Because, y'know, it _had_ to be done.
file #7 Abort, Retry, Fail? or One step forward, two steps back.
It did not start with a bang.
Rather, it began with a whimper.
And a voice.
In truth, his reaction was partly thus because of how he'd spent the past years. No matter how comfortable a place, no matter how safe he felt, the fact remained that he'd been a wanted man. Well, by some circles, anyway. Others would just as soon see him dead.
It was a testament to his instincts that the blow was halted before it could be completed, though muscles complained that he'd not let them uncoil.
And as eyes opened, he knew why his hand hadn't followed through on its motion, even though it took him a moment to overcome the intense feeling of deja vu. And recognize for a fact that there was no way this could be happening, and that he _had_ gone through this exact situation before. Only that it obviously was happening, which sort of made deliberations upon the impossibility of it all a pointless excercise.
The last thing he remembered was the Between, and a moment of confusion before he was forcibly yanked off his path and towards ... well, whatever the hell this was.
"... se-sempai?"
And so it was that Emiya Shiro found himself, upon waking, in the familiar surroundings of his old warehouse - the only bit of the property left to him by Kirigitsu that he actually considered his ...
"Sakura?" he blinked, before - very carefully - taking a step back and letting his eyes scan the surroundings.
Sakura's legs chose that moment to give out, whereupon she ended up sitting on the floor of the warehouse, eyes wide and staring at him in shock.
"Sempai ... is a Magi?"
Then he noticed that he was not, in fact, wearing his often replaced but still mostly intact traveling clothes. He was, in fact, clad in something he hadn't worn in a long, long while. A rumpled blue overall. Though it seemed smaller than he remembered it being.
As for what his other senses were telling him?
A tether of ... mana? ... stretched out far into the distance, connecting him to some sort of reservoir. It felt familiar, thought. Sort of like ...
Tohsaka? No way that should be ... oh. This is not happening.
He dismissed the blade, and stepped towards Sakura, who scooted back a bit before he raised his hands in a wordless plea for forgiveness. The gesture seemed to calm her down a little.
"Sakura," he crouched in front of her, grasping her shoulders gently. "I want you to think very carefully, then answer. Tell me, what's today's date?"
She did. Both.
It was as bad as Shiro had expected.
***
Well, that had been a complete and total waste of time.
Not only had she wasted a store of mana. Not only had she managed to somehow blow up her ancestral home's living room. No ...
... apparently, the summoning had gone so badly, that _something_ had shown up. She had no idea _what_, though.
She could even feel the drain on her mana that signified there was something leeching it, like a Servant would have, but ...
... she looked down to her right hand.
... no Command Spells were present.
Tohsaka Rin sighed, ignoring the oncoming headache, and wondered if she could salvage at least a little from the night's mishap.
***
"What? Just up and went away?"
"H-hai, Fujimura-sensei," Sakura replied. "Shiro-kun was acting ... very oddly."
"To skip school like that," Fujimura Taiga, high school teacher and Emiya Shiro's big sister surrogate shook her head. "I didn't think he'd do something so irresponsible."
"Ano ... he actually asked me to ... not go either? And to wait here for him," the girl added, hesistantly. "Sensei, he said it was really important. Shiro-kun doesn't seem like a person who would just do this sort of thing on a whim."
"Maaaa ... you're right," groused the woman. Then she cheered up. "Well, I guess that means more breakfast for me!"
There was no use in being upset at the moment. She'd save that up for when her 'little brother' came back home.
***
"Hai? Moshi moshi? Tohno residence."
"Ohayo. May I speak with Tohno Shiki-san?"
"Who is speaking, if I may ask?"
"Emiya Shiro. I'm afraid Shiki-san doesn't know me, but the matter is one of grave importance, so if I could impose?"
"I shall see if Shiki-dono is available."
***
It was already evening by the time Shiro made it back, and ...
"Sorry to have you come this far so late, but it's sort of a matter of life and death."
"Iie, Emiya-san," the other boy replied. "I had no plans, and I'm glad to help where I can, even if this was a very unusual request. Um ... though the welcome ... "
... was met by a shinnai's tip leveled at his nose.
"Shiro," Fujimura 'growled'. "Onee-san is waiting for an explanation."
***
"Domo, Tohno-san. We are in your debt. To help a complete stranger so readily," Shiro bowed.
"It really wasn't such a big thing," Tohno Shiki scratched the back of his head in embarassment.
The two said their goodbyes, and the glasses wearing young man donned his shoes and started on his way home. Not surprisingly to Shiro, who was watching for a few more moments, Shiki was joined by a blond woman as he passed the corner of the Emiya property.
Well, looks like some of the good things are still the same as well, ne, Arc-sama?
