Karasuba never had any intention of finding her "Destined One"; to spill blood, any Ashikabi would do. With that said, she was never supposed to meet a genocidal maniac as sick and twisted as Emiya Shirou. Maybe romance wasn't dead after all.
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Chapter 1
Hey everyone! I'm not too used to Sufficient Velocity so I hope that I don't make too many mistakes haha (still don't know how to use these tags properly btw). This story is a crosspost from fanfiction.net. You can read the story up to chapter 9 there. Every chapter will be accompanied by an original illustration. I hope you like it!
Before you read, please be advised that Shirou Emiya in this story is from the Mind of Steel ending of the fate stay night visual novel. Differences from his usual character are a direct result of that.
X
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at Haneda International Airport, local time thirteen twenty-eight. The current temperature is eighteen degrees Celsius. Please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until…"
Emiya Shirou shifted in his seat, being awoken by the inflight announcement. As his eyes fluttered open, he caught sight of his neighbour smiling at him amusedly.
"You've been sleeping like the dead since we took off. Rough business trip?" guessed the man. He was middle-aged –thinning hair, widening waistline, and all. Though his suit was a little dishevelled by the long flight, the jacket was clearly well made. All in all, he looked the part of a Japanese salaryman, if a reasonably successful one. Shirou would wager that the man knew quite a bit about "rough business trips".
The younger of the pair laughed gently. "Something like that."
He was given a sympathetic nod. "I remember long flights like these taking a lot out of me when I was about your age; I was never the best at handling jetlag. If it's any consolation, it gets easier over time. Is your office giving you the day off, at least?"
Shirou shook his head. "I work overseas, actually. My last project was pretty big, so I took some time off to visit home."
"Ah!" the salaryman grinned sheepishly. "Sorry for reminding you of work while you're on vacation, then. I must say, it's unusual to see youngsters of your generation wearing suits when they're not on the job. Is it in style now or something?"
Before Shirou could answer, the seatbelt light turned off.
"… thank you for flying with us, and we hope to see you again soon. Have a nice day!"
The salaryman sighed. With a grunt, he got up and grabbed his overhead baggage swiftly so as to leave room for the younger man in the window seat. As he left, he bade farewell, "I won't keep you any longer. Rest up, kid."
"I will, thanks."
After allowing the other passengers to evacuate the aircraft before him, Shirou crossed the jet bridge connecting to the terminal at a brisk pace. His carry-on was small, so he was able to move swiftly.
He caught sight of his sleeve from the corner of his eye and grimaced. Maybe he shouldn't have worn the suit on the flight after all? He probably could've found a place to change his clothes once he arrived.
"Excuse me, are you Emiya Shirou-san?"
He was stopped at the terminal entrance by a pair of security guards.
Wait, no. These were actual police officers, weren't they?
"That's me," he confirmed. "Is there something that I can do for you?"
They didn't give him a direct answer. "Please come with us. We'd like to ask you some questions."
Shirou held back a frown. That's what he was afraid of.
But what could they possibly want from him? It's not like he entered the country illegally or anything. He bought a totally normal flight ticket, and his passport was authentic.
A SIG Sauer M17 pistol and a BR18 rifle were placed on the table in front of him.
"We found this in your luggage," one of the police officers in the small, secluded room remarked.
Shirou kept a straight face, but his mind was running a mile a minute trying to figure out what tipped them off.
Yes, he might have brought some relatively illegal firearms into his home country that just so happened to have particularly stringent gun control regulations, but that shouldn't have been an issue here– it never was before.
His suitcase was a mystic code, after all. There wasn't a security system in the world that he knew of that could accurately detect its contents.
Nevertheless, the fact of the matter was that he was found out. If he wanted to get out of this terrible situation, he'd need to revisit tried and true methods to divert their suspicions.
"That's not my luggage," he denied lamely.
"…"
"…"
The men in uniform gave each other pained looks. To Shirou's dismay, one of them left the room while the other took a seat across from him.
And just like that, it had become an interrogation. The man took out a tablet that Shirou didn't recognize. New protocol, maybe?
"It says here that you haven't been back to Japan since two thousand and nine, mister Emiya. What is the purpose of your visit?"
"I'm here to visit my hometown," Shirou answered easily.
"And how long do you plan on staying?"
"Eight days, including today."
"…"
The officer tapped something on the screen.
"Your occupation?"
"I'm a licenced mechanic, plumber and electrician. I just finished a year-long contract with the British government, so I felt the need to take some time off to visit a friend."
"What's your friend's name?"
"Matou Sakura."
The officer grunted, unconvinced, but he still typed out the name on his tablet. "And for what purpose did you bring two military-grade firearms into the country? Doesn't seem like something a tradesman like yourself would carry around. You're aware that having these in your possession can land you fifteen years in prison? That's not including any smuggling charges."
"Like I said, those aren't mine."
"Enough. This is a waste of time."
The one who spoke wasn't the officer, but a woman who burst through the door with a deep scowl on her face.
Sahashi Takami glared at the cellphone buzzing in her hand.
She might have been a serious sort of person, but she liked to think that she had decent control over her temper– God knows she's needed it over the years. That said, the annoyance she felt towards this inanimate device would have been unusual in other circumstances.
However, she wasn't in a great mood to start with. She had just found out that her son went ahead and flunked his university entrance exam again, and now she was getting a call from the police department?
It had better be about the company. If she found out that one of her kids did something stupid, she might just have to strangle them both.
First, the one that got arrested, then the other one for good measure.
Mustering all her courage, she answered. "Hello?"
"Miss Sahashi? You might want to drop by Haneda Airport. One of MBI's machines caught a heavily armed man trying to sneak into the city."
"Another one?" she moaned. Her kids would live another day, it would seem.
"This is the third one this week… are you sure you don't want us to just hand him over to the guys here?"
"No, I'll come."
If you want something done right, do it yourself, as the saying goes. For however convenient it would be to replace the local police force with MBI's paramilitary, the truth of the matter was that the personnel under MBI's employ had an unfortunately long-running history of pissing her off. The police force was firmly under the company's thumb, either way, so she could trust them to do their job with more confidence than she could trust MBI to try to fill their shoes.
Similarly, she'd rather work herself to death than delegate any of her chores to that useless bunch.
"Get a car ready," she told the officer on the other end of the line. "We'll just take him back with us and get what we can out of him here."
"Got it. Anything else, ma'am?"
"Yeah. Send me the guy's record, would you? Everything you've managed to put together so far."
"Sure thing."
She ended the call and stuffed the damned phone back into her coat pocket.
"Karasuba."
A grey-haired woman walked into her office at that moment. Had her name not been uttered, one would think that her entrance into the sound-proofed room was a coincidence.
"Got a new toy for me?" she asked, sporting an unreadable smile.
An alarm sounded on Takami's phone, interrupting her thoughts before she could speak. A quick glance told her that the files she had requested had arrived.
In less than a minute, too. Not too shabby, for once.
"Maybe," Sahashi told the younger woman. She gave the files a quick once-over. "Hm? How quaint. This guy's Japanese. Rarer than you'd think. His name is…"
"Emiya Shirou, thirty-three years old– who would've thought, huh? You're definitely younger than you look."
Shirou stared back at the woman with as blank a look as he could manage.
"Born and raised in Fuyuki, Japan… Oh!" she shouted with clearly-faked cheer. She finally looked up from the tablet to meet his eyes with a half-disinterested stare. "About fifteen years ago, you left the country and moved to Europe. Says here that you're a British resident, but your travel record over the past eighteen months is quite extensive, you world-traveller, you."
He wasn't having it. "Can I have my suitcase back, please? I'm going to have to give my hotel a call, at this rate."
"I suppose you'd like the handgun and assault rifle back, too?"
"Like I said, those aren't mine. Do whatever you'd like with them."
The firearms were mundane weapons, so he didn't care too much if they disappeared. The suitcase, on the other hand, was a magical item. If he wasn't able to retrieve it, alternative measures would need to be taken.
To his surprise, the woman took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one on the spot. This was a smoke-free building, wasn't it?
"Tell me a little about miss Matou. You're here to pay her a visit, you said. Is that right?"
"What would you like to know?" asked Shirou. He didn't mind being transparent about the matter. He wasn't lying after all.
"I guess I find it kind of strange that you came all the way back here for a dead girl. She passed away in two thousand and four."
It didn't take them a lot of digging to figure that one out, it would seem.
"There was a lot on my mind at the time," the man rebutted. "I wasn't able to pay my respects back then, so here I am now."
He tugged at the cuff of his all-black suit meaningfully.
"After sixteen years?"
"That's right."
She wasn't having it.
"I'm afraid that you'll need to come with me, sir."
Shirou shut his eyes in resignation. He could only blame himself for the terrible situation that he'd found himself in– however it was that it came to this. He could always force himself out later, but for now, it was easiest to do as he was told.
This predicament was still salvageable, after all.
It was only once that Shirou was strong-armed into the back seat of a black Humvee that he considered his situation to be a little less forgiving than he'd originally thought.
His hands were cuffed behind his back, and a metal net separated him from the driver. He could tell instantly that both the doors and windows were heavily reinforced.
If escaping his captors was necessary, none of these were factors that needed any further consideration. The only problem was the creepy woman who occupied the seat next to his.
Usually, you wouldn't cage someone you believe to be a dangerous criminal together with another person. It would be a hostage situation begging to happen.
He'd bet anything that she wasn't a normal human, though, so such worries were most definitely moot.
There were no words exchanged between them on the trip to wherever it was that they were going. She just kept smiling at him, as if she were anticipating something.
Decidedly, going along with the whims of whoever had picked him up from the airport was a terrible idea.
They weren't the police, that's for sure. Though the metal box that he was trapped inside of along with the chair that he was strapped to could pass for a particularly meanspirited containment cell, the way that the creepy woman was eagerly tapping the edge of her katana was a little different from standard police behaviour.
Had he been duped? His suitcase really shouldn't have been detectable by customs. If these people were part of a moonlit organization, then he was just wasting his time.
The issue was that if he acted now and was wrong in his assumption, then he would be forced to uphold the laws of the association.
How unfortunate it would be if he needed to kill everyone in this building. Truly a waste of human life.
The tip of the katana pressed against his jugular.
"Hey, Mister," the woman drawled. She sounded surprisingly tired despite the peppy way in which she carried herself. "If you don't want to talk, that's okay with me."
The white-haired man quirked a brow.
"Is it?"
"Mhm. I'll just kill you now. I kind of want to."
Without a doubt, he was not at a police station. This woman was too unhinged to pass any sort of psychological screening needed to land the job.
Either way, he persisted, "Like I said earlier, I really don't–"
Shirou cranked his neck to the side just in time to avoid the blade thrust towards his face at inhuman speeds. He saw her baffled look just as it was replaced by her smiling mask once more.
"I change my mind," she said. "I'll play with you a little more."
With a flick of the wrist, she cut through the steel chains binding him to the chair. Unsurely, the man stood and faced his captor.
"What–"
The sword came swinging at him again, though much more swiftly. Due to the limited space in the containment cell, he could only shuffle backwards to keep his head attached to the rest of his body.
He couldn't detect any signs of reinforcement. Though he was growing more and more confident in his assumption that his captors were not regular people, he had yet to smell any sort of mage craft. As unbelievable as it sounded, the woman's supernatural talents were simply an aberration.
That, or she just wasn't human.
With each swing that he dodged, her swings became more focused. The woman's amused smile morphed into one of ecstasy.
It was when he took advantage of one of her strikes to split his handcuffs apart that she stopped her advances altogether. Though he was still cautious, he stopped as well due to the suddenness of her stilling.
"Why did you come to Japan, Mister?"
Shirou frowned. Again with this? It's not like they were going to listen to what he was saying.
"I came to visit a good friend of mine," he answered honestly.
Her grin became sadistic. For whatever contrived reason, she spoke to him like an apologetic store clerk rather than a nutjob who was fishing for reasons to cut him open. "Is that right? How about we pay Sakura-chan a visit together then? That'll clear up any misunderstandings, right?"
No, that wasn't right at all. Showing this woman a tombstone was no reason to let him go– not that he believed them to have any intention of doing that, to begin with.
What was she trying to accomplish, here?
"Alright. Is this fine with your boss?"
The woman's grin threatened to split her face.
"I wouldn't worry about it."
When Karasuba forced some lackey to drive her and her new plaything two and a half hours south of Shinto Teito, she was really hoping for something interesting.
Honestly, she felt played– like she played herself, rather.
He seriously dragged her all the way here to visit a corpse. Boring.
How frustrating. She went ahead and ignored Takami's express orders to deal with the spy within the confines of MBI's interrogation rooms in the hopes that he'd show her something interesting again.
With nothing but a skilled body to rely on, he kept his own death at bay for nearly a minute. For a human, that was impressive, right? If she gave him a longer leash, he'd be able to show her something even better, right?
And yet, here they were. Forget putting up a fight, he didn't even try to run away.
"Are you done there, Mister?"
Frustratingly, he wasn't answering her. He didn't even bother looking at her. He was sitting cross-legged in front of a grave, not at all mindful of the wet earth ruining his expensive-looking pants.
"Thanks," he spoke over his shoulder.
Karasuba wasn't expecting that at all.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Thank you," he repeated. "I don't like bloodshed."
Hah. How peculiar. Maybe he wasn't as interesting as she had originally hoped.
"Let's go," she insisted. She had enough of this. Utterly pointless. Not at all worth Takami jumping down her throat again. She would bring him back to headquarters, gut him, and tell Takami some made-up story to make her think that she bothered to do her job.
A government agent sent to capture one of the younger birds? Mhm. She liked the sound of that. Generic, but then again, it was only so because it was the most likely story.
For all she knew –or cared– it might as well have been the truth.
"Coming," the man answered after a moment. With a parting glance to the tombstone, he followed her back to the car waiting for them at the front of the church.
What a disappointment this one was. Maybe he just got lucky? He didn't actually think that he'd be able to get out of this, did he?
She had captured him, and so he was already her prey. His life belonged to her now.
And she had enough of him.
They drove back in silence. Though she sat in the back with him on the way out, she didn't bother when they returned. Riding shotgun, she leered out the window with an unfocused yet oddly unwavering stare.
The car rumbled and came to an abrupt stop.
"…"
Karasuba glared at the driver questioningly.
"I– uh… I don't know what's wrong ma'am. I'll check the hood–"
"Don't bother," she told him. "How far are we from HQ?"
How frustrating. They couldn't call another car to pick them up because she didn't want Takami to know where she was.
"On foot? Er… fifteen minutes?"
Karasuba pulled herself out of the now-useless vehicle. Her sigh carried clear marks of exhaustion. "That's fine. Let's go, Mister."
She opened the door for him, and he followed without any issue. At least the lamb followed along to the slaughter obediently.
The sun was setting now. Had it really been that long? What a wasteful day.
They walked along in silence. Though she appreciated the peace and quiet, Karasuba couldn't help but resent the easy-going nature of the spy. He knew that he was about to die, right? The least he could do was show some fear, or even a little panic would do just fine, really.
A teenage girl with short, pink hair popped out from an alleyway. Behind her was a plain-looking man in his twenties. Nothing was particularly outstanding about either of them save for the fact that the street was otherwise completely empty, and that they were clearly blocking their path.
The girl's expression was strangely resolute.
Karasuba grinned. Maybe the day was salvageable after all.
Shirou felt utterly lost. Who were these people supposed to be?
He turned his head towards the woman with the sword in the hopes that he'd get some sort of explanation from her, but she was clearly ignoring him.
"You're like her, right?" the plain-looking man asked while pointing at his companion.
The lady with the sword chuckled.
"And if I am?"
The pink-haired girl lifted a fist, and a pair of chakram floated behind her.
