Fate/Stay Night Fan Fiction ❯ Escaping Fate ❯ The Philosopher's Stone ( Chapter 22 )

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

AN: Yes, I made stuff up in this chapter.  I’ve tried to dodge what I can when I can, though, when it comes to putting my spin on canon.  Anyway.


Escaping Fate
Interlude 15-1
The Philosopher’s Stone


Sakura worked on cleaning the dishes after the three of them had charged on out to Shinto, watching from the kitchen as Yumi surfed the channels of the television in the search for entertainment.
Really, she over-cleaned the dishes in an effort to keep her mind off of what could be going on beyond the walls of the house.
Unfortunately, within ten minutes, the dishes were about as sparkly-clean as any amount of polishing would manage.  Sakura replaced her apron on its hangar and settled in next to Yumi as the girl decided on Nodame Cantabile, an anime she had been recording.
“Yumi, you gave Se…Shirou the Shroud?” Sakura asked.
Yumi shrugged.  “Not all of it.  It was way too long for me, though, so I cut part of it off.”  
Sakura shook her head.  “I have a feeling someone should scold you about respecting ancient and rare things.”
“You’re not going to?”
“You might have noticed, but I’m terrible at scolding people.  We’ll leave that to Rin nee-san.”
Yumi started the show, and Sakura watched alongside her, wondering why the titular character Nodame sounded familiar.*
The sound of rattling wood suddenly drowned out all other sound, and the television went out.  Sakura’s eyes went wide as she glanced about the room.  “The field—!”
The boundary field surrounding the Emiya home had alerted them of danger.
Sakura pulled Yumi to her feet.  “Hallway, now, and stay behind me.  Tell me if you see anything behind us.”
Yumi nodded.  She repressed the urge to point out that when Sakura wanted, she could sound very much like Rin.
They stepped out into the hallway and headed for the back porch, Sakura keeping an eye out at all times for trouble.  She thought of the timing of this, and the likelihood of it actually being the demon—something that seemed unlikely, as she did not think such a creature would set off the alert from the boundary field.  Too, she trusted that her sister and Shirou would not have let it slip past them nor let it defeat them so simply and swiftly.
Rounding the corner, a figure stood before them, and Sakura halted so fast Yumi slid right into her shoulders in the process.  “Who are you?” Sakura asked when the man made no move.
He stood there, silent, and Sakura felt her skin crawl.  His hair, short, was unnaturally pale, not at all like an aged person but almost cat-whisker-like; his eyes were also a pale grey, giving him the look of a madman as he scanned over her like she were being appraised for auction.
When Yumi grabbed the back of her blouse and pulled, desperately, Sakura understood.
“Setsuka Yuushi,” Sakura said, recalling the name of Yumi’s tormentor.  “You don’t belong here.  Get out.”
The man stood there, staring at the two, and then reached into his pocket.  “My property.  You’ll return it.”
“Yumi is not your property,” Sakura said.  
He withdrew a scalpel from his pocket.
“Cos-i aequalis cosh-unum!”**
Simultaneously raising her left hand and pulling Yumi down with her right, Sakura crouched and speared the intruder with her magic.  Shirou and Rin’s description of Yuushi’s powers suggested that all she could do was remove the od from his body and hope for the best; grabbing something to hit him with or engaging him in a fist fight would probably not go well for her.
Especially because she abhorred violence.
She felt prana drain from the man, who pitched forward and hit the floor like a stiff mannequin.  
Taking a deep breath, Sakura turned back to Yumi, who crouched on the floor behind her.  “Are you alright?”
Yumi stared over Sakura’s shoulder, and Sakura felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
“Secare.”
For reasons that escaped her—but she was absolutely grateful for—Sakura thought of what Shirou had described when he had explained his involvement in the Holy Grail War.  She remembered how he had been stalked by Lancer in the very same location, and how he had not thought about anything but getting clear of his attacker.
Sakura scooped Yumi up in her arms and dove right through the sliding door, trying her best to put a burst of prana into her shoulder as she did so.  The glass broke from the impact and both girls went tumbling out into the yard.
Pain.
Cuts from the glass pierced her body, one tearing a line right beneath her right eye and across her cheek almost all the way to her ear.  Another tore into the sleeve of her blouse and cut her upper arm.
A deep gash on her back, not from glass.
“Sakura-nee!” Yumi cried.
Sakura had dropped Yumi, though the girl looked unhurt.  With little thought, she reached up, took Yumi’s hand, pulled them both upright, and bolted for the house entryway.


Yuushi watched them go, still shuddering from the drain of prana.
Shuddering in delight.
It works, it works, it works!  This is brilliant, so perfect a design!
He mentally rearranged his interior structure, like reordering the same chemicals that made up a compound to go in a different order, or like removing the stone blocks that made up a building’s foundation and then placing them back under in a different order…
Like removing the organs, then returning them in a different order.
Prana.
Life.
He had the design, so perfect, so…
Sublime.
With a new circuit in place, he palmed his scalpel and gave chase.


“Sakura-nee!”
Sakura tried desperately to quell the tearing pain she felt in her back, arm, and cheek.  Upon nearing the intersection that led alternatively to Ryuudou Temple, the school, and the shopping district, she pulled Yumi in behind one house off to the side, a house she rarely saw occupied when she went by in the mornings.  Panting, more from pain, she cradled her arm and finally looked down to see the red now staining her sleeve.
Yumi took the waistcoat she wore off and put it around Sakura’s shoulders.  “What happened?” she asked, though Sakura could make out the distancing she felt in the question.  It was probably just too much for the girl to process, all of what had happened earlier and now the addition of the one person she truly feared.  Anything that came out of her now would probably sound extremely logical and remote.
“It…I’m not sure,” Sakura admitted.  “That should’ve pulled enough prana out of his body at once to make him pass out.”  She shook a little.  “I’m really no good with other magi, though…it might have gone wrong.”
“What do we do now?”
Cringing as she put her arms through the vest and buttoned it tightly to her—not difficult, as Yumi was many sizes smaller than she was—Sakura moaned, “We should try and find a safe place and call senpai and nee-san.”  She shook her head.  “No, a phone call could distract them…um.”  She shivered a little, and hoped that she wasn’t starting to feel the effects of shock.  “That man, they said he does things…I don’t know of anything to stop him myself.”
Yumi nodded.  “I don’t think we have any choice.  Shirou and Rin would be angry with us if we didn’t come to them.”
Sakura nodded wearily.  She was too pained and unfocused to make any kind of argument.  
Glancing out from behind the house back up the street, Yumi now pulled Sakura out as they raced toward the bridge and Shinto.


Yuushi caught sight of them, and hurried his pace.  He tried his best, though, not to look like he was chasing after them, as it was daylight and people might be suspicious if they saw first a set of girls running, then a man chasing after them.
It hardly mattered, though.
Now, he knew, that older girl was no match for him.  Even if she could drain him of his current od—
He had spares.
He was many times the magus she was.
Literally.
And when he had the test subject back, he would be able to show it to the Association…
Dissect it, remove it, copy it, emulate it, destroy it, whatever it took—
Designated Philosopher or not, he would be able to show them his work without further sacrifice to himself.  


*Ayako Kawasumi, gyabo.  I ask of you, are you my seiyuu?

**Forgive my Latin.  Spell invocation messing with a complex logarithm equation.  Whatever the hell that is.  My schooling is in English, and I’m totally cool with pulling something out of nowhere if it has to do with numbers.

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