Oh, man.
This is excellent. Tragic Kohaku! Movie nights with the Tohnos! Chinese takeout!
It was worth the wait
Oh, man.
This is excellent. Tragic Kohaku! Movie nights with the Tohnos! Chinese takeout!
It was worth the wait
So he either scanned the umbrella and found something disturbing. OR as a kid he noticed something very very off and just not rembered it. OR he saw something and traumatically blacked it out.
Then let it break, if it shatters to pieces then forge an even better blade to take in hand. Should that blade crack then forge once again, untill the battlefield is a graveyard of blades that have fallen and but a single sword claims the field that embodies the world. Let that sword bear the world untill its time comes and time blows its dust to the winds. Then forge again.---Eric Dagger
Or the umbrella had a contact drug on it.
I'mma guess that someone beat Kohaku with the umbrella.
Originally Posted by Hymn of Ragnarok
That's all, folks!
Hope not but that is what I am expecting as well.
Obviously, Kohaku was using that umbrella to cause herself to have pleasure.
And suddenly Shirou knows how to make her scream.
That's all, folks!
Sometimes comments are killing the mood... Not really bad thing, but the atmosphere is ruined.
Good contrast in the chapter, I never was able to do it. Cannot wait to see what you planned in this route. What would be the trigger of the dark events? I'm interested.
Wow. I never thought I'd get mad over a witty smartass comeback.
I was wrong.
Trace, on.
Sympathizing with past experiences. (or whatever the real line is)
[18:00] Spinach: Because I don't like Saber's personality but boy oh boy does she make my dick turn to diamonds when I see her getting tentacled.
[18:01] Leo: feeling superior to EU makes me hard
[16:16] <Bloble> Drakengard? Is that a rhythm game?
Sympathizing with the experience of its growth
and reproducing the accumulated years...
Localizationing stuff
I'm....sorry it caused such offense?
Wow. I never thought I'd get mad over a witty smartass comeback.
I was wrong.
Seriously, considering the massive irreverence pervading BL, I don't think that of all things crossed some kind of line. Though if you'd care to explain why it offended you so, here or elsewhere, I'll keep it in mind for the future.
*snrk*
That's all, folks!
Exactly. :3c
Or Shirou will just wake up with Kohaku on top of him.
H-scene omitted due to drug haze.
[18:00] Spinach: Because I don't like Saber's personality but boy oh boy does she make my dick turn to diamonds when I see her getting tentacled.
[18:01] Leo: feeling superior to EU makes me hard
[16:16] <Bloble> Drakengard? Is that a rhythm game?
But Shirou's ability to conceptualize the female anatomy is still weak. ;__;
On the other hand, thanks to him being a eroge lead, you could say that he is a natural when it comes to the conceptualization of the female anatomy.
Spoiler:
I'm not THAT mad, don''t worry. I appreciate it was just in humor and all that.
I just found that hit off my "Ooh! Bad taste!" button. No biggie, and I ber no ill will towards you. I guess I was just getting all sentimental over the Kohaku confiding in Shirou thing, and felt my inner White Knight flare.
He's a natural with the concept... but can not sympathize with the women's anatomy.
More like he can't sympathize with the female psyche. Even he saw before it happened that cutting down the foreplay was a really bad idea in a certain sex scene.
Spoiler:
Fate/Far Side: Synchronized Body
Interlude I
Lost Side
BGM on
Shirou was sure he had never seen anyone eat so much. Not even Taiga, on the worst of evenings after school where she’d been regulated to grading three stacks of papers after missing breakfast and having no time for lunch, could put away the same amount.
He was also sure he did not like the smug look on Rin’s face, since she was the cook this time around.
“So, what do you think of the meal, Emiya-kun?” Rin eyed Shirou steadily, glanced to Saber as the petite woman downed her fourth serving, then back to Shirou, a thin-lipped smile creeping onto her face. It was now the third or fourth time such an expression had been directed his way, and he was beginning to feel a sense of supernatural dread grow with each moment.