Telekinesis. A supernatural ability used with the intent to harm.
The bladed disks shot forward. Though they were directed at the Sword Woman rather than himself, he stepped forward and grabbed them out of the air. The girl's telekinetic powers pushed against his hold, but the reinforcement spell that he cast on himself proved to be too powerful for her to fight against.
Once they were in his grasp, their edges crumpled and dulled. It was easy to cast alteration on such a simple object.
Of course, all onlookers were caught off guard by his use of mage craft. There wasn't any point in keeping his abilities hidden anymore, however.
It would be irresponsible of him to leave a supernatural being to its own devices when threatened to expose the existence of the moonlit world. He couldn't predict how many lives would be lost if he turned a blind eye to it now.
It would have to die.
Karasuba's eyes widened as her little lamb had suddenly decided to become interesting once more. Through means unknown to her, he had rendered the little bird's weapons useless.
The girl and her Ashikabi glared at the man uneasily. Karasuba felt her smile pinching her cheeks.
How funny.
"Hold on!" the Ashikabi shouted. "So you were the–"
A thin blade –more of a dagger– was lodged in the little bird's throat. She died instantly.
Karasuba's breath hitched.
How? The spy must have done it– but how? He didn't throw anything. He didn't so much as twitch.
"No!" the Ashikabi screamed. Was it grief that he felt? Anger? Both?
The spy seemed wholly uninterested in the man's mental state.
"You were with her?" asked the spy, tilting his head towards the corpse.
"She… she was my–"
BANG!
And the Ashikabi dropped dead alongside his Sekirei. The spy lowered the pistol to his side.
Once again, Karasuba was entertained.
No… it was more than that. This moment was truly joyous. She hadn't been in such a good mood in a long time.
"Hey, Mister. Where did you get that gun from? I thought our fellas shook you down before bringing you in."
He didn't answer, instead offering an apologetic smile.
"Sorry. I'll have to kill you too."
Her teasing grin turned savage. Her heart skipped a beat.
"Oh?"
"You're like her, right? I don't know who you people are, but if you're going to be causing problems then you're better off dead," he explained bluntly.
He dropped the gun. Somehow, she didn't notice where he'd found the pair of dao that he now held in each hand.
Swords, of all things. This human thought that he could fight her with swords.
A heat simmered in her loins.
There was something witty that she had wanted to say –to pick at his brain a little more– but apparently, she had a little less restraint than she had anticipated. Her legs moved before she could think properly, and her sword came crashing down on the human's head.
The blow was suspended, met in the air by one of the swords. Karasuba held back a giggle, noticing that the blade of her weapon chipped under the force she had applied whereas his dao wasn't even scratched.
With just one arm, though it was starting to buckle under the pressure she was applying, the human held her off.
As close to him as she was, Karasuba whispered, "Killing me means losing any leads that I could offer to you. Do you really want a dark, mysterious third party running around under your–"
His second sword swiped at the inside of her leg, forcing her back a few paces in order to get away safely.
The man's expression was stone cold, her taunts weren't eliciting any sort of reaction from him.
"I'll manage, thanks. I can chase down the driver if I have to."
"Will you kill him too?"
"If I must."
Karasuba started to breathe heavily. Her heart hammered in her chest as the man went on the offensive. He wasn't faster than her, nor was he stronger than her, but he was skilled. Unnaturally so.
Skilled enough to justify his ability to hold his ground against her despite being nothing more than a human? Most definitely not, but she wouldn't complain.
Shirou hid a frown as another strike of his was blown to the side.
He was worried.
Not because of the fact that the woman had a clear physical advantage– at this point, he expected as much considering his track record with magical creatures.
It was more that the woman was making a really strange face, like she was sick.
As in, physically ill.
And yet, her strikes became more fierce and her footwork more controlled. He was seriously getting mixed signals from this creature.
His one, absolute advantage –one that he had capitalized on thus far– was the disparity in the quality of their weapons. Kanshou and Bakuya, the Noble Phantasms, would never lose a clash against a run-of-the-mill katana forged within the last year.
Though her blows were heavy, the sword was weightless.
And so, the next swing from Bakuya shattered it at the hilt.
The woman looked ready to pass out.
Victory was his. Bakuya followed a clean, telegraphed path meant to cut her down as quickly as possible while Kanshou followed behind, ready to deal the finishing blow once she made an attempt to distance herself from the sister blade's assault.
Only, she didn't do that at all.
Instead, the woman crashed into him and shoved her tongue down his throat.
Before you read, please be advised that Shirou Emiya in this story is from the Mind of Steel ending of the fate stay night visual novel. Differences from his usual character are a direct result of that.
X
"Ladies and gentlemen, we have arrived at Haneda International Airport, local time thirteen twenty-eight. The current temperature is eighteen degrees Celsius. Please remain seated with your seatbelt fastened until…"
Emiya Shirou shifted in his seat, being awoken by the inflight announcement. As his eyes fluttered open, he caught sight of his neighbour smiling at him amusedly.
"You've been sleeping like the dead since we took off. Rough business trip?" guessed the man. He was middle-aged –thinning hair, widening waistline, and all. Though his suit was a little dishevelled by the long flight, the jacket was clearly well made. All in all, he looked the part of a Japanese salaryman, if a reasonably successful one. Shirou would wager that the man knew quite a bit about "rough business trips".
The younger of the pair laughed gently. "Something like that."
He was given a sympathetic nod. "I remember long flights like these taking a lot out of me when I was about your age; I was never the best at handling jetlag. If it's any consolation, it gets easier over time. Is your office giving you the day off, at least?"
Shirou shook his head. "I work overseas, actually. My last project was pretty big, so I took some time off to visit home."
"Ah!" the salaryman grinned sheepishly. "Sorry for reminding you of work while you're on vacation, then. I must say, it's unusual to see youngsters of your generation wearing suits when they're not on the job. Is it in style now or something?"
Before Shirou could answer, the seatbelt light turned off.
"… thank you for flying with us, and we hope to see you again soon. Have a nice day!"
The salaryman sighed. With a grunt, he got up and grabbed his overhead baggage swiftly so as to leave room for the younger man in the window seat. As he left, he bade farewell, "I won't keep you any longer. Rest up, kid."
"I will, thanks."
After allowing the other passengers to evacuate the aircraft before him, Shirou crossed the jet bridge connecting to the terminal at a brisk pace. His carry-on was small, so he was able to move swiftly.
He caught sight of his sleeve from the corner of his eye and grimaced. Maybe he shouldn't have worn the suit on the flight after all? He probably could've found a place to change his clothes once he arrived.
"Excuse me, are you Emiya Shirou-san?"
He was stopped at the terminal entrance by a pair of security guards.
Wait, no. These were actual police officers, weren't they?
"That's me," he confirmed. "Is there something that I can do for you?"
They didn't give him a direct answer. "Please come with us. We'd like to ask you some questions."
Shirou held back a frown. That's what he was afraid of.
But what could they possibly want from him? It's not like he entered the country illegally or anything. He bought a totally normal flight ticket, and his passport was authentic.
X
A SIG Sauer M17 pistol and a BR18 rifle were placed on the table in front of him.
"We found this in your luggage," one of the police officers in the small, secluded room remarked.
Shirou kept a straight face, but his mind was running a mile a minute trying to figure out what tipped them off.
Yes, he might have brought some relatively illegal firearms into his home country that just so happened to have particularly stringent gun control regulations, but that shouldn't have been an issue here– it never was before.
His suitcase was a mystic code, after all. There wasn't a security system in the world that he knew of that could accurately detect its contents.
Nevertheless, the fact of the matter was that he was found out. If he wanted to get out of this terrible situation, he'd need to revisit tried and true methods to divert their suspicions.
"That's not my luggage," he denied lamely.
"…"
"…"
The men in uniform gave each other pained looks. To Shirou's dismay, one of them left the room while the other took a seat across from him.
And just like that, it had become an interrogation. The man took out a tablet that Shirou didn't recognize. New protocol, maybe?
"It says here that you haven't been back to Japan since two thousand and nine, mister Emiya. What is the purpose of your visit?"
"I'm here to visit my hometown," Shirou answered easily.
"And how long do you plan on staying?"
"Eight days, including today."
"…"
The officer tapped something on the screen.
"Your occupation?"
"I'm a licenced mechanic, plumber and electrician. I just finished a year-long contract with the British government, so I felt the need to take some time off to visit a friend."
"What's your friend's name?"
"Matou Sakura."
The officer grunted, unconvinced, but he still typed out the name on his tablet. "And for what purpose did you bring two military-grade firearms into the country? Doesn't seem like something a tradesman like yourself would carry around. You're aware that having these in your possession can land you fifteen years in prison? That's not including any smuggling charges."
"Like I said, those aren't mine."
"Enough. This is a waste of time."
The one who spoke wasn't the officer, but a woman who burst through the door with a deep scowl on her face.
X
Sahashi Takami glared at the cellphone buzzing in her hand.
She might have been a serious sort of person, but she liked to think that she had decent control over her temper– God knows she's needed it over the years. That said, the annoyance she felt towards this inanimate device would have been unusual in other circumstances.
However, she wasn't in a great mood to start with. She had just found out that her son went ahead and flunked his university entrance exam again, and now she was getting a call from the police department?
It had better be about the company. If she found out that one of her kids did something stupid, she might just have to strangle them both.
First, the one that got arrested, then the other one for good measure.
Mustering all her courage, she answered. "Hello?"
"Miss Sahashi? You might want to drop by Haneda Airport. One of MBI's machines caught a heavily armed man trying to sneak into the city."
"Another one?" she moaned. Her kids would live another day, it would seem.
"This is the third one this week… are you sure you don't want us to just hand him over to the guys here?"
"No, I'll come."
If you want something done right, do it yourself, as the saying goes. For however convenient it would be to replace the local police force with MBI's paramilitary, the truth of the matter was that the personnel under MBI's employ had an unfortunately long-running history of pissing her off. The police force was firmly under the company's thumb, either way, so she could trust them to do their job with more confidence than she could trust MBI to try to fill their shoes.
Similarly, she'd rather work herself to death than delegate any of her chores to that useless bunch.
"Get a car ready," she told the officer on the other end of the line. "We'll just take him back with us and get what we can out of him here."
"Got it. Anything else, ma'am?"
"Yeah. Send me the guy's record, would you? Everything you've managed to put together so far."
"Sure thing."
She ended the call and stuffed the damned phone back into her coat pocket.
"Karasuba."
A grey-haired woman walked into her office at that moment. Had her name not been uttered, one would think that her entrance into the sound-proofed room was a coincidence.
"Got a new toy for me?" she asked, sporting an unreadable smile.
An alarm sounded on Takami's phone, interrupting her thoughts before she could speak. A quick glance told her that the files she had requested had arrived.
In less than a minute, too. Not too shabby, for once.
"Maybe," Sahashi told the younger woman. She gave the files a quick once-over. "Hm? How quaint. This guy's Japanese. Rarer than you'd think. His name is…"
X
"Emiya Shirou, thirty-three years old– who would've thought, huh? You're definitely younger than you look."
Shirou stared back at the woman with as blank a look as he could manage.
"Born and raised in Fuyuki, Japan… Oh!" she shouted with clearly-faked cheer. She finally looked up from the tablet to meet his eyes with a half-disinterested stare. "About fifteen years ago, you left the country and moved to Europe. Says here that you're a British resident, but your travel record over the past eighteen months is quite extensive, you world-traveller, you."
He wasn't having it. "Can I have my suitcase back, please? I'm going to have to give my hotel a call, at this rate."
"I suppose you'd like the handgun and assault rifle back, too?"
"Like I said, those aren't mine. Do whatever you'd like with them."
The firearms were mundane weapons, so he didn't care too much if they disappeared. The suitcase, on the other hand, was a magical item. If he wasn't able to retrieve it, alternative measures would need to be taken.
To his surprise, the woman took out a pack of cigarettes and lit one on the spot. This was a smoke-free building, wasn't it?
"Tell me a little about miss Matou. You're here to pay her a visit, you said. Is that right?"
"What would you like to know?" asked Shirou. He didn't mind being transparent about the matter. He wasn't lying after all.
"I guess I find it kind of strange that you came all the way back here for a dead girl. She passed away in two thousand and four."
It didn't take them a lot of digging to figure that one out, it would seem.
"There was a lot on my mind at the time," the man rebutted. "I wasn't able to pay my respects back then, so here I am now."
He tugged at the cuff of his all-black suit meaningfully.
"After sixteen years?"
"That's right."
She wasn't having it.
"I'm afraid that you'll need to come with me, sir."
Shirou shut his eyes in resignation. He could only blame himself for the terrible situation that he'd found himself in– however it was that it came to this. He could always force himself out later, but for now, it was easiest to do as he was told.
This predicament was still salvageable, after all.
X
It was only once that Shirou was strong-armed into the back seat of a black Humvee that he considered his situation to be a little less forgiving than he'd originally thought.
His hands were cuffed behind his back, and a metal net separated him from the driver. He could tell instantly that both the doors and windows were heavily reinforced.
If escaping his captors was necessary, none of these were factors that needed any further consideration. The only problem was the creepy woman who occupied the seat next to his.
Usually, you wouldn't cage someone you believe to be a dangerous criminal together with another person. It would be a hostage situation begging to happen.
He'd bet anything that she wasn't a normal human, though, so such worries were most definitely moot.
There were no words exchanged between them on the trip to wherever it was that they were going. She just kept smiling at him, as if she were anticipating something.
X
Decidedly, going along with the whims of whoever had picked him up from the airport was a terrible idea.
They weren't the police, that's for sure. Though the metal box that he was trapped inside of along with the chair that he was strapped to could pass for a particularly meanspirited containment cell, the way that the creepy woman was eagerly tapping the edge of her katana was a little different from standard police behaviour.
Had he been duped? His suitcase really shouldn't have been detectable by customs. If these people were part of a moonlit organization, then he was just wasting his time.
The issue was that if he acted now and was wrong in his assumption, then he would be forced to uphold the laws of the association.
How unfortunate it would be if he needed to kill everyone in this building. Truly a waste of human life.
The tip of the katana pressed against his jugular.
"Hey, Mister," the woman drawled. She sounded surprisingly tired despite the peppy way in which she carried herself. "If you don't want to talk, that's okay with me."
The white-haired man quirked a brow.
"Is it?"
"Mhm. I'll just kill you now. I kind of want to."
Without a doubt, he was not at a police station. This woman was too unhinged to pass any sort of psychological screening needed to land the job.
Either way, he persisted, "Like I said earlier, I really don't–"
Shirou cranked his neck to the side just in time to avoid the blade thrust towards his face at inhuman speeds. He saw her baffled look just as it was replaced by her smiling mask once more.
"I change my mind," she said. "I'll play with you a little more."
With a flick of the wrist, she cut through the steel chains binding him to the chair. Unsurely, the man stood and faced his captor.
"What–"
The sword came swinging at him again, though much more swiftly. Due to the limited space in the containment cell, he could only shuffle backwards to keep his head attached to the rest of his body.
He couldn't detect any signs of reinforcement. Though he was growing more and more confident in his assumption that his captors were not regular people, he had yet to smell any sort of mage craft. As unbelievable as it sounded, the woman's supernatural talents were simply an aberration.
That, or she just wasn't human.
With each swing that he dodged, her swings became more focused. The woman's amused smile morphed into one of ecstasy.
It was when he took advantage of one of her strikes to split his handcuffs apart that she stopped her advances altogether. Though he was still cautious, he stopped as well due to the suddenness of her stilling.
"Why did you come to Japan, Mister?"
Shirou frowned. Again with this? It's not like they were going to listen to what he was saying.
