Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Unlimited Blades, Endless Addition ( Chapter 12 )

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

AN: I, um, didn’t realize the BL forums mentioned this story.  Hardcore Nasuverse fans sometimes scare me, even if I am one.  So if you’ve stumbled across this story from there and think this is all wrong…I’m sorry.  Don’t kill me. Be my friend instead.  You can use my Kara no Kyoukai BDs since I don’t actually have a blu-ray player to play them on.

Yes…I will resort to bribery.  


Escaping Fate
Chapter 9
Unlimited Blades, Endless Addition


I did not sleep well that night.
It had little to do with the undead and their demise.  Cutting them down had been sickening, but their second deaths were nothing more than returning the world to its natural state.  Tohsaka had pointed out that they were bereft of human souls and destroying them was no longer an affront to humanity.  Even I could sense that in them, though, looking at them still reminded me that they were once truly human.  
The gruesome death of the Dead Apostle also had nothing to do with it.  Dead Apostles were somewhat like Servants in that they no longer existed as humans.  Though I felt like I had to respect what they once were, a Dead Apostle no longer resembled who they were as a mortal.  That was unlike a Servant, and again, while watching him grope around and try to pull a sword out of his throat was disturbing, in the end it was all I could do to return something to what was natural.
It wasn’t even letting Yumi and Sakura see what had happened, though that was perhaps the most upsetting out of it.  The both of them had very disturbing things happen to them in the past, but it was on the receiving end, not the observer’s end.  I’m pretty sure that even a victim of domestic violence would be appalled to see another suffer the exact same fate.  What’s more, Yumi seemed to take it all in with an expression that seemed too clinical even to me.  It…well, reminded me of him.  Facing down Berserker, knowing death was imminent, and yet still capable of watching everything with an objective eye.  I could only be glad she never once looked ready to crack a joke.
No, it was how much it took to get the Dead Apostle.
The Dead Apostle was with abilities taken to human extreme.  Though he had experience and practice, everything he did was within the scope of an extremely experienced and practiced human being.  He wasn’t like a Servant, with power that becomes legend and with abilities enhanced by the status as a praised being.
Though the numbers of weapons I’d Traced were even fewer than the fight with the vampire last month, this had still managed to take a lot out of me.  Gaé Bolg was not a sword and, though familiar enough, it was both more tiresome to generate and required additional prana to use its abilities.  Hrunting, though a sword, felt like a greater strain on my mind, possibly because I was no berserker-esque fighter like the original user Beowulf was.
Caliburn was easy, but…
Maybe it was difficult for a different reason.
Even if I was exhausted and my back hurt like, well, I had been thrown into a building, my mind would not shut down.  I kept reviewing the fight in my mind, kept thinking about how I could have done better, could have managed uninjured, could have done it all without Tohsaka nearly getting her head twisted off.  I thought about how Archer had apparently depleted Berserker’s God Hand multiple times himself, and compared that to how much it had taken me to stop a Dead Apostle even once.
I still had a long way to go.
Sleep came in fits, always circling around these facts, and coming back to one question:
Even with the hard work, with perfect aim…would I ever reach her?


