Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ Crucified ( Chapter 15 )
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: Zekk_Skywalk 
A shift.
Anime/Manga: Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Fantasy / Hentai / Drama / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.29.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 276 | Status: Completed
A shift.
Anime/Manga: Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Supernatural / Horror / Fantasy / Hentai / Drama / Action | Type: Continuation | Uploaded On: 09.29.2011 | Pages: 2 | Words: 3.0K | Visits: 276 | Status: Completed
AN: I’m going to probably be making some liberal uses of Nasuverse material in the issue that appears here. One of the problems with the verse is that it makes very specific references to various things but does not always explain exactly how they work. So, hopefully any discrepancy isn’t enough that it turns you off to the story. Thanks for reading!
Escaping Fate
Chapter 11
Crucified
“Senpai, do it harder.”
I stared blankly at Sakura.
Taking the knife and mallet from my hands, Sakura half-crowded, half-pushed me out of the way and took my place at the cutting board. She replaced the knife in the area where I had been attempting to cut the squash and then firmly slammed the mallet into the back end of the blade.
The squash cut neatly into two pieces.
I sighed. Despite all of my best efforts to keep Sakura from knowing every secret I had in the kitchen, it was becoming more and more common for her to be doing things better and more efficiently than I ever could. And acorn squash just happened to be one thing that I found myself incapable with; as it resisted the more delicate attempts I tried with it, too many years of carefully cutting various other fruits and vegetables working against me.
Sakura worked on removing the seeds and I retreated to the living room in defeat.
“Ah, Shirou,” Tohsaka said, giving me that thin-lipped smirk, “Not only do you not wear the pants in the house, but Sakura has it so you can’t wear the skirt either. Obviously, you were always meant for the menial position of butler…or maid.”*
I glared and sat at the table, putting my chin in my hands. “The uniform chafes.”
Tohsaka didn’t bat an eyelash. “The butler or maid uniform?”
The phone rang, saving me from answering. Unfortunately, it also kept the comment in play, as if I jumped up to get it I would be proving her point. I tried to ignore the ringing, keeping my eyes on Tohsaka, who kept staring me down in return.
“Will someone get the phone, please?” Sakura said from the kitchen.
Stare.
Stare.
…Fine. “I’ll—“
Tohsaka jumped up and headed into the hall. “I’ll get it,” she said, grinning over her shoulder at me.
Witch.
I sighed and raised my voice so Sakura could hear. “I’m telling you, you’re the one that works. I should be making food at least. You shouldn’t have to do this after taking days off from work.” Because Yumi had been acting up, Sakura had taken the rest of the week off in hopes that Yumi would open up to her. Thankfully, Sakura had covered for Mitsuzuri some weeks ago and the two had simply traded off a few days.
“If senpai did not look so vexed today, maybe I would have let you,” Sakura said.
I glared in her direction, though I couldn’t see her from where I sat. I resent the word let.
Tohsaka ran back in. “Something happened at the school.”
Fire department and EMT vehicles crowded the entryway to the school when we arrived. We had to identify ourselves to a police officer and were told not to enter the building, which was under quarantine until they could figure out what had happened.
Kids were being ushered about by firefighters and checked by the EMTs; some had parents crowding in to see them. Since the fight with Shinji and Rider had knocked me out immediately after the two had moved to escape, I didn’t know exactly what the scene at school had been like then, but it was probably very similar. I could only hope whatever had happened had not been as bad as Rider’s boundary field.
We caught one of the firefighters, who explained: “We think there was a gas leak in one of the classrooms. A few students are unconscious and others are hallucinating. Please, if you are parents or guardians to a student, I would direct you to their homeroom teacher.”
I nodded and glanced back at the girls. Tohsaka was looking around already, since that explanation suggested magical interference. Sakura looked worried, probably recalling Rider’s attack as well and what she had seen of the victims.
With Yumi not in immediate evidence, we headed in the direction of Fuji-nee, who was grouped together with a class of students looking fairly bewildered.
A hand grabbed the back of my shirt.
I spun to find Caren Ortensia standing there, a serious look on her face. “Shirou Emiya. You must come with me.”
I blinked, and glanced over at Tohsaka and Sakura. Tohsaka looked mightily disturbed to see Caren and was now scanning the area for any obvious magical threat. I looked back to Caren. “What’s going on?”
