the Dead Apostle had glanced back at me and was smirking. If he’s dodged the first, there’s no reason to think he can’t dodge the next.
There really was no reason to doubt, as this Dmitri guy proved. He sidestepped the shot just as he had Curtana, grinned my way, and turned back to Tohsaka.
That might have saved his un-life.
Thuân Thiên was not unlike a Vietnamese sword-in-the-stone, but that wasn’t why I thought of it. The anecdote of the story centered around the fisherman who found it tossing the blade back out into the sea, only to have it return to him three times.
Dmitri turned to face Tohsaka, and barely had time to see the blade flying right back at him. Faster than I had seen even Saber move, the vampire jerked aside.
Not fast enough.
The sword cut him right across the face, from the bridge of the nose right beneath his eye and all the way to his ear, and then came flying back my way. It halted right before me, ready to be taken, and I grabbed and nocked it once more.
“You!” the Dead Apostle screamed, his attention fully on me now.
Bad idea.
Tohsaka’s jewels went his way, her German chant drowned out by the groaning of the living dead around us. Fire exploded in the Dead Apostle’s place, though I didn’t wait to see whether that was enough to even incapacitate him.
I shot Thuân Thiên again, Traced a new blade the color of obsidian, and used it to cut down a charging living dead before moving to a different position.
“Go into the red plains, scarlet hound.”
The black blade twisted, elongated, started to shake as if alive. As if the bow were only a secondary matter, it shot much faster than the poundage on my weapon would ever manage and darted at the smoke cloud.
Finally, he started treating us like a danger. There was a billow of smoke that flew out from the center of the blast, leaping up at the perimeter wall in Tohsaka’s direction and completely avoiding Thuân Thiên. From what I could see, it looked like a great deal of his face had been burnt, confounded by the initial cut I made.
Tohsaka had already leapt clear, running in the direction of the house and Gandr spelling the undead in her way.
Hrunting curved up toward the Dead Apostle, who had turned to chase after Tohsaka but had his attention on the magical ammunition tracking him. With half his face partially ripped right off, the snarl he shot my way looked monstrous.
With a leap like a cat, Dmitri avoided Hrunting by tumbling through the air, the sword-arrow flying past and arcing up toward the evening sky. Upon landing, he made another, stronger leap and completely cleared the distance between himself and Tohsaka, landing on the edge of the roof of the house right above where she was skidding to make a change of direction.
“I—what?!” he cried.
Hrunting had completely circled around and was charging right after the Dead Apostle once again, like a rabid animal determined to catch its prey. At the same time, Thuân Thiên had returned once more to me, and I readied the blade for another shot.
Tohsaka dove back out into the middle of the yard, hitting the ground and rolling along the ground hard. Yet another jewel went flying from her hand, one I recognized the magical signature to, and though much further from the vampire this time, he was so preoccupied with Hrunting, he merely raised an arm to block.
Ice formed around his limb in the exact same way it had formed around Berserker’s limb and arm.
The vampire roared, used the extra weight on his arm to pull himself down to avoid the next Hrunting drive, and hit the ground. I let loose Thuân Thiên, and he immediately inverted and leapt back up to avoid both shots—
He hit the lip of the rooftop, and like a trapeze artist, used it to fling himself back.
Toward Tohsaka.
Damn.
Tohsaka made it up to a crouch, but even with Reinforcement, this guy was going to be faster. Hrunting was going to take another moment to circle around—
I moved laterally to their position. If I could box the thing in with Hrunting flying at it from the right angle—
Tohsaka seemed to realize her predicament, and, trusting me to do my part, moved parallel to me but in the opposite direction to give me a clear shot.
I had to hurry. This guy moved like a bullet and it was going to get to Tohsaka if I didn’t do something now—
I had to discard tactics. Specialized swords weren’t working. I needed something better than what I had already used, just better.
The Dead Apostle hit the ground running, literally running, and was already almost on top of Tohsaka.
I’ve done this before. I can do it faster—
“Her will sought eternity and found hope…”
Hrunting started to circle back around, but even it would not be fast enough: the Dead Apostle would reach Tohsaka before the next strike reached it. That was fine, that was within the scope, I just needed him at the right angle—
“Its fate was promised victory…”
Gold formed in my hand, a blade of perfect shape. It was the most beautiful of anything I could make, the kind of thing a sculptor dreams of, a painter imagines, a storyteller describes.
But never once lays eyes on.
It nocked my bowstring, flashed from the elegant shape of blade and guard and grip and pommel to something like an arrow.
