He had no trails, no leads, nothing. The kidnapper was gone and each passing second made locating him harder. Shirou was up the metaphorical creek without a paddle. Oh, who was he kidding? At this point, he didn't even have a canoe. He had followed the footsteps to the start of the pavement where his only lead abruptly ended. If Shirou had to guess, the kidnapper likely went down the alleyway just ahead. He had no idea how smart the kidnapper was. If he was operating on Kiritsugu's level, he would have avoided the most obvious and preferable option to take an unexpected route where he wouldn't be followed. There were too many options and Shirou had no way to narrow things down.
The golden sheath of Avalon suddenly illuminated the interior of his mind. Curious, Shirou tried to determine what it wanted. He wasn't doing anything special, there was no reason for it to be acting up. "What's your problem? Can't you see I'm dealing with something else here?"
The sheath flickered. Did it want to be traced? Right now of all times? Testing his hypothesis, Shirou thought about tracing and the light from the sheath flashed. Thinking about projecting the sheath itself bore no such results. "Trace… Trace…" Shirou mumbled, looking around as if someone or something nearby would have the answer. "Trace Illya?" he asked, uncertain on what the artifact wanted.
He couldn't trace Illya, tracing had to be done on seen or touched objects. Maybe it wanted him to think about what he knew about Illya because he had traced her before. Magic circuits had been embedded just beneath the skin across her entire body, her organs were deteriorating at an accelerated rate and had the appearance of someone who was sixty already and for how much mana she stored, her signature was low. With each major point, Avalon idly hummed along in his body until he reached the last feature. After considering her mana-capacity, an odd warmth blossomed from deep within his chest, a foreign but simultaneously pleasant feeling.
Something about her signature? Her signature and tracing… Shirou shifted his weight uncomfortably from one leg to the other. Being so tense and prepared without anywhere to move was making him sore. A little under two minutes had passed since he'd last seen Illya and there was no telling how far away she could be at this point. He couldn't trace mana signatures, but did he even have to?
He could trace the ground and see where high concentrations of mana were located. When Illya wasn't repressing her signature consciously, she was practically a beacon of energy. In theory, it would be easy to find her this way. Tracing the air might have been more intuitive but trying to trace gases or even liquids was extremely difficult. Since both states were constantly changing, their data had to be recorded continually to keep it recent. That wasn't even mentioning the fact that their composition was usually a very specific blend of minute things. Shirou had almost had an aneurysm the one time he'd tried to trace the air around him. He really should have paid more attention in science when learning about atmospheric compositions.
The ground was his only option. Bending down, he closed his eyes. The hammer of his father's gun slammed into position, imaginary explosion setting his circuits alight. A shout of the first line of his aria sent seething pain into his skull. He quickly limited the trace to just below the surface so his brain didn't explode trying to trace everything from the crust to the Earth's core.
While limited in scope, the information stream was intense. It wasn't to the level of Kiritsugu's journal - of which he based everything he traced - so it certainly wasn't fatal. The pain was equivalent to jamming a burning rod into the base of his neck. It was on the same level as converting his nerves into circuits.
Scrunching his face and gritting his teeth, he focused on trying to find mana concentrations. Three large signatures became apparent. One to the west, one to the east and two to the south. The southern ones were undoubtedly the bounded fields of the Tohsaka and Matou manors. The Emiya field did not appear simply because its meticulous construction allowed it to be near invisible. Based on the western signal's awe-inspiring size and powerful, clean concentration, it was Ryuudou Temple. The eastern signature was moving, and rather quickly as well.
It was at this point that Shirou thanked Rin for teaching him magecraft for all these years. Using what he knew about mana, Od and both of their respective properties, Shirou could essentially track Illya by following the trail of mana she released over time. Due to the fact that mana generated within the body, Od, diffused over time, magi left a signature which could easily be found through tracing. Since Illya was quite literally a massive battery of stored mana, she diffused it at an incredible rate and practically coated her surroundings with mana when she wasn't consciously making an effort to minimize her signature.
To Shirou's tracing, she was a large splotch in the distance. Locking the traced image into his mind, he shot forward like a bullet. The kidnapper was a little under half a kilometre away, not too far for someone moving nearly twice as fast as an Olympic sprinter. Upon reaching the location he'd sensed her to be, Shirou came across absolutely nothing. Repeating the tracing process, he found the signature had taken a skewed path two hundred meters to the northeast.
Shirou stood and had to pause for a second as a pounding headache pierced through his skull. This was progressively killing him each time, wasn't it? A third or fourth time might put him out of commission. Looking towards the last known location of the kidnapper, Shirou roughly calculated distances and decided on his path. Reinforcing his legs further, he chose the path and quite literally leapt to claim it.
With a powerful magically-enhanced jump, Shirou cleared sixteen feet and landed on the roof of a house. Trying to move around winding corners would slow him down in the long run, a straight line was much faster. With the compact design of Japanese houses, Shirou was able to rapidly close the distance between him and the kidnapper by leaping across the roofs of buildings. From this vantage point, Shirou could see his traced point. It was on a larger street which cut east and west. He was heading east, toward the red bridge between Miyama and Shinto. With a hop, he left the roof and landed on the sidewalk. He paused to look around, trying to discern where his target went. Shirou didn't want to trace the ground again if he didn't have to, but unless the kidnapper leapt out from around the corner within a few seconds,, he would have no choice.
One second passed while steaming breath poured out of his mouth and body. There was a considerable amount of heat being generated by his circuits. Deciding to do something idiotic, Shirou took a moment to reinforce his eyes. It was a very intricate procedure on account of the eye's complexity but with Shirou's proficiency, the task was only marginally more difficult than any other part of his body.
Immediately, the night grew brighter and objects that had been blurred became clear as could be. Items he focused on in the distance actually became magnified like he was peering through a rifle scope. Shirou scanned over an alleyway across the street and took a couple of seconds to look over the area. He would have to trace the ground once more if he took any longer. He wasn't going to jeopardize Illya's safety to lessen the burden on himself.
Then, in the alleyway, something caught his eye. A snow-white strand of hair lying on the ground. He would have missed it if he hadn't scoured the area with his reinforced eyes. Launching off like a bullet, Shirou crossed the street and slid into the alleyway. At the far end, a shoe rounding the corner told him he was heading in the right direction. Chasing after his target, a strange noise barely reached his ears.
With the pounding in his head and the heaving of his lungs, he couldn't really tell what it was, it might have just been the kidnapper panting from his run or his shoes on the concrete below. Shirou would need to turn soon but slowing down would make catching up all that much harder. With quick thinking, he braced his shoulder and slammed into the far wall in an attempt at transferring some of his momentum. Bouncing off the brick, Shirou rapidly realized that nobody was here.
This alley was a half-block long, there was no possible way a normal human could have cleared that distance in the time it took Shirou to get to this corner. Gradually slowing down, Shirou paused and examined the area. There were no ladders or ways up, so where had the man gone? He let the reinforcement in his eyes go away, normal vision returning on cue.
Forward was out, as were up and sideways. Did the kidnapper become a mole and dig through concrete? Turning back to where he came, a doorway subtly set in the corner caught his attention. It was a rusted, yellow metal thing that seemed oddly befitting for a serial killer.
It opened outwards, which meant kicking it down wasn't likely to happen. He could pound out the hinges with a hammer and screwdriver but that would take too long. Shirou didn't know Kiritsugu's spell which unlocked doors either, but there was another trick up his sleeve he did have access to.
Placing his hand on the door, the wireframe shape leapt to mind. Alteration could do an incredible number of things, from adjusting or altering the outline to completely rewriting the material composition. The latter was too costly in terms of mana, so he elected for the former. Most of the material making up the door was moved to the edges to leave the center as a weak point. When Shirou was finished, a large portion of the middle had been made as thin as aluminum foil.
With an open palm, he struck just above the centre and much of the door exploded into flakes of rust. A decently-sized gap now allowed him access into a dimly lit staircase. A pale yellow glow originated deeper within to keep things just above pitch black.
With some difficulty, Shirou squeezed himself through and practically glided down the stairs to the basement. The room he entered was small, dimly lit and impossibly clean. It was far from incriminating, but suspicious all the same. Had he gone the wrong way? What other route could the kidnapper have taken? It was very sparsely furnished - two cheap metal chairs and matching table, the latter of which held a purple coat and a small battery-operated radio.
Three doors were in this small room. If the staircase was to the rear, two doors sat straight ahead and one was on the right. Whichever one he chose had equal chances to be correct, so he'd go through them all if he had to. Taking the farthest door which was ahead and to the left, Shirou roughly kicked just below the handle. As this one was made of wood, it easily fell to his efforts.
The sight inside immediately etched itself into his brain. While illuminated only by a single half-dead bulb hanging limply from a cord in the center of the room, it was certainly enough to reveal the contents. Dozens of mutilated corpses. Old, young, large and small were compiled together in a single room, forgotten or mercifully cast aside by their tormentor. Immediate nausea struck Shirou, bile rising in his throat only to be repressed through will and purpose alone. It was a repulsive agglomeration of mutilated corpses. One was skinned from head to toe, another was missing all of their limbs and was hanging upside down from a meat hook. A few were crucified to the walls and some had even been burnt to blackened husks. An inadvertent trace revealed they had died of dehydration, meaning they had suffered the pain of a slow death as they witnessed more and more bodies fill the space. An unbearable smell of copper, feces and decaying flesh flowed continuously from the room.