“Your young one is not present, and we must go after her,” Caren said.
“What do you know about Yumi?” Sakura asked.
Caren pulled us back out toward the gate, and after glancing at the others for confirmation, we followed after her. Students were starting to be ferried off the grounds; they must have announced the closure of classes for the remainder of the day. She led us past the throngs of teenagers and concerned parents, paused for a moment, then distinctively took down one street.
When we were clear of onlookers, Caren turned to face us. She pulled back the flowy sleeve of her nun-like gown and presented her right hand.
“What the—”
It looked like someone had taken a lit cigarette and stabbed it into the palm of Caren’s hand, and then from there a spider web of black spread from that center point and sent jagged lines of ash up her arm. But unlike a burn or a drawn pattern, it looked as if the black had dug into her skin and was slowly eroding away her flesh as opposed to seared atop her limb.
“I’m sorry,” Caren said, “but I believe she is possessed by a demon.”
Caren led us in the general direction of the house, though she would pause momentarily to look about.
“How do you know it’s even Yumi?” Sakura was asking.
“I can feel the pain,” Caren said. We came to the main intersection between my house and the school, but instead of turning toward home, Caren led us down another route. “And it is very specific to a person like her, who has been tortured over a long period of time.”
I winced at the thought of literal empathy toward that kind of emotion.
“And demon possession?” Sakura continued.
I briefly glanced at Tohsaka, surprised she was not hounding questions as well. Instead, I found a look of profound sadness on her face. It was something I had caught her doing a few times before, though I had absolutely no idea what brought them on—but melancholy was an easy emotion to read on the otherwise animate witch.
“My body resonates when possession is occurring nearby,” Caren was explaining. “Additionally, what those people at the school described sounded like the actions of one possessed.”
“All they told us was they thought there was a gas leak,” I said.
Caren nodded. “Students, however, stated they saw nightmare incarnate. My hand spouted these stigmata merely an hour ago. Yumi was missing already when I arrived. It isn’t difficult to add these things up.” She glanced upward and when I followed her line of sight, found that she had been leading us in the direction of Ryuudou Temple.
“Still,” I hedged.
“Has she been acting up lately? More emotional or tempestuous than usual?”
I frowned and glanced at Sakura, finding the younger sister looking my way at the same time. We had known something was up, but…
Caren sighed. “Then I fear we may be too late.”
We rounded the corner to the street that ran along the base of the hill, and at the foot of the stairs leading up to the temple we could see a figure. Caren paused to grab her hand in pain and I felt the prana flow from Tohsaka before the witch said, “That’s her!”
The figure darted up the stairs and we ran after.
Just as we reached the base of the stairs where we had seen the figure, Caren grabbed me by the collar and Tohsaka grabbed Sakura at the same. I think Tohsaka was a little gentler with Sakura, who merely flinched and stopped in place; I fell on my ass, and had to wonder what this priestess-nun-whatever ate for breakfast.
“No, you cannot run in blindly like this,” Caren said.
I glanced back up at her, scowling. “If that is Yumi, we need to get her before she hurts herself or someone else further. And if it is demon possession, isn’t that something you’re capable of exorcising? I’m aware that they can’t fully affect the natural world, so we’re safe from everything but localized distortions—”
Tohsaka was the one to answer. “Demons that can appear to normal people like at the school are…Shirou, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
I stared at her blankly, feeling like my stomach was inverting in my body. The way she said that was so…
“If you will wait here,” Caren said, “I will go and deal with this. I do not believe you would want to see—”
Springing up to my feet, I cocked the hammer. Prana flowed from my circuits into my legs and lungs, and I charged up the stairs before she could finish.
No. You’re not going to tell me something stupid like, “I’ll go finish her off, you wait here so you don’t have to crush your hearts.” This was too sudden, too random…
There was no way I was going to see Yumi off to school in the morning and return home in the afternoon with her gone.
This kind of thing was not going to happen again.
I heard the others behind me, though I was confident that even Tohsaka would only be able to match my speed. And even if she agreed with whatever Caren seemed to be implying—like it was too late for Yumi—I’m certain she would not feel right in just letting it all go by without at least trying first.
A black dragon charged down the stairs at us.
“Shirou!/Senpai!/Shirou Emiya!” came cries from below.