"I came to visit a good friend of mine," he answered honestly.
Her grin became sadistic. For whatever contrived reason, she spoke to him like an apologetic store clerk rather than a nutjob who was fishing for reasons to cut him open. "Is that right? How about we pay Sakura-chan a visit together then? That'll clear up any misunderstandings, right?"
No, that wasn't right at all. Showing this woman a tombstone was no reason to let him go– not that he believed them to have any intention of doing that, to begin with.
What was she trying to accomplish, here?
"Alright. Is this fine with your boss?"
The woman's grin threatened to split her face.
"I wouldn't worry about it."
X
When Karasuba forced some lackey to drive her and her new plaything two and a half hours south of Shinto Teito, she was really hoping for something interesting.
Honestly, she felt played– like she played herself, rather.
He seriously dragged her all the way here to visit a corpse. Boring.
How frustrating. She went ahead and ignored Takami's express orders to deal with the spy within the confines of MBI's interrogation rooms in the hopes that he'd show her something interesting again.
With nothing but a skilled body to rely on, he kept his own death at bay for nearly a minute. For a human, that was impressive, right? If she gave him a longer leash, he'd be able to show her something even better, right?
And yet, here they were. Forget putting up a fight, he didn't even try to run away.
"Are you done there, Mister?"
Frustratingly, he wasn't answering her. He didn't even bother looking at her. He was sitting cross-legged in front of a grave, not at all mindful of the wet earth ruining his expensive-looking pants.
"Thanks," he spoke over his shoulder.
Karasuba wasn't expecting that at all.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Thank you," he repeated. "I don't like bloodshed."
Hah. How peculiar. Maybe he wasn't as interesting as she had originally hoped.
"Let's go," she insisted. She had enough of this. Utterly pointless. Not at all worth Takami jumping down her throat again. She would bring him back to headquarters, gut him, and tell Takami some made-up story to make her think that she bothered to do her job.
A government agent sent to capture one of the younger birds? Mhm. She liked the sound of that. Generic, but then again, it was only so because it was the most likely story.
For all she knew –or cared– it might as well have been the truth.
"Coming," the man answered after a moment. With a parting glance to the tombstone, he followed her back to the car waiting for them at the front of the church.
What a disappointment this one was. Maybe he just got lucky? He didn't actually think that he'd be able to get out of this, did he?
She had captured him, and so he was already her prey. His life belonged to her now.
And she had enough of him.
They drove back in silence. Though she sat in the back with him on the way out, she didn't bother when they returned. Riding shotgun, she leered out the window with an unfocused yet oddly unwavering stare.
The car rumbled and came to an abrupt stop.
"…"
Karasuba glared at the driver questioningly.
"I– uh… I don't know what's wrong ma'am. I'll check the hood–"
"Don't bother," she told him. "How far are we from HQ?"
How frustrating. They couldn't call another car to pick them up because she didn't want Takami to know where she was.
"On foot? Er… fifteen minutes?"
Karasuba pulled herself out of the now-useless vehicle. Her sigh carried clear marks of exhaustion. "That's fine. Let's go, Mister."
She opened the door for him, and he followed without any issue. At least the lamb followed along to the slaughter obediently.
The sun was setting now. Had it really been that long? What a wasteful day.
They walked along in silence. Though she appreciated the peace and quiet, Karasuba couldn't help but resent the easy-going nature of the spy. He knew that he was about to die, right? The least he could do was show some fear, or even a little panic would do just fine, really.
A teenage girl with short, pink hair popped out from an alleyway. Behind her was a plain-looking man in his twenties. Nothing was particularly outstanding about either of them save for the fact that the street was otherwise completely empty, and that they were clearly blocking their path.
The girl's expression was strangely resolute.
Karasuba grinned. Maybe the day was salvageable after all.
X
Shirou felt utterly lost. Who were these people supposed to be?
He turned his head towards the woman with the sword in the hopes that he'd get some sort of explanation from her, but she was clearly ignoring him.
"You're like her, right?" the plain-looking man asked while pointing at his companion.
The lady with the sword chuckled.
"And if I am?"
The pink-haired girl lifted a fist, and a pair of chakram floated behind her.
Telekinesis. A supernatural ability used with the intent to harm.
The bladed disks shot forward. Though they were directed at the Sword Woman rather than himself, he stepped forward and grabbed them out of the air. The girl's telekinetic powers pushed against his hold, but the reinforcement spell that he cast on himself proved to be too powerful for her to fight against.
Once they were in his grasp, their edges crumpled and dulled. It was easy to cast alteration on such a simple object.
Of course, all onlookers were caught off guard by his use of mage craft. There wasn't any point in keeping his abilities hidden anymore, however.
It would be irresponsible of him to leave a supernatural being to its own devices when threatened to expose the existence of the moonlit world. He couldn't predict how many lives would be lost if he turned a blind eye to it now.
It would have to die.
X
Karasuba's eyes widened as her little lamb had suddenly decided to become interesting once more. Through means unknown to her, he had rendered the little bird's weapons useless.
The girl and her Ashikabi glared at the man uneasily. Karasuba felt her smile pinching her cheeks.
How funny.
"Hold on!" the Ashikabi shouted. "So you were the–"
A thin blade –more of a dagger– was lodged in the little bird's throat. She died instantly.
Karasuba's breath hitched.
How? The spy must have done it– but how? He didn't throw anything. He didn't so much as twitch.
"No!" the Ashikabi screamed. Was it grief that he felt? Anger? Both?
The spy seemed wholly uninterested in the man's mental state.
"You were with her?" asked the spy, tilting his head towards the corpse.
"She… she was my–"
BANG!
And the Ashikabi dropped dead alongside his Sekirei. The spy lowered the pistol to his side.
Once again, Karasuba was entertained.
No… it was more than that. This moment was truly joyous. She hadn't been in such a good mood in a long time.
"Hey, Mister. Where did you get that gun from? I thought our fellas shook you down before bringing you in."
He didn't answer, instead offering an apologetic smile.
"Sorry. I'll have to kill you too."
Her teasing grin turned savage. Her heart skipped a beat.
"Oh?"
"You're like her, right? I don't know who you people are, but if you're going to be causing problems then you're better off dead," he explained bluntly.
He dropped the gun. Somehow, she didn't notice where he'd found the pair of dao that he now held in each hand.
Swords, of all things. This human thought that he could fight her with swords.
A heat simmered in her loins.
There was something witty that she had wanted to say –to pick at his brain a little more– but apparently, she had a little less restraint than she had anticipated. Her legs moved before she could think properly, and her sword came crashing down on the human's head.
The blow was suspended, met in the air by one of the swords. Karasuba held back a giggle, noticing that the blade of her weapon chipped under the force she had applied whereas his dao wasn't even scratched.
With just one arm, though it was starting to buckle under the pressure she was applying, the human held her off.
As close to him as she was, Karasuba whispered, "Killing me means losing any leads that I could offer to you. Do you really want a dark, mysterious third party running around under your–"
His second sword swiped at the inside of her leg, forcing her back a few paces in order to get away safely.
The man's expression was stone cold, her taunts weren't eliciting any sort of reaction from him.
"I'll manage, thanks. I can chase down the driver if I have to."
"Will you kill him too?"
"If I must."
Karasuba started to breathe heavily. Her heart hammered in her chest as the man went on the offensive. He wasn't faster than her, nor was he stronger than her, but he was skilled. Unnaturally so.
Skilled enough to justify his ability to hold his ground against her despite being nothing more than a human? Most definitely not, but she wouldn't complain.
X
Shirou hid a frown as another strike of his was blown to the side.
He was worried.
Not because of the fact that the woman had a clear physical advantage– at this point, he expected as much considering his track record with magical creatures.
It was more that the woman was making a really strange face, like she was sick.
As in, physically ill.
And yet, her strikes became more fierce and her footwork more controlled. He was seriously getting mixed signals from this creature.
His one, absolute advantage –one that he had capitalized on thus far– was the disparity in the quality of their weapons. Kanshou and Bakuya, the Noble Phantasms, would never lose a clash against a run-of-the-mill katana forged within the last year.
Though her blows were heavy, the sword was weightless.
And so, the next swing from Bakuya shattered it at the hilt.
The woman looked ready to pass out.
Victory was his. Bakuya followed a clean, telegraphed path meant to cut her down as quickly as possible while Kanshou followed behind, ready to deal the finishing blow once she made an attempt to distance herself from the sister blade's assault.
Only, she didn't do that at all.
Instead, the woman crashed into him and shoved her tongue down his throat.
Chapter 2
Hello again! I'll try to update every day or so. I want the thread to catch up before I publish the next chapter.
Shirou was stuck.
The creature had her arms wrapped around his, so he didn't have enough wiggle room nor the strength to actually break free. It would be easy enough to bite off her tongue, wrapped around his own as it was, but that would mean getting her blood in his mouth. Ingesting the bodily fluids of an unknown organism was a terrible idea.
… Any more than he already had, that is.
Regardless, none of that really mattered right now because a more pressing issue had presented itself.
What looked like pitch-black wings had sprouted from her back.
Was she shedding her human vessel? Was he about to see the true form of–
She pulled her lips away from his, a wet "pop" noise sounding as she did so. The wings disappeared as if they weren't there to begin with.
Was he just imagining things? Seeing things? That couldn't be a good sign. Maybe her saliva was poisonous.
A black key was traced in his hand: an action that seemed to amuse the woman greatly.
"What did you do? Why did you kiss me!?"
She waved a hand at the dagger dismissively.
"Ah. There's no need for that anymore. I can't kill you."
Shirou's eyebrow twitched. She knew that the whole "killing" thing went both ways, right? Just because she lost her sword didn't mean that he would stop attacking her.
"I can," he told her with a steady voice. "Like I said, I'm sorry, but it's too dangerous to leave you alive."
She made no move to defend herself. "Mm… I'm not expressing myself properly…"
She cut herself off. For an awkward couple of seconds, she did nothing other than stare at his pants.
Despite himself, Shirou couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable.
"Oh. We confiscated your phone, right?"
…His phone?
"The director would have called you by now, otherwise. Here, we'll just use–"
She froze.
"Never mind. I forgot to bring mine, too."
"…"
"…"
There was a great contrast in their expressions as they stared at each other. His was weary, whereas hers was strangely easy-going.
"Well, I suppose I wouldn't mind explaining things in his place. I'm a–"
"Don't bother."
Five more black keys were traced, all of them held snugly between his fingers. With a reinforced pounce, he was on her in an instant.
His gaze hardened. Enough of this.
"If you kill me before the game can start, you'll forfeit the prize, you know?"
The blades stopped right before they cut through her neck.
It was nothing more than a loose quip, but if what she was insinuating matched up in any way to what had immediately crossed his mind when she uttered it, then whatever she could tell him really did outweigh the risks of letting her breathe a little longer.
Karasuba lips formed a Cheshire smile.
"I don't play games," he muttered.
"One hundred and eight little birds are flying around the city," she chirped cryptically, ignoring him. "We're going to fight, fight, and fight… until only one of us is left. Supposedly, the victor will have any one wish granted to them."
The black keys disappeared, but Shirou's tight expression didn't loosen in the slightest.
One hundred and eight "little birds", she said. Is that what she was calling those like her? For there to be that many was a problem. He would have to hasten his efforts.
More than that, the "prize" sounded just as bad as a bunch of supernatural creatures stalking around a populated city like Shinto Teito. Worse, even.
Although…
"What does any of that have to do with me sparing your life?"
Her simper put him on edge.
"Whether you like games or not, I'm afraid that you'll be participating either way. Your fate was sealed the moment that you winged me."
Her wings… did she mean the kiss?
"That was some sort of contract," he concluded.
The woman cupped her cheek and sighed. "In a way. We are bound to each other, now, but…"
That's what she meant when she said that she "couldn't kill him anymore".
If that's all it was, however, then it wasn't his problem. Shirou had resolved himself to eliminate her, chase down the driver–
She kissed him again.
Unlike the first time where he was unable to move, this time he was simply caught off guard.
She pulled away before his brain could catch up.
"More than the 'game', you're stuck with me now. Our fates are intertwined, forever and ever."
She stressed that last part mockingly, but Shirou didn't think for a second that she was joking.
She was prodding him for a reaction.
This situation had escalated beyond "eliminate the target thoroughly and move on". At a time like this, there was only one sensible question left for him to ask.
"What are you?"
"An alien."
Karasuba relished the dumbfounded look on her Destined One's face. It was adorable. She wanted to tease him more, to see what other great expressions he could make for her.
She hated that feeling with every fibre of her soul. She hated that the ability to feel that way was a part of her to begin with.
There was no mistaking what that feeling was. It was something that she had never really understood before, and yet the reality of the matter had become as clear as day once it had washed over her.
The easy-going quirk of her lips didn't budge.
It was written all over his face: he was thinking up a thousand different ways to kill her. Not as the mouse scheming to fell the lion, but as the lion mulling over the execution of the mouse.
A human had no right to look at her that way. A human wasn't able to look at her that way. The mouse did not hunt the lion. The mouse could only do its best to hold on to its meaningless life for as long as the lion allowed it.
She was the lion. Everyone else was a mouse.
And yet, despite that, she had fallen prey to the rotten –useless– nature of her kind, just as Yume had promised she would.
No one but Yume could understand her. No one but Yume could free her.
She wasn't wrong to think the way she had. This world was worthless. It was by pure coincidence that she found an anomaly. An exception. He existed as if to spite her– to prove that she was no better than the rest of the little birds, pathetic as they were.
She loved the way he looked at her.
"Love needs not rhyme, nor reason," Yume used to tell her.
He existed, whether she wanted him to or not: an Ashikabi for someone like her. Yume was right, and Karasuba was wrong.
As complicated as the rest of her emotions were, it was as simple as that
"What are your intentions towards humanity?" asked her Ashikabi once he had composed himself.
How strange for that to matter all of a sudden. Wasn't he fully intent on wiping out her kind either way?
"I couldn't care less about the rest of you," she answered honestly.
"Then why… this?"
Hm? Oh. He must have been referring to their bonding.
He continued, "That man–"her Ashikabi pointed at the corpse a little ways away "–is clearly human. There was some sort of collusion going on between him and the girl. If you really have no interest in humans, then why involve us? Is it for your 'game'?"
He was being awfully inquisitive all of a sudden despite not wanting to hear a thing just a second ago.
"'This' and 'that' are two different matters altogether," she started before pausing to think. The smile that she hadn't lost once during their conversation seemed to be reinvigorated.
"Finding humans like you is how we mate."
His brain had to reboot.
"Come again?"
She wasn't even trying to hide it. Despite the deadliness of their previous exchanges, she was definitely enjoying watching him squirm a little too much.
"We don't copulate amongst our own kind. When we find a compatible spouse, we 'feel' it in our core and bind ourselves to them for life."
A… spouse? That couldn't be right. That sounded made up, actually. Shirou began to grasp at straws, or rather, any sort of reiteration that could break down what he surely didn't hear properly the first time. "Is this a custom of yours, or–"
"–It's a physiological response," she corrected, instantly shattering his hopes of this conversation ever grounding itself in reality again. "I meant 'bind' in the literal sense, by the way. Our souls are now bridged together. I hope you don't mind that terribly."
Her smile finally disappeared. In its place was found an expression that, impossibly, appeared both hedonistic and self-deprecating.
"For all intents and purposes, we're now married."
His emotions were getting out of hand, so Shirou removed them from the equation by quashing them entirely.
There could be no success without control. To regain control, he would need to first define his objective, then weigh his options and commit to one of them. No more hesitation. No more distractions.
There were one hundred and eight creatures from an alien species trying to kill each other in Shinto Teito. Though he wasn't sure how related it was to their feud, a matching number of regular humans could be pulled into the fray for alleged reproductive purposes.
