"…"
Xenovia walked slowly to her sword and bent down to grab the handle, noting that the sword had already returned to its earlier form and the glow seemed to stop almost instantaneously once she laid her hand on it. With a light grunt, she hefted the sword to inspect it for any damage. Oddly enough, it seemed to have repaired itself miraculously and ended up looking brand new rather than the worn out state she had become accustomed to.
And it was because of that wizard. But the reaction the sword gave towards him was a lot more energetic and almost fanatic loyalty, like it saw something in him that it preferred compared to all the users before him.
Well, at least except the king of Britain…
"Xenovia." A word from Griselda broke her thoughts and brought her attention back to the warrior who had the sternest expression she has seen to date. "That train of thoughts is a little dangerous."
"Ah! I am sorry, I did not mean to…" Xenovia bowed her head quickly only to have Griselda put her hand up.
"For the time being, please ensure you do not lose the sword. And also…" Griselda paused as she watched some of the devils and the fallen angel go after the human. "It is best to have Shirou Emiya under our watch."
"Sister Griselda?" Irina tilted her head curiously.
"As I said earlier, it is a safe bet to say that the shards are all reacting to the boy, which also includes the ones held by Galilei and the exorcists. That means there is a high possibility that he would have come to the same conclusion as us and would likely come after the boy for two reasons." Griselda tightened her grip on her sword.
"What two reasons would that be?" Xenovia asked as she bundled her sword up.
"Considering Lyle Wallner is with them, the first reason would be to silence Shrou Emiya. Lyle would want to make sure that we can't find them by using the boy as a natural detector for the shards, and at the same time, he would probably guess their behavior as one trying to get back to him. He would want to ensure they can still hold on to the shards."
"And the second reason?" Irina got up from her position as she asked.
"… Galilei." Griselda spat the name out like it was venom on her mouth. It only took a moment for the other two to get her meaning.
"Oh no…"
"Chances are good that Galilei would understand the swords' actions before us and is now trying to find Shirou Emiya. He may be a heretic, but Shirou Emiya is also someone helping us to fight Galilei and at the same time, a possible ally in the future." Griselda looked at Excalibur Destruction with a serious gaze. "It is presumptuous of me to say this, but for now, the shards are resonating with Shirou Emiya in ways we cannot understand. I believe this is a sign for us to keep an eye on him, he must be protected at all costs." Irina and Xenovia nodded as one with serious expressions.
Shirou Emiya. They would need to keep a close eye on him.
...
"Well I would like to say that I am pleased that we got another Excalibur Shard in our hands, but I am very disappointed that you somehow managed to lose Excalibur Destruction shortly after attaining it by having butter fingers at the last moment." Galilei said it with a very disapproving tone evident in his words.
"Come on, it wasn't my fault!" Creed said as he took the ointment and rubbed it on his injured hand. "The damn sword just acted up for no reason and burnt me! After that we could not get the damn blade out of the rock, so we had no choice but to abandon it!"
"I concur." Lyle bowed his head as he took up the explanation. "The sword's behavior became too unpredictable for us to handle, and with the exorcists, the devils and the magician in the fight, we had no choice but to retreat and avoid cutting more losses."
"Hmm…. If Lyle puts it that way, I guess I will be understanding. At least we have the fifth shard in our possession." Galilei took the sword in question and moved to the small where the others were resting.
"TCH! It is all because of that stupid magician! When I get my hands on him, I will enjoy cutting off his limbs!" Creed cursed as he bandaged his hand as best as he could. Lyle sighed as he took stock of the situation at hand.
They were in an old service building that was roughly a few blocks away from the hotel. Lyle designated it as one of their emergency safe-houses in the event their hotel got compromised, and he made sure to place enough emergency supplies and traps in the event they needed it. Now they were using it to their hearts' content, though not in the manner he would have expected.
"I keep hearing you talk about this magician. Is he any good?" Galilei asked as he secured their items.