“It’s…good,” he admitted. Really good. It somehow did not surprise him that she could cook so well; it fit that air of perfection she carried at school. On the other hand, now that he understood her heritage to some degree, he felt like there was a cheat somewhere in here that she could even have the time or inclination to learn to cook. He had time and a lack of any talent, magic wise, to explore. She had to devote a solid schedule to her training and maintaining her perfect student status—
“Hmmm, I couldn’t quite catch that,” Rin said, her voice edging into a tone of contrived ignorance.
Shirou decided then and there that every warning Issei had ever given him about this girl being a dangerous fox had been entirely accurate. “It’s very good, Tohsaka. I’m impressed.”
The smile she gave him seemed overly joyous. “Thank you. That seems like an especially good complement, coming from someone who clearly has a talent in the kitchen.”
Considering their earlier talk of his inadequacies as a magus, he felt like she was jabbing him right where he was weakest. He knew, too, that there was no defense he could raise, nothing he could say to lessen the blow. It was fate, an inevitable, unavoidable strike, and he had to accept the damage and move on.
Yeah, right, like he would take it sitting down.
“You’ll make a wonderful wife someday, I’m sure,” he said.
Rin’s eyes narrowed at his return attack, but before she could retaliate in kind, the sound of a laugh, short and curt, could be heard from elsewhere. Archer had apparently been within earshot, and the amusement that he found in the statement apparently could even defeat his apparent hatred toward an enemy Master.
While Rin glared this way and that to turn her wrath on her soon-to-be-drop-kicked Servant, Shirou glanced to Saber, who had apparently missed the sarcasm and was nodding in approval and agreement. “No need to praise Tohsaka further, Saber. I don’t want her getting a big head.” He paused, considered his words. “Bigger.”
Saber gave a serene little smile. “You should not insult a lady like that, Shirou. I would assume this is Rin’s way of showing a peace offering for Archer’s actions.”
He snorted. “While still hanging the so-called Damocles sword over my head in doing so…”
“Mm, Rin is at least honorable enough to give you fair warning. You should appreciate such chivalry in what can otherwise be an ugly battle, Shirou.”
“Still, I think it’d be better if you didn’t like her food. Maybe if Sakura were here, show you someone who isn’t going to hang it over your head…” his voice trailed off, though, as his complaint gave way to another thought. A thought he should have had earlier, and felt a shiver shoot up his spine when it occurred to him. This was the first full evening with Saber, with Rin and her Servant, and he had not—
The gentle rasp of a knock at the door, followed by the rasp of wood sliding open—
BGM off
“I’ll get it,” Rin said, already on her feet.
“No, you idiot—!” Shirou started, though he fumbled getting to his feet fast enough.
For some reason, it was more horrific than running into that giant Servant and his stone axe in the middle of the night. Rin stood just before the genkan, one hand on her hip, looking a little perturbed at the new arrival. Sakura stood opposite of her, a wide-eyed and pale-faced expression at this intruder upon her everyday activity of helping the Emiya household. When Sakura’s eyes finally tore away from the witch, she gave Shirou a pleading look for an explanation.
Shirou’s mind decided to go completely blank at that moment.
“Oh, right, I forgot that you visited Emiya-kun regularly,” Rin said, and she stared up at the ceiling for a moment. “I’m guessing Emiya-kun didn’t tell Matou-san about our arrangement?”
Sakura’s gaze shot back to Rin, now looking even more scared.
“Er…” Shirou tried to reorient his thought process, but for some reason, explaining Rin’s presence in any fashion that seemed plausible seemed impossible to wrap his mind around. Things were just happening too fast, anyway; he’d barely had one day to cope with his world turning upside-down. “Hi.”
Rin gave him an askance look that favored the brilliance of his linguistic choices.
“Tohsaka-senpai?”
Rin shrugged. “My house is being renovated, and I bumped into Emiya-kun earlier. He said he had a place I could stay, and he wouldn’t charge me an arm and a leg like a hotel would. So I accepted his gracious offer.”
“Sorry…” Shirou said, and he wasn’t even sure why, but he felt even more apologetic than he probably needed to be.
“I…um,” Sakura eyed Rin the entire time, even though she continued to address Shirou. “That’s, um, alright. I won’t be long, anyway. I was going to say that I would not be coming over this week. My grandfather is in town and, well, nii-san wants me to tend to things at home.”