The dangers were twofold. Firstly, the potential harm that may befall the tens of millions of people living in one of the world's most populated cities. Secondly –and most importantly– the public exposure of the moonlit world. Whether the aliens were supernatural in nature or not, this sort of behaviour would attract the attention of the Mages' Association. If that happened, an operation of such a large scale would jeopardize much more than just a few million people.
The goal, ultimately, was to eliminate the one hundred and eight aliens before either of those two scenarios could come into play. In the current circumstance, there were two options immediately available to him, each with its sets of merits and issues.
Firstly, he could follow through with his original intention of killing the alien in front of him. Assuming that the pink-haired girl was an alien as well, this would mean that at least two of the total number of targets would be dealt with expeditiously. The disadvantages were that he had no idea how much the "bonding" had affected him, and if this one died, he would, as she said, lose out on any information that she could give him.
His second option –and the one that was currently looking like the sounder choice– was to go along with whatever it was that this alien was scheming. If she was to be believed, then she planned on thinning out the numbers herself; two hands were better than one, of course.
Obviously, he couldn't put any stock in what she said about not wanting to kill him, but if nothing else, their relationship could definitely be mutually beneficial as long as their goals continued to align.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded to himself. It was settled then.
"I'm going to book a hotel room nearby. We have a lot to talk about."
Her eyes were squinted shut. The alien held the silence for a moment, so it was difficult to decipher what she was thinking.
"…Jumping straight into the honeymoon, are we?"
Shirou sighed. Of course, she had to be the type to joke around at a time like this.
"I'll get rid of the bodies," he said.
"Don't bother. We should wait for MBI to show up."
The man blinked. He was lost.
"MBI?"
The alien's mouth formed an "o" shape. "Did I forget to mention that? Mid Bio Informatics is administrating our 'game'."
…That was definitely a variable that would have been nice to know about a little earlier.
He tried to recall where he'd heard that name before. It was definitely familiar, but he could have sworn that it was a totally normal business.
"They're a… tech firm?"
"Pharmaceuticals company," she corrected.
"…Right."
His expression darkened. If this "MBI" was responsible for an alien death game in the middle of a populated megacity, then they were just as big an issue as the aliens themselves.
The woman hummed, before adding, "Point being, they do a good job of cleaning up the mess. They keep everything contained within the bounds of the city and deal with the corpses. One less thing for us to worry about."
Then it would be inadvisable to deal with them first. No matter how condemning their involvement, they were, at the very least, keeping a lid on the damages.
"How do we call them?" he asked.
"We don't have to. They've chipped us, so if our vital signs drop, they come to retrieve our body. "
…So being secretive was never an option to begin with. No matter how careful he was, the overseers of this deathmatch would know whenever he would interfere.
Teaming up with this alien really was the best option, then.
A helicopter appeared overhead, and it dropped a ladder. He looked to his new partner, and she shook her head. They would be standing their ground, apparently.
A woman came down along with four heavily-armed men. They obviously weren't the JSDF, so however it was that they were in possession of Howa Type 89 assault rifles was questionable at best.
The woman, dressed in a lab coat with a tablet clutched underarm, stalked up to them with an angry snarl.
…Just a moment, wasn't she the same lady from the airport?
He couldn't believe it. He was kidnapped by a pharmaceuticals company, of all things.
"Karasuba," the woman growled. "My ears better be served the best excuse you've ever spewed, or we're going to have a problem."
The alien kept her friendly look, but there was no keeping the annoyance out of her posture.
"Sorry. My bad."
"You're supposed to interrogate the spy, not get in his pants!"
From the sound of things, the alien's plans weren't quite matching up with MBI's.
The lady in the lab coat jabbed her finger in Shirou's direction.
"And you. You're coming with me."
He immediately began considering his chances of escape. It wasn't until the alien had placed her hand on his shoulder that he realized how tense he was.
"Don't worry too much," she told him. "Takami-chan is acting mean, but you're my Ashikabi now. She can't do anything to you."
The woman in question didn't seem too fond of the alien's assurances. Nevertheless, she nodded in agreement with a huff.
"That's right. Karasuba has –for whatever reason– dragged you into the Sekirei Plan, so frankly, you're not really my problem anymore. The chairman's the one who wants to speak with you."
The chairman of MBI wanted to speak with him? More than that, they were throwing around a bunch of strange names. Codewords, maybe?"
"What's a–"
"Save your questions for the chairman," the lab coat-wearing woman snapped at him. "He would have called your cellphone to give you then rundown–"
She caught the alien's disinterested stare with a heated one of her own.
"–but neither of you had your phones on hand for reasons… each your own. Just… get in the chopper."
He was escorted through a third padlocked door by the pair of military men.
What a difference from the way he was treated the first time. No handcuffs, no blindfolds, and no crazy alien women wanting to chop his head off. It wasn't exactly first-class service –he still had rifle barrels pushing into the small of his back– but at least the experience as a whole was a little more guest-like.
Sort of.
"He's in here," one of his escorts informed him ever so kindly, as gruff as he was. "Don't try any funny business."
Shirou bowed politely. "I wouldn't dream of it. Thanks for showing me the way here."
He entered the chairman's office alone; the pair didn't follow. A comically-tall chair swivelled behind an equally-lavish desk, revealing… an otaku? Some sort of mad-scientist cosplayer?
The otaku jumped to his feet and spread his arms wide.
"Greetings! I am Hiroto Minaka, founder and chairman of Mid Bio Informatics! Due to the momentous nature of the occasion, I would like to formally congratulate you on the winging of Sekirei number four, Karasuba."
There was that word again. Sekirei. Was that what they were calling the aliens?
Moreover, the older man's exuberance caught him by surprise. It took Shirou a moment to figure out what to say in response.
"The woman that brought me here, her name was…Takami." The otaku confirmed his recollection with a nod. He continued, "She mentioned that you normally give newly-involved individuals a call to introduce them to your… 'game', but you've asked for me to come see you directly. Is there a reason in particular that you couldn't wait for me to get my cellphone back?"
It wasn't even as though the chairman wouldn't know the moment he had it back in his possession. It was his company that confiscated it in the first place.
The older man's glasses reflected the shine of the overhanging light fixtures, making it impossible to discern his expression. "There is, indeed! I simply had to meet the man who accomplished something that I had previously dismissed as an impossibility."
There was no mistaking it. Despite the chairman's over-the-top act, the man had every ounce of his attention on Shirou.
"And what might that be?"
"As an Ashikabi, you've made Karasuba react to you."
Shirou kept his face as straight as he could to mask his confusion.
"I'm not familiar with your terminology, I'm afraid."
Despite his understanding that this meeting was supposed to be for the director to fill him on the details that he was missing, he couldn't help but feel as though the man was enjoying his ignorance.
"'Ashikabi' is the term we use to describe people like you: those who are able to wing the Sekirei."
Shirou nodded. "By 'wing', you mean the bonding contract," he guessed. That much had made sense. "But what's so special about that? The a– Karasuba mentioned that this sort of thing was par for the course."
The grin that crossed Hiroto Minaka's face was in many ways similar, and in many ways different from Karasuba's. Different in that it felt assuredly less murderous, but similar in that he was immediately put on edge by it.
"Well~ for any of the others, you'd be absolutely right! Karasuba, on the other hand, has never shown any desire to find herself an Ashikabi in the twenty-some-odd years that I've known her. Here I was, thinking that I'd have to ask her to just settle for someone and be done with it."
He tensed. "Karasuba made it sound as if there were some sort of qualifications for the 'bonding'. You're telling me that there was no reason in particular for her to have picked me?"
If that were true, then Shirou was certain that the woman had something up her sleeve. She must have mislead him for a reason.
For the first time, the director's expression became a little more grim. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid. It's true that Sekirei can bond with any human as long as they're an Ashikabi, but a 'reaction' only occurs if the Sekirei manages to find their 'soulmate'. This arrangement is quite permanent, so you can understand why this outcome would be preferable."
The younger man closed his eyes with a sigh. The 'reaction' really was a big deal, then.
"What makes you so sure that Karasuba reacted to me? If she would have needed to pick someone eventually, she could have just as easily settled for me and been done with it."
Infuriatingly, Hiroto Minaka did not answer his question.
"Emiya Shirou. As you understand it, what is your 'role' in this game?"
Shirou hummed. "If I had to put it into words… it would be to eliminate every other competitor, right?"
The chairman laughed uproariously. The sudden outburst nearly made Shirou take a step back.
"I get it. I think I understand a little better. Thank you, Emiya. If you have no further questions, feel free to leave. The next time she sees you, Karasuba will give you a credit card with an upper limit of ten million yen taken from MBI's accounts. Please accept it as an apology for the rough treatment."
Shirou bowed and turned to leave. As he reached the doors, however, he froze and peered over his shoulder.
"Sorry. There's one more thing, if you don't mind."
"Oh?"
"If it isn't too much trouble… can I have my suitcase back?"
Now standing across the desk from each other, Takami still hadn't stopped glowering at the younger grey-haired woman.
"Well, I'm waiting. What are you up to?"
"Ah?" Karasuba squinted, a look of incomprehension set firmly in place. "What are you talking about, Takami-chan~? Isn't it obvious? My maiden heart was captured, completely and utterly! How could I force myself apart from my knight in shining armour once we finally crossed paths?"
"Cut the crap!" Takami turned away from the object of her annoyance. The longer she stared at that two-faced smile, the more likely she'd was to blow a gasket. The bitch was trying to rile her up with her parody of a love-struck Sekirei– a characteristic that Karasuba resented with every fibre of her being, and thus, something that she obviously wasn't. "The only reason for someone like you to take an Ashikabi would be if you thought it would benefit you in some way."
Karasuba hummed. "Well, I can only get so strong if I'm not winged, after all. My Norito–"
"Don't pretend you didn't know that Minaka was planning to make you wing an Ashikabi from the company. I don't care if it was on a whim. You knew better than to choose an unknown quantity who, for all we know, is a foreign agent."
There it was. The act was dropped. The Sekirei's eyes cracked open to reveal constricted pupils whose unsettling focus obsolesced the impression given by her lethargic posture.
"Hm? I'm not kidding, ya know. Whether you believe me or not, the truth is that I reacted to him. What followed just couldn't be helped~"
And just as quickly as it came, the dangerous glint in the Sekirei's eyes disappeared once more, and the mocking joviality returned along with the sarcastic inflection in her tone.
It did nothing to alleviate the trepidation that suddenly swelled from deep within Takami's gut.
The chances that Karasuba wasn't B-S-ing her were infinitesimally small. But that chance, insignificant as it was, could be the worst possible outcome for the Sekirei Plan.
The Black Sekirei on her own was already a nightmare for MBI to deal with.
The best-case scenario was if she was winged by someone affiliated with MBI. Then, she'd at least be a manageable nightmare, if nothing else.
The fact that she didn't bind herself to one of their own took the "manageable" right out of that sentence. She was still just a plain old "nightmare"– maybe even a little stronger, to boot.
If Karasuba truly and honestly reacted to an Ashikabi?
Then Takami couldn't picture that Ashikabi as being any less of a nightmare than the woman herself.
"If that's all, Takami-chan, I think I'll leave now."
The poor Head of Operations could only gape like a fish when the bane of her existence suddenly decided that their conversation was over and walked out the door.
"W-wait, damn it! I don't know where you think you're going, but you better show up for work tomorrow, you hear me!?"
Shirou scoped out his new apartment with a critical eye.
The kitchen? It was alright. He wasn't a fan of the electric stove, but the wall oven was pretty high-end. More importantly, the island gave him an extra meter or so of workspace, so preparing larger dishes –not that he planned on spending that much time preparing food– wouldn't be too difficult.
The living room? It was more of a two-in-one living room and dining room, but considering how small the apartment was, the size of the living room wasn't anything to scoff at. Most of his work could be done from there without any discomfort.
The bedroom was fine too, not that he planned on spending too much time in it. The king-sized bed might have been a little over-the-top, but the superfluity could be overlooked.
It was important to be mindful of these things. A poor base of operations could only lead to poor operations.
"All in all…"
He nodded to himself in satisfaction.
Considering that it was a last-minute purchase, he really couldn't have asked for anything better. He wasn't sure how legal it was for him to move in the same day, but then again, money went a long way.
He was not an avaricious individual by any stretch of the word, nor was he one to take another's money so easily, but he could at least appreciate its importance in the modern world. His personal qualms went out the door when there was a job to be done. As such, he would abuse the ten million yen that was given to him, whether the donation was good-intentioned or not.
Despite the terrible start to the day, he couldn't claim that it was unproductive. He had learned of a catastrophe waiting to happen, and he was placed in a position to prevent it.
If nothing else, he was now confident that he'd be able to force his way from MBI's entrance to the chairman's office, door to door, without much difficulty. The rest of the building was a different story, but the state of the company's current security systems meant that he could probably assassinate the man quite easily if needed.
He might have needed to reschedule his trip to Fuyuki, but it wasn't a huge loss. He was closer now than when he was in Europe, so it wouldn't be hard to make a day-visit on the weekend, or something.
…He wasn't forgetting anything, was he?
The doorbell rang.
"…"
He wasn't expecting guests. In part because he didn't have that many acquaintances, but more because he literally just moved in. Frankly, he doubted that he'd be the documented legal owner of this apartment for another month, at the least.
He opened the door and froze.
Hah. That's what he was forgetting.
"…Yes?"
The grey-haired alien pushed a fruit basket into his arms and walked straight past him like she owned the place.
"Thanks for having me, Ashikabi-kun."
What?
She whistled, then turned back to him with a malicious grin that immediately set him on edge.
"It's a good thing this place is big enough for two, wouldn't you say?"
…What!?
X
Shirou was stuck.
The creature had her arms wrapped around his, so he didn't have enough wiggle room nor the strength to actually break free. It would be easy enough to bite off her tongue, wrapped around his own as it was, but that would mean getting her blood in his mouth. Ingesting the bodily fluids of an unknown organism was a terrible idea.
… Any more than he already had, that is.
Regardless, none of that really mattered right now because a more pressing issue had presented itself.
What looked like pitch-black wings had sprouted from her back.
Was she shedding her human vessel? Was he about to see the true form of–
She pulled her lips away from his, a wet "pop" noise sounding as she did so. The wings disappeared as if they weren't there to begin with.
Was he just imagining things? Seeing things? That couldn't be a good sign. Maybe her saliva was poisonous.
A black key was traced in his hand: an action that seemed to amuse the woman greatly.
"What did you do? Why did you kiss me!?"
She waved a hand at the dagger dismissively.
"Ah. There's no need for that anymore. I can't kill you."
Shirou's eyebrow twitched. She knew that the whole "killing" thing went both ways, right? Just because she lost her sword didn't mean that he would stop attacking her.
"I can," he told her with a steady voice. "Like I said, I'm sorry, but it's too dangerous to leave you alive."
She made no move to defend herself. "Mm… I'm not expressing myself properly…"
She cut herself off. For an awkward couple of seconds, she did nothing other than stare at his pants.
Despite himself, Shirou couldn't help but feel a little uncomfortable.
"Oh. We confiscated your phone, right?"
…His phone?
"The director would have called you by now, otherwise. Here, we'll just use–"
She froze.
"Never mind. I forgot to bring mine, too."
"…"
"…"
There was a great contrast in their expressions as they stared at each other. His was weary, whereas hers was strangely easy-going.
"Well, I suppose I wouldn't mind explaining things in his place. I'm a–"
"Don't bother."
Five more black keys were traced, all of them held snugly between his fingers. With a reinforced pounce, he was on her in an instant.
His gaze hardened. Enough of this.