"As far as I can tell, he is a resident of this town." Lyle took out a notebook and flipped to the page he wanted. "His name is Shirou Emiya, a magician at the same academy as the devils. He was the human I told you about earlier that made the swords react oddly." At hearing the name, Galilei paused in his motions and turned his head slowly.
"Did you say 'Shirou Emiya'?" Galilei asked with a slightly curious expression on his face.
"Yes, Lord Galilei. Do you know him?" Lyle tilted his head slightly.
"Know him? Not personally, but I have heard of him. There has been some chatter recently for the past few weeks regarding a certain magician who had trained the Gremory group to deal with the Phenex Team, and took out a high-bounty Rogue Devil. That person's name happens to be the same one that you mentioned." Galilei scratched his chin lightly while frowning in his thoughts. "I wonder if this is what the informant meant by a certain someone."
"I will need to run through that information with you later, but at least we have identified the source of the swords' unusual behavior. Shirou Emiya seems to have an affinity with the sword arts, both the fighting and magical types." Lyle looked at the collected swords. "Also considering what we have learned, perhaps this might be useful to us." He placed his hand into one of the pockets, rummaged a little before pulling out a small bundle of cloth. "I collected a few pieces of his weapons before we escaped, I figured you might be interested to study them."
"Oh~ good job, Lyle." Creed raised an eyebrow as Galilei took said shards and studied them with a careful eye. "How interesting, each one of these shards seemed to have attributes of holy, demonic…" His eyes went wide as he picked up one of the bigger shards. "I don't believe it, this one contains both attributes! Not to mention each one seems to have a separate ability relating to the elements and concepts!"
"Some of those shards came from the projectiles he used during the fight. Oddly enough he made them by transforming the swords he had into arrows." Lyle said as he pointed to each one of the shards. "This is just guesswork, but the weapons he used seemed to be created from a type of magic art that uses weaponry as the basis of the fighting style, and the ability to transform them into arrows seemed to be a secondary factor for that person."
"Hmm… A type of magic arts that allows one to create swords of particular attributes. Interesting…" Galilei scrutinized each shard with renewed interest. "If only I have a whole specimen to examine."
"Well, there is also this weird thing." Creed reached into his coat and brought out a white scimitar with a symbol of Chinese Balance around the scabbard. "I managed to grab this from that bastard, I am hoping to use this to track that guy down. Think you can get something from this?"
"Nice work, Creed." Galilei took the sword and surveyed it for a short while before taking in a sharp breath. "This sword, it does not have any of the usual attributes, but this craftsmanship is basically divine! It is a masterpiece!"
"That's quite a high praise from you." Lyle blinked as he leaned over to look at the sword. He had to admit, the sword in question was certainly something that could be considered as the perfect blade ever made. Even after clashing with his sword, the blade maintained that wonderful shine and there were no visible marks of battles on it.
"The steel has been tempered in such a manner that no amount of force would be able to break it unless you are facing off a divine beast, and this sharpness could only be achieved through painstaking hours of smiting." Galilei turned it over his hand as he scrutinized each corner of the sword. A soft metallic sound directed their attention to the side of the sword, where one of the black shards got stuck to it. Galilei took a finger and tried to pry it off to no avail.
"How intriguing. This one seems to have magnetism as the basis of its construction." Galilei looked on with excitement, only to yelp with surprise when the sword started to glow before disappearing into a cloud of gold dust. He turned his head to find the same was happening to the shards that were collected. "What is happening?"
"It seems that their construction has a time limit of sorts." Lyle looked on with an analytical gaze. "During our fight, some of his weapons disappeared in the same manner before he reconstructs them. Perhaps the amount of damage induced would affect the time it takes for them to hold their form before disappearing."
"Shirou Emiya, what an intriguing individual." Galilei let out a smile that did not reach his crazy eyes. "I would like to meet him very soon."
...
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