A minute or so after the duo had gone out of sight, he turned and re-entered the property and house.
And was immediately glopmed onto by a crying Sakura.
"It's gone, sempai! It's really gone! I can't feel it anymore! Thank you, oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou ..."
He just held her as she wept, watched by a somewhat frazzeld Fujimura sensei.
Well, seeing someone stick one of her students with a heavy looking knife, to the hilt, and not leave as much as a wound in the aftermath ... had been more than a little shocking.
Shiro's explanation and demonstration had been even more-so.
The world had just gotten a hell of a lot more ... well, more _something_ for Fujimura Taiga, and she didn't know whether she liked that or not.
Ignorance, she admited to herself, could very well be considered bliss sometimes.
***
"Geez, how troublesome," a familiar, if unwelcome, voice whined.
Last night had been a total and complete failure. She'd not even managed to track the source of the mana drain down, though she'd tried. The divinations had placed it, alternately outside and within Fuyuki City, and moving whenever she tried to pinpoint the location.
So now, after yet another tedious day of school, she was taking the chance to rest a little. Classes were over for the day, and since she didn't have any club activities or, for that matter, any particular drive to go back home and witness the results of the messed up summoning once again, she was catching a nap on the roof.
That is, before the voice penetrated and she stood, hastily brushing imaginary scuffs from her skirt.
The door to the rooftop opened, allowing ...
"First you disappear for a day, then I find out my sister's gone and decided to do the same ... you're a bad influence on her, you know that Emiya?"
Matou Shinji. Endless annoyance and walking ego rolled into one obnoxiously full of himself package.
The boy paused as he caught sight of her, and a flicker of quickly suppressed anger crossed his features. Well, with the brush off she'd laid on him yesterday, that was hardly a surprise.
"Besides, this isn't exactly private, and you had something to say that wasn't ..."
Before Shinji could finish speaking to someone behind him, Rin suddenly felt the tether of mana flare into life, her own reserves flowing into ...
... there was a flash, and Matou Shinji went tumbling arse over teakettele onto the rooftop, a splatter of blood decorating the floor.
The force of the blow was such that he only stopped when he hit the metal mesh fence that ran along the roof's edge.
"No, Shinjin, this is private enough," said the person emerging onto the rooftop after him. It took her a moment to recognize him, if only because she was unused to seeing his features so utterly blank. Emiya Shiro stepped onto the rooftop, shaking the blood from one hand adorned in a set of brass knuckles. "Sakura's been telling me the most interesting things, you know?"
She was suddenly aware just how quiet everything seemed. Well ... it _was_ late, she supposed. She'd been up here longer than she'd intended, initially.
The next shock came when Emiya tossed the knuckles aside, and bought his hands up, light flashing from them ...
... she felt the ebb of mana again ...
... two blades that suddenly materialized in his hands slapped aside some sort of chain weapon that had lashed out at him from where Shinji lay on the ground ...
Only it wasn't Matou alone, now.
The woman was tall, her hair long and a pale shade of purple, her eyes obscured by some sort of binding, and her body ... well, she wore leather. She wore it well, yes, but there was also damn little of it there _to_ wear.
She was also quite obviously a Servant.
Who'd protected Matou ...
... and what the hell _was_ Emiya, anyway?
The clash that followed was very brief, ending with the Servant flying through the air, as a result of a blocked sweep of a truly gigantic, if crude looking, sword that had flashed into being in Emiya's hands.
Was that Imaging?
Chains flashed out, digging into the rooftop as the Servant yanked herself back towards Emiya ... and veered off, landing in a skidding crouch as two things happened.
One, Emiya pinned one of Matou's arms to the rooftop, with another blade yanked out of the ether seemingly on a whim, and put a second weapon to the prone and whimpering boy's throat.
Two, and for some reason this seemed all the more important to the Servant, Matou's little sister hesitantly stepped out of the darkened stairwell.
"Now, Shinji," she heard Emiya's voice, and shivered at the cold tone of it. "Sakura has been telling me all sorts of interesting things about you. Disturbing things, too. Care to comment? Or just give her Command Spells back, neh? That'll make things easier on all of us."
And so began the arguably most unbelievable time of Tohsaka Rin's life.
I may actually carry on with this one, eventually.
And yes, those were Tohno Shiki and Arcueid of Tsukihime fame. My version of Shiro had met Tohno Shiki and his extended family some time after the War, on his search of the means to follow Saber. Maybe I'll write about it someday. Or maybe I'll just treat it as a throwaway gimmick. I'm assuming Tsukihime ended with the Good Ending of the Arcueid path, and happened before Fate/Stay Night begins, again, just because.
As for why the Good Ending? It's Arc-sama! She's too cute to die, or seal herself away from the world. Deal!