“I see,” Shirou said. He glanced out the corner of his eye toward Rin, hoping that the witch would not add anything else unnecessarily, but was disturbed to find her looking suspiciously at Sakura, her arms crossed and her brow furrowed. She was not speaking, though, which Shirou took to be a blessing at the least. “If that’s so, I guess it can’t be helped.”
“Yeah…”
He returned his attention to his kohai and wished he could explain everything so she would not look so downcast. “Listen, if Shinji keeps giving you trouble, just let me know. I promise, we won’t fight or anything, I’ll just talk to him.” It felt like a useless gesture, though he meant it fully, wanted to make sure she did not feel like he was just brushing her off while this new ‘tenant’ was present.
“Thank you, senpai.”
An errant thought occurred to him. “Uh, also, you wouldn’t happen to know where Fuji-nee is, would you? I’m surprised she hasn’t shown up for dinner yet.”
A faint smile finally crept up onto Sakura’s lips, though there was something about it that was different. Shirou could not put his finger on what, exactly. “She was only at club briefly, I think because there was work the teachers all had to divide with Kuzuki-sensei’s absence. I would imagine she will be here as fast as she can otherwise, though.”
Shirou nodded. “Yeah. Well, anyway, I’ll walk you home, then.”
“But your dinner, and you have guests—”
He glanced to Rin again. She took a moment to realize he was looking to follow her lead, but she nodded. “Eh, I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stand Emiya-kun if he let a girl walk home alone in the dark, you know.” She spun on her heel and was down the hall, though Shirou noted that her head was tilted up toward the roof, clearly in silent contact with her Servant. Though it pained him to realize that it meant probably being escorted by that guy, he figured he’d endure it for the evening, at least.
They were silent for most of the walk, though Shirou did not feel like this was out of the ordinary. He and Sakura would often chat about random, mundane things, but almost in equal parts the nights he would walk her home were spent in comfortable silence.
Too, he had a lot on his mind, and he was afraid that if he spoke up, he’d let something slip.
BGM on
The Matou estate looked dead quiet when they arrived, and Shirou wondered if Shinji was out on a date or with his gaggle of admirers. The fact that he would leave his little sister to attend to family at home then got his gall a bit, though he choked back on the feeling as much as he could. “Sorry again for not telling you about Tohsaka. It was kind of last-minute.”
Sakura startled, clearly lost in her own thoughts as well. “Oh, no, please don’t worry about it. You are allowed to do with your own house what you want.”
“I know, but, still, I feel like I should’ve told you. It won’t be for long, though.” A thought occurred, and he could do nothing to stop the rush of words out of his mouth. “And don’t get the wrong idea, or anything. We’re not dating or anything, so please don’t think that.”
“I know.” Her tone told him she was not at all convinced.
“In any case, I’ll see you at school tomorrow. I’ll let Fuji-nee know what’s going on, too, so, um, if you have the chance, try and, uh, distract her if she starts ranting about me?”
Finally, he managed a faint laugh from the younger girl. “You should know, senpai, if I tried to do that every time she brought you up, I would never get any shooting practice in at all.”
“Ugh.”
She smiled, and bowed. “Thank you for walking me home. And tell Tohsaka-senpai that I’m sorry I was a little…curt with her.”
“I think everybody should be a bit curt with her,” he said, entirely serious.
“Goodnight, senpai.”
“Goodnight, Sakura.”
BGM off
Even after she had passed through the doors of her home, Shirou stared after her for a while, something still bothering him. It also bothered him that there was an ominous feeling he had coming from the house, one that he usually didn’t feel when he’d been here in the past. He decided that the surreal knowledge of the Grail War was at odds with the adolescent memories he had when nothing really out of the ordinary had seemed possible and he had just come around to hang out with his buddy from school.
“You just gonna stand out here like a big neon bull’s eye?”
Shirou sighed; he had known he would not get out of this little trip without some kind of rant from the Servant in red. “Shut up. It’s not like I don’t know this town, couldn’t find some way of escaping an attack.”