“Imitation sword of the ruler—”
Tohsaka hit the ground, clearing my line of sight completely. The Dead Apostle had almost straddled her already, this was going to be so close. “Cancel your seeking arr—” he started, reaching for her throat.
Knave of the Ancestors, I’ll see your bet and raise you a King.
“Caliburn!”
There.
There before her, she saw something.
Something she understood intrinsically, something she knew the others could not perceive. Or if they could perceive it, the perception was different somehow, like the difference between a foreign language student and a native speaker.
The blade Shirou made.
It had more.
Certainly, it looked more elegant than the curved scimitar, or the thorny broadsword, or anything else Yumi had seen Shirou create. It seemed to glow with an inner light as well, almost tangible, though no actual glow could be seen. It was like a glow from the heart.
But that wasn’t all.
It had…
Addition.
Yumi could see the Addition there, even if it was non-magical in nature. There was just something more to it, something she knew Shirou would not replicate in the production of the other weapons he used.
She thought…
That Addition…
There was a sense of perfection from it. Aspiration. Dedication. Love. Yumi thought, for the first time, she had something physical to represent what she felt within Shirou when she looked at him. Though she thought of Rin as two people and Sakura as three, Shirou was not…
Not there.
And in his place, she felt, for the first time, something like him was finally there, making the world, her world, complete.
It wasn’t him, but…it was close.
Paradoxically.
He wasn’t justice itself, but an ally of justice…
He wasn’t the blade itself, but its ally…
And it made up every part of him.
“I c-can’t…”
The Dead Apostle wasn’t dead, but it certainly wasn’t alive, either.
It looked both pretty and pretty horrific. Caliburn had embedded itself right into the man’s neck and had reformed into the original shape of a sword. This Dmitri had taken it by the grip and was attempting to pull it out, but…
Even if I embedded Caliburn into something, I would never be able to pull it out either.
No living person could. Nor un-living, I suppose.
The vampire looked like he was in so much pain he wanted to scratch his own throat out, but at the same time so absolutely staggered by the pain that he could do nothing but pathetically grip the weapon in shock. He had not even seemed to notice that Hrunting had skewered him from behind.
Caliburn was a holy weapon, after all, and probably had enough of the properties of a conceptual weapon meant to harm undead like him that it was more painful than—
Well, not that I’ve ever had my throat and spine pierced by a sword.
Tohsaka had crawled out from beneath the creature and I glanced around. The living dead around us were screaming in agony as well, reflecting whatever psychic link they had with their sire. I moved to the closest ones and, with the once-again-returned Thuân Thiên, started beheading them.
When I had finished clearing them out, Yumi and Sakura had come out from the shed and had joined Tohsaka in looking the Dead Apostle over, though Sakura had tried to ward Yumi from the sight. The vampire, though, writhed in place, hunched over, hands still grasping Caliburn, ignorant of everything else.
“Why isn’t he dying?” Yumi asked.
…Something about that statement really sounded wrong coming from her. I suppose, even though Illya might have said something similarly callous, I had never gotten used to that either.
“The older something is, the longer its life takes to unravel,” Tohsaka said absently, as if expecting this. “And I’m not sure I can destroy the body myself, this time. We might seriously have to think about leaving him like this until the sun comes out.”
I felt my eyebrow twitch, and though it pained me, said, “No, we should call Caren. She’s probably appreciate it, even.”
Sakura nodded. “Oh, right. Um, I’ll go do that.”
Something completely inane in me thought of more mundane tasks. “You should actually go check food. It’s probably done by now. I’ll call her.”
All three girls stared at me.
“What? Perfectly good food like that shouldn’t go to waste!”
…It would probably help to de-Trace the bloody sword in my hand before talking about food.
Yumi really did not pay attention much after that. She was aware that Caren Ortensia and others came to help dispose of the Dead Apostle. She was vaguely reminded to eat shortly afterward when Taiga showed up and the four of them had to pretend nothing was amiss and make light over Rin’s return home. She only mechanically went through the nightly rituals of bathing and readying for bed, as everyone turned in early citing tiredness. She did remember that Shirou had teased Taiga over getting out of helping with homework like promised.
She had her thoughts only on that sword.
The sword that was both Shirou’s sword, and not his sword. That was Shirou, but not him.
The fact that, now with the sword gone and dissipated like all of Shirou’s other weapons, the world somehow felt…
Like it was missing something.
Missing Shirou, or a part of him.
Before she realized it, she was dreaming.
