Fate/Clusterfuck (Fate/Stay Night)

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1.7 - A Long Day
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    • [] [Lure the monster out of the alley]

    Thanks to @Armoury for the beta!

    A happy middleground maybe?

    —

    Every single part of your body is screaming at you to run away, there's a weight pressing down against you, a physical, clawing fear rooting your feet to the ground despite the adrenaline filling your system pleading with you to flee. The others, or at least Sakura, was feeling it as well. Her eyes were wide and full of terror, her legs were quivering, and her eyes kept moving from you towards the monster, her mouth partially open and shaking, but no words found their way out. Caster, for her part, was unreadable, her face concealed by her hood as she stared at you.

    Your body wanted to flee, your senses wanted to flee, and every single animal instinct in your body was telling you that to charge in there would mean certain death. But you couldn't let Minori die, you couldn't let anyone die. But you also couldn't fight.

    There was a happy median between those two conflicting feelings however. You swallow, your mouth suddenly, painfully dry. "Caster, can we lure it out of the alley?"

    You cannot see Caster's eyes, in fact, you can't see any part of Caster's face besides the lower half of her nose and her mouth. But you can tell she was staring at you harder than she was just a moment prior. "Why?" she asks, with no trace of emotion.

    "You said you don't have the mana to deal with it, but if we could distract it out of the alley, we can save Minori." You explain, a bit of a plea in your tone.

    "Master," Caster says, her voice barely above a hiss. "Engaging with this foe is foolish."

    "Then… then don't. But can we at least draw it out of the alley?" you ask.

    Caster continues to stare at you, saying nothing for several agonizing seconds as you hear the monster thud towards Minori behind you. Then, she nods. "Understood, master." Then she steps by you, her staff raised. You watch as she rounds the corner just as the monster raises its spear. Caster waves the hand holding the staff, and there's a snap in the air as a sudden chill seeps over everything. Runic circles form around her body in the air, spinning and churning with a baleful purple light that cast twisting shadows over everything around them. They are almost alive with how they move unnaturally… and it is noticed.

    The monster pauses, the eyes along its bodies snapping towards the lights, spasming in their sockets, jerking and twitching like they were fighting an urge to look away, but they hold nevertheless. Then you taste iron as the runic circles around Caster flash, twisting beams of glowing, purple energy that glimmer like nebulae shooting out to strike across the monster's back, a howl of echoing, layered agony filling the alleyway as the creature lurches forward. Its feet carve into the concrete ground, kicking up sprays of dirt and chunks of gravel that pelt and cover MInori's prone form.

    Then it turns around, and you get a good view of its front for the first time.

    You honestly wish you hadn't, it was… or rather, used to be a man. But no longer, it was a hulking, misshapen, thing. Like someone had taken a clay image of a man then melted it in a furnace. Ribs bulged against flesh, muscle twitched and pulsed beneath torn skin, red ligaments showing between barely stitched together muscle, its face, what remained of it, was a twisted mask, eyes where the chin would be, a mouth to the right side, and a nose sunken into the flesh. Its tongue, at least a foot long, hung lazily out the side, dripping drool across its body. And there were yet more eyes all across the chest and arms, and they were all focused onto Caster now.

    The monster lunged, faster than your eyes could hope to track. It moved like it had teleported, in one moment it was standing before Minori, in another it was swinging into the now empty space where Caster had previously resided. Your own servant had leapt back, her hands snapping out to grab onto you and Sakura, her cloak billowing behind her as you took flight out of the alley. Sakura screamed somewhere on the edge of your hearing, it was hard to make out past the whistling air and the roaring of the monster. Its spear slammed into the ground where Caster previously stood, sending a geyser of dirt into the air that pelted the windows and walls around it. Then it lurched towards the entrance of the alley, ungainly and unsteady as you continued flying away from it.

    Then it leapt towards you, and there was nothing ungainly about it anymore. It closed the distance you had created, perhaps a hundred feet, in the same time it took you to blink. It's tongue slapped against the side of its face,drooling evermore now as the eyes focused on the three of you, and the spear shot out, directly towards the space between your eyes. Your body twisted, at first you thought it was your doing, but a moment later you realized it was Caster's doing. The monster narrowly missed, the spear passing a foot by your head, dripping with blood and ichor.

    Your hand shoots out, panicking and using the first thing that Circe bothered to teach you. "Αερο!"

    A purple wave of wind erupts from your hand, causing the monster to tumble towards the ground. When Circe showed it to you she had cut down a tree, you could, on your part, use it to vaguely annoy a few blades of grass. But it had force behind it, and despite the creature's speed it could not fly… you hoped.

    With a howl it slammed back down into the park, the earth erupting around it as it landed on its feet. The scent of iron filled the air once more, and beams of light erupted from around you and Sakura to strike against the ground like an artillery barrage. The creature shifts and dodges, moving from one place to the next with more speed than you could ever hope to replicate, even with enhancement. Caster mutters something, you'd imagine a curse, underneath her breath as it leaps up once more.