The white-haired man was before him when he turned, materializing out of the gloom beyond the light posts. “You’re an idiot if you think a competent magus could not plan out various strategies around your actions, even if they’re less familiar with the area. That isn’t even mentioning the Servants.”
“That all you have to say? Cause I’m going now, you don’t have to nag.”
“Just thought I’d share some observations, actually, since we’re being all nice and agreeable. Allies do that sort of thing.” He smirked, a sort of lopsided grin, and Shirou once again felt the overwhelming urge to punch the guy in the face.
“Then talk, I’m all ears,” Shirou said, starting back down the road to his home.
The Servant followed after like an overgrown shadow, like a light were cast from Shirou’s feet instead of above his head. “You want to be some kind of hero, want to save lives.”
“Congratulations, you probably have an A-rank in Perceive Basic Goals.”
“So what happens when, say, that girl you were just with is irradiated, or the carrier of a disease agent. It won’t kill her, but it will kill all those within a ten kilometer radius. What, O Ally of Justice, do you do then?”
“This isn’t an observation,” Shirou said, shaking his head, “this is rhetorical nonsense.”
The clatter of boots on the pavement stopped, and the Servant’s voice lowered. “This is deathly serious, Shirou Emiya. You should realize that no Servant has it in them to make believe such ideas.”
Shirou turned, faced the man, faced the sharpened look Tohsaka’s familiar now wore. “I would try and cure whatever the thing was.”
“With what? Your Nuclear Physics Degree? Or expertise in Biological Warfare?”
Grinding his teeth, Shirou growled, “You’re the one posing the question. I’m answering it. I don’t know how, but I do know what.” Perhaps, though, it upset him so much because that very issue, the what over the how, had plagued him for years now. He still had no way to perceive the how. “I can’t prepare for every given situation. But I’d try, and find a way.”
The half-angry look Archer regarded him with did not abate; in fact, it seemed to only grow in clarity, like Shirou’s words had somehow been the whet stone to Archer’s edge. “Be prepared to fail, then, if you’re going to go on dreaming like that.”
“Bastard—!”
BGM on
Shirou struck the thirty-seventh sword from Gilgamesh’s hand, spinning in place, grabbing the next blade at his feet. He swung wildly, without form, without any clear thought, every process of his mind on the blades as they appeared from the glowing gate, every push of his body only just enough to keep up with one who stood above human comprehension.
The King of Heroes reeled back, reached for another blade hovering over his shoulder, commanding more blades to pour out of his treasury. But each swing of his arm was just that fraction of a second too slow, his grip on the weapon not enough to keep hold, the weapon’s grip on reality not enough to keep from shattering against its doppelganger. Each flying sword and spear was met by a twin, as if his actions were merely flinging objects at an invulnerable mirror.
And Shirou did not relent, did not give him even a moment to consider anything else.
Gilgamesh staggered back one step, then three at a time, halted to try and cease the assault. Each misstep only drove him further into a corner; had it not been within the endless landscape of unreality, they might have made it some blocks from the Ryuudou Temple stairway.
There was no end, to the world, or to Shirou’s vision.
If fire had scorched the landscape, it also fueled the very existence of his world. The pulsing of his prana would not end—Shirou felt the semblance of energy, of fire, coursing through him, far too much than his circuits could ever contain.
He was not fighting alone, of course.
That warmth he felt from the little keychain was like an extra lungful of air, like pumping oxygen into the furnace until it ran hotter and hotter. If his prana was the hand on the pump, and Saber’s presence the device—
“To use this for such a mongrel—!”
Gilgamesh went for a weapon that Shirou had not seen before, and the moment he laid eyes upon it, felt like something in his chest had clotted. Even within this perfect workshop, he could not perceive its make, its function, though every nerve in his body and every pulse from Saber told him:
It was too dangerous to leave alone.
“Excalibur!”
And so, even with the King of Heroes withdrawing more than a mere handful of steps away, he lobbed the glowing cut of Saber’s sword at his target. Gilgamesh was partially enveloped by the light before he could point this new weapon at Shirou, and the crash of accelerated prana into the world beyond was too much. Unlimited Blade Works collapsed, and Shirou pressed forward once again.