There were twenty-three bodies in total, fourteen women and nine men, eleven were under the age of thirteen and one was alive. Based on her position at the front of the pile, she was the most recent addition to this aberrant collection. Her condition was dire. Broken bones throughout her entire body and multiple lacerations along her back. She was still breathing, although her collapsing blood pressure and weak pulse signified that she wouldn't be for very long.
This wasn't the room he was looking for, Illya wasn't here, but his body felt obligated to help the survivor. He had been someone in a state like this before, without hope and without a saviour. If Kiritsugu had passed him by or had deemed him too far gone to save, Shirou wouldn't be alive today.
Not allowing himself to waste more time, Shirou closed his eyes and reached inside himself for a familiar blueprint. Shirou had no spells capable of healing someone in this state, but who needed healing spells anyway? Four seconds passed as he quickly rattled off his tracing aria. When he was finished, golden sparks appeared above his hand, descending downwards as the gleaming form of Avalon became reality.
It was a copy, sure, but it held all the properties of the real thing. In theory, the girl would at least stay alive long enough for Shirou to get her to appropriate help. Leaving the wounded - but stabilized - woman alone, Shirou moved to the next door and repeated the process of kicking it in.
It was a bathroom, unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Congealed and dried blood seemed to stain every surface. Hanging off the sink was a freshly bloodied scalpel, a memento of atrocities and suffering.
With only one option left, Shirou bashed his shoulder into and through the last remaining door. This room was the largest he had encountered, double the size of the body storage room at the very least. The setup was very rudimentary; a large oak table sat dead center, illuminated by a hanging incandescent lamp and nothing else. Dirtied medical curtains surrounded the area, torn and splattered with bodily fluids that reeked in a repugnant, decomposing way. Whether the staining fluid had originally been red and turned brown through decay or had been brown to begin with was up to debate.
Illya was laid out on the operating table, specifically on a plastic sheet that had unceremoniously been draped over it to preserve some semblance of cleanliness. She seemed to be in a state between conscious and unconscious - too far gone mentally to put up any resistance, but alive enough to feel everything that would be done to her. Half-lidded eyes seemed to flicker at his appearance, recognizing who he was and what he represented but unable to respond properly. Like her body was captured in a thick gel, she extended one hand palm-up toward him.
Everything began to move slowly, adrenalin production kicking his body into an eerily focused state. The man, the kidnapper, stood across the table directly ahead. He was so absorbed with himself that he hadn't even noticed Shirou had burst through the door. Bright orange hair and black, hollow eyes that seemed to sparkle in anticipation of what was coming. His face was sharp with discreet, intricate features split wide in a manic smile. On each ear, a simple silver stud added some flair to the otherwise plain features.
Naturally moving away from identifying the threat, Shirou realized that Illya's clothing had been removed in one way or another. That was far from the most noticeable part of this scenario, however. Shirou's eyes had locked onto the glint of cold steel. The kidnapper was leaning over her with a scalpel in hand, peering down at the surface of her skin like a child eagerly awaiting the opening of a gift. A hollow laugh filled the room as he grazed the surface of her chest with the precision of a surgeon.
As the first trickle of scarlet fluid reached Shirou's eyes, something inside him snapped. Every barricade that held him back, that forced his thoughts to remain on the side of "good" vanished instantaneously. An emotion stronger than anything he had ever felt cascaded through him. At that moment, he had changed. It was almost as if he had become a spectator in his own body. Someone else was taking the controls and they were far from pacifistic.
… …. ….
"Ǐ̴͔̮͓͑̌͠ ̸̫̮̫̄̇̕à̶̡̱̲̔̀̾-̵̝͓̾͜ ̴̨͐̆̉̃͑̕t̸̗͗͘h̶̜̀̿͗̈̕ȩ̵͔̼͕͈͙̊̇̓̓̕͠ ̷̰͎͗̏̓͝b̴̻̥̩̅-̵͚̦̼͐̀̍n̸̳̙̰̰̓̈́͗͌̇e̷͓̯͖̓̑͂͒͠ ̵͙̫̣̿̀ò̸̗̦͚̫̅̋ͅf̵̖͕̞͒͛͝ ̷̭̰͈̑m̷̡̛̻̩̺̲̳̀͗̎͒͠y̸̛͉̰͎̙̬ͅ ̷̔̇̋̉̚͝ͅ-̴̨̐̀-̷̜͉͉̦̺̀o̴̤͆̾̀̓͝͝-̸̧̛̪̙̿̀d̵͈̜̩̒̐͗́̄"
… … …
Coursing pain shot through his skull, but he hardly recognized it. In his eyes, the world had faded away. The walls had become covered in overwhelming flames, unbearable heat filled the air and metronomic pounding of hot iron flooded his ears. Shirou hadn't even noticed the blades materializing in the world around him. Had he even gone through the process of their creation or had they simply appeared from the air?