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm
file #7 Abort, Retry, Fail? or One step forward, two steps back.
It did not start with a bang.
Rather, it began with a whimper.
And a voice.
In truth, his reaction was partly thus because of how he'd spent the past years. No matter how comfortable a place, no matter how safe he felt, the fact remained that he'd been a wanted man. Well, by some circles, anyway. Others would just as soon see him dead.
It was a testament to his instincts that the blow was halted before it could be completed, though muscles complained that he'd not let them uncoil.
And as eyes opened, he knew why his hand hadn't followed through on its motion, even though it took him a moment to overcome the intense feeling of deja vu. And recognize for a fact that there was no way this could be happening, and that he _had_ gone through this exact situation before. Only that it obviously was happening, which sort of made deliberations upon the impossibility of it all a pointless excercise.
The last thing he remembered was the Between, and a moment of confusion before he was forcibly yanked off his path and towards ... well, whatever the hell this was.
"... se-sempai?"
And so it was that Emiya Shiro found himself, upon waking, in the familiar surroundings of his old warehouse - the only bit of the property left to him by Kirigitsu that he actually considered his ...
"Sakura?" he blinked, before - very carefully - taking a step back and letting his eyes scan the surroundings.
Sakura's legs chose that moment to give out, whereupon she ended up sitting on the floor of the warehouse, eyes wide and staring at him in shock.
"Sempai ... is a Magi?"
Then he noticed that he was not, in fact, wearing his often replaced but still mostly intact traveling clothes. He was, in fact, clad in something he hadn't worn in a long, long while. A rumpled blue overall. Though it seemed smaller than he remembered it being.
As for what his other senses were telling him?
A tether of ... mana? ... stretched out far into the distance, connecting him to some sort of reservoir. It felt familiar, thought. Sort of like ...
Tohsaka? No way that should be ... oh. This is not happening.
He dismissed the blade, and stepped towards Sakura, who scooted back a bit before he raised his hands in a wordless plea for forgiveness. The gesture seemed to calm her down a little.
"Sakura," he crouched in front of her, grasping her shoulders gently. "I want you to think very carefully, then answer. Tell me, what's today's date?"
She did. Both.
It was as bad as Shiro had expected.
***
Well, that had been a complete and total waste of time.
Not only had she wasted a store of mana. Not only had she managed to somehow blow up her ancestral home's living room. No ...
... apparently, the summoning had gone so badly, that _something_ had shown up. She had no idea _what_, though.
She could even feel the drain on her mana that signified there was something leeching it, like a Servant would have, but ...
... she looked down to her right hand.
... no Command Spells were present.
Tohsaka Rin sighed, ignoring the oncoming headache, and wondered if she could salvage at least a little from the night's mishap.
***
"What? Just up and went away?"
"H-hai, Fujimura-sensei," Sakura replied. "Shiro-kun was acting ... very oddly."
"To skip school like that," Fujimura Taiga, high school teacher and Emiya Shiro's big sister surrogate shook her head. "I didn't think he'd do something so irresponsible."
"Ano ... he actually asked me to ... not go either? And to wait here for him," the girl added, hesistantly. "Sensei, he said it was really important. Shiro-kun doesn't seem like a person who would just do this sort of thing on a whim."
"Maaaa ... you're right," groused the woman. Then she cheered up. "Well, I guess that means more breakfast for me!"
There was no use in being upset at the moment. She'd save that up for when her 'little brother' came back home.
***
"Hai? Moshi moshi? Tohno residence."
"Ohayo. May I speak with Tohno Shiki-san?"
"Who is speaking, if I may ask?"
"Emiya Shiro. I'm afraid Shiki-san doesn't know me, but the matter is one of grave importance, so if I could impose?"
"I shall see if Shiki-dono is available."
***
It was already evening by the time Shiro made it back, and ...
"Sorry to have you come this far so late, but it's sort of a matter of life and death."
"Iie, Emiya-san," the other boy replied. "I had no plans, and I'm glad to help where I can, even if this was a very unusual request. Um ... though the welcome ... "
... was met by a shinnai's tip leveled at his nose.
"Shiro," Fujimura 'growled'. "Onee-san is waiting for an explanation."
***
"Domo, Tohno-san. We are in your debt. To help a complete stranger so readily," Shiro bowed.
"It really wasn't such a big thing," Tohno Shiki scratched the back of his head in embarassment.
The two said their goodbyes, and the glasses wearing young man donned his shoes and started on his way home. Not surprisingly to Shiro, who was watching for a few more moments, Shiki was joined by a blond woman as he passed the corner of the Emiya property.
Well, looks like some of the good things are still the same as well, ne, Arc-sama?
A minute or so after the duo had gone out of sight, he turned and re-entered the property and house.