She had this dream sometimes before. Of shores, of the surf pounding away at earth, of the wash of water up a coast, depositing sand, washing out, and repeating the process.
An endless shoreline, with an endless tide.
Wash, add, wash, add.
Yumi understood, somehow, this was hers. This dream. It made sense, after all. She added things to the world, like the sea added to the shoreline. She had seen many shorelines as a child, traveling, and she thought maybe the beaches of her dreams were composed of every land she had ever seen.
Tonight, though, she saw a new one.
A new addition.
One she had never seen before.
One that, with its addition, she felt, completed her world. Completed that endless shoreline.
A shore, with lands beyond…
Green fields, blue skies—
And an eternal sunrise…
**Episode 11, which aired on Showa Day at the start of Golden Week. Yes, I’m an obsessive fact-checker. Shut up.
Converting /tmp/phpME5uEQ to /dev/stdout
Yes, I am enough of a seiyuu geek to recall that off the top of my head. Just imagine: for my own original literary work, I even have it in my head what I would suggest if my books were, for some impossible reason, turned into an anime. My body is made of trivia. Seiyuu is in my blood and unimportant factoids make my heart.
Theme song of the day goes to this song on youtube: watch?v=9ubU9aOGU9w
Escaping Fate
Chapter 8
Shores of a Distant Land
I had to remind Yumi to focus on her schoolwork and not mage arts; the orphanage she had grown up in had left her with a spotty academic history and I wanted to make sure she could handle everyday life if she decided to forego the magical. Though I had a feeling that wouldn’t happen, if nothing else than Tohsaka and I being a bad influence.
As the days ticked on I kept an eye out on the news, watching for any signs that a possible undead was stalking the city and feeding on its population. Meanwhile, Yumi and I settled into a new routine, dedicating one hour to tinkering with her magic as she experimented with showing me what she could do.
Admittedly after just under a week of observing her abilities, I had to admire her talent. Though she had no particular abilities outside of Alteration in the same way I had none outside of Reinforcement and Projection, it was apparent she had a significantly larger well to draw from. I could only manage a handful of blades or a dozen Reinforcements before tiring; Yumi had yet to even reach a threshold. She had apparently been wearing some kind of magical limiter her arm under her sleeve that helped regulate the amount of prana flowing through her body at any one time, otherwise it overwhelmed her.
It must be nice to have excess energy to spare, instead of groping for every tiny bit from every corner of my body.
Yumi’s abilities were providing immediate results. After a few tests, I felt comfortable allowing her to try Alteration on some Traced weapons, and it was readily apparent that the theories behind my magic were correct: what I did resembled Projection, but wasn’t actual Projection at all. If I actually had Projection magic, the items I created were essentially transmuted air, given shape by my prana. As such, no other magus should be able to pour any kind of their own spellwork into it without the spell breaking, since the object was made out of my od.
But Yumi was successful, and we had tried a variety of weapons.
The theory, of course, was that with a Reality Marble, everything was within my own soul. If I could deploy the spell, reality itself would warp to reflect what was within me; it wasn’t a matter of prana being used to create weapons, but prana being used to create the world with weapons in it. The weapons themselves were just concepts within my mind, and in Tracing them, I was merely transporting them from within my world to the physical world. So, in essence, she was able to use Alteration on them as if they were untouched by another magus’ hands. In fact, that might be how I managed to Reinforce Kanshou and Bakuya myself, since doing two separate magics—Projection and then Reinforcement—on a single object should be either difficult if not downright impossible for me.
I phoned Tohsaka about the whole situation as well, and after the ringing in my ears cleared we decided to sit everyone down and talk about it once she was back. She grumbled over having to bring additional equipment and how much of a pain it would be to clear customs with it—I didn’t ask—and surprised both at Yumi’s apparent talent and that Sakura would have so clearly gone behind our backs on helping Yumi out. Though with the latter issue, I had the sneaking suspicion that Tohsaka seemed happy rather than upset.
To that, I had to agree. Anytime Sakura showed initiative, I felt I had to support her. Even if it was initiative that might make things complicated.
“Just make sure neither of them feel like they have to join in on this Dead Apostle hunt,” Tohsaka had said. “I’m not sure even I want to get involved with it. No way should they even consider it.”
Tohsaka then arranged a return flight the day before the full moon so we could prepare for a potential attack.