It wasn’t really a black dragon, but it sure looked something like it. In the shade from the trees surrounding us, it looked more like a trick of the light, like the shadows dancing due to the movement of the foliage to look briefly horrific. But it had an odd kind of form, like running fire taken shape that clearly screamed dragon to me, and it was certainly charging down toward us.
This was no localized distortion. This really was more like…
It reminded me like the inverse beauty of Rider’s Pegasus, the moving shadow the direct opposite of the brilliant light of that Phantasmal Race.
I planted myself as best as I could on the stone steps. “I am the bone of my sword.”
The shaded creature bounded down another tier of stairs, took a leap from one landing, and came down at me like a raptor.
“Evelake Aegis!”
A blood-red cross three times my size formed.
Evelake Aegis. Painted with the blood of the Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the shield was carried by Galahad of Camelot, the perfect knight and supposed bearer of the Holy Grail.** I braced the cross-shaped device against my shoulder and the ground as the shadow struck.
Whereas Rho Aias was renowned for blocking great lances, the Evelake Aegis was known for protecting one against the toils of chasing after the Holy Grail and facing down God’s Enemies.
The dragon smashed face-first into the cross and then fled back up the stairs as fast as it had come, moving along the earth like a snake and moving through the air like a bird. I waited to see if it would about-face and try for another attack, but it seemed content to stay away.
“Shirou Emiya, that is not your cross to bear.”
I had to pause and look back at Caren; the three of them had caught up. I wasn’t certain if that was meant to be a joke, sarcasm, or completely taken straight.
“Please wait, senpai, I don’t think you should go after her yourself alone either,” Sakura said, panting a little. This excursion was probably going to be the most aerobic activity she had done since school gym.
“You saw that thing,” I said. “If that’s possessing her, I don’t want to waste anymore time here.”
“Shirou, if that’s the form it’s taking,” Tohsaka said, “then do you know, at minimum, what we’re going to have to do?”
At minimum?
“Demons are formless,” Caren said, “until they are in full possession of the host body. A demon cannot affect the natural world in any fashion until it is already symbiotic with the body it has attached itself to.”
“So, we remove it,” I said.
Tohsaka leveled me with an even stare. “That’s what I mean. You do understand…if it is inhabiting even just her arm, you have to completely remove the arm.”
What?
“But I do not believe that the case,” Caren said, sighing. She pulled at the collar of her robe and exposed her collarbone. The same web-like form of stigmata was encroaching on her neck and it was clear they continued from the little she was showing. “Some Dead Apostle Ancestors are known to contain demons within specific portions of their bodies, but to a relatively normal human, that is impossible. I believe that her left arm may be the only part of her not contaminated already.”
I held off on asking why the left arm—it had something to do with that red bandage Yumi wore along the upper portion of her arm, I could guess that much—but I still couldn’t comprehend it all. “But ‘contamination’ can be cleansed, and I thought that’s what an exorcism was.”
“Correct,” Caren said, “but I misspoke. With possession, if it is already at the point where physical changes are manifesting, where the spirit can affect the natural world, it has already damaged the body irreparably. Like a cancerous tumor that is beyond therapy, the body may remain behind but the damage is too far to cleanse.”
I growled and hefted my shield. Though bulky and oversized, it was not terribly heavy. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“No, it isn’t.” Caren pulled long, thin sword-like weapons from her robes. “Shirou Emiya, you must be prepared. If this demon has corrupted her body fully, I must exorcise it. And that includes the destruction of the original body. If left unchecked, a demon is capable of warping this entire city with its malice, not unlike Angra Mainyu.”
Dammit.
Dammit.
The image of Kirei Kotomine before the black that spilled out of the Grail, Illya floating helpless just below…
Replaced by yet another tragedy—
No.
Don’t tell me that it’s like that…
Kiritsugu hit this wall.
Saber hit this wall.
I…
“If you wish to be who you claim your aim is, then understand that this is a part of that. An ally of justice does not stand by emotions, but by what is right and fair. Even if it means cursing God,” Caren said, looking at me sadly, “though God will certainly understand.”
One cannot protect the people with human emotion.
“Then I’ll achieve it. If you can’t do it because you’re an adult, then I’ll do it for you in your place.”
How…
How was this going to work?