    The wind roars by your ears as Caster applies speed to her movement, yanking you all backwards. It's not enough. The monster is in your face again, it took maybe two seconds to leap the several hundred feet required to get from where you were flying to where it was in the park. And its spear was now lancing towards Caster. Your twist your body, your hand stabbing out to grab the spear.

    You technically do, and in the next moment you are… gone.

    —

    You blink, staring up at the sky as you lay on your back, one moment you were flying through the air, a spear going through your hand. Next you were laying just beside Sakura on the ground… in front of your house where there were a lot of shouting people. You turn your head towards the estate to see multiple black cars and a limousine parked out front, men in tailored suits surrounded them, some with baseball bats, some with poorly hidden guns, all rather obvious Yakuza.

    They were shouting and running, towards you specifically. That wasn't a surprise, you had known most of these guys since you were younger.

    "Shirou!?" Sakura cries out, and you turn your head to see her eyes wide and staring at your hand.

    Caster was doing the same, though you could not see to the wideness of her eyes even as she stood about you. You glance down, oh, right. Adrenaline was a wonderful thing, that was what you would say was causing you to not feel your wound at the moment. Your hand had a hole in it, all the way through it. It was maybe two inches wide and half that tall, and you could see straight through it to the sky above.

    "Master Shirou!" a few of the men shouted, stepping around Sakura to get to you. "Are you injured?!"

    "Of course he is," Caster replies, sounding more than a little winded. The men turn to look at her, alarmed at her presence. But she simply steps by them to kneel at your side. As you watch, her hands moves to grasp your injured one, you watch, fascinated, as the blood on your hand coats the black of her gloves an even deeper shade… you'll need to apologize for that lat-

    The shock you were experiencing wears off just as the pain comes rocketing back, a searing, burning pain coming from your hand as she grips it, hard. You lurch upwards, your other hand flailing, Sakura letting out a yelp in the process as it slaps her on the shoulder before holding it in a death grip.

    Your vision dances before your eyes, it was like someone took your injured hand and dipped it into saltwater. Then she moves her hands away, idly rubbing the blood away on the street below, and leaving an… uninjured hand behind. You stare at it, blinking. "You healed me?"

    "Why did you believe yourself capable of stopping its spear?" Caster asks, not answering the question.

    You blink, then slowly pull yourself up off of the ground, reaching down to help Sakura up as well as you do so. "I didn't, I was trying to stop it from stabbing you."

    "I was in the midst of teleporting us away, why did you believe that was necessary?"

    You bristle, now feeling slightly annoyed. "I didn't know you were, and I didn't want you to get hurt."

    Caster doesn't respond to that, she instead just stares at you.

    You open your mouth to speak again, before a pair of hands clamp down onto your shoulders, you look up to see two of the men holding up, and before you can get an word in edgewise they start dragging you towards the estate. You groan, then shout as you approach the entrance. "RAIGA!"

    The door is opened for you, and you wrestle yourself free from the grasp of the two Yakuza holding you to stumble past the entrance and towards the dining room, you don't even bother to change out your shoes as you stomp into the room. There you see him, sitting at your kotatsu with a smile on his face, his old wizened features turning up into a grin as he looks at you, his milky white eyes focused despite his apparent issues with vision, and his silver hair glints in the dim light of the room. A pipe sits out one corner of his mouth, letting a slow, sweet smelling smoke in the air, and between that and the tiger pattern he gave your dining room more the air of a family headquarters than your own house.

    Taiga sat just next to him, facing the door, a deep frown on her face. She glared at you, then past you as Sakura and Caster came up behind you.

    "Good evening my boy, lovely weather we're having, isn't it?" Raiga asks, innocently. "I've had my staff prepare a dinner for us, take a seat."

    It's very kind of him to offer you a seat in your own house. Truly his magnanimity knows no bounds, you trudge forward regardless, slipping your shoes off and setting them by the door where one of the goons helpfully grabs them for you, then you make your way over to sit at the table, "Raiga, why is the Yakuza in my house?"

    Raiga frowns, though he's clearly amused. "My boy, I helped you take care of this house, and you let my darling granddaughter stay here as well from time to time. Don't act like I'm not a member of the family."

    "It's your family I don't want to be a part of." You grouse.

    "Be that as it may, my men have a good reason for being here, after all… you never quite know what may or may not be lurking around at night." Raiga replies, then blows out a bit of smoke.

    You pause, then stare at the man. "Raiga, are you?"

    The old man shakes his head. "No, in truth, I came because dear Taiga here," he says, patting Taiga on the knee. "Believe you had picked up one of my people. You haven't, I am happy to say. So for now I'm just visiting."