Yumi had spent the weekend and first day of her Golden Week break getting all of her homework done and out of the way so neither Sakura nor I had the ability to complain that she should be concentrating on her normal life. Afterward, she had spent most of Tuesday testing various items and the sometimes bizarre effects she could give them, like making a hubcap to a tire fly through the air completely unaerodynamically or making a solid wooden sword bend like rubber. Upon this discovery, she decided she wanted to try that with a sword, and really, swinging a claymore with the tensile traits of a wet noodle really was something to behold. By the time Tohsaka was due home that evening*, we had any number of absolutely hilarious things to show her and earn that look of complete bafflement at what we were doing.
Yeah, I should probably have been trying harder on the Reality Marble. Although it really seemed like no matter what I did, I was years away from having the control necessary to deploy it. The fact that I now had it cemented in my mind that what I was doing had little to do with Projection, though, had helped, and already I was producing weapons more efficiently. I could probably handle two dozen now, if I was completely in the zone.
I braved town earlier that afternoon to get some extra food for dinner; I assumed that Tohsaka would be hungry when she returned home and probably didn’t want to deal with any crowds with the things she was bringing here. I decided on unagi since I’m sure she was tired of Western fare and would go for something purely Japanese.
Sakura got home early—her work was doing half-days for the holiday—and was apparently determined to help with dinner, so we compromised that I would get everything cut and prepared while she would do the actual cooking and serving.
“It’s after seven. Shouldn’t she have landed a while ago?” Yumi asked from the living room, watching the latest Juuken Sentai Gekiranger she had recorded. She really did love television, probably stemming from not having one in her time at the orphanage.
“I’m guessing the trains from the airport to Fuyuki are swamped. I’d honestly be surprised if she made it home before eight,” I said, fighting with the eel. It was sometimes quite difficult to slice just right.
Sakura was washing her hands, getting ready to take over. “If you need a snack, I can bring you some mandarin oranges,” she offered.
Yumi shook her head, apparently unwilling to turn away from the show. “Just wondering. Taiga said she was going to come by later to double-check my homework, though if dinner is going to be so late…” She drifted off and I grinned. There would be no homework check, just food mooching, and Yumi seemed to know it. I wonder if it really would have been better sometimes for Yumi to have been adopted elsewhere; the lack of responsible adults she had as role-models was probably going to doom her post-school career. And I’m including myself and Tohsaka in that count, since Sakura was the only one with an actual job, after all.
After cutting the eel and checking to make sure the sauce it was to be grilled with was just right, I handed the kitchen over to Sakura, hung my apron aside, and took a seat next to Yumi.
“Please don’t tell me you’re getting ideas from this,” I said.
Yumi grinned, that same Tohsaka-esque expression. I’m beginning to wonder if Archer’s sneer evolved out of too much time spent with Tohsaka in his actual life.
Well, I’d just have to hope I didn’t start doing it too.
We sat watching the show for a while, one of the sentai heroes apparently learning to use a hammer in battle and conversely discover that one had to enjoy themselves to fight at full potential**. I glanced at Yumi as the battle started to escalate, and not for the first time hoped that she, in fact, took something away from her attachment to these shows.
The world isn’t as terrible as you’ve experienced…
The boundary field surrounding the house clattered in alarm, and the power went out, sending the house into the faint illumination of the moonlit evening.
“Senpai!” Sakura was out of the kitchen in a hurry, and I jumped to my feet. I could recall the last time I heard that noise, and it was not a pleasant memory.
Yumi was looking around too, though she had yet to rise. Instead, she said, “What is that noise?”
“A spell that alerts us to danger,” I explained, grabbing underneath her arms and hauling her up from her seat.
“No,” Yumi said, looking even more confused. “I mean, listen carefully.”
Both Sakura and I froze in place, trying to listen for whatever it was Yumi was talking about. And after shunting out my own beating heart, I could hear it:
Moaning.
I could not help but think of the last time the field was activated and the bone-clattering that had followed when Caster had sent her golems in for an attack. This time, instead of golems, I had a feeling I understood what it was that surrounded us in a disturbingly similar fashion.
If I ever could convince someone that my life was in fact real, I would now get to explain that on top of falling in love with an ancient reverse-gendered British King, surviving a stabbing from the Hound of Ulster, fighting the greatest of Greek Heroes, and stopping an evil priest bent on unleashing literal hell on our city, I had faced a zombie apocalypse.
“Get into the shed and close the door,” I said, looking to Sakura. “Everything else is way too exposed.”
Once again, she did not know what she was supposed to feel.
Excitement. Fear. Determination. Unease. Anger.
Sakura took her by the hand and was running before she could process it all. Out of the living room, past the deck, out into the yard.