"If you kill me before the game can start, you'll forfeit the prize, you know?"
The blades stopped right before they cut through her neck.
It was nothing more than a loose quip, but if what she was insinuating matched up in any way to what had immediately crossed his mind when she uttered it, then whatever she could tell him really did outweigh the risks of letting her breathe a little longer.
Karasuba lips formed a Cheshire smile.
"I don't play games," he muttered.
"One hundred and eight little birds are flying around the city," she chirped cryptically, ignoring him. "We're going to fight, fight, and fight… until only one of us is left. Supposedly, the victor will have any one wish granted to them."
The black keys disappeared, but Shirou's tight expression didn't loosen in the slightest.
One hundred and eight "little birds", she said. Is that what she was calling those like her? For there to be that many was a problem. He would have to hasten his efforts.
More than that, the "prize" sounded just as bad as a bunch of supernatural creatures stalking around a populated city like Shinto Teito. Worse, even.
Although…
"What does any of that have to do with me sparing your life?"
Her simper put him on edge.
"Whether you like games or not, I'm afraid that you'll be participating either way. Your fate was sealed the moment that you winged me."
Her wings… did she mean the kiss?
"That was some sort of contract," he concluded.
The woman cupped her cheek and sighed. "In a way. We are bound to each other, now, but…"
That's what she meant when she said that she "couldn't kill him anymore".
If that's all it was, however, then it wasn't his problem. Shirou had resolved himself to eliminate her, chase down the driver–
She kissed him again.
Unlike the first time where he was unable to move, this time he was simply caught off guard.
She pulled away before his brain could catch up.
"More than the 'game', you're stuck with me now. Our fates are intertwined, forever and ever."
She stressed that last part mockingly, but Shirou didn't think for a second that she was joking.
She was prodding him for a reaction.
This situation had escalated beyond "eliminate the target thoroughly and move on". At a time like this, there was only one sensible question left for him to ask.
X
"What are you?"
"An alien."
Karasuba relished the dumbfounded look on her Destined One's face. It was adorable. She wanted to tease him more, to see what other great expressions he could make for her.
She hated that feeling with every fibre of her soul. She hated that the ability to feel that way was a part of her to begin with.
There was no mistaking what that feeling was. It was something that she had never really understood before, and yet the reality of the matter had become as clear as day once it had washed over her.
The easy-going quirk of her lips didn't budge.
It was written all over his face: he was thinking up a thousand different ways to kill her. Not as the mouse scheming to fell the lion, but as the lion mulling over the execution of the mouse.
A human had no right to look at her that way. A human wasn't able to look at her that way. The mouse did not hunt the lion. The mouse could only do its best to hold on to its meaningless life for as long as the lion allowed it.
She was the lion. Everyone else was a mouse.
And yet, despite that, she had fallen prey to the rotten –useless– nature of her kind, just as Yume had promised she would.
No one but Yume could understand her. No one but Yume could free her.
She wasn't wrong to think the way she had. This world was worthless. It was by pure coincidence that she found an anomaly. An exception. He existed as if to spite her– to prove that she was no better than the rest of the little birds, pathetic as they were.
She loved the way he looked at her.
"Love needs not rhyme, nor reason," Yume used to tell her.
He existed, whether she wanted him to or not: an Ashikabi for someone like her. Yume was right, and Karasuba was wrong.
As complicated as the rest of her emotions were, it was as simple as that
"What are your intentions towards humanity?" asked her Ashikabi once he had composed himself.
How strange for that to matter all of a sudden. Wasn't he fully intent on wiping out her kind either way?
"I couldn't care less about the rest of you," she answered honestly.
"Then why… this?"
Hm? Oh. He must have been referring to their bonding.
He continued, "That man–"her Ashikabi pointed at the corpse a little ways away "–is clearly human. There was some sort of collusion going on between him and the girl. If you really have no interest in humans, then why involve us? Is it for your 'game'?"
He was being awfully inquisitive all of a sudden despite not wanting to hear a thing just a second ago.
"'This' and 'that' are two different matters altogether," she started before pausing to think. The smile that she hadn't lost once during their conversation seemed to be reinvigorated.
X
"Finding humans like you is how we mate."
His brain had to reboot.
"Come again?"
She wasn't even trying to hide it. Despite the deadliness of their previous exchanges, she was definitely enjoying watching him squirm a little too much.
"We don't copulate amongst our own kind. When we find a compatible spouse, we 'feel' it in our core and bind ourselves to them for life."
A… spouse? That couldn't be right. That sounded made up, actually. Shirou began to grasp at straws, or rather, any sort of reiteration that could break down what he surely didn't hear properly the first time. "Is this a custom of yours, or–"
"–It's a physiological response," she corrected, instantly shattering his hopes of this conversation ever grounding itself in reality again. "I meant 'bind' in the literal sense, by the way. Our souls are now bridged together. I hope you don't mind that terribly."
Her smile finally disappeared. In its place was found an expression that, impossibly, appeared both hedonistic and self-deprecating.
"For all intents and purposes, we're now married."
His emotions were getting out of hand, so Shirou removed them from the equation by quashing them entirely.
There could be no success without control. To regain control, he would need to first define his objective, then weigh his options and commit to one of them. No more hesitation. No more distractions.
There were one hundred and eight creatures from an alien species trying to kill each other in Shinto Teito. Though he wasn't sure how related it was to their feud, a matching number of regular humans could be pulled into the fray for alleged reproductive purposes.
The dangers were twofold. Firstly, the potential harm that may befall the tens of millions of people living in one of the world's most populated cities. Secondly –and most importantly– the public exposure of the moonlit world. Whether the aliens were supernatural in nature or not, this sort of behaviour would attract the attention of the Mages' Association. If that happened, an operation of such a large scale would jeopardize much more than just a few million people.
The goal, ultimately, was to eliminate the one hundred and eight aliens before either of those two scenarios could come into play. In the current circumstance, there were two options immediately available to him, each with its sets of merits and issues.
Firstly, he could follow through with his original intention of killing the alien in front of him. Assuming that the pink-haired girl was an alien as well, this would mean that at least two of the total number of targets would be dealt with expeditiously. The disadvantages were that he had no idea how much the "bonding" had affected him, and if this one died, he would, as she said, lose out on any information that she could give him.
His second option –and the one that was currently looking like the sounder choice– was to go along with whatever it was that this alien was scheming. If she was to be believed, then she planned on thinning out the numbers herself; two hands were better than one, of course.
Obviously, he couldn't put any stock in what she said about not wanting to kill him, but if nothing else, their relationship could definitely be mutually beneficial as long as their goals continued to align.
Taking a deep breath, he nodded to himself. It was settled then.
"I'm going to book a hotel room nearby. We have a lot to talk about."
Her eyes were squinted shut. The alien held the silence for a moment, so it was difficult to decipher what she was thinking.
"…Jumping straight into the honeymoon, are we?"
Shirou sighed. Of course, she had to be the type to joke around at a time like this.
"I'll get rid of the bodies," he said.
"Don't bother. We should wait for MBI to show up."
The man blinked. He was lost.
"MBI?"
The alien's mouth formed an "o" shape. "Did I forget to mention that? Mid Bio Informatics is administrating our 'game'."
…That was definitely a variable that would have been nice to know about a little earlier.
He tried to recall where he'd heard that name before. It was definitely familiar, but he could have sworn that it was a totally normal business.
"They're a… tech firm?"
"Pharmaceuticals company," she corrected.
"…Right."
His expression darkened. If this "MBI" was responsible for an alien death game in the middle of a populated megacity, then they were just as big an issue as the aliens themselves.
The woman hummed, before adding, "Point being, they do a good job of cleaning up the mess. They keep everything contained within the bounds of the city and deal with the corpses. One less thing for us to worry about."
Then it would be inadvisable to deal with them first. No matter how condemning their involvement, they were, at the very least, keeping a lid on the damages.
"How do we call them?" he asked.
"We don't have to. They've chipped us, so if our vital signs drop, they come to retrieve our body. "
…So being secretive was never an option to begin with. No matter how careful he was, the overseers of this deathmatch would know whenever he would interfere.
Teaming up with this alien really was the best option, then.
A helicopter appeared overhead, and it dropped a ladder. He looked to his new partner, and she shook her head. They would be standing their ground, apparently.
A woman came down along with four heavily-armed men. They obviously weren't the JSDF, so however it was that they were in possession of Howa Type 89 assault rifles was questionable at best.
The woman, dressed in a lab coat with a tablet clutched underarm, stalked up to them with an angry snarl.
…Just a moment, wasn't she the same lady from the airport?
He couldn't believe it. He was kidnapped by a pharmaceuticals company, of all things.
"Karasuba," the woman growled. "My ears better be served the best excuse you've ever spewed, or we're going to have a problem."
The alien kept her friendly look, but there was no keeping the annoyance out of her posture.
"Sorry. My bad."
"You're supposed to interrogate the spy, not get in his pants!"
From the sound of things, the alien's plans weren't quite matching up with MBI's.
The lady in the lab coat jabbed her finger in Shirou's direction.
"And you. You're coming with me."
He immediately began considering his chances of escape. It wasn't until the alien had placed her hand on his shoulder that he realized how tense he was.
"Don't worry too much," she told him. "Takami-chan is acting mean, but you're my Ashikabi now. She can't do anything to you."
The woman in question didn't seem too fond of the alien's assurances. Nevertheless, she nodded in agreement with a huff.
"That's right. Karasuba has –for whatever reason– dragged you into the Sekirei Plan, so frankly, you're not really my problem anymore. The chairman's the one who wants to speak with you."
The chairman of MBI wanted to speak with him? More than that, they were throwing around a bunch of strange names. Codewords, maybe?"
"What's a–"
"Save your questions for the chairman," the lab coat-wearing woman snapped at him. "He would have called your cellphone to give you then rundown–"
She caught the alien's disinterested stare with a heated one of her own.
"–but neither of you had your phones on hand for reasons… each your own. Just… get in the chopper."
X
He was escorted through a third padlocked door by the pair of military men.
What a difference from the way he was treated the first time. No handcuffs, no blindfolds, and no crazy alien women wanting to chop his head off. It wasn't exactly first-class service –he still had rifle barrels pushing into the small of his back– but at least the experience as a whole was a little more guest-like.
Sort of.
"He's in here," one of his escorts informed him ever so kindly, as gruff as he was. "Don't try any funny business."
Shirou bowed politely. "I wouldn't dream of it. Thanks for showing me the way here."
He entered the chairman's office alone; the pair didn't follow. A comically-tall chair swivelled behind an equally-lavish desk, revealing… an otaku? Some sort of mad-scientist cosplayer?
The otaku jumped to his feet and spread his arms wide.
"Greetings! I am Hiroto Minaka, founder and chairman of Mid Bio Informatics! Due to the momentous nature of the occasion, I would like to formally congratulate you on the winging of Sekirei number four, Karasuba."
There was that word again. Sekirei. Was that what they were calling the aliens?
Moreover, the older man's exuberance caught him by surprise. It took Shirou a moment to figure out what to say in response.
"The woman that brought me here, her name was…Takami." The otaku confirmed his recollection with a nod. He continued, "She mentioned that you normally give newly-involved individuals a call to introduce them to your… 'game', but you've asked for me to come see you directly. Is there a reason in particular that you couldn't wait for me to get my cellphone back?"
It wasn't even as though the chairman wouldn't know the moment he had it back in his possession. It was his company that confiscated it in the first place.
The older man's glasses reflected the shine of the overhanging light fixtures, making it impossible to discern his expression. "There is, indeed! I simply had to meet the man who accomplished something that I had previously dismissed as an impossibility."
There was no mistaking it. Despite the chairman's over-the-top act, the man had every ounce of his attention on Shirou.
"And what might that be?"
"As an Ashikabi, you've made Karasuba react to you."
Shirou kept his face as straight as he could to mask his confusion.
"I'm not familiar with your terminology, I'm afraid."
Despite his understanding that this meeting was supposed to be for the director to fill him on the details that he was missing, he couldn't help but feel as though the man was enjoying his ignorance.
"'Ashikabi' is the term we use to describe people like you: those who are able to wing the Sekirei."
Shirou nodded. "By 'wing', you mean the bonding contract," he guessed. That much had made sense. "But what's so special about that? The a– Karasuba mentioned that this sort of thing was par for the course."
The grin that crossed Hiroto Minaka's face was in many ways similar, and in many ways different from Karasuba's. Different in that it felt assuredly less murderous, but similar in that he was immediately put on edge by it.
"Well~ for any of the others, you'd be absolutely right! Karasuba, on the other hand, has never shown any desire to find herself an Ashikabi in the twenty-some-odd years that I've known her. Here I was, thinking that I'd have to ask her to just settle for someone and be done with it."
He tensed. "Karasuba made it sound as if there were some sort of qualifications for the 'bonding'. You're telling me that there was no reason in particular for her to have picked me?"
If that were true, then Shirou was certain that the woman had something up her sleeve. She must have mislead him for a reason.
For the first time, the director's expression became a little more grim. "It's not that simple, I'm afraid. It's true that Sekirei can bond with any human as long as they're an Ashikabi, but a 'reaction' only occurs if the Sekirei manages to find their 'soulmate'. This arrangement is quite permanent, so you can understand why this outcome would be preferable."
The younger man closed his eyes with a sigh. The 'reaction' really was a big deal, then.
"What makes you so sure that Karasuba reacted to me? If she would have needed to pick someone eventually, she could have just as easily settled for me and been done with it."
Infuriatingly, Hiroto Minaka did not answer his question.
"Emiya Shirou. As you understand it, what is your 'role' in this game?"
Shirou hummed. "If I had to put it into words… it would be to eliminate every other competitor, right?"
The chairman laughed uproariously. The sudden outburst nearly made Shirou take a step back.
"I get it. I think I understand a little better. Thank you, Emiya. If you have no further questions, feel free to leave. The next time she sees you, Karasuba will give you a credit card with an upper limit of ten million yen taken from MBI's accounts. Please accept it as an apology for the rough treatment."
Shirou bowed and turned to leave. As he reached the doors, however, he froze and peered over his shoulder.
"Sorry. There's one more thing, if you don't mind."
"Oh?"
"If it isn't too much trouble… can I have my suitcase back?"
X
Now standing across the desk from each other, Takami still hadn't stopped glowering at the younger grey-haired woman.
"Well, I'm waiting. What are you up to?"
"Ah?" Karasuba squinted, a look of incomprehension set firmly in place. "What are you talking about, Takami-chan~? Isn't it obvious? My maiden heart was captured, completely and utterly! How could I force myself apart from my knight in shining armour once we finally crossed paths?"
"Cut the crap!" Takami turned away from the object of her annoyance. The longer she stared at that two-faced smile, the more likely she'd was to blow a gasket. The bitch was trying to rile her up with her parody of a love-struck Sekirei– a characteristic that Karasuba resented with every fibre of her being, and thus, something that she obviously wasn't. "The only reason for someone like you to take an Ashikabi would be if you thought it would benefit you in some way."
Karasuba hummed. "Well, I can only get so strong if I'm not winged, after all. My Norito–"
"Don't pretend you didn't know that Minaka was planning to make you wing an Ashikabi from the company. I don't care if it was on a whim. You knew better than to choose an unknown quantity who, for all we know, is a foreign agent."
There it was. The act was dropped. The Sekirei's eyes cracked open to reveal constricted pupils whose unsettling focus obsolesced the impression given by her lethargic posture.
"Hm? I'm not kidding, ya know. Whether you believe me or not, the truth is that I reacted to him. What followed just couldn't be helped~"
And just as quickly as it came, the dangerous glint in the Sekirei's eyes disappeared once more, and the mocking joviality returned along with the sarcastic inflection in her tone.