BGM off
Because the golden Servant still stood, despite half of his body being blasted away.
Shirou could not afford to underestimate this one, though, and he moved in, the sword bearing the title “steel cutter” aimed for Gilgamesh’s neck—
It was like a blooming flower, or peeling away at a corn husk, or a raven spreading its wings to fly. A sudden flourish of darkness gathered between them and opened outwards, striking at both Shirou and Gilgamesh at once. With Excalibur raised for a strike, Shirou deflected part of the shock aside, while Gilgamesh, with only one arm and an errant blade from his grand treasury to hold himself up—
BGM on
Despite a wound that had to have torn part of a lung away, Gilgamesh rumbled as wisps of blackness caged him. If Gilgamesh was a light, a golden glow in the twilight night, this thing was his shadow, cast even greater and deeper than one who was not the Hero of Heroes. Dark tendrils like hands shot up to grab him at the legs, like the multitudes of hell groping for their savior—
“What are you…get your filthy hands off me—!”
Shirou staggered to his feet, helped now that they had returned to the stairway of Ryuudou his Reality Marble had overtaken. He made his way back up the incline, the sword in his hand ready to repel both the golden presence of the Servant and the darkened something that had appeared—
“Gah!”
Pain lanced up his right leg as something hit him from behind, entirely skewering his limb. He glanced down to see what at first looked like a horrific parody of a flower sprouting out of his skin, but a closer look aided by the glow from Excalibur brought a sense of reflection and transparency.
Gossamer wings.
Three screeching bugs shaped like small blades had impaled his leg, the creatures’ wings sprouting out from the wounds. Shirou followed the path they must have taken back toward the street, to find a tiny silhouette in the lamplight across the road.
“You’re in the way, boy,” the figure said; an old man with a voice like it was rotting from within. The newcomer raise a hand, and though Shirou raised the sword to ward off another attack—
A swarm like locusts spewed forth.
BGM off
That was not the end, though now he understood why.
It was within you all along.
It was not tangible, nor was he exactly hearing her voice, per se. But that feeling within him had expanded and it was like he could read her mind, or she could project into his.
Within him, he saw, the image of gold and blue—perfection that would not let him die, would shield him from all harm.
Except…
He pulled himself from the ground, brushed absently at where there should have been a hole in his chest, in his side, at his neck. It was much like the first time in the graveyard, where Archer’s attack had almost taken him out, had pummeled his body even if it had not hit him directly. He had been so perfectly fine hours later, in defiance of what he knew should have had him incapacitated for at least the next day.
An old man had come, had attacked.
He had passed over Shirou, who had laid still as if dead while Avalon repaired his damaged body. The man had used words to command that darkness from before until it had entirely consumed the wounded Gilgamesh, the Servant roaring in rage the entire time. Unaware of the eyes still on him, the old man had then spoken aloud, clearly to nobody, to himself, to the world as if to announce his presence and intent:
“Finally, you are of use to me—”
And that shadow, for the briefest of moments, had taken on shape as the man had reached out to take hold of it—though to take hold of a shadow was not to grasp at anything, but to pierce it with his hand, to command it like a part of his body.
And within that shape, that brief form he had seen—
“I have…to stop him…” Shirou muttered, his mind still trying to reorder everything. There were just too many things that had happened all at once, this night, and if losing Saber had been a blow to his head, realizing the connection he might have to Archer was like bile in the pit of his stomach—
This might just be like having lost a vital part of his body.
Admire Saber. Pity Illya. Dislike Archer. Respect Tohsaka.
But, to him, there were only two people he could really call family—
The only ones by which he could measure something like love—
He pulled himself up to where he had seen that inhuman man disappear to, the entrance to a cavern that loomed like the darkness that had swallowed the King of Heroes.
Interlude I, Lost Side, End
Last edited by Arashi_Leonhart; July 2nd, 2012 at 08:27 PM.
Localizationing stuff
IT ARRIVES
~I hate writing English paragraphs longer that one line. Or any language, really.~
In the middle of re-re-redoubling the effort of erasing the habit of lurking for the 9001st time
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