Between us and the shed, a figure.
It was human, but not. It had human shape, stood like a human, wore clothing and everything. But its eyes were glassy, its movements animalistic, its presence…full of death.
She did not even think about it. With the same command she had perfected over these weeks, she loosed her blouse ribbon and flung it at the not-human.
The ribbon struck right at neck level. It continued right past the figure without stopping, and in its wake left a gash suited to a razor-sharp knife.
And as the not-human creature flinched, Sakura brought her leg up, skirt and all, and kicked.
The lack of musculature connection at the wound caused the creature’s head to fly right off.
Sakura pulled Yumi past the body into the shed, though instead of closing the door, they both looked out, watching.
The yard was now starting to crowd with more not-humans, and Shirou came out after a moment, bow in hand. He ignored the figures starting to surround him, however, ducking past swinging arms and body-checking them if they closed in on him, his attention focused to something out of sight from the shed.
This time, I was ready.
The bow I traced was reminiscent of the bow I had shot at Berserker with. Though improvised at the time, it was still better than the practice bow Sakura had used for Archery Club and was generally better suited for shooting my peculiar ammunition. I had Traced it some time ago and Yumi had gone about Altering it, giving it some form of metallic durability it never had in reality. It was like the magical equivalent to the carbon fibers and laminate that modern bows used compared to the wood of ancient times.
Tracing the end result of what Yumi had done resulted in a bow closer to what Archer had used.
Curtana was in hand almost in the same moment, already narrowed and significantly lengthened for firing. The undead swarming me were of no consequence; I was a good shot.
The target stood on the deck between the house and guest house, figures weaving between us. I sidestepped a charging living dead, saw my chance, and let fly.
My target disappeared.
That wasn’t quite right—he was in sight again almost instantly, but a good six meters to the left. It did look like he had disappeared, like watching right down the starting line of an Olympic sprint and refusing to track the runners’ progress beyond the initial take-off.
“…Damn.”
Estimating the speed from the vampire earlier, I had thought that any difference between master and sired would be offset by shooting the Phantasm from a bow. But I was wrong, and this Dead Apostle was the real thing: a being truly taken to the ends of human reflexes and skill.
This guy, whoever he was, started casually walking my way, as if to mock me.
Fine. Mock away. I’ve still got a few things up my sleeve.
“Trace, on!”
If a shot holy sword was not going to work, then I would have to try something completely different.
All I had to do was get close enough.
I did what I could to Reinforce my legs, charging across the yard as fast as I could, zigzagging past the dead this monster had brought as meat shields. The Dead Apostle regarded me carefully, though he halted his own movement. He steadied his stance and I thought he could probably avoid anything I swung at him and would blow me apart with the counterattack while I was still suffering tunnel-vision from the charge.
He could avoid anything I swung at him.
So I would have to thrust instead.
No sword appeared in my free hand, and when I was within a sure range, I flung myself headlong into the fastest, hardest center-mass thrust I could manage.
“Gaé Bolg!”
Causality reversed: the spear caught him through the heart first, and my spear thrust went second. Arrogant as he was, the Dead Apostle merely “dodged” to the right into the blind spot over my shoulder.
“Guh!” the Dead Apostle grunted.
I managed a tight smile—
And then the Dead Apostle grabbed the spear, lifted it, and before I could let go, pulled it out and flung me across the entire yard.
Twisting in midair, I tried to take the impact on my Reinforced legs as I crashed into the dojo wall. I hit hips first, shoulders second, probably throwing my spine completely out of alignment but lessening the impact to my upper body and head enough that I only wanted to throw up instead of roll over and die.
When I hacked out a cough, it felt like I was spitting broken ribs out along with the rest of the air in my lungs.
“Do not think, little magus, that your faker weapons are enough to kill me,” the Dead Apostle said in a pompous voice with only the faintest hint of an accent. “While your presence certainly was a surprise when I first observed this city, it is comparable to the presence of an irritating bug one does not expect to buzz in one’s face.”
So, maybe I was wrong. Maybe villains do like to talk long and eloquently, and the vampire we killed earlier was the exception.
“I am the Knave of the Ancestors, one who serves many of the Apostle Ancestors directly. Know that even the Hound of Ulster Cú Chulainn’s spear is useless against Dmitri Alkaev!” He raised his arms like crucified, and even from across the yard I could see the wound over his heart healing. “The Servant of a magus has nothing on the servant of the oldest beasts of the world!”
Or villains were contractually obligated to be giant hams.