Because of my inability to sleep, I ended up heading to the kitchen before Sakura was awake.  The thing, though, upon reaching the living room was that Tohsaka was already up, tea already made and in hand.
“Morning,” I said, surprised.  “I didn’t expect you to be up.”
“Jetlag,” Tohsaka said.
She was otherwise silent as I went about starting breakfast, staring off at nothing while I got the rice started and getting some omelets prepared.  When I settled down across from her at the table with my own cup of tea while I waited for the rice to steam, she didn’t seem to take any notice.
Sakura was up and greeted us just as I got back up to start cooking everything and she too seemed a little distant, not even offering to take over the kitchen duties as was her habit.  Not that I minded, but, it was a little odd.
By the time Yumi was up, I had already finished setting the table.  Yumi, too, looked at Tohsaka and Sakura, confusion evident, possibly picking up on the weird vibe that was in the air.  “What’s going on?” she asked.
When her eyes turned to me, I shrugged, then jabbed Tohsaka with my elbow.  The witch hardly seemed to register it, though she slowly turned to look at me.  “Okay,” I said, “You’re creeping me out too.  What’s wrong?”
Tohsaka blinked at me, then sighed.  “Just…well, thinking about what that guy said last night.  Something isn’t really adding up.”
I glanced over my shoulder in the direction of the yard, though there was nothing left there besides some burnt grass where Tohsaka’s spell had exploded.  Caren Ortensia had visited quickly after the battle and, one by one, had carted off with the bodies of the zombie-like living dead that had accompanied the Dead Apostle.  She took that Dmitri guy last, swords and all, praying all the while, as the guy helplessly clawed at Caliburn’s intrusion.  How she managed it all before Fuji-nee had come was something of a miracle, as I don’t think the truck Caren had brought was even around the corner when Fuji-nee burst through the genkan.  
“Like the fact that he talked way too much for someone who should know better?” I asked.
Tohsaka’s flat eyes and are-you-really-that-dumb eyebrow convergence was the response I got.
Well, geez, get some sleep if you’re going to be crabby after one joke.
“No, I mean the part where he mentioned the Holy Grail and that I had ‘it’ with me.  He implied that it was the prize from the war.”  Tohsaka absently poked at her omelet.  “He said he could sense its presence here.”
“Oh, yes, the ‘prize.’  I’m sure I kept a pocket-full of All the Evils of the World and stored it in the refrigerator.”  I shook my head.  “Kotomine said that it was pure power and malice wrapped into one, and I’d imagine a Dead Apostle can intuit that feeling, but still here?  It isn’t even present at Ryuudou Temple any longer.”
Tohsaka gave a nearly imperceptible tilt of the head to acknowledge that, but it was Sakura who spoke up.  “I don’t really know what senpai and nee-san are talking about, but, I could make out a connection between the Dead Apostle and here.”
I decided I would not even try to attempt any tea anytime soon.  It just seemed like one of those kind of days when the moment I put any liquid in my mouth, I might just spit it all back up.  “You what?”  Even Tohsaka looked surprised, as well as a little wary.
“Um.”  Sakura sighed.  “Well, it wasn’t anything magical.  Just…uh, attitude, I suppose?”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
Sakura nodded.  “I know, which is absolutely a good thing.”  She gave a little smile, but it was offset by the droop of her eyebrows in a way that made her look very much like her sister when Tohsaka was apologetic.  On the rare occasion, anyway.  “But the way he moved, his posture, it reminded me of…him.  As the Grail War came closer and closer.”
I felt my hand twitch.  Specifically the fingers I used for bow-drawing.
That bastard.
When Tohsaka had finally pulled the whole story out of Sakura, of what had happened in the years since they had been separated…
The Matou mansion had inexplicably experienced an explosion that blasted a hole from their basement all the way up to street level.
The first time I had tried a Broken Phantasm.  
“So he reminded you of Zouken Matou,” Tohsaka said, more aloud than to her sister.  I think she was trying to use that frame of reference to put the pieces together in her head and see what came out.  “Illya said once that Zouken had been there from the beginning, somehow preserving his life, and that he had lost his way with the Grail.  That he couldn’t even remember the initial reason he wanted to use it and had just been consumed with the idea of gaining it.”
I remembered that as well.  Illya had come with me when I had gone to pick a fight with Zouken; the Broken Phantasm I’d used hadn’t actually killed him, according to her, but she said that he was cowed.  I gathered it had nothing to do with me, but Illya had never explained further.  I’m not even sure what happened after that, really, because I had been so angry all I could do was storm right back out of the house and hope to god that someone else was going to explain how a five meter-diameter hole had shown up right outside the Matou estate’s main gate.
Pushing the memory aside, I considered what Tohsaka just said.  The Dead Apostle had been prideful and superbly confident, but I hadn’t noticed anything like what they were describing.  And I didn’t know Zouken Matou well enough to compare the brief moment I had with him.  I would just have to assume and trust that they knew what they were talking about.  “So he was just intuitively drawn here by something.  Still doesn’t give us any real clues, because none of us keep magical artifacts here.”  I paused, a new thought coming.  “Although maybe I should double-check Illya’s grave and make sure it hasn’t been disturbed.  If there was any residual presence of the Grail…”
Tohsaka smacked her forehead.  “I never would have thought of that.  Maybe you should go do that now, Shirou, while it’s still early.”
I nodded, already on my feet.  “Be back in a bit, then.”


While Shirou was out, she had to ask: “What was this Grail that man mentioned and you keep talking about?”
Rin looked a little abashed, like she had completely forgotten that Yumi was even at the table.  “A…magical device.  It was believed to grant wishes, but from everything Shirou said, it was nothing more than a weapon.”
“Shirou was the only one to see it?”
Rin nodded.  “Anyway, it was highly evil.  And Shirou destroyed it.”
“Where?”
“Ryuudou Temple,” Rin said, shrugging.  “Nothing is left up there, though.”