The first struck the kidnapper's hand with such velocity that the appendage actually severed from the wrist. Before the murderer could even realize that something had happened, another blade struck his shoulder, sending him away from the table. Surprisingly, he maintained his balance and merely stumbled back.
Autonomously, like a machine programmed to kill, Shirou strode forward. The kidnapper was studying his severed limb, turning it over and bringing it close to his face as if he wasn't quite sure what had happened. With simple grace, Shirou vaulted over the table and Illya to land on the other side. Reinforcing his body to the extreme, he leaned back to deliver a powerful side kick to the pommel of the impaled blade.
The kidnapper was thrown back against the wall and the blade impaled itself to the hilt. He was effectively pinned in place now, being hung a foot off the floor from his shoulder. There was a brief moment of shock on his face before it turned into a sickly smile. He looked over himself and began to speak, but Shirou couldn't hear a word. The endless pounding in his head had overridden his ears and rendered him deaf.
The forging of steel was too great a sound to comprehend anything else. There was an external pull, a force alongside this forging noise that compelled him to craft endless blades.
Blades appeared from all around him in an instant. Nameless weapons that served a single purpose. With surprising speed, they impaled the man at his every joint, affixing him to the wall and effectively converting him into a twisted science experiment. Shirou watched the man's mouth move and could see a strange sparkle in his cold eyes, but it meant nothing to Shirou. He had taken Illya away, he had hurt her and made her bleed, he would suffer, he had to suffer. Shirou would kill him and would make his death painful-
But that was wrong, killing is immoral isn't it? Could he really kill a man?
Yes.
A blade that formed in Shirou's waiting hand had already begun moving, planting itself in the man's hip. The initial strike was without great force so it sheared against the thick hip bone and served only to slice off a chunk of flesh. The next stab was lower and held enough power to shatter his femur. The blade itself actually fragmented like the bone it struck. Without pausing to think, the blade in his hand dematerialized in a puff of blue mist. In a fraction of a second, another identical copy filled his hand to stab once more.
… … …
… … …
Shirou had no idea how long he had butchered that man. Everything had become a red-haze and time became impossible to comprehend. It could have only been minutes, but it certainly looked like hours. The kidnapper, what was left of him, couldn't be called human any longer. He was a mass of ground meat barely positioned to be humanoid in shape alone. Shards of bone, strands of muscle and bits of torn skin were all that indicated what species it had once belonged to. It was almost like he had been pulverized or crushed against the wall. Two earring studs, a thin silver chain and leopard-print shoes were the only remaining pieces of identification.
Shirou himself was a bloodied mess. Crimson coated his chest, it was on his face and in his hair and it steadily dripped from his arms and hands. It was like he had just walked off the set of a terrible horror movie. Looking himself over further, he noticed the blade still in his hand.
It had been broken in half but that obviously hadn't stopped him from using it. The entire surface of the blade, from tip to pommel, was drenched. When he peeled his hand off the grip, the space underneath was absolutely clean. His grip has been so tight that not a single drop of blood had touched the handle beneath his fingers.
The blade clattered with a splash on the bloody floor before dematerializing in a wisp of blue mist. Shirou, just now realizing how heavily he was panting, looked at both of his hands as if confirming that he was here, that he was in control again.
He had done this, he had obliterated another human being without a shred of mercy, without any regrets. It was strange that he couldn't remember anything after coming through that door. From that point on, everything was fuzzy until now. Should he be thankful for his lack of memory or terrified by what it meant? With one question, came a multitude of others. What had this man even looked like before? Had he been terrified? Had he begged for his life or asked for salvation? What reason did he have for killing all those people? Shirou would never know. Those answers were either locked away by his own mind or they had died with the kidnapper.
His hands slowly clenched into fists, shaking as he tried to rationalize his actions. He had murdered another man but it had been for good reason, right? This wasn't a bloodthirsty kill or murder…so why did his mind continue to call it such? Would he become a monster like this man? He had so many questions and Shirou could almost feel his sanity and humanity slipping out of his grasp. Something in him wanted to scream to release his pent-up emotions, but another part held him back.
A warmth suddenly touched his back and began spreading through his body. The warmth paused for a moment before landing on his hand and snapping his mind from its inner turmoil. Turning, he found Illya, staring up at him with empty eyes. The usual happiness and hope within them had been extinguished, replaced with a sense of dissociation. She was trying to appear as emotionless as possible, an emulation of their father, the Magus Killer.