The good thing was it gave me a moment to catch my breath and collect my thoughts. Gaé Bolg hadn’t worked, though it had pierced his heart. Tohsaka had told me that destroying Dead Apostles was not unlike killing humans, as they technically functioned on similar rules, but this one apparently was different.
I glanced up at the evening sky; the moon was up, nearly full. Maybe his strength was still enhanced by near-full moons and normally it would have worked.
Knave of the Ancestors…
A knave was comparable to the Jack in a deck of cards, a court servant to royalty. The Dead Apostle Ancestors were essentially vampire royalty. If he was what he claimed, I suppose he would be stronger than average, probably gunning for a position in their ranks himself…
Two of the living dead charged, and I stumbled to try and get up.
“Shirou, down!”
Tohsaka’s voice cut through the haze of pain and I hit the ground just as a wave of her Gandr shots smashed into the undead from behind. The both of them groaned, crashed into the same wall I hit, and I rolled forward to avoid being buried under them.
The Dead Apostle stopped and turned in a way that reminded me like a wind-up toy, over-dramatizing like he were part of some kind of melodrama.
Tohsaka stood on the perimeter wall in almost the same exact place Gilgamesh had once upon a time, holding jewels between her knuckles and staring down the Dead Apostle.
Climbing to my feet, I glanced about to check the rest of the living dead, but all of them also had their attention on Tohsaka. Their ambient moans grew in pitch and turned disturbingly desperate, a little like…
Must not think about it.
“Rin Tohsaka,” the Dead Apostle said, his own voice taking on a different tone. “I am disappointed. I had intended to kill everyone here before you returned, so you would have a welcoming gift. It seems I underestimated the transit crowds today.”
“What do you want?” Tohsaka asked.
If he was going to kill us here, I hoped to every god I knew that he wasn’t going to quote a movie right now.
“Honestly? Just to see what you were hiding here,” the Dead Apostle replied. He took a pose that melodramatically told anyone looking that he was thinking, one arm crossed and the other bent at the elbow and stroking his chin in consideration. “It is said that you won the Holy Grail War between magi and my child, the one you so unceremoniously slaughtered, detected a great presence here. I wanted it.”
Though they had closed the shed door, they had cracked the window open and were watching from within.
And what the attacker said…
Somehow felt ominous to Yumi.
Never let anyone call me unpractical.
While the Dead Apostle’s attention was on Tohsaka, I readied my bow and started Tracing again. I slowly crept to my left to get a better shot on him. If I could get him maneuvered into just the right spot, I might manage to corner him.
Like an expert card shark, Tohsaka never once gave me any kind of attention. She continued to address the Dead Apostle. “I don’t know where you got your information, but I wasn’t the winner of the Grail, nor was any kind of wish made.”
“You cannot hide it, young one. I can smell it with you even now.”
There. His back was still turned, and that would give me the time I needed.
“The celestial court sends this mandate of rule.”
What formed looked more like an oversized Kanshou, long and curved, though the pommel had jade inlay. I nocked the blade and it narrowed and straightened, ready to fire, and I took a deep breath. I’d never used this weapon before, though I understood its history. This was either going to work perfectly, or I was going to literally eat my own words—
“Thuân Thiên!”
By the time the aria was complete, the Dead Apostle had glanced back at me and was smirking. If he’s dodged the first, there’s no reason to think he can’t dodge the next.
There really was no reason to doubt, as this Dmitri guy proved. He sidestepped the shot just as he had Curtana, grinned my way, and turned back to Tohsaka.
That might have saved his un-life.
Thuân Thiên was not unlike a Vietnamese sword-in-the-stone, but that wasn’t why I thought of it. The anecdote of the story centered around the fisherman who found it tossing the blade back out into the sea, only to have it return to him three times.
Dmitri turned to face Tohsaka, and barely had time to see the blade flying right back at him. Faster than I had seen even Saber move, the vampire jerked aside.
Not fast enough.
The sword cut him right across the face, from the bridge of the nose right beneath his eye and all the way to his ear, and then came flying back my way. It halted right before me, ready to be taken, and I grabbed and nocked it once more.
“You!” the Dead Apostle screamed, his attention fully on me now.
Bad idea.
Tohsaka’s jewels went his way, her German chant drowned out by the groaning of the living dead around us. Fire exploded in the Dead Apostle’s place, though I didn’t wait to see whether that was enough to even incapacitate him.
I shot Thuân Thiên again, Traced a new blade the color of obsidian, and used it to cut down a charging living dead before moving to a different position.
