"Did you have to include a waterfall feature in this area?" Griselda asked while raising an eyebrow at the relatively small river stemming from the waterfall I made from the underground spring I uncovered. "And is that a pond for you to have fishes in?"
...
Hey, if I have to hang on to my safe house, I would at least do some decorating to spruce the area up.
"Shall we head back to the others?" I dismissed all the other projections that were around, and I made doubly sure that the holy sword Griselda was holding onto disappeared. One effect I noted about this world having on my projections was that some seem to disappear a lot longer if I do not actively keep an eye on them, and I really do not want projections to be lying around.
"…" Griselda watched the sword in her hand disappear in a cloud of gold dust, flexing her fingers as though to check that the sword did vanish before her eyes before nodding in reply. We were soon joined shortly by Mitelt and some of the other devils and we made our way back to the safe house.
"So… Have you cooled off now?" Mitelt drawled on that question while looking at me.
"Considering the way you asked me, I must have been pretty bad." I replied with a shrug.
"You think? For a moment I thought you would turn into the Hulk." Ise snorted as he answered to my remark. He paused to ponder his words before slowly asking me with a hint of dread. "Erm, you can't really turn into the Hulk, right?"
For a moment I was tempted to say yes to his query, but I wasn't in the mood for it, so I shook my head. "I don't really have an ability to turn into the Hulk, but there are spells that allow one to go berserk in order to remove all the physical limitations on the body in exchange of losing their sanity."
Case in point, Herakles.
"So those type of spells exist? Do you know how to use them?" Momo asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I have heard of them and fought off users of said spells, but I can't use them myself." I shook my head again as I answered. "Good thing too, because I really do not like the idea of losing myself to rage."
"No kidding, you are already a handful during our training. I don't want to fight you at your boiling point." Ise shivered at that thought.
"That reminds me, I haven't given you guys your training yet." I held back the smile as I enjoyed the members of the Student Council cringing lightly at that reminder. "Perhaps after this fight we can get started on your bit?"
"Ha~ ha ~ ha~ you can take your time, no need to rush." Saji weakly laughed as he tried to move away from me.
"Oh don't worry, it won't be any trouble." I pretended to be earnest as I took the moment to enjoy the suffering. "As soon as this is over, we can start the training right away. I would even give you the one I gave to Ise for your part so that you can keep up." Ise shivered at the reminder while Saji went to a new level of paleness possible.
"We can think about that later. For now let us deal with the current situation." Griselda put an end to my small bit of fun with that sentence. I could only nod in agreement as we continued on to the warehouse in silence. It did not take long to reach the back door and opened it to find the others seating around in a rough circle. At our footsteps they turned around, and I found myself gazing at the shard in Xenovia's hand.
'Thump~ Bump!'
[Make us whole. Make us whole.]
"Emiya-kun?" Reya looked to me with a concerned face as I clutched my head in response to the pain that came from the shard. Ever since I pulled that sword out of the rock, its voice has been trying to reach me for a while, but it was only in close proximity that the whisper seemed to echo in my head and I could not stop the image of me being alone in front of the sword, with chains surrounding us and getting tighter to prevent me from running away, and the figure standing right next to me and looking at me with that empty eye socket.
"Okay, I hear you, you can quieten down the racket a little." I growled out as I clutched my head further to ease the pain.
"Hey, that's not very nice! She was trying to be nice to you!" Irina's comment made me realize that the odd chant was over, and then what I said out loud. With a slight fear in me, I turned slightly to find a teary-eyed Kusaka Reya looking a little hurt.
Oh great, Shirou Emiya. You made a cute devil girl cry, now you would burn in hell.
"I'm sorry, I was not referring to you, Reya. I was talking to the sword over there." I apologized to the girl before gesturing to the Excalibur Shard. "It just won't stay quiet."
"That explains the odd vibrations." Xenovia looked at the sword with a cursory glance. "It has been somewhat eager to come after you for some time."
"That is right, so on that note, I am really sorry Reya-san! I did not mean to hurt you in any way, please don't cry!" I let out that last bit in a desperate plea at the sight of those eyes clouding over in tears. Damn it, I would willingly take a full-day beat-down from Rin and Luvia for this, just don't cry! I would never forgive myself for doing this to her!
"Oh I see, that was what you meant." Reya cleared her tears away and smiled gently. "I understand. But I am still a little worried about you."
"I am fine really, and I am very sorry about yelling at you. I will make it up to you in any way." I earnestly tried to cheer her up. In hindsight though, I really should have noticed the expression that appeared briefly when I said that.
"… Anything?"
"Yes, anything. You name it!"
"… If you are insistent on that, we can make it that you owe me a favor after this problem okay?" Reya finally beamed at me earnestly nodding my head.
Whew~ that was close.
… Why was Meguri pouting at me? Why were some of the council members smirking in amusement? And why were the two males of the group face-palming?
"Dang it, I was kind of hoping he would get trashed on the spot." Xenovia muttered softly but ended up getting heard by everyone in the area. Oh that was it, I was so going to put her in a head-locker courtesy of Luvia's training regime.
"Tell me, what is the shard speaking of?" Griselda asked with a curious tone. "There have been stories of people being able to hear the swords when they wield them, but none of the current users have reported anything of the sort."
"Not sure what I can relate regarding what you have said, but if the people you asked were augmented like those two over there, then that might be the reason why you don't hear any voices. If you are talking about natural users though, perhaps they are not communicating with their weapons enough." I explained while slightly noting the manner Xenovia perked her ears up when I mentioned the latter part. "It is quite common in a way."
"I see, but back to the question." I sighed at her insistence for an answer.
"Excalibur Destruction keeps chanting the same thing. 'Make us whole.' I would guess that the shards are reacting to one another." I gave that reply after thinking a little. Best to keep quiet on the part about some disfigured phantom haunting me to myself.
"That would make sense, but they are still going to you for that, so it seems you may have an answer to deal with them." Griselda noted before looking to the devil princesses. "So had there been any developments so far?"
...
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