"I'm alright," she whispered. Her eyes promptly relit themselves with emotion and tears began filling the corners. More than anything, he wanted to hug her tight to tell her everything was alright now. Shirou's mind stopped him, offering a reminder that he was covered in someone else's blood. Illya had been through enough, being smeared with blood probably wouldn't do her any good. The first tear trickled down her face and she tentatively moved to hug him from behind. "You don't have to be mad anymore, I'm not hurt, see?" she sobbed, pressing her face against his back.
"I'm…" He paused. He was a lot of things now: a murderer, uncontrollable, inhuman. He swallowed thickly, noticing his mouth was painfully dry. "I'm just glad you're okay." His voice was hoarse, his throat in slight pain from all the heavy breathing he had done.
"So go back to normal, okay? There's nobody here that could hurt us anymore." She squeezed tight against him, shaking him slightly with her sobs. Back to normal? What did she mean by that? He tried to take a deep breath to calm his nerves but a sudden pain hitched his breath.
Looked down at his chest, where the pain originated, dread washed over him. He had been stabbed in the heart at some point. He hadn't even noticed that a scalpel had embedded itself four inches into his chest to precisely sever his aorta. The damage to his heart wasn't even his source of concern. What horrified Shirou was the fact that his wound had healed itself. Not with flesh or bone, but steel. Latticed, sharpened metal sheets had closed the wound and sealed his heart so that it could still function properly. The metal was bare of blood and actually shimmered in the dim glow of the room. If the slow expansion was anything to go off, this was some sort of cancerous growth that was progressively spreading through his body. He could visibly watch the expansion of this new blade-flesh.
With his emotions and the adrenalin fading away, pain became apparent. Each breath stretched the blade-skin and made his body feel as if it were being cut a thousand times. There was even a slight pulsing pain to each heartbeat. The repaired muscle was still pumping blood and each motion stabbed those latticed blades into soft flesh. Tracing himself, Shirou was relieved to see that this wasn't a very deep infection. It had only affected the area he was wounded and spreading relatively slowly. Something strange he noticed, was that his circuits were still active and that they were supplying mana to something. With a thought, they deactivated and the blades sealing his body faded away in golden sparks.
Shirou breathed a sigh of relief. If that hadn't worked, he had no idea what he would do. A warming glow spread through his body once again and the wound stitched itself together with fibrous strings of his own flesh. Illya was healing him, she had been since she'd first approached him. His affliction must have scared her as much as it had him.
"Illya...is there anything you can do to clean me up?" he asked quietly. A short noise of agreement followed and the pale blue glow of Engel Note bathed the area. The magical string swirled around his figure and applied a slight pressure as it slowly moved upwards. There was a cooling sensation as the blood was absorbed into the magical construct. With his body cleaned up as good as it could be, Shirou quickly turned and knelt to embrace his sister tightly.
"I'm so glad you're alright." Illya sniffled against him, wrapping her own arms around his neck and squeezing him tight. She tried to speak, but her words were broken by her sobs, shivering and shaking against him while nuzzling her head against his shoulder.
"I promised to you and Kiritsugu that I wouldn't let anybody hurt you," Shirou began, closing his eyes tight. "I failed today, but I won't let it ever happen again, alright?"
She nodded against him, turning to sniffling as her sobs tapered off. Shirou broke the embrace to stand, pausing only to give his sister's tear-stained face a sad look. Shirou moved past her and felt his hand suddenly being held by the girl. She wasn't holding him back, she was just keeping a grip on him to comfort herself.
Exiting the operating room, Shirou pointed to the stairs with his other hand. "Go up the stairs, I don't want you to see inside the other rooms." Releasing his hand, she followed his orders and carefully climbed up the dark stairway. He took a detour, going to the corpse room to collect the injured woman. Giving her a brief trace, Shirou found that most of her major injuries had healed. He must have been in that room for some time. Most of her broken bones had set and stitched themselves together. Even the cuts on her back from the whippings had sealed themselves. Some of the more minor broken bones were still broken but they were steadily being repaired.
At the very least she could be moved without worry of death or bleeding out. Carefully, Shirou picked the woman up bridal style and moved to rejoin Illya on the stairs. Thankfully, the woman was still unconscious. Trying to explain the entire situation to her while simultaneously hauling her somewhere safe would have been excruciatingly difficult.
Clambering upstairs was a little harder than he remembered with someone in his arms, but he managed well enough. Illya was patiently waiting for him at the top of the stairs just before the door. With the natural moonlight illuminating the area, Shirou could actually give her a good look-over. She was wearing the childish outfit she had picked out earlier, although it had been altered slightly. The kidnapper had carelessly cut her clothing straight down the center and to preserve her modesty, Illya had used a strand of Engel Note as makeshift stitching. The string was cross-stitched directly down her center from neck to hip and it provided a pale blue glow in the night.