And was immediately glopmed onto by a crying Sakura.
"It's gone, sempai! It's really gone! I can't feel it anymore! Thank you, oh, thankyouthankyouthankyou ..."
He just held her as she wept, watched by a somewhat frazzeld Fujimura sensei.
Well, seeing someone stick one of her students with a heavy looking knife, to the hilt, and not leave as much as a wound in the aftermath ... had been more than a little shocking.
Shiro's explanation and demonstration had been even more-so.
The world had just gotten a hell of a lot more ... well, more _something_ for Fujimura Taiga, and she didn't know whether she liked that or not.
Ignorance, she admited to herself, could very well be considered bliss sometimes.
***
"Geez, how troublesome," a familiar, if unwelcome, voice whined.
Last night had been a total and complete failure. She'd not even managed to track the source of the mana drain down, though she'd tried. The divinations had placed it, alternately outside and within Fuyuki City, and moving whenever she tried to pinpoint the location.
So now, after yet another tedious day of school, she was taking the chance to rest a little. Classes were over for the day, and since she didn't have any club activities or, for that matter, any particular drive to go back home and witness the results of the messed up summoning once again, she was catching a nap on the roof.
That is, before the voice penetrated and she stood, hastily brushing imaginary scuffs from her skirt.
The door to the rooftop opened, allowing ...
"First you disappear for a day, then I find out my sister's gone and decided to do the same ... you're a bad influence on her, you know that Emiya?"
Matou Shinji. Endless annoyance and walking ego rolled into one obnoxiously full of himself package.
The boy paused as he caught sight of her, and a flicker of quickly suppressed anger crossed his features. Well, with the brush off she'd laid on him yesterday, that was hardly a surprise.
"Besides, this isn't exactly private, and you had something to say that wasn't ..."
Before Shinji could finish speaking to someone behind him, Rin suddenly felt the tether of mana flare into life, her own reserves flowing into ...
... there was a flash, and Matou Shinji went tumbling arse over teakettele onto the rooftop, a splatter of blood decorating the floor.
The force of the blow was such that he only stopped when he hit the metal mesh fence that ran along the roof's edge.
"No, Shinjin, this is private enough," said the person emerging onto the rooftop after him. It took her a moment to recognize him, if only because she was unused to seeing his features so utterly blank. Emiya Shiro stepped onto the rooftop, shaking the blood from one hand adorned in a set of brass knuckles. "Sakura's been telling me the most interesting things, you know?"
She was suddenly aware just how quiet everything seemed. Well ... it _was_ late, she supposed. She'd been up here longer than she'd intended, initially.
The next shock came when Emiya tossed the knuckles aside, and bought his hands up, light flashing from them ...
... she felt the ebb of mana again ...
... two blades that suddenly materialized in his hands slapped aside some sort of chain weapon that had lashed out at him from where Shinji lay on the ground ...
Only it wasn't Matou alone, now.
The woman was tall, her hair long and a pale shade of purple, her eyes obscured by some sort of binding, and her body ... well, she wore leather. She wore it well, yes, but there was also damn little of it there _to_ wear.
She was also quite obviously a Servant.
Who'd protected Matou ...
... and what the hell _was_ Emiya, anyway?
The clash that followed was very brief, ending with the Servant flying through the air, as a result of a blocked sweep of a truly gigantic, if crude looking, sword that had flashed into being in Emiya's hands.
Was that Imaging?
Chains flashed out, digging into the rooftop as the Servant yanked herself back towards Emiya ... and veered off, landing in a skidding crouch as two things happened.
One, Emiya pinned one of Matou's arms to the rooftop, with another blade yanked out of the ether seemingly on a whim, and put a second weapon to the prone and whimpering boy's throat.
Two, and for some reason this seemed all the more important to the Servant, Matou's little sister hesitantly stepped out of the darkened stairwell.
"Now, Shinji," she heard Emiya's voice, and shivered at the cold tone of it. "Sakura has been telling me all sorts of interesting things about you. Disturbing things, too. Care to comment? Or just give her Command Spells back, neh? That'll make things easier on all of us."
And so began the arguably most unbelievable time of Tohsaka Rin's life.
I may actually carry on with this one, eventually.
And yes, those were Tohno Shiki and Arcueid of Tsukihime fame. My version of Shiro had met Tohno Shiki and his extended family some time after the War, on his search of the means to follow Saber. Maybe I'll write about it someday. Or maybe I'll just treat it as a throwaway gimmick. I'm assuming Tsukihime ended with the Good Ending of the Arcueid path, and happened before Fate/Stay Night begins, again, just because.
As for why the Good Ending? It's Arc-sama! She's too cute to die, or seal herself away from the world. Deal!
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm