Skipping all the Steps [Exalted/FSN]

[Golden Lark]

The next few days were enlightening for all involved, to say the least.

Shirou got a crash course in smithing thaumaturgy - those rote and commonplace rituals every smith in Creation is taught in their first weeks after apprenticing in a forge. As Shirou was already familiar with the technical details of smithing, he could skip the long winded theory and allow Thundercloud to outline the simple processes. Twisting the hilt in a particular fashion while removing a blade from quenching to encourage rust resistance, hammering a red hot blade with a particular rhythm to ensure the metal crystallizes in a particular fashion, and other such techniques. They did not follow his sense of physical law and chemistry, but that was expected; thaumaturgy followed a principle of meta-laws, and just because prana wasn't being spent doesn't mean a price was not being paid for a particular phenomenon to be evoked by the World.

Or, he assumed it was the World. Thundercloud's familiarity with his art was limited to knowing how to perform his techniques, not the minutia of why they worked. To be honest, it wasn't much to Shirou's interest either, but Rin would skin him alive if he didn't make a token effort to understand the principles at work when he next had an opportunity. Senbrek's sum contribution to such questions was "Meh, you can make your own rules, don't worry about this crap," but Shirou had been educated well; he was to comprehend the principles he was evoking in their entirety before he did anything like modify or outright ignore them.


This discipline is why his skin and hair had not become discolored as EMIYA's had before his exaltation. Working together with Rin (and having an interim contract to Saber re-established so Avalon could heal him after any disasters), he slowly and carefully explored his own abilities, initially aiming to reproduce every ability Archer had displayed during the Holy Grail War, with the end goal being surpassing that Heroic Spirit while not damaging his body irrevocably in the process.

That his skin had bronzed and his hair whitened when he gained this Exaltation was an ironic callback to his tendency to sell himself for power, no matter what version of him he was referring to. At the very least, that shadow charm allowed him to hide the changes. Honestly, at this point he was beyond caring about the skin and hair, but the blade protrusions from his back and limbs were . . . questionable, at the very least. Better to appear completely human whenever possible.

[***]

Of course, there was nothing completely human about green fire, and in his second week staying with Thundercloud, he finally slipped up and allowed his power to shine through.

While for Shirou, learning Thaumaturgy was a relatively quick process, Stoic Thundercloud was unfamiliar with many of the alloys and temperature sensitivities that Shirou had internalized long ago. Shirou had even made it a point to catch a glimpse of more modern blades, regardless of their relative lack of supernatural value, simply so he could be totally up to date with the art of metallurgy on Earth. Carbon steel, carbon fiber, or even simple titanium were utterly unknown in this place- as made sense given the relative time period and technology level.

Still, the 'waste' slag from Thundercloud's smelter had plenty of titanium mixed in with the rest of the runoff; Shirou adamantly insisted he save it instead of disposing of it like usual. As the days passed Shirou helped him renovate his forge and smelter to reach ever-higher temperatures, until finally the available fuel simply didn't burn hot enough for long enough for the next phase Shirou had planned.

Senbrek's encouragement led Shirou to supplement his own power into the process, which burned as long and hot as he wanted it to.

Just, flares of green light flashing out from the forge were difficult to keep hidden.

Thundercloud had asked him about the sigil on his forehead that appeared when he summoned the flames, and when Shirou had looked in the quenching pool to see his reflection the crossed-falchions emblem was clear as day. Senbrek was rather quiet on its significance, which was unusual given how loudly and proudly he usually boasted of anything to do with Shirou's benefactors.

Even then, no one much noticed or cared until Shirou was working later one night. He tried to keep the light aura his power provoked from fully manifesting (his Anima, as Senbrek called it) by pacing his use of his power. He'd blast fire until he had a faint green glow about him, but no further.

In any case, his fixation on extracting titanium resulted in some passers-by at night seeing the green light and bursts of flame, and chatting about it. Rumor spread through the city slowly, and a slightly-greater-than-usual crowd would make their way by the forge to see the novel green fire. Apparently word spread to even the darker corners of the city, because one day when Shirou answered the door he was presented with a handful of grim faced rougher types that as one all looked at his forehead as soon as he opened the door.

"Green fire. Swords on forehead. Green light around him. that's him, boys."

Not being an idiot, Shirou was already backpedaling and turning to the back door as the knives came out. He dove through into the storage room and rolled as a knife sailed over his head, then came to his feet and grabbed his pet projects off their pegs on the wall.

They were not Kanshou and Bakuya. They contained no jade, they had no supernatural properties, and they lacked the proper cosmetic details and patterns. They would not call each other back to his hands when thrown. They had no intrinsic antipathy for monsters. They were swords he had forged with his own hands, weighted and balanced and wrapped to exacting specification. They were not Kanshou and Bakuya.

But against a pack of utterly mundane humans?

They might as well have been.

Shirou faced the entrance to the storage room, blades spread, and effortlessly deflected the next throwing knife sent his way. Instead of retreating further, he marched forward, and the knife thrower faded back allowing his larger allies to pass.

Shirou attempted diplomacy.

"Has there been some misunderstanding? I don't recognize any of you gentlemen. If this is a robbery then I'll defend the establishment, but it seems like you are specifically coming after me . . ."

Boss, just slice and dice 'em already.

Quiet, you.

A soft voice carried over from behind the men in front.

"Don't let him grab you. You all saw what happened to Ferret's arm. Kill him and we can leave. Don't mess up the smithy, Old Man Thundercloud does decent work."

At the word 'arm,' Shirou silently resigned himself to violence. These men were here for vengeance, and rightly so. No matter how justified he had been in stopping those drunks, crushing the arm and crippling the one was too far.

He shifted his grip on his twin blades, preparing the backs and hilts for blunt strikes. He could dismember these men easily enough, but he has no reason to and they are not causing undue harm, so permanent damage was out of the question. As the first two rushed him, he lunged forward and stabbed the blades forth, causing them to awkwardly half their advance. A moment later and he had raised the swords and slammed the hilts down on the assailants' knife hands, causing them to drop their weapons. A quick feint slash at both throats had them stumbling backwards, and he was easily able to bring his guard back up to block the throwing knives aimed at this eye and leg.

During this entire exchange he hadn't tapped his power, and he hadn't begun to glow any more intensely than he already was. This was going to have to change, however, as five men who outweighed him were more than he would dare to take on without casting Reinforcement.

Unfortunately for Shirou, he wasn't yet able to reproduce that magecraft. Something about the green fire element to his current power dissuaded him from suffusing it into his body, let alone the weapons he was currently using. He was missing something, something that would bend it to his will with much finer control, but at the moment he was limited.

Well, as limited as an Exalt ever got, but he didn't know that much, yet.

A pack of goons was coming to punish him for maiming one of their men. They knew what he was capable of, his intentions and control at the time aside. They were either foolish, or prepared for a berserker. Still, the group seemed lacking compared to what Shirou might consider an appropriate counter to a threat of his caliber. He considered his tactical options for ending the situation with no bloodshed, and came to a conclusion.

Overwhelming show of force, it is.

Hell yeah!

Stepping forward decisively, he blocked another thrown knife and passed between the two larger men. The one throwing the knives was next, but he slid past. The shorter man giving the orders and the shrouded figure next to him that had yet to speak were his first targets.

I need to intimidate them. To crush their faintest hope of victory. To break their spirit and send them running home. To make them aware that I could kill them, and that to challenge me is folly.

He thought he saw the green light flare brighter for a moment as he played through the ideal series of strikes in his head, and then moved.

No plan survives contact with the enemy, and he expected to improvise mid-combo, but he found himself lashing out with the backs of his blades faster than he expected. Before the two men in the back could react, he had slammed their heads together. He kicked back at the knife thrower behind him, careful to not break any ribs, and sent him flying back into the first large man. The second large man was almost on him again, and he spun, heading with both hilts, slamming the full weight of both swords and his fists into his forehead. Finally, he flung both swords and embedded them barely a centimeter from either of the first large man's ears as he was pushing the knife thrower off of him.

They froze, and Shirou stood with his palms up. A small green flame alit in each. His anima was glowing brightly enough now, so he willed them to submit in terror, as Senbrek had suggested to try in his next fight way earlier in the week.

They fell to their knees.

"Your friend was rapist scum."

They did not reply.

"If not for my mercy, sealing his wounds at the last second, he would be dead rapist scum."

Quivering silence.

"This is my second and final act of mercy. If you bother me again, if you harass this shop's owner, if I even think someone associated with you is even watching me . . . I'll come for you. I'll come for you all."

Shirou very slowly picked up one of the fallen throwing knives, and held it in his hand. The green fire in his hand slowly spread over it, and he steadfastly refused to flinch as the metal bubbled and melted and dripped to the stone floor. When it finished, he pointed with that same smoking hand to the door.

"Now take your friends and get out, and never let me see you again."

They grabbed their associates and dragged them off. Once they were out of sight, and Shirou was certain no one was watching, he shut the door, spun around, and leaned back on it, sliding down as he grabbed one wrist with the other hand, gasping in pain.

"What the hell, Senbrek?"

Ah, I didn't think that would actually hurt you, uh, sorry boss!

"I CAN GENERATE FIRE THAT DOESN'T BURN ME WITH MY HANDS BUT I STILL GET HURT BY THINGS IT HEATS?"

Ah, it seems like it. For now.

Shirou hissed in pain as he examined the terrible looking burn on his hand. It was bad enough that the moment the knife had superheated, he realized it was too hot to touch, but as it liquified and dripped onto his palm he had to endure the pain because he didn't want to drop his bluff. It was a wonder it hadn't melted right through his skin. As he flared sterilizing flame over his uninjured hand for a moment and then slowly began peeling the edge of the seared skin away, he wondered how much more durable he was overall since his Exaltation.

When the burned flesh came right off, revealing a gleaming layer of polished brass underneath his damaged skin, he figured the answer was "much more durable." He flexed his hand, and winced at the pain. Better than what Unlimited Bladeworks would have managed, but worse than Avalon would have handled it.

Huh?

Don't worry about it. Old magic.

Shirou was acutely aware of how his old supernatural healing functioned, now- both sides of it, even. Between his personal power manifesting blades inside his body to deflect blows, and the legendary sheath simply regenerating his body wholesale from any damage he survived, he used to be obscenely durable. Now, however, he was unable to invoke his former personal power, and even if Avalon was still embedded in his soul, he lacked the connection to Saber to empower it.

He glanced at his arm where the mark of his link to Saber used to be. Not a trace of it remained, as was the case with its twin on his other arm linking him to Rin. Sighing, he stood up. Sloughing the burned skin wound up being less of an ordeal than he expected it to be, and now he felt slightly foolish for welling up his will to withstand the pain. He tossed the discarded skin into the waste bucket, and did a double take as it made a metalling 'ting' when it hit the bottom.

"This just gets weirder and weirder." Shaking his head, he went to collect the remaining throwing knives and straighten up the inventory that was knocked over by the fight.

[***]

Stoic Thundercloud returned from speaking with one of his suppliers, after negotiating an amazing deal for a mass quantity of what was usually considered bottom-of-the-barrel quality ore. After seeing the new metal Shirou had been slowly extracting from samples of it, he was quite excited at the prospect of a business lock on a new classification of blade. He swung open his shop's door and almost floated into the room, and scooped up his smithing hammer which had been hanging on the display wall as one of his favorite examples of his own work. Giving it a cheerful twirl, his heart skipped a beat as it spun wild in his hand and almost went flying across the room. As he lurched forward and regained control over his favorite tool, he pulled it close and examined the metal.

Frowning, he looked around the nearby items on display, and grabbed a couple more obviously afflicted ones in hand. His mood blackening quickly, he all but stormed into the back room, where Shirou was apparently rearranging things on the shelves.

"Shirou. What the hell is this?"

He slammed the implements onto one of the side tables.

Shirou looked at the steel hammer and chisels that were now mottled with a very familiar shade of brass and felt a fresh bead of sweat roll down his face.

 

[Golden Lark]

Though many points could qualify, I consider the kidnapping to be the true beginning of the change. Up until then, Shirou had continued moving forward by reflex, acting and reacting as he usually would, despite the lack of his familiar arsenal of weapons. It was, to be crude, vaguely reminiscent of a western cartoon character continuing forward after running off of a cliff. Only here did he actually glance down and truly accept that there was no ground underneath him.

Likewise, it was here that he truly brought forth his new power, and by extension, considered new options. New choices- choices that were no longer being influenced by the steady whispers of Avalon. He was still Emiya Shirou, who wished to be an ally of justice . . . but instead of a sword, he now found himself with a crown. A terrible, burning crown that was no more or less evil to him than a blade. It is this moment when he consciously donned it.

It was a pity, then, that the whispers of the Demon City were just as coercive as the Ever-Distant Utopia's.

-Coelica, the Frozen-Light Chronicle, seventh soul-progeny of the Unlimited Bladeworks

[***]

Wait, hold on. Did you just imply I was some kind of prenatal manipulative bitch?

-Avalon, the Ever-Distant Utopia, second soul-progeny of the Unlimited Bladeworks

[***]

The next couple of weeks were surreal.

Shirou had gone into an apologetic smithing frenzy, pushing his power to the very edge of bleeding out to his surroundings while repairing or reforging everything his earlier outburst had corrupted.

That said, Stoic Thundercloud was no fool, and quickly tried to dismiss Shirou's concerns on hearing about the circumstances of the assault. Apparently Shirou had indirectly earned the ire of one of the local crime groups. Thundercloud only knew this because Shirou's description of the man that had namedropped Thundercloud was something of an occasional repeat customer.

The attack aside, Thundercloud made sure to have Shirou smelt and preserve all of the brass and other odd deposits from the exposed products. Metal was metal, and while brass wasn't exactly the most expensive or hardy of base materials, there were always uses for soft metal. Especially once it was purified and cleaned of the mottled tarnish that had been present when it was first discovered.

After replacing all of the compromised stock, Shirou went on to resume forging his replicas of Kanshou and Bakuya with a vengeance. This place was dangerous. He had become complacent, unthinkably complacent, while being satisfied working with Stoic Thundercloud for the past month. Even Senbrek had eased off on attempts to get him to move on or make his way towards "The City."

[***]

What Shirou didn't ask and didn't suspect was that Senbrek had long figured out what way the wind was blowing, and decided to keep his peace and let the natural course of events do his work for him. The Blood Ape was no stranger to street gangs and turf wars. Shirou's second display of defiance would not go unanswered; the demon did not have to be human to understand that. The powers that directed the scum of these streets would not let this challenge go unanswered, especially in light of Shirou's final threat.

So, Senbrek waited, and ignored the itching sensation that was building up inside him. He did not survive to his age by succumbing to idiotic violent instincts every time they struck him, and there was no way he was going to be swayed by the annoyingly persistent pull at him to turn around in his metaphorical 'room' and pull the gigantic lever that would trigger Shirou's first duty to his masters. His host was quite willful- respectably so, in fact. A burden of obligation would be best placed as a welcome distraction, rather than a sudden interruption.

The young human despised excessive violence, yet almost unerringly sought it out, by word and deed. Senbrek decided to play his card after Shirou's next conflict, which would inevitably be the biggest one yet. If he followed through on his threat (which he could most certainly do with his power), he probably wouldn't be too proud of himself. Nodding slowly, Senbrek continued to wait as the days passed.

[***]

With a pair of loud thunking sounds, the board at the far end of the impromptu firing range splintered splendidly. A few moment later, Shirou jogged up to it and wrenched his new swords free, nodding in satisfaction as he inspected them. The blades had not taken any damage from the impacts, and remained perfectly sharp.

Stoic Thundercloud let out a low whistle and clapped slowly from the rear door of the shop, without sarcasm. He had peppered the younger smith with questions about his pet project as the weeks had passed, and had gotten oddly dissatisfying answers the whole time. Apparently Shirou had been replicating some blades he used to own, but had confessed that he lacked the skill and materials to make a complete copy. When pressed a bit more (considering Shirou's unconventional skill at bladecraft dwarfed all but a few dragonblooded Thundercloud had ever seen at work), he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and said that while he probably did indeed have the necessary skill, he wouldn't dare attempt to prepare the components. Such a response frustrated the elder smith, but he didn't make a huge deal of it. After all, the twin short swords Shirou kept tweaking seemed to be more or less perfect.

When Shirou's muttered criticisms made it to Thundercloud's ears, they tended to consist of things like "Still unbalanced" and "I gotta remember they aren't easily replaced now." Day after day, on his personal time, the younger man kept working on them and practicing with them. It was all Thundercloud could do to slip away with the blades one morning and present them to a tanner acquaintance to commission sheaths without Shirou noticing.

The tanner was altogether impressed with the blades, and Thundercloud answered questions as best he could . . . but when asked how Shirou normally stored and drew the blades, he was at a loss. Shirou would practice kata with the incomplete swords every day, but he would never begin with a drawing motion; he always fell directly into form blades akimbo. As the smith awkwardly demonstrated what he recalled of Shirou's stances and motions, the tanner nodded with a hand on his chin.

Taking measurements, the tanner clicked his tongue. "It's gotta be a back strap. Normally it would be a belt strap for swords this short, but if he always centers himself like that, the shortest possible motion is pulling them from behind the shoulder blades directly into that stance. Belt would require too much wrist twisting during a cross-draw. The way he throws them, too- while he won't be able to fling them both from a draw, if they are like this he can present his side and send one spinning from the sheath in a single overhand motion. Yeah, uncrossed back sheaths it is. I'll drop them off when I'm done."

Quietly pleased with himself for the initiative, Thundercloud slipped the blades back where Shirou had left them and got back to work. Business had been picking up slowly but steadily since Shirou joined him, and he had been able to afford more time to experiment with his craft as opposed to simply making ends meet. The display wall of the shop was slowly accruing a greater variety of less common products that both men had put on display after mutually agreeing they could each produce more for resale if requested. Meanwhile the back room was getting its own fair share of new one-offs that, while perfectly good products, where not going to be easy to mass produce if ordered. The brasswork trinkets Thundercloud had made were included in this category.

[***]

Wiping sweat from his brow, Shirou inspected his blades once again. He had continued practicing after they were completed, now intent on shaping his power than the blades themselves. Kanshou and Bakuya had an affinity against monsters, and could summon each other back to the hands of the wielder holding one of them. This property extended to any number of copies of the blades Shirou might project, allowing for all sorts of creative ambushes in a duel. While Archer had never displayed or used such tricks during his fight with Shirou all those years ago, the possibilities were obvious when he simply considered ways to exploit the nature of his preferred blades in combination with his own powers. Indeed, even Saber had remained unaware of the true potential in the blades, and Shirou had occasionally wondered just how an actual fight in earnest would go between his alternate future self and the King of Knights. Still, such matters were irrelevant in his present circumstances.

Now he was not able to reproduce more sets of the pair on a whim. They had no natural ability to attract each other, and if they broke he would not be able to remake them in an instant. He had different powers, now. He had been trying to wrench his ability to command the spirits of objects into letting him recall the blades to his hands, but he could never quite get it to work.

On some level, his mental model of the heartless, absolute King would always crumble. He loved the blades too much to truly subject them to the burning, merciless flames of his new power shaped by his will. As such, when he'd throw them at whatever his current practice target was, embedded they would remain until he stopped his various attempts at posing and commanding, sheepishly walked over, and pulled them free. Senbrek had the decency to not mock his failures, only occasionally saying something like "You're too soft, boss." but never in a jeering manner.

After the morning's attempts and failure, Shirou set the blades down in the shop and waved to Thundercloud's back as the older man kept pounding at his latest project on the anvil.

"I'm heading out to get ingredients for lunch. Be back in a while!"

The old man grunted in affirmation and kept hammering, and Shirou grabbed a pouch of Jade from under the counter and headed out into town.

[***]

When he got back a bit later than expected with a load of fresh meat and vegetables in tow, he shouldered open the door to the shop, and paused after taking a few steps inside.

The smoke from the forge was as strong as ever, and it took him a moment to realize why he hesitated.

It's a bit after our normal lunch time. The old man never leaves the forge burning at full heat when he's taking a break, and normally he'd be giving me some good natured crap about keeping him waiting after saying I'd take care of food from now on.

One guy in the back room, boss.

Thanks, Senbrek.

Shirou set the bag of groceries down and called out while reaching for one of the display weapons. His own swords were in his room, too far to get to right now.

"Hello? Is someone back there?"

"Ah, yes, one moment!" Footsteps telegraphed a figure rushing out of the back room. "Thundercloud wasn't responding to me, so I was looking for him and-" the man cut off as he came out from the back room, holding a box in his hands. It was Unbreaking Reed, one of the local tanners Thundercloud knew.

Looking at each other, they mutually bowed a bit and then glanced around.

Shirou's bad feeling didn't go away, but sort of built up despite the anticlimax. Walking past the man, Shirou headed back to the forge, when he froze.

It was burning at full tilt, unattended. The cardinal sin of all blacksmiths.

Thundercloud was nowhere to be seen, but there was a bloodstain on the floor.

On the wall, held up by a dagger, was a single scrap of paper with a symbol brushed onto it with bright violet ink. Reed came up behind Shirou to see the landing himself, and sharply hissed in a breath through his teeth when he noticed it.

Shirou spun. "What is that sigil? Who took Thundercloud?" He grabbed the man by the shoulders. Reed's hands came up palms forward.

"Easy there, man. It's the mark of the Purple Hawks- the symbol is a blend of the characters for each word, see? They call themselves anti-Realm freedom fighters, like the rest of the color-themed gangs, but they're just local scum as far as normal citizens are concerned."

Shirou began to relax as he went over options for ransom or simple hostage extraction, and figured they might be trying to extort a discount from the old man. His calm analysis was shattered as Reed went on-

"Thundercloud mentioned you'd had a run-in with them a while back, though-"

-and was replaced with disbelief, then a flash of self-hatred, and a steadily building base of anger. He didn't hear whatever else Reed was saying as he stormed into his room, grabbed his blades, and swept past the man as he headed for the door.

"OY! HOLD UP!"

Shirou lurched to a halt and spun on the man, his expression complicated. Anger, annoyance, and desperation all warred for dominance.

"Yes?" he ground out.

Reed bit his lip, then shook his head sharply once and tore open the wrapping around the box he held, tossing the top aside.

"He had me make these for you. Looks like you might need them before he gets a chance to present them to you himself."

Inside were a pair of beautiful sheaths, crafted to perfectly fit Kanshou and Bakuya- or at least, his current replicas of them.

Shirou's mind crashed to a halt, as he recalled the various pieces of conversation the old man had started up over the blades. That he had gone so far as to surprise him with a gift like this, despite the trouble Shirou had brought to his doorstep . . .

Shirou set down his blades and carefully removed the contents from the box.

Boss. You probably wanna armor up before you go running off again, right?

Swallowing his response, Shirou just nodded. He had almost gone running after his benefactor with nothing but two naked blades. The guard probably would have stopped him long before he found a hint of Thundercloud's whereabouts.

Heading back to his room, Shirou pulled out his attempt at reproducing his old armor. While no carbon nanofibers were to be found in this world at present, he didn't think he did too terribly with the simple chestplate and boots he started strapping on.

Reed helpfully spilled everything he knew of the Hawks as he helped Shirou adjust straps and donned his new sheaths for the first time, speeding up the whole process immensely. The information contained the gang's known hangouts, a few of its more visually distinct members, and other priceless intel Shirou almost left without even trying to ask for.

He tried to take the opportunity to cool his head while listening, but the more he heard, the more irritated he got. When he finally finished getting ready, he grabbed the coinpurse containing his savings since moving in with Thundercloud, thanked Reed, and headed outside once more. As he made his way out of the craftmen's market area, he eyed the boyer's shop, and paused.

Normally, for this type of situation, he would project his preferred bow if needed. That was not an option. He had avoided archery since he had arrived in this world, mostly because he sensed he had lost his edge. The perfect Kyuudou, the void of self- it was no longer in him. The couple of times he had tried to meditate as per his old magecraft practice habits, he failed to grasp that perfect center of emptiness, finding only a flickering, flaring blaze instead. Recoiling from it initially, he had been calling on it to augment his smithing and swordplay, but he hadn't felt right relying on it for his old standby.

Sighing, he walked into the shop, quickly grabbing the best bow on display he had been eyeing occasionally for quite some time now. The shop's associated fletcher had been busy, so he easily found enough arrows for sale to fill a quiver he also tossed into the purchase. A few moments of the shopkeep cheerfully helping him strap his new purchases on later and he was back on the street with a decent amount of extra weight on his back.

Drawing his bow and firing was a reflexive enough motion for him, but the sheaths were new. Over and over again as he walked, he imagined enemies approaching from all directions and imaged trained the appropriate motions to deal with them, by drawing one or both swords, the bow, or merely engaging in hand to hand as the situation warranted. The expression on his face might have been a bit intense, as when he blinked and noted his surroundings, he found people glancing at him nervously and moving out of his way.

Sighing a bit, he tried to let up on his body language, but his mind kept slipping back into unpleasant thoughts. Suddenly, he realized what had been missing.

Senbrek, you've been pretty quiet.

Don't have much to say. You're more or less doing everything I'd recommend at the moment. You're getting ready for a huge rumble. The ape snorted. I might disagree on how you actually fight once you get where you're going, but even then me harpin' on ya isn't gonna change much. We'll see where you are when the dust settles and take it from there.

Shirou didn't quite know what to say to that, so he let it lie. Still, the demon's admission that it had no advice beyond Shirou's current course of action was actually somewhat reassuring, given the ape's self-proclaimed expertise in all things street-gang related. There was just one little niggling thing bothering Shirou as he marched to the docks, where the Purple Hawks were said to keep a warehouse. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but there was something he was forgetting. Something relevant to the situation that he shouldn't have forgotten.

The feeling had been bothering him since the attack on Thundercloud's shop, and it was part of what had spurred him on to making his swords and practicing with his new magic. Now that he was in this situation it was almost an itch in his mind, driving him to either address it or distract himself strongly enough to blot it out.

He made his way across the district, finding one particular run down warehouse with a slightly faded familiar violet mark. Tossing a glance around the area for guards and lookouts, he kept walking as if he was going to pass it by, but turned and drew his bow in a single motion, firing off three shots that took down the men loitering to either side of the entrance and the one on a nearby roof. Moving into a run, he charged at the door and lashed out with a jump-kick while nocking another arrow, feeling the burning might in his legs respond without resistance.

The wooden door splintered and imploded, knocking a few more men clear and startling the rest inside long enough for more than a few arrows to find themselves new homes in torsos. None of the men in sight seemed to have ranged weapons, so as he moved forward they all fell quickly until Shirou ran out of ammunition. Stowing the bow on his back again, he didn't draw his blades just yet. Barrels and stacks of various ill-gotten goods blocked line of sight, and he didn't have to work too hard to flank the few pursuers left and knock them out. Deciding against taking the time to recover some arrows, he dashed to the rooms in the back of the warehouse and tried to decide just how far he was ready to go to 'persuade' the boss of this operation to tell him where Thundercloud might be being held.

Throwing open the first door he came to, he saw a desk and some scrolls and books. Moving to the next one, he flung the next door open and saw-

-and saw-

Shit.

Tied to a support pole in the middle of the room was Thundercloud. he was sitting on the ground, slumped over, and blood decorated the floor around him, the pole behind him, and his pants. There were teeth here and there, and the old man's shallow, ragged breaths might have granted a modicum of relief to the average witness, but Shirou wasn't focused on the breathing.

Thundercloud's chest was bare, his shirt having long since been torn off. While his gut was bruised, his stomach and chest didn't seem to be punctured or bleeding. His arms, however, were black and blue and swollen, and Shirou could see the places where fractures were unevenly made in his bones. A quick clinical glance told him that considering the man's age and the apparent state of medicine in this place, those mighty arms would likely never lift a hammer again.

The room gradually brightened, as the light Shirou was emitting intensified steadily. He looked down at his hands, and wondered what he should have done- what he could have done, instead of hiding his head in the sand and trying to forget about the ruffians from before. He watched a few of his own tears fall and start smoking as they began to dissolve the boards of the floor. At the absurd realization that he apparently had acidic tears now, his mind blanked out for a second, and in that second, the itching feeling of forgetting something became a burning, then a searing memory that finally surfaced from the depths of his heart.

Old man Raiga in his hospital bed, rambling on about the Yakuza to Shirou, during a mildly uncomfortable visit after the head of the Fujimura-gumi had brushed uncomfortably close to death. The majority of the conversation escaped him, but the gist of Raiga's words suddenly lit up in his mind, washing out everything else.

He had indeed just disturbed one of the 'dragons' of organized crime.

And he was damn well about to follow through.

 

[Golden Lark]

Shirou only allowed himself to freeze for as long as he did due to Thundercloud's condition. While horrific to look at, any and all emotions roiling in Shirou's mind were not enough to stop him from providing critical medical care without hesitation.

As it was, the beating had been brutal, but some small part of Shirou's mind was trying to unravel the puzzle of how to untie him from the column without further ruining his arms; in a sick way, the bondage served as a bracing. A twisted, misshapen bracing that would heal in a ruinous fashion, sure; but it was keeping the broken bones from actually poking out of the arms.

A few more shuddering breaths, and Shirou considered the situation behind him. A number of goons with arrows in them, some of which might need medical attention. Some might even be trying to escape. Things would get bad soon. He was in no position to move Thundercloud at all, let alone with the necessary care his condition demanded. He spoke quietly.

"Wait here old man, I'll get you out of here as soon as it's safe."

He could feel his heart rate going up in a way that the short one-sided battle hadn't managed to inspire. Decision paralysis was something he thought he had long since weaned himself of, but his objectives were in conflict. Even if he made it out with Thundercloud and got back home, they'd come. They'd come, and never stop. Shirou turned and considered the closest gang member moaning on the ground back in the main portion of the warehouse. Options, none of them good enough, ran through his mind.

Before he got much further, Senbrek's voice cut in to his thoughts, its rough edge providing him something to focus on.

Boss. Would you be open for a little advice?

Shirou swallowed his emotion gut response.

As long as it's nothing we'd discussed as unacceptable, sure.

The ape's mental grunt was hard to read.

You have two goals here. Help your buddy, and get them to leave you alone.

Shirou nodded.

They will never leave you alone, unless they are all dead-

-Shirou opened his mouth to silence the demon-

-or you establish dominance.

Shirou's mouth snapped shut.

This here? This place? It's a racket. Look under any three tarps, I bet you find two stolen things and two illegal things. The guys that are messing with you? They don't give a crap about you, specifically. They don't give a crap about your buddy. Hell, even the mooks you have on the ground in here are out of luck.

But this haul? This whole warehouse full of stuff?

You are here, and you can control it. And they can't call the guards on you if there's contraband in here.

I'm listening. Shirou offered.

First, drag the three guys that you shot outside in here, then bar the door. Don't worry, you can play medic to your heart's content in a little bit. Just trust me for now.

Shirou considered it, then figured Senbrek would know his stuff about street crime operations. He went to haul in the three men outside, taking inventory of most of the men he had shot as he passed through the warehouse.

As it stood, most of them were still where they fell, and a couple were staring at the body of one that had pulled his arrow out; a poor move no matter the world or age. He had bled out quickly, as Shirou had been quite indiscriminate with his shots. Making his way to the door, he walked outside almost expecting a half ring a spears to greet him. Instead, the area outside looked completely unchanged. He stepped over to guards at either side of the door and dragged them in by their collars, quieting any protests with a glare. Finally, he went around the side of the building and found the man who had been perched on the nearby roof. He had a broken leg in addition to his arrow problem. That one made a bit of noise as he was dragged in.

Once the last man was inside, Shirou shut and barred the door, then wandered around the warehouse dragging wounded bodies into a row in the front section. Some men were more energetic than others, but the wiser ones had simply turned so their arrows weren't being jostled and waited for medical help. Shirou figured some of them didn't even realize he was the one that shot them, considering how quickly he had stormed the building.

One man had been trying to open one of the crates to get at the bottles inside, but his strength had failed him before he had gotten the lid off. Shirou finished prying it off and took out a bottle.

"Hero's Recovery. What, is this like a Potion?"

He didn't want to consider it, but if magic wasn't secret here, then magical products probably weren't too rare either.

"Ah-" The wounded man was reaching up. Shirou looked him in the eyes.

"You want this? What does it do?"

The thug blinked.

"Heals you faster. Keeps you alive. Bosses would kill me if they saw I drank the stock, but I was dead anyway, I thought."
Shirou took off the lid and slowly poured it into the man's mouth, then dragged him over to the rest, taking care to tie his arms afterward.

"Who wants a Hero's Recovery?"

A dozen men turned their attention away from their pain to Shirou, then to each other, warily. Shirou made a show of shrugging and scoffing.

"You all have arrows in you, and that's a pretty shitty way to die. You take the potion, I patch you up a bit, you might have a better shot at walking away. My grudge isn't with you."

Shirou walked over to the dead man when the rest of them didn't speak up. He fully intended on patching all of them up, no matter what, but for the moment he had an image to project.

"Of course, it won't be for free." He met the eyes of all the men that were able to look at him. "My friend is tied up in the back. Someone did a number on him. I want to know who."

A few softly muttered curses. Murmurs. No one spoke up. Shirou gave an exaggerated sigh.

"You seem to be under the impression that there is a choice in the matter." He reached down for the ankle of the dead man. "Allow me to clarify things."

He pushed, and instead of the power erupting from his hands as flame, it flowed into the body. Then the entire corpse burst into flame, almost making him flinch. Staring at his handwork, he watched as the clothes and soft flesh burned away rapidly, and then the smouldering, blackened skeleton lit up with green embers, flared up, then crumbled into dust itself.

That was . . . a little more than I expected, honestly.

When he looked back at the men, he saw expressions he didn't expect.

He saw men resigned to death; albeit a relatively quick and painless one.

Damn it.

"What? You weren't impressed? Or did you not catch that? Here, let me try again." He tore a loose plank of wood from a rotten, empty barrel nearby.

"This time I'll do it slowly. Like I'll be doing to you if you don't cooperate."

And the time he maintained a mental vice grip on the power, trickling it into the plank, watching as only the far edge heated, then glowed, then slowly burned away down towards his hand. A couple nails melted and dripped onto the floor as the heat reached them, as well. Those flames had to be extinguished with a bit of casual footwork.

That time, the men were staring silently.

Then one spoke up.

"The Hammer Brothers came in with him and left without him."

Shirou tried to dismiss the sudden ancient memories of 8-bit armored turtles flinging hand tools at plumbers, but failed.

"Excuse me?"

"Th- the Hammer Brothers. Enforcers. They each carry a sledgehammer around. And use them on people."

Shirou's earlier look at Thundercloud's arms suddenly took on a new light, as multiple blunt impacts with a large hammer or two would have been able to inflict all of those wounds just fine. He nodded to the man.

"And now that you've named them, if they somehow hear of it they'll be using those hammers on you?"

A shaky nod.

Shirou smiled.

"Then it's probably in your best interests to keep helping me. Because I don't intend on letting them use their weapons on anyone, ever again."

He went to the first man to speak up, and popped open a bottle of Hero's Recovery, holding it to his mouth. The man's eyes darted to the hand that had burned the plank for a second. Shirou debated how to proceed with intelligence gathering, and went for a long shot.

"I don't intend on letting them walk away after what they did. Them, or who they work for, or who they work for. All of you. Sign up with me, and you'll get the benefit of being on my good side."

When no one responded, Shirou considered that even if they had been in good health, the goons wouldn't have been the sharpest tools in the shed.

"They guy in the back, with the broken arms? He's on my good side, and I'm going to burn everyone that had a say in deciding to hurt him."

As he grabbed another bottle and went to the next wounded man, he blinked and spoke one more time.

"If it makes you feel any better, just let me know who else in the organization even knows your names or faces, and I'll put them right on my short list. The 'join or burn' short list."

At that, a few things happened at once.

A number of voices muttered agreement to his terms, with varying degrees of sincerity and enthusiasm.

As they did so, Shirou felt something light up in his mind, something he had been reaching for over the last few weeks but could never quite latch on to. It was the connection to his swords; that certainty that they were his- whenever he projected blades, they were always tweaked just a bit such that he was able to use them as if he was their original wielder. It was a particularly nasty 'cheat' that Rin had pointed out, when he had effortlessly copied and swung around an ancient blade cursed to bring immediate death to all but its proper owner. Rin verified the curse was intact, and was simply treating Shirou as its proper master.

Once it was pointed out to him, he was able to detect that feeling in any blade he projected from Unlimited Bladeworks. He tried to recapture that feeling with the blades he had just forged himself, with little luck. He was missing something, for sure; if he had his power, then he'd easily be able to copy them and then study the difference. In any case, the last place he expected to find that connection was to the men that had just expressed their (understandably) reluctant loyalty to his cause.

He reached out to those sparks in his mind and pulled.

A dozen men cried out in surprise as flares of green light flashed all around the chamber. Each one now sported a brand on the back of their right hand - a brand that looked suspiciously like Shirou's old Command Seals from the Holy Grail War. He became aware of them all, in some sense, in the back of his mind. Before he could react visibly or ask, Senbrek broke in.

Perfect. Now follow through.

Without thinking too hard about it, he turned his back on the wounded men and waved a hand dismissively.

"That was about half of you. I honestly figured more of you would be interested in staying alive, myself."

Another series of voices hastily called out, and another series of fates were sealed with viridian light.

 

[Golden Lark]

Senbrek sat back and watched the show.

Other than speaking up with an additional piece of advice here and there, Shirou seemed to have this phase well in-hand. The only problem was his hesitation to use overwhelming force when appropriate. Still he seemed to be familiar enough with Senbrek's preferred style of encouragement. First, offer the subject an extremely unacceptable choice. Then offer the option you want them to take, which seems much more reasonable.

Normally Senbrek offers grievous bodily harm and/or death, first, followed by something more simple like getting the hell out of his territory. Simple, one time exchanges. Now? Shirou's offering was "killing" in contrast to "recruitment." What bothered him, in this case, was that he was not really offering an honest choice at all. The men were unaware of Shirou's softy nature, but Senbrek wasn't. Killing helpless prisoners wasn't going to happen, even if they refused the offer. Thankfully the fledgling Infernal Exalt was a consummate bluffer and had convinced the mooks otherwise.

Shirou was eventually going to wind up killing the head of this operation. That was inevitable; it was from the moment he chose not to skip town after breaking those two men in the alley. It was Senbrek's duty to make sure Shirou survived that task and reached The Demon City.

He was pretty sure Shirou wasn't going to lose any fights. After all, his combat readiness was leagues above the average peasant. Even his heart rate barely jumped when he started firing arrows at the goons in the warehouse- Blood Apes tended to enjoy their fights, but even he could appreciate the significance of a constant mid-battle calm. It's one of the things he pulled out on occasion to live as long as he had. Raging Blood Apes are predictable, and being predictable gets you killed.

Hence why he didn't have too much input on Shirou's current actions. Beyond the idea of "standing up to the gang," very little of what was happening next was sensible from the perspective of a small time crime lord, so it would likely not be countered effectively. Given time and money, the warehouse could likely be reclaimed by the Hawks with the contents intact, but Shirou could act fast to keep his advantage.

Simply put, he needed the bosses of the operation to be thinking in terms of "This guy is extorting us for this month's haul" for as long as possible, as opposed to "This guy is coming to kill us to the last man." They could bluff their extortion without wasting resources on actually securing it too much, and focus on getting the enemy to expose their throat.

It was this last point that Senbrek was letting Shirou take the lead on. At the end of the day, when it was time to bash skulls, he used the direct approach. Tricking the enemy into vulnerability was effective, but not something he tended to do on such a large scale. His host, however, was already chatting with his new minions, working out a way to have some of them 'escape' the warehouse and reintegrate into the Hawks while providing false intelligence and in turn passing back to Shirou what he needed to slip in quietly and cut the head off of the dragon, so to speak.

It was quite educational, to be perfectly honest.

Still, his host had his eccentricities, and on noticing yet another potentially lethal one rear its head, Senbrek found himself with little choice other than to speak up, lest Shirou once again veer towards a path that would get them both killed.

[***]

"So, any of you with families will be infiltrating back into the gang, while the ones that are alone will stay in here to secure the stuff. The idea is that if they try busting in here, you set everything on fire- or at least, be very very convincing in showing that you will." Shirou took a moment to let that sink in, and appreciate the looks on the faces of the men that would get to see their families soon. "Okay. So, we'll stage your escape before you finish healing up, and then you'll get information back to me like how I explained before-"

Boss.

"-one moment, gentlemen." Yes, Senbrek?

You're banking a lot on their ability to follow all these complicated instructions.

That's your worry? I would have thought you'd be more concerned with betrayal.

Oh, not at all. If they try to screw you, you can set them on fire.

What?

The thing, with the brands. If they betray you, you'll know, and can punish them. And they all know it.

That, how did- I didn't even mean . . .

That's more or less how it goes. They will try to obey, but they don't look too bright.

I, uh, am used to the type. You just have to given them small, easy to understand steps.

If you say so. Just, try to avoid big words, and don't expect any clever thinking.

There was a slight pause.

Why do I get the feeling that that's how you deal with me?

The Blood Ape's mental chuckle did not bolster his self confidence.

Don't worry boss, you're clever enough.

Well, thank you.

Still dumb as a particularly dull rock about some pretty obvious things, though.

I take it back.

Normally, when dealing with Rin or Saber, he'd threaten to withhold dessert at this point. Unfortunately he had no such hold on Senbrek- for now. Shaking his head, he turned back to the men to finish his briefing.

[***]

"Okay, you're all untied and the ones that are staying are bandaging each other up. The rest of you, get moving when I open the door."

One extremely bright burning green arrow later, and there was a hole in the door, through which half of his new allies ran immediately. He then put out the flames before mundane fire could catch, and shoved a few of the heaviest pallets across the entrance, blocking it anew.

"Okay, start sealing it off, and I'll come back after I check on Thundercloud. Come get me if anything unexpected happens."

Shirou nodded at his new followers' acknowledgement of his orders and slipped off to the back room where Thundercloud was still tied to the column. The primary difference, now, was that there was a makeshift straw in his mouth whose other end was in a bottle of very, very nice liquor.

"Sh- Shirou. I'd pour you a g-glass, but I'm a little tied up at the moment. Ha, ha-ha."

Shirou winced at his friend's attempt to lighten the mood.

"I'll take that offer once you're back in smithing shape. For now, though, can you still feel your arms?"

"Yeah. But it's more a burn now rather than crippling pain. A few more sch-swallows and it should be down to a th-throb. I've felt worse, back when I first started swinging a hammer."

Shirou just nodded, while giving the man's body another check for emerging issues. Satisfied that nothing had gotten worse so far while he was gone, he sighed.

"You know anyone that might be able to fix you up? Money is no object, I'll trade everything in this damned building to get you fixed up."

Thundercloud blinked slowly, his inebriation delaying his response.
"I dunno anyone tha' good. Mebbe a dragonblooded. but they'd never stoop to fixin' the likes of us, ya know? Not without knowin' us or a rif- ruf- referral. Yeah. Good luck wit dat."

As the man's head lulled after his most recent couple of pulls from the straw, Shirou decided to leave him in peace for the moment. As he made his way back towards the front of the warehouse, Senbrek spoke up.

Boss. There's one other option.

Shirou hesitated in his march forward for a moment.

Another option that will have a side effect you fail to mention until it's too late? No thanks.

The blood ape sighed in his head. No. Nothing like that. Not that this plan doesn't have a downside, but it will fix the guy up like new.

I'm listening.

Okay, so you remember what I looked like before we merged, right? Giant ape, built for clobbering folk.

Right.

Well, I was built for clobbering. All us blood apes were, It's what we do, why we exist. We're big lumps of muscle that exist to be pointed at the things our bosses don't like. We also got our quirks- we enjoy fighting, we like to, uh, enjoy the spoils of victory, and other crap. It's a, uh, racial thing. Right.

Still not seeing where you're going with this.

There's a billion different kinds of demons, all made for different purposes. I'm thinking of one kind, the stomach bottle bugs. Sesseljae. Annoying little buggers, but they can mold flesh like clay. Just one could fix him up in no time flat.

It can't be that easy.

Well, no, you gotta find one of the buggers first. Once you do, you're golden- they will work for booze.

That's- I, huh. Okay, still listening. How do I find one?

Ah, that's the tricky part. Uh, to gloss over the details a bit, you might find one somewhere in the world, but your best bet is to summon one or have one summoned for you.

Shirou made very sure not to react visibly or mentally to the term 'summon.'

Anyways if you stopped by the City you'd be trained up on how to call them up and bind 'em yourself, but there's a handful of sorcerers in any bigger place like this, and there's always a demon summoner or two among them. You should be able to sniff them out, that came with the package.

Senbrek paused for a moment, as his memory caught up with his mouth. Ah, wait, no, you can only detect demons, demonic stuff, and anyone that's declared loyalty to the cause. Just a guy capable of the act wouldn't tip you off. Damn.

Well, thanks anyway.

Ask your new minions, see if any of them know a demonologist. Couldn't hurt.

Sounds like an idea.

Shirou had, by this point, accepted that the local meaning of 'demon' was utterly unrelated to the counterpart he was aware of back on Earth. He suppressed a shudder as thoughts of Caren Ortensia's unique condition floated through his mind. Then those thoughts led to memories of Fuyuki, and then to Rin and Saber again, so he shut down his reminiscing before he could lose his grip on his emotions.

When he emerged back into the greater space of the warehouse, he was satisfied to see a number of open crates strewn about and some of his men (That still feels weird to think) pawing through them for anything potentially useful. The rest were hammering pieces of pallet wood over the newly burned hole or maneuvering crates in front of the door to block it from forced entries.

"Ah! Guys, this'll do the trick!"

One heavily tattooed man stood up from the crate he was digging through with a green vial. He went over to the men trying to seal the hole and waved them away. Setting the bottle down, he leaned a few more boards over the hole loosely, then picked up the bottle, unstoppered it, and splashed the contents liberally over the planks, the surrounding wall, and a bit of the ground.

To Shirou's shock, the glowing green liquid clung to the wood, soaked in immediately, and caused it to branch and bud and grow rapidly. The portion that hit the ground was absorbed quickly by new roots, and within less than a minute a knot of fresh, living wood was filling the gap he had burned in the wall, flowing seamlessly into the timber comprising the rest of the wall, and extending roots into the ground. Impressed, he let out a low whistle.

Jumping, the men spun to see him and fumbled into what looked like salutes one after another. Waving that off, he walked up to examine the 'repair' in more detail. His eyes flashed green for a moment, but that didn't grant him much information; only that the growth was indeed 'alive' and 'new' and 'strong.' Turning to the tattooed man, he gestured at the bottle.

"I take it you've run into that stuff before?"

The suddenly singled out man coughed and stuttered a bit.

"Ah, yeah- er, yes Boss. Sap from the far East, Makes anything remotely plantlike grow stupidly fast, makes anything remotely alive grow quick too." When Shirou's gaze turned back to Thundercloud's room, the man almost jumped while waving his hands to regain his attention. "Ah, you really don't want to use this stuff for healing, or on a grown man at all, Boss. Unless you like long hair, long nails, thick skin, and, uh, bigger parasites."

Shirou raised an eyebrow at that last thing.

"It makes everything alive grow, boss; that's including any, ah, guests you might be harborin'. S'why we don't go flinging the stuff at crops that are doin' badly. They might be doing bad for a reason, and that reason might be alive too. Splashin' it on dead wood is about the safest use for the stuff we got, and that's only if you're damn sure you ain't got termites. Not sure why we have a whole crate of it here, though. It's not exactly rare, just pricey, and while it's illegal to own for most folk, the kind of people that could afford it as contraband could afford the license to get some legit."

He rubbed his chin as he considered the crate.

"Unless this crate was all goin' to one guy, in which case it's more than he'd be able to legally get for like, five years. That'd grow, like, a lot of drug crops fast. A lot."

Shirou nodded along with the logic, easily accepting the motive of greed motivating man to do almost anything. Then he blinked as a thought struck him.

"Ah, I'm going to guess that the more you use this stuff in one spot, the more you need to keep using to keep growing things there?"

The tattooed man looked over at him, the fearful expression he had shared with the rest of his crew a short while ago now replaced by something less tense.

"Ah, yeah, gran'ma always said something like that. Somethin' about the plants growing so big as to suck up food faster than the ground can supply it after a dose of this stuff. An' if you over do it too much, you'll get a crazy mini super mutant magic forest thing, which means even bigger problems if there's something nearby you don't want growin' big."

Shirou kept the vocabulary in mind and made a mental note to read up some more later.

"For now, then, can we apply that stuff all over the walls? I'd feel a lot better being bastioned in walls of thick, living wood rather than the dry planks we already have."

"Ah, sure Boss. Feels like kind of a waste, but no sense in having nice stuff if you're dead I guess."

He turned and beckoned over a few of the others and started explain how (and how not) to apply the glowing green sap. Shirou nodded and went back into the crates again, peering into the open ones and speaking a bit with each of the men he encountered. When he finished his round, he sat down on a crate in a corner and considered the viability of attacks from the ceiling.

Boss, you didn't ask about demonologists.

Yeah. It seemed like a bad moment to. I didn't want to spoil the mood. Guys like that, they don't usually get a chance to be creative or display talent. It's why they wind up as thugs- whatever circumstances they had prevented them from being anything else, regardless of their interests or potential. Reminding them of my place relative to them will make them clam up and obey mindlessly. That's the last thing I want from allies.

Senbrek wisely didn't interject about Shirou's choice of wording there.

Well, I got one last thing then, but this will take some time and concentration.

Oh?

I can teach you how to beckon a demon yourself. Once you know how, it will take about six hours to call one up.

Why didn't you just mention this in the first place?

Ah, well . . . this is beckoning, not binding. You get the demon just the same, but . . .

No obligation to listen. Wonderful.

Well, that's the funny part. I'd bet you three bottles of beer that anything you beckon will be more than happy to help in any way it can, free of charge.

But?

But we can be an impulsive bunch. Even on my best days, whenever I happened to be summoned and bound in Creation, it was all I could do to not ignore my orders and smash any cat I saw. You beckon a Blood Ape without binding, doesn't matter if you become his best friend- he sees a cat, he drops everything and goes to kill it.

Some kind of cat demon preys on your race, I assume?

Naw, we just hate cats. All of us. They are the worst. They're all sneaky and toothy and clawy, and we see what they do to damn near anything slightly smaller than they are. They don't have fun fighting, they have fun toying and tormenting. And then they just leave their victims to rot half the time, not even eating them! Insult to injury!

Okay?

After a couple hundred years of giving it the occasional thought, I think, if you had to design a perfect Blood Ape killing machine, it would be a cat four times our size or bigger. And I think we might all know this deep down inside, which is why we always make sure to kill any we see before they get that big. But that's just a crazy guess.

Shirou didn't comment on that.

Anyways, Bottle Bugs are impulsive too- they like to consume filth and corruption. On a good day, they keep the streets clean, the plumbing clean, and the trash bins empty. On a bad day, they drink every drop of booze in sight, and then every drop out of sight, including anything anyone already drank.

Huh?

Dead serious. They can, like, swim through flesh, right? Makes them great surgeons. They'll swim right into your drunken body, zip up into your guts, and drink the booze right out of you, leaving you suddenly sober, with nothing else to drink in the building.

That sounds like the recipe for a fight.

More like a genocide. I forgot to mention, they never feel full and if they overeat they sort of explode and you have two or three freshly born ones, fully aware and hungry. You can see where that leads, right?

Shirou's imagination was awash with colorful members of a thousand demonic races charging around squishing bugs with their empty mugs. He blinked.

So I can't let one get out of control.

Yeah. I can teach you to conjure one up, but you gotta lay down the law or you will have bigger problems than a gang trying to quietly take their warehouse back from you. Sesseljae ain't quiet or subtle when they gorge on crap, and you won't have the bindings stopping it from doing something stupid with its instincts.

Shirou considered. Can I banish it once it's done fixing Thundercloud?

Ah, that's another ritual. Yeah, you could. S'more complicated though. Takes a lot longer to learn, and honestly you shouldn't do it for this anyway.

Oh?

You want the bugger in your stomach, keeping your fool ass alive. That's their number one job and they are damn good at it. Long as you don't outright die, they can patch you up fast.

Shirou nodded, suddenly very aware that much of his recent combat doctrine revolved around an active and functional Avalon with Saber nearby all but rendering him immune to lesser wounds and health issues. Between the sheath of Excalibur and Unlimited Blade Works, he had enjoyed utterly unbreakable bones, an immunity to toxin and disease, and muscles that could not be torn unless the forces involved could rip steel swords in two casually. Most mundane modern weapons failed to even pierce his skin once he applied his Reinforcement to his body liberally. Anything that did hurt him was quickly nullified by Avalon. So long as Saber's prana flowed to him freely, he was quite literally all but invincible.