I looked at the swords in Caren’s hand, looked to the marks beneath those blades, to the hole in her palm.
Like it was mocking me.
**…You know, making up Noble Phantasms is hard. At least, ones that don’t glaringly stand out compared to canonical ones.
Converting /tmp/phpoND0bU to /dev/stdout
Escaping Fate
Chapter 11
Crucified
“Senpai, do it harder.”
I stared blankly at Sakura.
Taking the knife and mallet from my hands, Sakura half-crowded, half-pushed me out of the way and took my place at the cutting board. She replaced the knife in the area where I had been attempting to cut the squash and then firmly slammed the mallet into the back end of the blade.
The squash cut neatly into two pieces.
I sighed. Despite all of my best efforts to keep Sakura from knowing every secret I had in the kitchen, it was becoming more and more common for her to be doing things better and more efficiently than I ever could. And acorn squash just happened to be one thing that I found myself incapable with; as it resisted the more delicate attempts I tried with it, too many years of carefully cutting various other fruits and vegetables working against me.
Sakura worked on removing the seeds and I retreated to the living room in defeat.
“Ah, Shirou,” Tohsaka said, giving me that thin-lipped smirk, “Not only do you not wear the pants in the house, but Sakura has it so you can’t wear the skirt either. Obviously, you were always meant for the menial position of butler…or maid.”*
I glared and sat at the table, putting my chin in my hands. “The uniform chafes.”
Tohsaka didn’t bat an eyelash. “The butler or maid uniform?”
The phone rang, saving me from answering. Unfortunately, it also kept the comment in play, as if I jumped up to get it I would be proving her point. I tried to ignore the ringing, keeping my eyes on Tohsaka, who kept staring me down in return.
“Will someone get the phone, please?” Sakura said from the kitchen.
Stare.
Stare.
…Fine. “I’ll—“
Tohsaka jumped up and headed into the hall. “I’ll get it,” she said, grinning over her shoulder at me.
Witch.
I sighed and raised my voice so Sakura could hear. “I’m telling you, you’re the one that works. I should be making food at least. You shouldn’t have to do this after taking days off from work.” Because Yumi had been acting up, Sakura had taken the rest of the week off in hopes that Yumi would open up to her. Thankfully, Sakura had covered for Mitsuzuri some weeks ago and the two had simply traded off a few days.
“If senpai did not look so vexed today, maybe I would have let you,” Sakura said.
I glared in her direction, though I couldn’t see her from where I sat. I resent the word let.
Tohsaka ran back in. “Something happened at the school.”
Fire department and EMT vehicles crowded the entryway to the school when we arrived. We had to identify ourselves to a police officer and were told not to enter the building, which was under quarantine until they could figure out what had happened.
Kids were being ushered about by firefighters and checked by the EMTs; some had parents crowding in to see them. Since the fight with Shinji and Rider had knocked me out immediately after the two had moved to escape, I didn’t know exactly what the scene at school had been like then, but it was probably very similar. I could only hope whatever had happened had not been as bad as Rider’s boundary field.
We caught one of the firefighters, who explained: “We think there was a gas leak in one of the classrooms. A few students are unconscious and others are hallucinating. Please, if you are parents or guardians to a student, I would direct you to their homeroom teacher.”
I nodded and glanced back at the girls. Tohsaka was looking around already, since that explanation suggested magical interference. Sakura looked worried, probably recalling Rider’s attack as well and what she had seen of the victims.
With Yumi not in immediate evidence, we headed in the direction of Fuji-nee, who was grouped together with a class of students looking fairly bewildered.
A hand grabbed the back of my shirt.
I spun to find Caren Ortensia standing there, a serious look on her face. “Shirou Emiya. You must come with me.”
I blinked, and glanced over at Tohsaka and Sakura. Tohsaka looked mightily disturbed to see Caren and was now scanning the area for any obvious magical threat. I looked back to Caren. “What’s going on?”
“Your young one is not present, and we must go after her,” Caren said.
“What do you know about Yumi?” Sakura asked.
Caren pulled us back out toward the gate, and after glancing at the others for confirmation, we followed after her. Students were starting to be ferried off the grounds; they must have announced the closure of classes for the remainder of the day. She led us past the throngs of teenagers and concerned parents, paused for a moment, then distinctively took down one street.