“Go into the red plains, scarlet hound.”
The black blade twisted, elongated, started to shake as if alive. As if the bow were only a secondary matter, it shot much faster than the poundage on my weapon would ever manage and darted at the smoke cloud.
Finally, he started treating us like a danger. There was a billow of smoke that flew out from the center of the blast, leaping up at the perimeter wall in Tohsaka’s direction and completely avoiding Thuân Thiên. From what I could see, it looked like a great deal of his face had been burnt, confounded by the initial cut I made.
Tohsaka had already leapt clear, running in the direction of the house and Gandr spelling the undead in her way.
Hrunting curved up toward the Dead Apostle, who had turned to chase after Tohsaka but had his attention on the magical ammunition tracking him. With half his face partially ripped right off, the snarl he shot my way looked monstrous.
With a leap like a cat, Dmitri avoided Hrunting by tumbling through the air, the sword-arrow flying past and arcing up toward the evening sky. Upon landing, he made another, stronger leap and completely cleared the distance between himself and Tohsaka, landing on the edge of the roof of the house right above where she was skidding to make a change of direction.
“I—what?!” he cried.
Hrunting had completely circled around and was charging right after the Dead Apostle once again, like a rabid animal determined to catch its prey. At the same time, Thuân Thiên had returned once more to me, and I readied the blade for another shot.
Tohsaka dove back out into the middle of the yard, hitting the ground and rolling along the ground hard. Yet another jewel went flying from her hand, one I recognized the magical signature to, and though much further from the vampire this time, he was so preoccupied with Hrunting, he merely raised an arm to block.
Ice formed around his limb in the exact same way it had formed around Berserker’s limb and arm.
The vampire roared, used the extra weight on his arm to pull himself down to avoid the next Hrunting drive, and hit the ground. I let loose Thuân Thiên, and he immediately inverted and leapt back up to avoid both shots—
He hit the lip of the rooftop, and like a trapeze artist, used it to fling himself back.
Toward Tohsaka.
Damn.
Tohsaka made it up to a crouch, but even with Reinforcement, this guy was going to be faster. Hrunting was going to take another moment to circle around—
I moved laterally to their position. If I could box the thing in with Hrunting flying at it from the right angle—
Tohsaka seemed to realize her predicament, and, trusting me to do my part, moved parallel to me but in the opposite direction to give me a clear shot.
I had to hurry. This guy moved like a bullet and it was going to get to Tohsaka if I didn’t do something now—
I had to discard tactics. Specialized swords weren’t working. I needed something better than what I had already used, just better.
The Dead Apostle hit the ground running, literally running, and was already almost on top of Tohsaka.
I’ve done this before. I can do it faster—
“Her will sought eternity and found hope…”
Hrunting started to circle back around, but even it would not be fast enough: the Dead Apostle would reach Tohsaka before the next strike reached it. That was fine, that was within the scope, I just needed him at the right angle—
“Its fate was promised victory…”
Gold formed in my hand, a blade of perfect shape. It was the most beautiful of anything I could make, the kind of thing a sculptor dreams of, a painter imagines, a storyteller describes.
But never once lays eyes on.
It nocked my bowstring, flashed from the elegant shape of blade and guard and grip and pommel to something like an arrow.
“Imitation sword of the ruler—”
Tohsaka hit the ground, clearing my line of sight completely. The Dead Apostle had almost straddled her already, this was going to be so close. “Cancel your seeking arr—” he started, reaching for her throat.
Knave of the Ancestors, I’ll see your bet and raise you a King.
“Caliburn!”
There.
There before her, she saw something.
Something she understood intrinsically, something she knew the others could not perceive. Or if they could perceive it, the perception was different somehow, like the difference between a foreign language student and a native speaker.
The blade Shirou made.
It had more.
Certainly, it looked more elegant than the curved scimitar, or the thorny broadsword, or anything else Yumi had seen Shirou create. It seemed to glow with an inner light as well, almost tangible, though no actual glow could be seen. It was like a glow from the heart.
But that wasn’t all.
It had…
Addition.
Yumi could see the Addition there, even if it was non-magical in nature. There was just something more to it, something she knew Shirou would not replicate in the production of the other weapons he used.
She thought…
That Addition…
There was a sense of perfection from it. Aspiration. Dedication. Love. Yumi thought, for the first time, she had something physical to represent what she felt within Shirou when she looked at him. Though she thought of Rin as two people and Sakura as three, Shirou was not…
Not there.