It did nothing to alleviate the trepidation that suddenly swelled from deep within Takami's gut.
The chances that Karasuba wasn't B-S-ing her were infinitesimally small. But that chance, insignificant as it was, could be the worst possible outcome for the Sekirei Plan.
The Black Sekirei on her own was already a nightmare for MBI to deal with.
The best-case scenario was if she was winged by someone affiliated with MBI. Then, she'd at least be a manageable nightmare, if nothing else.
The fact that she didn't bind herself to one of their own took the "manageable" right out of that sentence. She was still just a plain old "nightmare"– maybe even a little stronger, to boot.
If Karasuba truly and honestly reacted to an Ashikabi?
Then Takami couldn't picture that Ashikabi as being any less of a nightmare than the woman herself.
"If that's all, Takami-chan, I think I'll leave now."
The poor Head of Operations could only gape like a fish when the bane of her existence suddenly decided that their conversation was over and walked out the door.
"W-wait, damn it! I don't know where you think you're going, but you better show up for work tomorrow, you hear me!?"
X
Shirou scoped out his new apartment with a critical eye.
The kitchen? It was alright. He wasn't a fan of the electric stove, but the wall oven was pretty high-end. More importantly, the island gave him an extra meter or so of workspace, so preparing larger dishes –not that he planned on spending that much time preparing food– wouldn't be too difficult.
The living room? It was more of a two-in-one living room and dining room, but considering how small the apartment was, the size of the living room wasn't anything to scoff at. Most of his work could be done from there without any discomfort.
The bedroom was fine too, not that he planned on spending too much time in it. The king-sized bed might have been a little over-the-top, but the superfluity could be overlooked.
It was important to be mindful of these things. A poor base of operations could only lead to poor operations.
"All in all…"
He nodded to himself in satisfaction.
Considering that it was a last-minute purchase, he really couldn't have asked for anything better. He wasn't sure how legal it was for him to move in the same day, but then again, money went a long way.
He was not an avaricious individual by any stretch of the word, nor was he one to take another's money so easily, but he could at least appreciate its importance in the modern world. His personal qualms went out the door when there was a job to be done. As such, he would abuse the ten million yen that was given to him, whether the donation was good-intentioned or not.
Despite the terrible start to the day, he couldn't claim that it was unproductive. He had learned of a catastrophe waiting to happen, and he was placed in a position to prevent it.
If nothing else, he was now confident that he'd be able to force his way from MBI's entrance to the chairman's office, door to door, without much difficulty. The rest of the building was a different story, but the state of the company's current security systems meant that he could probably assassinate the man quite easily if needed.
He might have needed to reschedule his trip to Fuyuki, but it wasn't a huge loss. He was closer now than when he was in Europe, so it wouldn't be hard to make a day-visit on the weekend, or something.
…He wasn't forgetting anything, was he?
The doorbell rang.
"…"
He wasn't expecting guests. In part because he didn't have that many acquaintances, but more because he literally just moved in. Frankly, he doubted that he'd be the documented legal owner of this apartment for another month, at the least.
He opened the door and froze.
Hah. That's what he was forgetting.
"…Yes?"
The grey-haired alien pushed a fruit basket into his arms and walked straight past him like she owned the place.
"Thanks for having me, Ashikabi-kun."
What?
She whistled, then turned back to him with a malicious grin that immediately set him on edge.
"It's a good thing this place is big enough for two, wouldn't you say?"
…What!?
Chapter 3
The first thing that Shirou felt when he woke up that morning was fatigue. His head throbbed and his eyelids were heavy.
The second thing that he felt was panic, chiefly caused by the sleeping woman using his arm as a pillow. The duvet was pushed to the side, so nothing but a white juban protected her modesty.
He quickly grabbed his own side of the bedsheet and freed himself from its shackles, but his memories of the previous night hit him before he could do anything drastic.
…That's right. He wasn't expecting to share his living space with anyone, so he only had one bed. Despite his misgivings with the woman, he had suggested that she take it for herself while he slept on the floor; he could buy a new mattress the next day.
Her counter-suggestion was that they should share for the night.
Why did he go along with it? Who could say? It seemed harmless at the time. The bed was large enough that it wouldn't have been too awkward, and it would allow him to keep enough of a distance to protect himself if she tried anything. It was an added bonus that they'd both be able to get a restful sleep out of it, really.
Only, he wasn't expecting her to stare at him like a hawk stalking a mouse from the moment they lay down. Her gaze was unflinching, unmoving, and yet not a single utterance came from her from that point on. No amount of space between them could ease his discomfort.
As such, the only way for him to react was to stare right back. He resolved himself to stay vigilant in case she acted out until she either relented or fell asleep.
He could not remember either of those two scenarios coming to fruition. Somewhere along the line, his consciousness must have left him.
And so, here he was with an extremely volatile entity cuddled up to him.
Taking great care to not wake his impromptu bedmate, he slipped his arm out from under her head and pushed himself onto his feet. The throb behind his brow worsened the moment he became vertical.
He couldn't remember the last time that he'd ruined his sleep cycle this badly.
Shirou entered his new kitchen with led feet. His brain working on autopilot, he opened his refrigerator to find…
Nothing.
Ah. He didn't have the time to do groceries last night. The apartment was bereft of any food, be it raw ingredients or prepared meals.
…Or was it?
He eyed the gift basket sitting on the island counter.
A fruit platter for breakfast didn't sound too bad.
The patter of feet on hardwood grew louder from the bedroom.
"Ahm… good morning, Ashikabi-kun," greeted the awakened she-devil with a drawn-out yawn. "Did you sleep well?"
She finally decided to get up, did she?
"No," he answered succinctly
The woman chuckled– not that he could fathom why. If he looked tired, then she looked like an absolute wreck. Despite that, her amusement was worn proudly; her smile didn't match her bloodshot and baggy eyes whatsoever.
Those eyes lowered to stare pointedly at the halfway-chopped pear on his cutting board.
"What's for breakfast, Mister Chef?"
"…Go put some clothes on," he shot back without acknowledging her comment.
She picked at the hem of her undergarment. "Why, getting embarrassed by little ol' me?"
Besides the housewarming gift, she came empty-handed. He couldn't exactly force her to sleep in that heavy three-piece uniform of hers, but she really would have to go pick up her night-time accoutrements if she thought that she was going to be staying here. Aliens owned pyjamas, right?
Shirou didn't let her get under his skin. He closed his heavy eyes and sighed. "It isn't proper for a woman to be walking around a man's house undressed."
Lamentably, she interpreted his request as a suggestion and chose to ignore it. She pulled out a dining room chair facing the kitchen and made herself comfortable.
"Do you have a plan in mind?"
The man eyed her quickly, only half paying attention as he washed a cluster of grapes under his kitchen tap.
"A plan?"
"To eliminate the others."
To be so flippant about the murder of her own people… how frightening.
He joined her at the table and placed his newly-made ensemble between them. Not owning any dishes yet, he arranged the various sliced fruits inside of the basket in which they were delivered. A cloth was used as a lining to keep it sanitary.
"You know more about them than I do," he countered. "Do you have any suggestions?"
She smiled sweetly. Or rather, that's what he'd assumed she was trying to do. The attempt was perverted by her dishevelled state.
"Hm? I don't know much about them at all; nothing more than what the director could tell you himself. I'd assume they all have their own quirks."
Getting anything out of her was like pulling teeth.
Shirou frowned. If she wasn't playing coy, then they were at a serious disadvantage.
"The ones who confronted us yesterday," he brought up as an example. "The girl was able to control her weapons remotely. Was it telekinesis?"
"Most likely," was her lackluster response. "Telekinesis, levitation… or anything really. I don't think it matters."
His eyebrow twitched, but he otherwise kept his cool. "You don't seem too concerned about any of this."
The woman popped a grape into her mouth.
"When you slaughter a pig, do you care about the colour of its pelt?"
…What an unpleasant analogy.
"I've never slaughtered a pig, so I wouldn't know." He tried for a different angle. "Just give me the 'basics', then. You said 'even the director could tell me that much', right?"
Her eyes squinted shut. Instead of speaking, she filled her mouth with an apple slice.
He waited for her answer stoically.
"You're overthinking it, Ashikabi," she spoke in a tone that belied her faked joviality. "A lemming with a weapon is still just a lemming."
As he spoke, he gauged her reaction carefully. "None of them are more dangerous than you, is what you're saying."
Her thin-lipped smile was all the answer he got.
A canned jolly tune started to play from the bedroom. It looped a few times, neither of them moving to check what it was.
"Ah. That's my phone," the woman exclaimed half-heartedly. She left the table, and for a few moments, Shirou was left to his own thoughts.
As much as she didn't want to say anything, the alien's silence was telling enough. She made it sound as though the other "competitors" weren't anything to worry about, but he was almost certain that there were at least a few others like her.
Threats.
"How many?" was the question. If not all one hundred and eight, then what, five? Ten? Twenty?
It was a forgone conclusion that not all Sekirei were equal. He just didn't know where his partner measured along that scale.
She came back fully dressed.
"Sorry. Takami-chan's in a bad mood, so I'll be going to work now. See you later, Ashikabi-kun."
The sudden announcement threw him off. She had almost reached the door before he caught her by the arm.
If their relationship was going to function this way from now on, they would need to work together. There were urgent matters that needed to be attended to that he wouldn't have the time to deal with alone.
"Wait."
For once, she listened. The woman faced him expectantly.
"Take this," said the white-haired man, placing a folded piece of paper in her hand.
"You look like shit."
The words left Takami's mouth faster than her brain could filter them out. When Karasuba entered her office, the first things that she noticed were the sunken eyes and dishevelled hair.
There were days when the younger woman showed up looking pretty bad, but never this bad.
"And you look like a mummy," was the Sekirei's relatively lighthearted riposte. It was strange: from her appearance alone, she would have thought that MBI's "dog" would have been in a much worse mood. "What happened?"
Hah. She was pretty banged up, wasn't she?
Takami rubbed the side of her bandaged cranium gingerly while her other hand dug through her coat pocket for her pack of cigarettes.
"One-oh-eight's adjustment was sabotaged. Some Ashikabi thought they were hot shit and tried to wing her before she could be released."
"They were unsuccessful?" guessed the Black Sekirei.
"You could say that, but the girl slipped away from us, which means that she's effectively been freed of our custody prematurely. I bet Minaka's about to milk this mess for all its worth. I don't know what the fucker's up to, but expect some kind of announcement from him soon."
Karasuba yawned. "So you're asking me to run damage control?"
"Absolutely not. The opposite, in fact," denied the head researcher hotly. "I want you to stay the hell away."
The tired woman hummed in understanding. "Makes sense. If Minaka' going through all the trouble, then he probably won't want anyone interfering–"
"Fuck Minaka," spat Takami. "Now that you have an Ashikabi, you're part of the plan too. Things are bad enough as they are, and I don't want to deal with your bullshit on top of that."
Following her outburst, Sahashi Takami expected a large number of reactions from the violent Sekirei, most of them being some variation of a passive-aggressive threat. What she didn't expect was…
"Sure thing, Takami-chan!" Karasuba acknowledged cheerfully.
The older woman blinked. For her to be so acquiescent was pretty rare.
…A little too rare.
When Karasuba placed her katana on the desk and turned to leave, she knew something was up.
"What are you trying to pull, here?"
Number Four squinted. "What do you mean? I'm not supposed to be doing anything right now, right? I've got other stuff to do, so take care of my weapon for me."
…She was never one to hand her sword over so easily. She always did because it was MBI's policy to not carry blades or firearms when not on duty, but she'd damn well keep it on her if ever she thought that she could get away with it.
Visibly disarming herself sent a clear message: that she had no intention of disobeying explicit commands.
Sadly, it was always the implied commands that she ended up twisting the most.
"And what might those 'other things' be?"
Karasuba stuck a finger down the collar of her jacket and pulled out a note.
"My Ashikabi-kun has a job for me," she said, handing the paper to a stiffened Takami.
…Him.
She couldn't let herself forget about how much of a danger that man posed. Being under Karasuba's implicit protection was a powerful tool unto itself, even more so if she was playing along for shits and giggles.
The Sekirei smiled sickly, clearly relishing the nervousness on her corporate superior's face. Her eyes gleamed excitedly as Takami slowly read the orders given by the biggest unknown in the entirety of the Sekirei Plan.
Takami's eyes widened, and Karasuba's perverted expression grew wider.
"This is a grocery list."
Shirou sat on a park bench, his shopping bags placed to his left. He was staring intently at the cellphone held in his hand.
More specifically, at the message and location marker that were sent to him.
There's a cute Sekirei over here! First come, first served! You could be the one to give it wings!
Minaka Hiroto's message was unexpected, but also quite confusing. The phrasing implied that it was a mass text sent not only to him but also to other competitors.
But why? Anyone who received the notice would already have a partner. Finding an "unwinged" Sekirei would be redundant.
Maybe it was an opportunity to eliminate a potential enemy before they could get on their feet? There was definitely a competitive advantage there… but then why say "First come, first served"?
Unless…
Could a competitor partner themselves with multiple aliens?
If so, that would change everything. The chances of winning would rise exponentially for every–
Our fates are intertwined, forever and ever.
"…"
He sighed and picked up his bags. Thinking about such things was useless right now. Whether that was something he could do or not, he didn't doubt for a second that it would just cause more problems down the line.
For now, it was best to just take the invitation as a different kind of opportunity.
Before he could put his phone away, it started to ring. He silently brought it up to his ear.
"Ashikabi-kun."
It was his partner.
"Is something wrong?"
"You could say that. You must have received the director's message by now."
Of course. She worked for the company that was sponsoring this competition, so it made sense that she'd already been aware of it.
"I have. Will you–"
"Sorry, but I'll have to sit this one out. MBI doesn't want me getting in the way of their plans."
Though he was annoyed, Shirou did little else than sigh. He already figured that his partner being an MBI employee wasn't the norm, so these sorts of inconvenient exceptions were to be expected.
"I'll go ahead on my own, then," he told her.
"…"
CLICK!
She hung up on him. How rude.
With an exasperated huff, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and started walking back to his apartment. Once he finished putting away his new dinnerware set, he would see just how many birds he could kill with one stone.
So this was it.
Admittedly, the public park looked less like a public park and a lot more like a forest taken straight out of a fantasy setting. If he were to guess, he'd assume that the unwinged Sekirei had something to do with the overgrown environment.
…Or maybe not. Far from able was he to assume what their kind was or wasn't capable of.
Shirou eyed the ruined gate that no longer fully enclosed the premises. The sight of the overturned military vehicles and unconscious MBI personnel made it obvious that he wasn't the first one to have arrived.
It wasn't preferable, but still an expected outcome.
The bright side was that he wasn't too late either. He knew this because there wouldn't have been a pair of Sekirei fighting each other right in front of him, otherwise.
A man and a woman –neither having a distinguishable magical scent– attacked each other with abilities that, nonetheless, were very thaumaturgical in appearance. The man controlled fire with a wave of the hand, whereas the woman spawned spears and walls of ice seemingly out of thin air.
Since he was on his own right now, however, it wasn't smart to overreach. Going in for the kill right away could leave him exposed; the smartest thing would be to see how much he could get away with without putting himself in any danger.
Other than those two, there was a black Mercedes-Benz S-Class parked a few paces back. Peculiarly, it was a much older model; when he used to live in Fuyuki, his neighbour had an identical vehicle, so it must have been dated fifteen-some-odd years, give or take. Its age alone implied that it belonged to a third party, and not to the downed paramilitary group– possibly the partner of one of the Sekirei, or even a getaway driver.
He set his sights on his first target.
Let the prodding begin.
"First shot."