When we were clear of onlookers, Caren turned to face us. She pulled back the flowy sleeve of her nun-like gown and presented her right hand.
“What the—”
It looked like someone had taken a lit cigarette and stabbed it into the palm of Caren’s hand, and then from there a spider web of black spread from that center point and sent jagged lines of ash up her arm. But unlike a burn or a drawn pattern, it looked as if the black had dug into her skin and was slowly eroding away her flesh as opposed to seared atop her limb.
“I’m sorry,” Caren said, “but I believe she is possessed by a demon.”
Caren led us in the general direction of the house, though she would pause momentarily to look about.
“How do you know it’s even Yumi?” Sakura was asking.
“I can feel the pain,” Caren said. We came to the main intersection between my house and the school, but instead of turning toward home, Caren led us down another route. “And it is very specific to a person like her, who has been tortured over a long period of time.”
I winced at the thought of literal empathy toward that kind of emotion.
“And demon possession?” Sakura continued.
I briefly glanced at Tohsaka, surprised she was not hounding questions as well. Instead, I found a look of profound sadness on her face. It was something I had caught her doing a few times before, though I had absolutely no idea what brought them on—but melancholy was an easy emotion to read on the otherwise animate witch.
“My body resonates when possession is occurring nearby,” Caren was explaining. “Additionally, what those people at the school described sounded like the actions of one possessed.”
“All they told us was they thought there was a gas leak,” I said.
Caren nodded. “Students, however, stated they saw nightmare incarnate. My hand spouted these stigmata merely an hour ago. Yumi was missing already when I arrived. It isn’t difficult to add these things up.” She glanced upward and when I followed her line of sight, found that she had been leading us in the direction of Ryuudou Temple.
“Still,” I hedged.
“Has she been acting up lately? More emotional or tempestuous than usual?”
I frowned and glanced at Sakura, finding the younger sister looking my way at the same time. We had known something was up, but…
Caren sighed. “Then I fear we may be too late.”
We rounded the corner to the street that ran along the base of the hill, and at the foot of the stairs leading up to the temple we could see a figure. Caren paused to grab her hand in pain and I felt the prana flow from Tohsaka before the witch said, “That’s her!”
The figure darted up the stairs and we ran after.
Just as we reached the base of the stairs where we had seen the figure, Caren grabbed me by the collar and Tohsaka grabbed Sakura at the same. I think Tohsaka was a little gentler with Sakura, who merely flinched and stopped in place; I fell on my ass, and had to wonder what this priestess-nun-whatever ate for breakfast.
“No, you cannot run in blindly like this,” Caren said.
I glanced back up at her, scowling. “If that is Yumi, we need to get her before she hurts herself or someone else further. And if it is demon possession, isn’t that something you’re capable of exorcising? I’m aware that they can’t fully affect the natural world, so we’re safe from everything but localized distortions—”
Tohsaka was the one to answer. “Demons that can appear to normal people like at the school are…Shirou, I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
I stared at her blankly, feeling like my stomach was inverting in my body. The way she said that was so…
“If you will wait here,” Caren said, “I will go and deal with this. I do not believe you would want to see—”
Springing up to my feet, I cocked the hammer. Prana flowed from my circuits into my legs and lungs, and I charged up the stairs before she could finish.
No. You’re not going to tell me something stupid like, “I’ll go finish her off, you wait here so you don’t have to crush your hearts.” This was too sudden, too random…
There was no way I was going to see Yumi off to school in the morning and return home in the afternoon with her gone.
This kind of thing was not going to happen again.
I heard the others behind me, though I was confident that even Tohsaka would only be able to match my speed. And even if she agreed with whatever Caren seemed to be implying—like it was too late for Yumi—I’m certain she would not feel right in just letting it all go by without at least trying first.
A black dragon charged down the stairs at us.
“Shirou!/Senpai!/Shirou Emiya!” came cries from below.
It wasn’t really a black dragon, but it sure looked something like it. In the shade from the trees surrounding us, it looked more like a trick of the light, like the shadows dancing due to the movement of the foliage to look briefly horrific. But it had an odd kind of form, like running fire taken shape that clearly screamed dragon to me, and it was certainly charging down toward us.
This was no localized distortion. This really was more like…
It reminded me like the inverse beauty of Rider’s Pegasus, the moving shadow the direct opposite of the brilliant light of that Phantasmal Race.