Every time she looked towards him, fear washed through her body and glimmered in her eyes. At least she had stopped crying, at least she was safe. If killing innocent people and becoming a monster was what it took to protect Illya, he would do it without a second thought. As he considered this, searing pain shot through his skull. Deep in his mind, the steady radiance of Avalon pulled away and sent a chill down his spine. The artifact hadn't appreciated that thought in the slightest.
Rightly so, considering what it was supposed to represent. Not many holy relics appreciated the thought of senseless innocent murder. Even if it was in defence of a loved one, murder was just that.
Grumbling to himself, Shirou cautiously clambered through the hole in the door. Illya looked lost, peering around and shuffling uncertainly. "Where are we?" she asked softly, looking up to the sky as if it held the answer.
"Ten blocks from the park. I don't know how he moved faster than I could keep up but somehow he did," Shirou commented, motioning with his head for her to follow.
"You didn't hear what he said?" Illya aske, voice surprised.
"What do you mean? He didn't say anything. I killed him and that was it." Shirou furrowed his brow, mind absolutely blank.
"What are you talking about?" The homunculus suddenly shouted, voice full of shock. "When you stuck him to the wall, you were standing there listening for five minutes!" Shirou stopped, scrunching up his face as her words reached his mind. He thought back to that moment, to when he had leapt over the operating table. He had killed him a few seconds, hadn't he?
The entire event seemed blurry in his head and trying to delve deeper brought on a fierce headache. Come to think of it, he couldn't even recall how he'd killed the kidnapper. "I don't remember," he decided to mumble, continuing his walk back home. Something caught his jacket, body instinctively stopping.
"Don't say that." There was a sobbing noise from behind and the hand holding onto him shook once. "Don't say you don't remember, you were looking right at him so you had to hear…" She trailed off, sniffling loudly. "You're not a monster, you saved me and this girl. You aren't someone who kills just for fun but if you didn't listen to him…" She trailed off. Shirou could fill the blanks, and he didn't like what was being implied.
He continued walking, forcing the thought from his mind. "We're going home. We'll make sure this girl is alright and find out what she knows before letting her go," he explained, turning down the alley.
The hand on his back dropped off and there were a few distant sniffles before quick footfalls neared and the soft pressure of a hand on his jacket returned. After a few choppy, cry-laden breaths, a soft voice cut through the silence of the night: "Thank you."
… … …
… … …
Thankfully, Kiritsugu wasn't waiting for them when they returned. Shirou made sure to enter just as quietly as he had left and without saying a word, the two separated and went to their own rooms. Since Shirou was holding onto a girl in his arms, he had to open the door to his room with the back of his foot, awkwardly pushing it open and stumbling backwards before turning around.
The first thing he noticed was that the wall had been fully repaired. Shirou had only gotten it half done yesterday, so who had finished the rest? The second thing Shirou noticed, was the very irate-looking man standing with his back against that very same wall.
With eloquence passed down from his father and the ever-respectful Tohsaka, Shirou let out a very bland "shit" upon discovering he had been found out.
"I had expected you to do something stupid but I hadn't expected this. I told you not to go after that kidnapper and you still disobeyed me." The Magus Killer pointed an accusing finger towards his son, eyes as sharp as daggers and voice as cold as the night. "I know you don't care about yourself, but you should at least care about Illya. Can't you see how much danger you put her in by taking her with you?"
Shirou flinched. Not only had he endangered her, but he had also almost gotten her killed. The old man was right like always. He should have considered Illya's safety more than he had. Shirou would never forgive himself, he could already tell that he would never stop regretting his choice. "We st-"
"Whether they're dead or not doesn't matter, the outcome could have been much worse. One mistake and either one of you might have died." The old man folded his arms across his chest, continuing to bore holes in his son with his eyes alone. "I don't know the details and I don't want to, but what you've done is idiotic. You leapt straight into battle without understanding your opponent, without weighing the variables. I had thought I taught you better than to blindly leap before thinking." Kiritsugu moved two fingers to tap the side of his own head, face set in stern annoyance. "I suppose I'll just have to teach you with a little more effort to correct these mistakes." Shirou gulped audibly. That could mean a lot of things and none of them were very pleasant. The old man briefly glanced at the unconscious girl in Shirou's arms. "I'm guessing they got away and you had to tail him to his safe house where you found that girl. If he was able to escape both you and Illya, he must have been a magus. Or at the very least, an expert in his craft."
Until now, Shirou had never looked at the woman's face. She was actually rather stunning, a mature beauty in her late twenties. Sharp features with full lips, a thin nose and long dark-brown hair that was stained with dried blood. At least it wasn't someone he knew, Shirou had never seen her before. "It doesn't matter, he's dead either way."
Kiritsugu hummed, face not softening for a moment. "How was he disposed of?"
Shirou made a noise, twitching as he remembered how the remains had been left. He couldn't lie to the old man, that would get him in even more trouble. "He wasn't," he admitted, watching his father's frown deepen a touch more.
"Are the circumstances of his death going to raise questions from the authorities?"
Shirou shuffled. He hadn't thought about any of this but his father's questions raised some incredibly good points. Someone being turned into ground beef was definitely not a daily occurrence. If news of a murder like that got out to the public, someone from the Mage's Association might happen across it and from there it was fifty-fifty on whether they put in the effort to investigate or not. "Most likely, yes," he grumbled. He still wasn't going to lie. One way or another the old man would find out.
Kiritsugu sighed, placing his face in one hand to further express his exhaustion with the situation. "Then we just hope the Association doesn't look too closely into things. If they somehow trace it back to you and discover your ability, the rest of your life will be lived out dissected in a jar." He lifted his face from his hand and let his arms down, slowly walking towards his son. "Set her down here and dematerialize Avalon. She's not a magus so its aura comes straight through."
Shirou paled. He could sense Avalon? Worse yet, he knew Shirou was projecting Avalon? He had never told anybody about being able to project the sheath. To all known laws of magecraft it shouldn't have been possible either. If the old man knew, Rin likely did as well, which meant she was bound to start experimenting with him again. Well, technically she already had if he thought about earlier today. "How do you kn-"
"I know a lot more than you might think." He stopped in front of him, eyes softening just a tad as Shirou flinched. "I'm glad you're both safe. But for the very least, wait until you are stronger and wiser before trying to play hero." His voice held a distinct hatred within it. Not toward Shirou himself, but the term he used.
Hero.
The word was a point of great conflict for Shirou. Years ago, he wanted to be the exact embodiment of a "Hero of Justice". At the time, he had hardly known what he had been saying but the desire burned so brightly within him it couldn't be explained any other way. Shirou had wanted to become strong enough to protect everyone, to save everyone and to make everybody around him happy. Most of all, he wanted to experience what the old man had that day. The Great Fire, when Shirou's life as he knew it began, when he was found in the burning rubble. Whenever Shirou looked at his father, the overjoyed expression he'd held during their first encounter popped into his mind. Even with Shirou's accomplishments and all his progress, his father never smiled or looked as happy as he had that day.
And that hurt. Being unable to make his father truly happy caused him so much pain. It was why Shirou continually strove to be more. To achieve and excel, to become something his father could finally be proud of. He wasn't going to stop pushing himself until Kiritsugu could look at him once more like he had that day.
When he was fourteen, Shirou had finally made a choice. In order to fully commit himself to reach his goal, he would have to renounce his dream at becoming a "Hero of Justice". Kiritsugu had always told him that being a hero was impossible, that such a person was a paradoxical hypocrite. Who was a supposed hero to decide what goodand evil really were? Who were they to decide which person was innocent or guilty? It was a fierce gray zone that couldn't be argued for or against. Obviously, there were good and evil beings, but the definitions of each were impossible to determine.
Was his father an evil person? Was he a guilty murderer because due to his ideal of killing the few to save the many? Shirou didn't believe so. The Magus Killer was a force of good through evil means. Assassinating murderers to save lives before they were ever taken. To the old man, everything was a game of numbers. One life was less than ten, ninety-nine was less than one hundred, so long as more people were saved than killed, the outcome was preferable. So where did a man like that place on a theoretical scale of "good"? If the Clock Tower or the general magus population was to be believed, he wasn't. Kiritsugu, as close to a hero as a man could be in Shirou's eyes, was viewed as some homicidal maniac. A villain that needed to be purged by the good guy.
Shirou abhorred his father's methodology. Nobody should be sacrificed for another. Everyone should be saved regardless of the personal cost. If it would save more lives, sacrificing oneself should be the obvious choice. That's how heroes were supposed to work. The righteous, selfless embodiment of all things "good".
That was what Shirou had believed when he was younger. With all his teaching, training and experiences, that definition had changed and altered itself into some sick hybridization of numerical values and absolute salvation. As hard as he tried, Shirou couldn't truly renounce his dreams. Deep within him, the "Hero of Justice" valiantly fought to save everyone around him. Shirou always did his best to save everyone, regardless of any personal harm he might come into in such a pursuit. He would sacrifice himself without a second thought if it were to save even a single person. Although, he was able to see when a situation was impossible. Shirou could tell and had come to accept that he sometimes couldn't save everyone. If the situation was truly dire, if there was no flawless outcome, the numerical system of his father came into play. It was a system of juxtaposing ideologies that directly overrode one another on a case-by-case basis. This system came to a screeching halt and crumbled to pieces whenever Shirou thought about sacrificing his friends. He wasn't his father, he wouldn't sacrifice his wife or loved ones to save a group of people - he couldn't! Their lives were important to him, but were they more important than the life of another? If so, how many?