Homura conjured another burst of flames to melt the icicles before they could reach him. He gritted his teeth, pushing through the pain caused by his self-immolation.
He couldn't go on like this… but even so, no matter how broken he was, no matter how much his own body rejected his nature, relenting was not an option.
For the sake of all the birds who had yet to find their wings… he would endure.
Another volley of ice spears was sent his way. The man wasn't able to melt all of them this time, so he was forced to jump to the side to avoid getting hit.
This Sekirei… she was a scrapped number, so why…
"Why are you here!?"
His heated question was met with a drawled reply.
"My Ashikabi-sama has a wish… and I… will make sure that his wish is granted."
A ball of flames hurtled straight into her, but a wall of ice stopped it in its tracks.
He cursed under his breath. She might not have access to her Norito, but neither did he.
They were at an impasse; the longer he wasted time with her, the higher the chances that the young Sekirei would be taken away by someone other than her destined one.
He couldn't have that.
Mustering the last of his strength, Sekirei Number Six squared his feet–
His opponent had just enough time to shift to the side before her left arm was torn from her body at the shoulder.
BANG!
A thunderous clap followed the attack. Whatever that was that had struck the woman had done so at supersonic speeds.
For a moment, she stared at the missing limb dumbly.
Homura wasn't given the time to process his shock –nor the scrapped number, her pain– before the vehicle at her back exploded.
BANG!
His eyes widened before he was forced to use his arm to shield them from the second, larger explosion caused by the burning gas tank.
"Ashikabi-sama!" screamed the scrapped number through her pain.
Damn it! Sekirei Plan or not, he didn't want humans getting caught in the crossfire of their battles.
Luckily for them, the passengers of the car came out of it mostly all right. A younger boy in a singed white suit was held underarm by a much larger, silver-haired man. A blonde girl with pigtails stood next to them looking a little worse for wear, with burns littering her body and blood dribbling down her face.
Homura mentally commended the male Sekirei for being nimble enough to save his Ashikabi in time. If he could only figure out where–
A hole was blown through the pigtailed girl's chest.
BANG!
"Mitsu–"
The Ashikabi's shout was cut short as the man holding him started to sprint away. They were gone before the girl's body even hit the ground.
Even injured as she was, the scrapped number moved to follow.
Homura snarled and traced what he assumed to be the trajectory of the attack in the hopes that it would lead him straight to the assailant.
Beyond any shadow of a doubt, it wasn't another Sekirei.
It was a gunman.
His beliefs were confirmed when a glint coming from an opened hotel window caught his eye.
He found the bastard.
The Sekirei Guardian moved nimbly at a pace that no human could ever hope to match. Another high-calibre bullet was shot at him, but thanks to knowing where it was coming from, he was able to avoid it by the skin of his teeth.
BANG!
Propelling himself with his flames, he scaled the side of the building. Within seconds, he had reached the gunman's perch and was prepared to burn them to the–
His heart dropped the moment he passed through the window.
There was a desk pushed to the middle of the room.
Taped to it was a strange rifle-looking weapon. A lens stuck out where he assumed the scope would be, and it sat on a bulky stand with an articulated joint near its top.
Whatever this weapon was, it was unmanned.
As he began to search the room for clues, Homura noticed that the contraption's metal casing started to expand.
"Shi–"
BOOM!
On the roof of another building a few blocks away, Shirou watched apathetically as the top floor of the hotel burst into flames. He could already hear the sirens closing in from a distance. He alerted the manager of a gas leak on the top floor ahead of time, so with any luck, no bystanders had died.
As he thought. Projecting a remote weapon station was incredibly taxing, but it turned out to be well worth the effort. It was an added bonus that the alien gave him the excuse to detonate it right under his feet; it wouldn't have lasted that much longer, otherwise.
All but one target –or perhaps two– had escaped, and he was fairly certain that the unwinged Sekirei had been reached by one of the early worms. He hadn't been able to make as big of a dent as he would have liked, but he needed to be cautious at this stage, and caution rarely got any results worth mentioning.
He hunched over and sighed.
With that in mind, he probably wouldn't have needed to go through all this effort if MBI hadn't taken his actual guns from him. Unfortunately, for appearances' sake, he couldn't really ask for them back.
The projected console that he was using to control the RWS disappeared, its utility having faded to nothing along with the gun itself.
"One kill, one unconfirmed death, three got away," he summarized for the newly-arrived individual standing behind him. "How much was the daikon?"
"Three hundred yen a kilo," Karasuba answered with a smile.
He clicked his tongue. "Prices in big cities are always the worst."
Shirou picked up his suit jacket and folded it over his arm. As he gathered his things, Karasuba continued to stare at him with a cheerful expression.
"Ya know, Ashikabi-kun, playing the game this way isn't any fun at all."
The man tilted his head in confusion.
"I'm sorry?"
The muscles controlling the Sekirei's mouth didn't disturb her upturned lips by a single millimetre.
"I don't know where you keep finding these toys of yours, but you didn't even need to lift a finger, did you? Here I am, raising my own expectations only for you to waste time making corpses out of riffraff."
Toys? The projected firearms, she meant. His partner must have been watching from somewhere close by.
Though he couldn't for the life of him understand what she was getting mad about, she brought up a point that the thought would be important to highlight moving forward.
"…One of them died instantly, another avoided the bullets quite easily, and the rest were able to keep themselves alive with varying degrees of success," he outlined instead of addressing her comment directly. "It was a small sample size, but the gap in their ability was significant."
She yawned and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I said that already, didn't I? Most of my kind don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. They're sheep."
She did in fact say something that, if paraphrased, could be interpreted along those lines, but that knowledge wasn't really "knowledge" at all, considering how she insisted on being as unforthcoming about the details as possible.
"Karasuba."
When he called her name, the woman's face clamped right up. For once, her eyes actually focused on his own.
He didn't know if it was a matter of pride or simply that she didn't like talking about other Sekirei, but they wouldn't get anywhere until they could find a middle ground. "How many of them can put up a fight?"
Seconds ticked by as she did nothing else than stare at him. Right as he started to think that she was going to keep her mouth shut again, she asked in return, "When you talked with the director, did he tell you which number I was?"
Which "number"?
I would like to formally congratulate you on the winging of Sekirei number four, Karasuba.
It flew right over his head at the time. It must have been a code for something, but he didn't believe it to be of any importance.
"I think so. He called you 'number four'."
With her smirk in place once more, Karasuba explained, "MBI has had each and every one of us physiologically adjusted since birth so that we don't kill our cute and frail Ashikabi by accident. Our number corresponds to the order in which were first modified."
Shirou hid any outward reaction the best he could. He had thought that the company was collaborating with the aliens, but from what he could infer, it was more accurate to say that MBI owned them. If the Sekirei were raised in MBI's custody, then did this "Sekirei Plan" really have any intrinsic relation to the species at all?
"And how do these 'adjustments' correlate to ability?"
The grey-haired woman began picking at her nails. "MBI didn't want any mishaps, so the first ten adjustments or so were much lighter than those that followed. We have much more of our strength available to us compared to the others. The ones that got away from you today are likely part of that group."
The man nodded, mentally lamenting the fact that his partner couldn't even be bothered to remember anything about nine of their most noteworthy adversaries. "So you're confident in your ability to win against any Sekirei outside of the first ten?"
Karasuba chuckled. Her hand absently reached for a sword but dropped down to her side once she realised that she didn't have it on her.
He couldn't tell if she looked frustrated or elated.
"Don't be silly, Ashikabi-kun. Whether they've been heavily adjusted or not makes no difference to me. I'm the strongest, after all."
Shirou stared into her narrowed eyelids scrutinizingly. Whether it was true or not, that is what she believed.
"What was wrong with saying as much when I asked you this morning?"
Her cold, sliver orbs met his own.
"You asked if any of them are more dangerous than me."
"I did."
"I don't know."
Her response threw him for a loop.
"You just said that you're the strongest."
"And does that make me the most dangerous? Whether you're strong or not didn't really matter to that girl you gunned down remotely; how much I can kill them, or how much they can't kill me is irrelevant as long as there's an opportunity for a weakling to make a pain of themselves."
Ah. That was a fair point, admittedly. She might have been a little too self-confident for his liking, but at least she could think about their situation in a reasonable fashion.
He couldn't help but wonder if she had a particular "weakling" in mind when she said it, but there wasn't any point in bringing it up now.
Light and purposeless maneuvers wouldn't be as useful –or as advisable– now that he was expected to proceed along with his partner for the foreseeable future. Before he acted again, he would hire someone to attack MBI's servers and scrounge as much documented information on the one hundred and eight Sekirei as possible. Any information that that Karasuba had yet to share with him would be best revealed on a file-to-file basis so as not to miss anything.
Shirou let out a small laugh, then smiled gently at his companion.
His expression was met with tense one of her own. For a moment, he could have sworn that he heard her make a strangled noise for whatever reason.
"I suppose you're right. Let's go… hm?"
She pressed her lips against his, cutting his sentence abruptly with a munificently long kiss. When she pulled away, the woman turned around and walked towards the staircase with their groceries in hand.
"Why did–"
"No reason in particular," she answered before he could finish his sentence. Shirou was left alone on the rooftop.
"…"
As he thought. Trying to decipher what went through that one's head was a lost cause.
The second thing that he felt was panic, chiefly caused by the sleeping woman using his arm as a pillow. The duvet was pushed to the side, so nothing but a white juban protected her modesty.
He quickly grabbed his own side of the bedsheet and freed himself from its shackles, but his memories of the previous night hit him before he could do anything drastic.
…That's right. He wasn't expecting to share his living space with anyone, so he only had one bed. Despite his misgivings with the woman, he had suggested that she take it for herself while he slept on the floor; he could buy a new mattress the next day.
Her counter-suggestion was that they should share for the night.
Why did he go along with it? Who could say? It seemed harmless at the time. The bed was large enough that it wouldn't have been too awkward, and it would allow him to keep enough of a distance to protect himself if she tried anything. It was an added bonus that they'd both be able to get a restful sleep out of it, really.
Only, he wasn't expecting her to stare at him like a hawk stalking a mouse from the moment they lay down. Her gaze was unflinching, unmoving, and yet not a single utterance came from her from that point on. No amount of space between them could ease his discomfort.
As such, the only way for him to react was to stare right back. He resolved himself to stay vigilant in case she acted out until she either relented or fell asleep.
He could not remember either of those two scenarios coming to fruition. Somewhere along the line, his consciousness must have left him.
And so, here he was with an extremely volatile entity cuddled up to him.
Taking great care to not wake his impromptu bedmate, he slipped his arm out from under her head and pushed himself onto his feet. The throb behind his brow worsened the moment he became vertical.
He couldn't remember the last time that he'd ruined his sleep cycle this badly.
Shirou entered his new kitchen with led feet. His brain working on autopilot, he opened his refrigerator to find…
Nothing.
Ah. He didn't have the time to do groceries last night. The apartment was bereft of any food, be it raw ingredients or prepared meals.
…Or was it?
He eyed the gift basket sitting on the island counter.
A fruit platter for breakfast didn't sound too bad.
The patter of feet on hardwood grew louder from the bedroom.
"Ahm… good morning, Ashikabi-kun," greeted the awakened she-devil with a drawn-out yawn. "Did you sleep well?"
She finally decided to get up, did she?
"No," he answered succinctly
The woman chuckled– not that he could fathom why. If he looked tired, then she looked like an absolute wreck. Despite that, her amusement was worn proudly; her smile didn't match her bloodshot and baggy eyes whatsoever.
Those eyes lowered to stare pointedly at the halfway-chopped pear on his cutting board.
"What's for breakfast, Mister Chef?"
"…Go put some clothes on," he shot back without acknowledging her comment.
She picked at the hem of her undergarment. "Why, getting embarrassed by little ol' me?"
Besides the housewarming gift, she came empty-handed. He couldn't exactly force her to sleep in that heavy three-piece uniform of hers, but she really would have to go pick up her night-time accoutrements if she thought that she was going to be staying here. Aliens owned pyjamas, right?
Shirou didn't let her get under his skin. He closed his heavy eyes and sighed. "It isn't proper for a woman to be walking around a man's house undressed."
Lamentably, she interpreted his request as a suggestion and chose to ignore it. She pulled out a dining room chair facing the kitchen and made herself comfortable.
"Do you have a plan in mind?"
The man eyed her quickly, only half paying attention as he washed a cluster of grapes under his kitchen tap.
"A plan?"
"To eliminate the others."
To be so flippant about the murder of her own people… how frightening.
He joined her at the table and placed his newly-made ensemble between them. Not owning any dishes yet, he arranged the various sliced fruits inside of the basket in which they were delivered. A cloth was used as a lining to keep it sanitary.
"You know more about them than I do," he countered. "Do you have any suggestions?"
She smiled sweetly. Or rather, that's what he'd assumed she was trying to do. The attempt was perverted by her dishevelled state.
"Hm? I don't know much about them at all; nothing more than what the director could tell you himself. I'd assume they all have their own quirks."
Getting anything out of her was like pulling teeth.
Shirou frowned. If she wasn't playing coy, then they were at a serious disadvantage.
"The ones who confronted us yesterday," he brought up as an example. "The girl was able to control her weapons remotely. Was it telekinesis?"
"Most likely," was her lackluster response. "Telekinesis, levitation… or anything really. I don't think it matters."
His eyebrow twitched, but he otherwise kept his cool. "You don't seem too concerned about any of this."
The woman popped a grape into her mouth.
"When you slaughter a pig, do you care about the colour of its pelt?"
…What an unpleasant analogy.
"I've never slaughtered a pig, so I wouldn't know." He tried for a different angle. "Just give me the 'basics', then. You said 'even the director could tell me that much', right?"
Her eyes squinted shut. Instead of speaking, she filled her mouth with an apple slice.
He waited for her answer stoically.
"You're overthinking it, Ashikabi," she spoke in a tone that belied her faked joviality. "A lemming with a weapon is still just a lemming."
As he spoke, he gauged her reaction carefully. "None of them are more dangerous than you, is what you're saying."
Her thin-lipped smile was all the answer he got.
A canned jolly tune started to play from the bedroom. It looped a few times, neither of them moving to check what it was.
"Ah. That's my phone," the woman exclaimed half-heartedly. She left the table, and for a few moments, Shirou was left to his own thoughts.
As much as she didn't want to say anything, the alien's silence was telling enough. She made it sound as though the other "competitors" weren't anything to worry about, but he was almost certain that there were at least a few others like her.
Threats.
"How many?" was the question. If not all one hundred and eight, then what, five? Ten? Twenty?
It was a forgone conclusion that not all Sekirei were equal. He just didn't know where his partner measured along that scale.
She came back fully dressed.
"Sorry. Takami-chan's in a bad mood, so I'll be going to work now. See you later, Ashikabi-kun."
The sudden announcement threw him off. She had almost reached the door before he caught her by the arm.
If their relationship was going to function this way from now on, they would need to work together. There were urgent matters that needed to be attended to that he wouldn't have the time to deal with alone.
"Wait."
For once, she listened. The woman faced him expectantly.
"Take this," said the white-haired man, placing a folded piece of paper in her hand.
X
"You look like shit."
The words left Takami's mouth faster than her brain could filter them out. When Karasuba entered her office, the first things that she noticed were the sunken eyes and dishevelled hair.
There were days when the younger woman showed up looking pretty bad, but never this bad.
"And you look like a mummy," was the Sekirei's relatively lighthearted riposte. It was strange: from her appearance alone, she would have thought that MBI's "dog" would have been in a much worse mood. "What happened?"
Hah. She was pretty banged up, wasn't she?
Takami rubbed the side of her bandaged cranium gingerly while her other hand dug through her coat pocket for her pack of cigarettes.