And in his place, she felt, for the first time, something like him was finally there, making the world, her world, complete.
It wasn’t him, but…it was close.
Paradoxically.
He wasn’t justice itself, but an ally of justice…
He wasn’t the blade itself, but its ally…
And it made up every part of him.
“I c-can’t…”
The Dead Apostle wasn’t dead, but it certainly wasn’t alive, either.
It looked both pretty and pretty horrific. Caliburn had embedded itself right into the man’s neck and had reformed into the original shape of a sword. This Dmitri had taken it by the grip and was attempting to pull it out, but…
Even if I embedded Caliburn into something, I would never be able to pull it out either.
No living person could. Nor un-living, I suppose.
The vampire looked like he was in so much pain he wanted to scratch his own throat out, but at the same time so absolutely staggered by the pain that he could do nothing but pathetically grip the weapon in shock. He had not even seemed to notice that Hrunting had skewered him from behind.
Caliburn was a holy weapon, after all, and probably had enough of the properties of a conceptual weapon meant to harm undead like him that it was more painful than—
Well, not that I’ve ever had my throat and spine pierced by a sword.
Tohsaka had crawled out from beneath the creature and I glanced around. The living dead around us were screaming in agony as well, reflecting whatever psychic link they had with their sire. I moved to the closest ones and, with the once-again-returned Thuân Thiên, started beheading them.
When I had finished clearing them out, Yumi and Sakura had come out from the shed and had joined Tohsaka in looking the Dead Apostle over, though Sakura had tried to ward Yumi from the sight. The vampire, though, writhed in place, hunched over, hands still grasping Caliburn, ignorant of everything else.
“Why isn’t he dying?” Yumi asked.
…Something about that statement really sounded wrong coming from her. I suppose, even though Illya might have said something similarly callous, I had never gotten used to that either.
“The older something is, the longer its life takes to unravel,” Tohsaka said absently, as if expecting this. “And I’m not sure I can destroy the body myself, this time. We might seriously have to think about leaving him like this until the sun comes out.”
I felt my eyebrow twitch, and though it pained me, said, “No, we should call Caren. She’s probably appreciate it, even.”
Sakura nodded. “Oh, right. Um, I’ll go do that.”
Something completely inane in me thought of more mundane tasks. “You should actually go check food. It’s probably done by now. I’ll call her.”
All three girls stared at me.
“What? Perfectly good food like that shouldn’t go to waste!”
…It would probably help to de-Trace the bloody sword in my hand before talking about food.
Yumi really did not pay attention much after that. She was aware that Caren Ortensia and others came to help dispose of the Dead Apostle. She was vaguely reminded to eat shortly afterward when Taiga showed up and the four of them had to pretend nothing was amiss and make light over Rin’s return home. She only mechanically went through the nightly rituals of bathing and readying for bed, as everyone turned in early citing tiredness. She did remember that Shirou had teased Taiga over getting out of helping with homework like promised.
She had her thoughts only on that sword.
The sword that was both Shirou’s sword, and not his sword. That was Shirou, but not him.
The fact that, now with the sword gone and dissipated like all of Shirou’s other weapons, the world somehow felt…
Like it was missing something.
Missing Shirou, or a part of him.
Before she realized it, she was dreaming.
She had this dream sometimes before. Of shores, of the surf pounding away at earth, of the wash of water up a coast, depositing sand, washing out, and repeating the process.
An endless shoreline, with an endless tide.
Wash, add, wash, add.
Yumi understood, somehow, this was hers. This dream. It made sense, after all. She added things to the world, like the sea added to the shoreline. She had seen many shorelines as a child, traveling, and she thought maybe the beaches of her dreams were composed of every land she had ever seen.
Tonight, though, she saw a new one.
A new addition.
One she had never seen before.
One that, with its addition, she felt, completed her world. Completed that endless shoreline.
A shore, with lands beyond…
Green fields, blue skies—
And an eternal sunrise…
Escaping Fate, Shores of a Distant Land, End
*I’m fudging a little bit, as the full moons of 2007 would not fall on the exact dates we’re working with. The previous full moon when they fought the vampire would have been just before Yumi started school, not the weekend following. This full moon is right on, though, as it fell on Wednesday of Golden Week. Oh well. And for the uninitiated, Golden Week is a series of consecutive national holidays in Japan that are so close together schools and some businesses just close down for the entire week.**Episode 11, which aired on Showa Day at the start of Golden Week. Yes, I’m an obsessive fact-checker. Shut up.
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