The important lesson Shirou had learned, and become accustomed to, long ago, was that heroes didn't exist. Perhaps in dreams or tales of fantasy, but real life had no place for pious, honourable heroes that saved all. "I'll never become a hero," Shirou spoke with venom. Only, nobody was there. Kiritsugu had left the room while he was trapped in thought.
… … …
… … …
Shirou visited the unconscious woman in his room early the next morning, leaving a glass of water and an energy bar beside her for when she woke up. Kiritsugu and Bazett would be the only two home and Shirou was confident that the old man could handle things should she wake up before he got back.
She was sleeping soundly and her bodily condition was as to be expected; the copy of Avalon had returned her to a healthy state. Sighing loudly, Shirou lowered his head and closed his eyes. He couldn't imagine what the girl had gone through, what she would remember or what she would say upon waking. Would she even have her memories or would her brain just repress the events entirely? Shirou honestly couldn't tell which outcome was better.
Then a noise snapped his eyes open. It was a slight gasp from the unconscious woman's mouth. Had she woken up already? Rather convenient timing if he had anything to say about it.
But she wasn't awake. She was just reacting unconsciously to something in her mind as she slept. With another sigh, Shirou stood and moved to the door. He offered the unconscious woman one last glance before leaving for school.
… … …
… … ...
With the house repaired and everything back in order, training with Bazett finally began. Even though it was supposed to be a normal fist fight, she had decided to wear that same suit as their first battle, although this time forgoing gloves.
"Where'd you learn to fight, kid?" she asked, rolling her shoulders and stretching her arms across from him in the dojo. It was strange to be fighting another magus here. Most of his training around magecraft or spars had been outside. Only Taiga and Reikan had taught him indoors.
"The old man and a friend of Taiga showed me what I know now. I've never really been good at anything, but I've learned bit by bit." He had told the truth, his progress in every field had been average at best. He had a fifty-fifty chance to win against Taiga or Reikan in a fight only because he knew their style so well. He just couldn't seem to predict his opponents' attacks well enough to respond in time if they happened to mix things up.
"Showed you? You mean they told you how they fought, right?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow as she menacingly cracked both knuckles.
The boy nodded. "I've tried to copy them a-"
"So you're all idiots then." Shirou deflated like a balloon, slumping over momentarily. "That's not how you learn to fight. Combat has to come naturally, you have to develop your own style and learn how to use it against your opponent. Some fancy martial arts studio might try to teach you techniques and moves but that means jack in a real fight." She paused, snapping into a stance Shirou was all too familiar with. "The other day you tried to use my own combat technique against me." Bazett gave her head another shake. "Foolish, that's bound to fail from the start. You can't win trying to beat someone at their own game when they have years more experience than you."
Shirou actually found himself nodding in agreement. "I understand what you're trying to say. Because you're familiar with your own fighting style, it's easy to counter your own attacks."
"Precisely. On the other hand, it kept you alive long enough for your friends to help you out. If the goal is only to survive, then it's a good option. Winning, on the other hand, is a different story because eventually, your opponent will see what you're doing and will start acting unpredictably." Bazett motioned for him to come at her with one hand. "Forget everything you've been taught, try to realize how your body naturally wants to respond. For now, the strikes will be light."
… … …
Shirou rolled along the floor three times before flattening out on his back, panting heavily. "You call that light?" he groaned, forcing his body to sit up.
"As light as I can make my punches without slowing them down."
The boy groaned, spotting a familiar girl behind Bazett. For whatever reason, the pain in his body seemed to fade away and his stamina returned. "Kiritsugu told me you two would be here, can I stay to watch?" Rin asked, stepping in calmly before casting a strange glance at Shirou's downed form.
Bazett straightened and dropped her stance as the newcomer entered. Casting the girl a look, she turned back to watch Shirou struggle to stand. Eventually, she motioned with her head towards the boy. "I suppose so if he's alright with it."
Shirou shakily regained his ground, nodding towards the Tohsaka who offered a brief smile. Maybe this was what he needed, something to fight for, a goal. Taking deep breaths, he began visualizing that scene two nights ago. The scent of magic flames, the orange glow reflecting off Bazett's angry eyes as she stormed towards the near-unconscious Tohsaka. There was no doubt that Rin would be killed if Shirou didn't do something to stop her.