"One-oh-eight's adjustment was sabotaged. Some Ashikabi thought they were hot shit and tried to wing her before she could be released."
"They were unsuccessful?" guessed the Black Sekirei.
"You could say that, but the girl slipped away from us, which means that she's effectively been freed of our custody prematurely. I bet Minaka's about to milk this mess for all its worth. I don't know what the fucker's up to, but expect some kind of announcement from him soon."
Karasuba yawned. "So you're asking me to run damage control?"
"Absolutely not. The opposite, in fact," denied the head researcher hotly. "I want you to stay the hell away."
The tired woman hummed in understanding. "Makes sense. If Minaka' going through all the trouble, then he probably won't want anyone interfering–"
"Fuck Minaka," spat Takami. "Now that you have an Ashikabi, you're part of the plan too. Things are bad enough as they are, and I don't want to deal with your bullshit on top of that."
Following her outburst, Sahashi Takami expected a large number of reactions from the violent Sekirei, most of them being some variation of a passive-aggressive threat. What she didn't expect was…
"Sure thing, Takami-chan!" Karasuba acknowledged cheerfully.
The older woman blinked. For her to be so acquiescent was pretty rare.
…A little too rare.
When Karasuba placed her katana on the desk and turned to leave, she knew something was up.
"What are you trying to pull, here?"
Number Four squinted. "What do you mean? I'm not supposed to be doing anything right now, right? I've got other stuff to do, so take care of my weapon for me."
…She was never one to hand her sword over so easily. She always did because it was MBI's policy to not carry blades or firearms when not on duty, but she'd damn well keep it on her if ever she thought that she could get away with it.
Visibly disarming herself sent a clear message: that she had no intention of disobeying explicit commands.
Sadly, it was always the implied commands that she ended up twisting the most.
"And what might those 'other things' be?"
Karasuba stuck a finger down the collar of her jacket and pulled out a note.
"My Ashikabi-kun has a job for me," she said, handing the paper to a stiffened Takami.
…Him.
She couldn't let herself forget about how much of a danger that man posed. Being under Karasuba's implicit protection was a powerful tool unto itself, even more so if she was playing along for shits and giggles.
The Sekirei smiled sickly, clearly relishing the nervousness on her corporate superior's face. Her eyes gleamed excitedly as Takami slowly read the orders given by the biggest unknown in the entirety of the Sekirei Plan.
Takami's eyes widened, and Karasuba's perverted expression grew wider.
"This is a grocery list."
X
Shirou sat on a park bench, his shopping bags placed to his left. He was staring intently at the cellphone held in his hand.
More specifically, at the message and location marker that were sent to him.
There's a cute Sekirei over here! First come, first served! You could be the one to give it wings!
Minaka Hiroto's message was unexpected, but also quite confusing. The phrasing implied that it was a mass text sent not only to him but also to other competitors.
But why? Anyone who received the notice would already have a partner. Finding an "unwinged" Sekirei would be redundant.
Maybe it was an opportunity to eliminate a potential enemy before they could get on their feet? There was definitely a competitive advantage there… but then why say "First come, first served"?
Unless…
Could a competitor partner themselves with multiple aliens?
If so, that would change everything. The chances of winning would rise exponentially for every–
Our fates are intertwined, forever and ever.
"…"
He sighed and picked up his bags. Thinking about such things was useless right now. Whether that was something he could do or not, he didn't doubt for a second that it would just cause more problems down the line.
For now, it was best to just take the invitation as a different kind of opportunity.
Before he could put his phone away, it started to ring. He silently brought it up to his ear.
"Ashikabi-kun."
It was his partner.
"Is something wrong?"
"You could say that. You must have received the director's message by now."
Of course. She worked for the company that was sponsoring this competition, so it made sense that she'd already been aware of it.
"I have. Will you–"
"Sorry, but I'll have to sit this one out. MBI doesn't want me getting in the way of their plans."
Though he was annoyed, Shirou did little else than sigh. He already figured that his partner being an MBI employee wasn't the norm, so these sorts of inconvenient exceptions were to be expected.
"I'll go ahead on my own, then," he told her.
"…"
CLICK!
She hung up on him. How rude.
With an exasperated huff, he shoved his phone back into his pocket and started walking back to his apartment. Once he finished putting away his new dinnerware set, he would see just how many birds he could kill with one stone.
X
So this was it.
Admittedly, the public park looked less like a public park and a lot more like a forest taken straight out of a fantasy setting. If he were to guess, he'd assume that the unwinged Sekirei had something to do with the overgrown environment.
…Or maybe not. Far from able was he to assume what their kind was or wasn't capable of.
Shirou eyed the ruined gate that no longer fully enclosed the premises. The sight of the overturned military vehicles and unconscious MBI personnel made it obvious that he wasn't the first one to have arrived.
It wasn't preferable, but still an expected outcome.
The bright side was that he wasn't too late either. He knew this because there wouldn't have been a pair of Sekirei fighting each other right in front of him, otherwise.
A man and a woman –neither having a distinguishable magical scent– attacked each other with abilities that, nonetheless, were very thaumaturgical in appearance. The man controlled fire with a wave of the hand, whereas the woman spawned spears and walls of ice seemingly out of thin air.
Since he was on his own right now, however, it wasn't smart to overreach. Going in for the kill right away could leave him exposed; the smartest thing would be to see how much he could get away with without putting himself in any danger.
Other than those two, there was a black Mercedes-Benz S-Class parked a few paces back. Peculiarly, it was a much older model; when he used to live in Fuyuki, his neighbour had an identical vehicle, so it must have been dated fifteen-some-odd years, give or take. Its age alone implied that it belonged to a third party, and not to the downed paramilitary group– possibly the partner of one of the Sekirei, or even a getaway driver.
He set his sights on his first target.
Let the prodding begin.
"First shot."
X
Homura conjured another burst of flames to melt the icicles before they could reach him. He gritted his teeth, pushing through the pain caused by his self-immolation.
He couldn't go on like this… but even so, no matter how broken he was, no matter how much his own body rejected his nature, relenting was not an option.
For the sake of all the birds who had yet to find their wings… he would endure.
Another volley of ice spears was sent his way. The man wasn't able to melt all of them this time, so he was forced to jump to the side to avoid getting hit.
This Sekirei… she was a scrapped number, so why…
"Why are you here!?"
His heated question was met with a drawled reply.
"My Ashikabi-sama has a wish… and I… will make sure that his wish is granted."
A ball of flames hurtled straight into her, but a wall of ice stopped it in its tracks.
He cursed under his breath. She might not have access to her Norito, but neither did he.
They were at an impasse; the longer he wasted time with her, the higher the chances that the young Sekirei would be taken away by someone other than her destined one.
He couldn't have that.
Mustering the last of his strength, Sekirei Number Six squared his feet–
His opponent had just enough time to shift to the side before her left arm was torn from her body at the shoulder.
BANG!
A thunderous clap followed the attack. Whatever that was that had struck the woman had done so at supersonic speeds.
For a moment, she stared at the missing limb dumbly.
Homura wasn't given the time to process his shock –nor the scrapped number, her pain– before the vehicle at her back exploded.
BANG!
His eyes widened before he was forced to use his arm to shield them from the second, larger explosion caused by the burning gas tank.
"Ashikabi-sama!" screamed the scrapped number through her pain.
Damn it! Sekirei Plan or not, he didn't want humans getting caught in the crossfire of their battles.
Luckily for them, the passengers of the car came out of it mostly all right. A younger boy in a singed white suit was held underarm by a much larger, silver-haired man. A blonde girl with pigtails stood next to them looking a little worse for wear, with burns littering her body and blood dribbling down her face.
Homura mentally commended the male Sekirei for being nimble enough to save his Ashikabi in time. If he could only figure out where–
A hole was blown through the pigtailed girl's chest.
BANG!
"Mitsu–"
The Ashikabi's shout was cut short as the man holding him started to sprint away. They were gone before the girl's body even hit the ground.
Even injured as she was, the scrapped number moved to follow.
Homura snarled and traced what he assumed to be the trajectory of the attack in the hopes that it would lead him straight to the assailant.
Beyond any shadow of a doubt, it wasn't another Sekirei.
It was a gunman.
His beliefs were confirmed when a glint coming from an opened hotel window caught his eye.
He found the bastard.
The Sekirei Guardian moved nimbly at a pace that no human could ever hope to match. Another high-calibre bullet was shot at him, but thanks to knowing where it was coming from, he was able to avoid it by the skin of his teeth.
BANG!
Propelling himself with his flames, he scaled the side of the building. Within seconds, he had reached the gunman's perch and was prepared to burn them to the–
His heart dropped the moment he passed through the window.
There was a desk pushed to the middle of the room.
Taped to it was a strange rifle-looking weapon. A lens stuck out where he assumed the scope would be, and it sat on a bulky stand with an articulated joint near its top.
Whatever this weapon was, it was unmanned.
As he began to search the room for clues, Homura noticed that the contraption's metal casing started to expand.
"Shi–"
X
BOOM!
On the roof of another building a few blocks away, Shirou watched apathetically as the top floor of the hotel burst into flames. He could already hear the sirens closing in from a distance. He alerted the manager of a gas leak on the top floor ahead of time, so with any luck, no bystanders had died.
As he thought. Projecting a remote weapon station was incredibly taxing, but it turned out to be well worth the effort. It was an added bonus that the alien gave him the excuse to detonate it right under his feet; it wouldn't have lasted that much longer, otherwise.
All but one target –or perhaps two– had escaped, and he was fairly certain that the unwinged Sekirei had been reached by one of the early worms. He hadn't been able to make as big of a dent as he would have liked, but he needed to be cautious at this stage, and caution rarely got any results worth mentioning.
He hunched over and sighed.
With that in mind, he probably wouldn't have needed to go through all this effort if MBI hadn't taken his actual guns from him. Unfortunately, for appearances' sake, he couldn't really ask for them back.
The projected console that he was using to control the RWS disappeared, its utility having faded to nothing along with the gun itself.
"One kill, one unconfirmed death, three got away," he summarized for the newly-arrived individual standing behind him. "How much was the daikon?"
"Three hundred yen a kilo," Karasuba answered with a smile.
He clicked his tongue. "Prices in big cities are always the worst."
Shirou picked up his suit jacket and folded it over his arm. As he gathered his things, Karasuba continued to stare at him with a cheerful expression.
"Ya know, Ashikabi-kun, playing the game this way isn't any fun at all."
The man tilted his head in confusion.
"I'm sorry?"
The muscles controlling the Sekirei's mouth didn't disturb her upturned lips by a single millimetre.
"I don't know where you keep finding these toys of yours, but you didn't even need to lift a finger, did you? Here I am, raising my own expectations only for you to waste time making corpses out of riffraff."
Toys? The projected firearms, she meant. His partner must have been watching from somewhere close by.
Though he couldn't for the life of him understand what she was getting mad about, she brought up a point that the thought would be important to highlight moving forward.
"…One of them died instantly, another avoided the bullets quite easily, and the rest were able to keep themselves alive with varying degrees of success," he outlined instead of addressing her comment directly. "It was a small sample size, but the gap in their ability was significant."
She yawned and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I said that already, didn't I? Most of my kind don't know their ass from a hole in the ground. They're sheep."
She did in fact say something that, if paraphrased, could be interpreted along those lines, but that knowledge wasn't really "knowledge" at all, considering how she insisted on being as unforthcoming about the details as possible.
"Karasuba."
When he called her name, the woman's face clamped right up. For once, her eyes actually focused on his own.
He didn't know if it was a matter of pride or simply that she didn't like talking about other Sekirei, but they wouldn't get anywhere until they could find a middle ground. "How many of them can put up a fight?"
Seconds ticked by as she did nothing else than stare at him. Right as he started to think that she was going to keep her mouth shut again, she asked in return, "When you talked with the director, did he tell you which number I was?"
Which "number"?
I would like to formally congratulate you on the winging of Sekirei number four, Karasuba.
It flew right over his head at the time. It must have been a code for something, but he didn't believe it to be of any importance.
"I think so. He called you 'number four'."
With her smirk in place once more, Karasuba explained, "MBI has had each and every one of us physiologically adjusted since birth so that we don't kill our cute and frail Ashikabi by accident. Our number corresponds to the order in which were first modified."
Shirou hid any outward reaction the best he could. He had thought that the company was collaborating with the aliens, but from what he could infer, it was more accurate to say that MBI owned them. If the Sekirei were raised in MBI's custody, then did this "Sekirei Plan" really have any intrinsic relation to the species at all?
"And how do these 'adjustments' correlate to ability?"
The grey-haired woman began picking at her nails. "MBI didn't want any mishaps, so the first ten adjustments or so were much lighter than those that followed. We have much more of our strength available to us compared to the others. The ones that got away from you today are likely part of that group."
The man nodded, mentally lamenting the fact that his partner couldn't even be bothered to remember anything about nine of their most noteworthy adversaries. "So you're confident in your ability to win against any Sekirei outside of the first ten?"
Karasuba chuckled. Her hand absently reached for a sword but dropped down to her side once she realised that she didn't have it on her.
He couldn't tell if she looked frustrated or elated.
"Don't be silly, Ashikabi-kun. Whether they've been heavily adjusted or not makes no difference to me. I'm the strongest, after all."
Shirou stared into her narrowed eyelids scrutinizingly. Whether it was true or not, that is what she believed.
"What was wrong with saying as much when I asked you this morning?"
Her cold, sliver orbs met his own.
"You asked if any of them are more dangerous than me."
"I did."
"I don't know."
Her response threw him for a loop.
"You just said that you're the strongest."
"And does that make me the most dangerous? Whether you're strong or not didn't really matter to that girl you gunned down remotely; how much I can kill them, or how much they can't kill me is irrelevant as long as there's an opportunity for a weakling to make a pain of themselves."
Ah. That was a fair point, admittedly. She might have been a little too self-confident for his liking, but at least she could think about their situation in a reasonable fashion.
He couldn't help but wonder if she had a particular "weakling" in mind when she said it, but there wasn't any point in bringing it up now.
Light and purposeless maneuvers wouldn't be as useful –or as advisable– now that he was expected to proceed along with his partner for the foreseeable future. Before he acted again, he would hire someone to attack MBI's servers and scrounge as much documented information on the one hundred and eight Sekirei as possible. Any information that that Karasuba had yet to share with him would be best revealed on a file-to-file basis so as not to miss anything.
Shirou let out a small laugh, then smiled gently at his companion.
His expression was met with tense one of her own. For a moment, he could have sworn that he heard her make a strangled noise for whatever reason.
"I suppose you're right. Let's go… hm?"
She pressed her lips against his, cutting his sentence abruptly with a munificently long kiss. When she pulled away, the woman turned around and walked towards the staircase with their groceries in hand.
"Why did–"
"No reason in particular," she answered before he could finish his sentence. Shirou was left alone on the rooftop.
"…"
As he thought. Trying to decipher what went through that one's head was a lost cause.
- Location
- Germany
I remember those kind scenes, where some character talks about what nefarious deeds an Overlord or someone with a bad rep is doing right at this moment, then the scene jumps to said Overlord watching a a cheesy soap while eating popcorn or something similar mundane.
But if she figures out what Shirou did while he had Karasuba shopping, she will she great evil in the most mundane of tasks Shirou does. Paranoia at its finest and its can't be dismissed as pointless since this Shirou is able and willing to go full Kiritsugu on his competition.
And to think this all happens because Tamaki mistook him for a spy, that makes it all her fault.
Oh. And her Son is also part of the game. Thus a valid target for Shirou.
That will cause her some nightmares.
That is something Shirou really should know. His/EMIYA's entire sword-style is about dealing with stronger and faster opponents.