When I made it back home, Sakura had cleared the table except for my own untouched meal.  Yumi was right back to watching television, and I was thankful that the events of the night had not changed that kind of habit.  I settled back down and started in on my food in earnest.  “Nothing, though.  It was still there.”
Tohsaka sighed.  “Well, not that I wanted someone grave digging, but it might have given us a lead or something.  Oh well.  No point in worrying, I guess.”
I nodded and accepted fresh tea that Sakura had prepared for me.
“So, then, what is this about Yumi learning magic?”
I coughed in an attempt to not choke when the tea went down the wrong way.  Thanks, Tohsaka, and I had managed to convince myself it was safe to go ahead and drink.
“Just little things,” Sakura explained.  “So far she has only demonstrated a slight skill in it, not anywhere even near senpai.”
Tohsaka glanced over at where Yumi sat watching television.  It was readily apparent the girl could hear everything, though she seemed content to let us do the arguing for her while she watched a penalty game show.  The laughter on the screen managed to offset the glare Tohsaka was giving us just enough that it diffused whatever tension came with it.
Hmm, I wonder if the show choice was on purpose.
“Still, dangerous,” Tohsaka said.  “You said she performed it last night?”
I nodded.  “In a rather clever way.  I think I’m just a little too straightforward a thinker to have utilized magic in that sort of fashion.”  I’m not really sure why I felt like praising her, though it might be another attempt to offset the more practical reasoning: magic was just a dangerous prospect for anyone to pick up.  And Yumi already had enough done to her.
“Besides,” Sakura said, “in this family, what else is she going to do?  She felt the connection, watches nee-san and senpai practice with their magic, and because of what has happened before…shouldn’t she be able to make the choice?”
Tohsaka looked ready to devolve into a rant, but the determined look on Sakura’s face seemed to ward her.  When it came to it, I think Tohsaka’s thoughts paralleled mine: Sakura just intuitively understood Yumi much better than either of us for obvious reasons.  It seemed like this was an attempt to empower a victim, which was not really something I quite comprehended from an outside perspective and Tohsaka, while she could sympathize, couldn’t quite draw on personal experience.    
The elder sister sighed, leaning her elbows on the table, chin in her hands, and looked away.  It was just about as close to a pout as Tohsaka ever got.  “I guess there is something to it.  Her prana flow does seem more regulated and safer.  She even seems a little more focused.”
Sakura: 1, Tohsaka: 0.
Tohsaka whipped her hair over her shoulder and turned a glare my way.  “But next time, you don’t drop a bomb on me like this.  We discuss it first; no more unilateral decisions to support whatever comes up.”
Tohsaka: 1, me: 0.
Why was I the subordinate to everyone in my own house?


That night, once more, I returned to Ryuudou Temple.
The fight had given me some insight; watching Yumi do Alteration had given me more.
Magic was Equivalent Exchange.  One cannot create something out of nothing, nor put into existence something that never was and never will be.
Projection, of course, was technically turning air into something else.  But what I did wasn’t really even that, else Yumi would never have been able to manipulate what I did.
Alteration, on the other hand, was changing an item to gain attributes.  But those attributes still had to be within the realm of possibility, or else magic would not be where it was right now.  Tohsaka harked on the fact that magic was losing its place in the world because technology could replicate most of what modern magi did, and that the difference between modern magic and True Magic was that distinction.  So, it follows that no matter what Yumi did, Alteration shouldn’t put completely different concepts onto items that absolutely change their intended purpose to something only limited by imagination.
I had thought before that the impossibility of deploying my internal world on top of this one was what was so difficult to overcome.  But in reality, perhaps…
That was the answer.
It was impossible.  Logically, it defied everything even modern magi were taught.  It defied reality, it defied the rules, and because of it all, it was so exceedingly dangerous and considered off-limits.
So even if I was good at it, my body resisted it when I made those swords.  Curtana, Thuân Thiên, Caladbolg, Hrunting, Kanshou and Bakuya…
Caliburn, though…
I hadn’t even ever seen Caliburn in reality.  Just an image.  A memory.  One not even my own.
It didn’t even have anything to do with Avalon, either.  As far as I understood, Saber had gained both Avalon and Excalibur after losing Caliburn, so, it wasn’t my body’s knowledge of that item in particular.
No.
It had to do with the one it belonged to.
Caliburn came so easy because—
You were my sheath…
I wasn’t a magus.  I was too much of a failure to even be considered one.  Even the most basic things had me beaten.  This, though—
If it was my own world, it was not a world as a magus.
Paradoxically…
How does the magus with no magus abilities summon a power sometimes considered the greatest a magus could aspire to do?
Paradoxically…
How is a person with a mind full of swords a sheath to someone else?
I had to reconsider how I was going about this.  Not as a magus, but…
Who I was.  Who I had become.
Determined to reach her…
This place had been where I had perhaps, for the only time in my life, I had done so.  As her equal.  We had parted here, not Servant and Master, but…
A Heroic Spirit, proud of what her life had come to, and…
“I am the bone of my sword.”
Her ally.

Omake

“And you, my son, what reason do you believe you have to pass through these gates and enter the pantheon of Heroic Spirits?” Saint Peter asked.

Shirou paused to consider.  “Well, I survived being impaled by the Hound of Ulster.  I saved my schoolmates from having their souls sucked out by the Gorgon Medusa.  I fought my way out of All the Evils of the World to Falcon Punch an evil priest bent on world destruction.  I fought the King of Heroes to a standstill with the very arsenal he tried to kill me with.  I stole the weapon of Hercules and shot him with it.  And I did it all while banging the founder of Camelot, my class idol, and childhood friend, two of them at the same time.”

“I do not think the latter is a reason to pass,” Saint Peter said.

“Are you kidding me?  I don’t care about that, I’m telling everyone I can!”

Saint Peter sighed.  “I will consider your application.  Please wait in the foyer.  Next!”

Shirou sighed, but did as he was told.

“And you, my son,” Saint Peter said to the next in line, “what reason do you believe you have to pass through these gates?”

“Well…” Shiki Tohno started.
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