    "You weren't home when I got here! Where were you?!" Taiga cries out, her hands balled up into fists. It's not the play worry she sometimes puts on in class, or when she's teasing you. No, going by the redness around her eyes… It's very genuine.

    "We were getting groceries then… we were mugged." You hold up your hand to show off the wound, but to your… chagrin? Is that what you should be feeling? Caster didn't even leave a scar.

    "Mugged?" Taiga repeats. "You expect me to believe tha-" She pauses when Raiga holds up his hand.

    "Now is not the time, please, sit, and eat." Raiga says, gesturing towards the kitchen where two men are coming out carrying plates of food.

    It's a fine dish of meat and vegetables, far above what you would normally spring for, and at Raiga's insistence all of you, including Caster, eat around the table in relative silence. Not by your choice, there was a million things you wanted to say, and a billion rude ways you wanted to say them, but you held your tongue until Raiga spoke up again. "My apologies for the sudden appearance, and the use of your kitchen."

    You move to reply, but the man holds up his hand again to shush you. He gives you a good natured smile, then stretches his neck a little. "I normally do not… involve myself in matters such as this," he says, then gestures to Caster. "And that."

    You blink. "Do you… know Caster?"

    "No," Raiga answers bluntly, "I do not."

    Taiga looks between the two of you, clearly confused, but saying nothing. She's been oddly quiet by her standards, though she tended to get rather quiet in general when Raiga was around. You had known the man as far back as you could remember, or nearly regardless, and while friendly, he tended to own whatever room he was in. You genuinely enjoyed knowing the man, and enjoyed your regular outings with him as well.

    But he was still a Yakuza boss, and at moments such as this it was hard to separate that from the kindly persona he put on. Taiga's nervousness spoke of that enough. As did Sakura's nervous glances to the men stationed around the room.

    "Regardless boy. I shall be around a bit more than usual to make sure things remain… safe. Especially regarding my dear granddaughter." Raiga finishes, tapping his plate with his chopsticks.

    At once a man reaches down to take the plate away, and you watch as Raiga sits up with a grace that belies his age. He smiles down at you, then at Sakura, then at Taiga. He then glances over at Caster before nodding. "To answer your question young Emiya. I do not know Caster. But I do know… what she is. Be careful."

    You blink, opening your mouth to ask Raiga a question, but the man had already stepped out of the room, his guards quickly following. He leaves you in an awkward state, your food half eaten, with a put out looking Taiga, a confused looking Sakura, and an, as usual, emotionless Caster.

    … It's been a long day.

    —

    "Shirou," Taiga calls out.

    You look over from where you had been cleaning the dishes, Caster had excused herself immediately after dinner to return to her room, leaving you with Sakura and Taiga. Taiga had for her part spent her time glaring at you, while Sakura mostly… fidgeted.

    "Yes?" you ask.

    "That… Caster woman is dangerous."

    "All the women in my life are dangerous." You reply.

    Taiga stares at you, frowning once more. Then shakes her head. "I'll be taking the outside room tonight. I expect you to be at school tomorrow."

    "I wi… no, wait, tomorrow is Sunday."

    "Then I'll find something for you to do!" Taiga growls. "You've made your older sister upset!" Then she stomps off, her feet clapping against the floor.

    It has been a while since you've seen Taiga that angry, honestly angry, beyond just her teasing she seemed genuinely worried about you. Which… wasn't a surprise, she had been taking care of you, in her own way, for a long time now. But still, it had been quite some time.

    "I should be heading back, Shirou, Shinji is probably worried." Sakura says, ripping you from your thoughts. With a clatter of ceramic on metal she puts the plate she was working into the dish rack for drying, then turns to face you, a small but sweet smile on her face. "Thank you for… everything today Shirou."

    You smile back. "Anytime Sakura, you feel safe walking home?"

    Sakura nods. "I'll be fine, if that… thing was still chasing us, we would know by now."

    You suppose that's true… even if you don't like it. Still, you see her out, it was thankfully not too late out. And with that you found yourself standing alone in your hallway, an angry Taiga in one room, a quiet Caster in another… and your workshop.

    It has been a… long day.

    —

    [] [Check on Taiga]

    [] [Check on Caster]

    [] [Practice your Magecraft]

    —

    And yes, he accidentally dropped the groceries, he hasn't noticed yet.
     
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    • Time to acquire our deserved tongue lashing, and possible ass handing, if Taiga has her shinai on hand. It's only fair. Shirou has been an idiot of collosal proportions.

    [X] [Check on Taiga]
     
    Erien said:
    Adhoc vote count started by Erien on Nov 26, 2022 at 7:02 PM, finished with 15 posts and 15 votes.
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    Results so far. What do you think of Cu so far?
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    Fuck Kirei or whatever fucker is responsible for him being in that state with the axe of Marduk. Cu is my boy. Grailed to level 100 with max NP and my only fully leveled craft essence. Shirou better wreck that fool.
     
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