I planted myself as best as I could on the stone steps. “I am the bone of my sword.”
The shaded creature bounded down another tier of stairs, took a leap from one landing, and came down at me like a raptor.
“Evelake Aegis!”
A blood-red cross three times my size formed.
Evelake Aegis. Painted with the blood of the Saint Joseph of Arimathea, the shield was carried by Galahad of Camelot, the perfect knight and supposed bearer of the Holy Grail.** I braced the cross-shaped device against my shoulder and the ground as the shadow struck.
Whereas Rho Aias was renowned for blocking great lances, the Evelake Aegis was known for protecting one against the toils of chasing after the Holy Grail and facing down God’s Enemies.
The dragon smashed face-first into the cross and then fled back up the stairs as fast as it had come, moving along the earth like a snake and moving through the air like a bird. I waited to see if it would about-face and try for another attack, but it seemed content to stay away.
“Shirou Emiya, that is not your cross to bear.”
I had to pause and look back at Caren; the three of them had caught up. I wasn’t certain if that was meant to be a joke, sarcasm, or completely taken straight.
“Please wait, senpai, I don’t think you should go after her yourself alone either,” Sakura said, panting a little. This excursion was probably going to be the most aerobic activity she had done since school gym.
“You saw that thing,” I said. “If that’s possessing her, I don’t want to waste anymore time here.”
“Shirou, if that’s the form it’s taking,” Tohsaka said, “then do you know, at minimum, what we’re going to have to do?”
At minimum?
“Demons are formless,” Caren said, “until they are in full possession of the host body. A demon cannot affect the natural world in any fashion until it is already symbiotic with the body it has attached itself to.”
“So, we remove it,” I said.
Tohsaka leveled me with an even stare. “That’s what I mean. You do understand…if it is inhabiting even just her arm, you have to completely remove the arm.”
What?
“But I do not believe that the case,” Caren said, sighing. She pulled at the collar of her robe and exposed her collarbone. The same web-like form of stigmata was encroaching on her neck and it was clear they continued from the little she was showing. “Some Dead Apostle Ancestors are known to contain demons within specific portions of their bodies, but to a relatively normal human, that is impossible. I believe that her left arm may be the only part of her not contaminated already.”
I held off on asking why the left arm—it had something to do with that red bandage Yumi wore along the upper portion of her arm, I could guess that much—but I still couldn’t comprehend it all. “But ‘contamination’ can be cleansed, and I thought that’s what an exorcism was.”
“Correct,” Caren said, “but I misspoke. With possession, if it is already at the point where physical changes are manifesting, where the spirit can affect the natural world, it has already damaged the body irreparably. Like a cancerous tumor that is beyond therapy, the body may remain behind but the damage is too far to cleanse.”
I growled and hefted my shield. Though bulky and oversized, it was not terribly heavy. “This isn’t getting us anywhere.”
“No, it isn’t.” Caren pulled long, thin sword-like weapons from her robes. “Shirou Emiya, you must be prepared. If this demon has corrupted her body fully, I must exorcise it. And that includes the destruction of the original body. If left unchecked, a demon is capable of warping this entire city with its malice, not unlike Angra Mainyu.”
Dammit.
Dammit.
The image of Kirei Kotomine before the black that spilled out of the Grail, Illya floating helpless just below…
Replaced by yet another tragedy—
No.
Don’t tell me that it’s like that…
Kiritsugu hit this wall.
Saber hit this wall.
I…
“If you wish to be who you claim your aim is, then understand that this is a part of that. An ally of justice does not stand by emotions, but by what is right and fair. Even if it means cursing God,” Caren said, looking at me sadly, “though God will certainly understand.”
One cannot protect the people with human emotion.
“Then I’ll achieve it. If you can’t do it because you’re an adult, then I’ll do it for you in your place.”
How…
How was this going to work?
I looked at the swords in Caren’s hand, looked to the marks beneath those blades, to the hole in her palm.
Like it was mocking me.
Escaping Fate, Crucified, End
*Holding off on Black Butler joke.**…You know, making up Noble Phantasms is hard. At least, ones that don’t glaringly stand out compared to canonical ones.
Converting /tmp/phpoND0bU to /dev/stdout