Toss in the fact that he could duplicate the sheath for both Rin and Saber themselves and the three of them had made an amazingly difficult to defeat team, so long as Saber's prana lasted. That said, the rule of Conservation of Mystery still applied, and the more injury that was distributed between them, the slower each healed via Avalon. Between Saber's nature as a Servant and Rin's crest doing automatic triage, it was usually the case that he did not Project any copies and merely held onto the true sheath himself during combat; only passing it to them directly to heal injury after the fact. It only made sense to divide the flow of healing in special cases, such as travel together in highly radioactive or toxic areas.

Some testing since his Exaltation had revealed a happy medium between his mortal frame and his fully combat-prepared body; presently he was much harder to injure on all levels than his mundane self, but easier to hurt than his former fully combat ready body. He was sure this would change once he got the hang of his new power, but for now, the idea of regaining some semblance of his former regenerative ability sounded pretty ideal, regardless of the extra vigilance he'd have to keep over the bug.

Okay. Walk me through this, Senbrek. Thundercloud needs help, and I can't hesitate any longer. We're not stopping until the bug is fixing him.

Right, boss. First you- wait. Shirou wondered why the Blood Ape stopped for a moment, then felt his stomach grumble. Don't you need to eat? And sleep? You've been working on stuff since you got here.

Shirou considered, then shrugged it off. A little hunger won't kill me, and I have gone a very long time without sleep before. This is no different. I know you feel the hunger too, but I'm gonna have to ask you to bear with it until this is done.

Ah, sure boss. Anyways, you need a bunch of crap, starting with something easy to write with like chalk . . .

 

[Golden Lark]

So yeah just now was a dump of what I've had up on SB for a while. I've more or less been neglecting SV as a whole, but perhaps the resurgence in Fate interest will help draw some readers on this side . . .

 

[Fierdin]

...I somehow had missed the last two chapters. Probably because I wasn't watching this on SB.

Anyway, this is always nice to see!

 

[ShinSpark]

So yeah just now was a dump of what I've had up on SB for a while. I've more or less been neglecting SV as a whole, but perhaps the resurgence in Fate interest will help draw some readers on this side . . .

Click to shrink...

I am very glad that you are still alive and intend to work on this some more <3.

 

[Biigoh]

Fuwaaaa~

It lives?

 

[Golden Lark]

Fuwaaaa~

It lives?

Click to shrink...

It shambles on. I posted all of this a long time ago on SB. I quickly got tired of updating things on SV for a tiny fraction of the feedback, etc.

EDIT: oh yeah go check Shyft's art for the first post, I put it up here too.

 

[Chicago Ted]

It shambles on. I posted all of this a long time ago on SB. I quickly got tired of updating things on SV for a tiny fraction of the feedback, etc.

Click to shrink...

So, you skipped the steps of posting it to SV and FFN, huh?

 

[Golden Lark]

Haha, on FFN I get a dozen notifications a day about Remember and Flashlight; this fic gets no love there at all.

 

[Chicago Ted]

Haha, on FFN I get a dozen notifications a day about Remember and Flashlight; this fic gets no love there at all.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, you did post it so that each FFN chapter is three SB/SV chapters, and since you can only leave one review per chapter...

 

[Fictiondevourer]

Being honest I've thought this fic dead half a dozen times so I'm reserving judgement or love until it's finished or a novel's worth is posted.

 

[giodan]

And tris is the story who got me hooked to exalted! I mean shirou ad an infernal? It this not an original story none are!

 

[defenestrator]

I forgot this was on my watched list. Then binged it on one sitting. It's a great concept, and I'm digging the story so far. But Coelica's accounts make me wish the pace was a tad bit faster.

Also:

Wait, hold on. Did you just imply I was some kind of prenatal manipulative bitch?

-Avalon, the Ever-Distant Utopia, second soul-progeny of the Unlimited Bladeworks

Click to shrink...

Man, Avalon sounds like one snarky bitch that gives Shirou a lot of backtalk

 

[Strunkriidiisk]

Fair warning, it seems that your cover image is a bit borked. It only shows up when I quote the relevant post. Might just be something on my end though.

 

[menosay]

Cover image is borked for me to.

 

[Winged One]

There's a cover image?

Oh, nice.

 

[Golden Lark]

Resized it. Not sure why people can't see it, it shows up fine for me.

 

[Golden Lark]

A/N: Thanks to Shyft for a quick brush over of the Exalted mechanics, and Kyte for putting this through a grammatical blender. Also thanks to EleventhMessenger for making me look bad WRT his wordcount output in his first SB story!

[***************]

It took a little more than six hours, given that Shirou was occasionally distracted by his new subordinates or a sudden noise from outside, but eventually he got the job done. After carefully following Senbrek's detailed directions (which was still surreal, considering the . . . unrefined approach he tended to recommend on anything else), a fist sized, greenish-brown bug faded into being in the middle of the chalk circle. It looked around a moment, and Shirou flared his 'caste mark' on his forehead (as Senbrek had called it). This got the new demon's attention instantly, and it swiftly kneeled on ten bent legs.

"Your command, Master," it intoned. Which would have been much less creepy if the voice didn't sound like a small child's.

Shirou gestured at Thundercloud, who was barely awake and not in any state to tell what was going on around him. "You will repair his flesh to pristine condition. Only afterwards may you consume every drop of the alcohol in his veins, and the rest of the bottle here beside him."

The bug chittered, then rose, bowed, and dashed up to Thundercloud's chest. The old smith tried to focus on the bug, but was still completely out of it. The bug paused.

"Master. Please cut his limbs down once I begin. I will not be able to knit his bones while he is bound."

Shirou nodded and stepped over, drawing a sword. The bug reached out with a number of arms and simply pulled open a hole in Thundercloud's chest, then slipped inside, the skin snapping back into place without so much as a drop of blood spilled from its entry. Shuddering a bit at the sight, Shirou made it behind Thundercloud and cut his arms down from the column, flinching as splinters of bone poked out of his forearms while he gently brought the limbs down to rest at the man's sides. Almost immediately, the bottle bug 'surfaced' like a shark in water, reaching out and pulling down the errant pieces of bone, then pinching the skin shut and moving on.

In the next hour, Shirou watched as the few open wounds were closed, the bruising and swelling reduced, and a healthy pall came back to Thundercloud's skin . . . well, healthy on top of the drunken blush. Finally, that blush vanished as the bug consumed the first portion of its reward, hopping out of the smith's chest the way it had entered and tipping up the open bottle, draining the remaining liquor.

Stoic Thundercloud got to his feet gingerly, feeling his ribcage and arms with his hands, shooting glances between Shirou and the demon, which had dropped the empty bottle and stumbled a ways off to the side of the room, giving off a quiet burp. The smith finally focused on Shirou, and nodded his head.

"Thanks for saving my life. Though, I am a bit curious about how you plan on saving your own, let alone keeping mine saved. These gangs don't let go once they've decided to bite down on you- not without something big happening."

Shirou just shook his head. "I know. And I know what it will take to bring this to a close."

Just as he was about to bring Thundercloud out to meet his new recruits, a feeling burst into being in the back of his mind. One of many tiny sparks, warping, twisting, betraying-

He flared towards it, and knew the deed was done, even as his mind caught up with the fact that he had just burned a man to death halfway across the city, in the moments between that man deciding to sell him out and actually getting the words out of his mouth.

He chose not to mention it to anyone present, as it would ruin whatever rapport he was building with his new . . . subjects.

Senbrek, aware of what had just passed, said nothing. Shirou couldn't decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

As he led Thundercloud out into the greater warehouse, they both paused to appreciate the thick, bark-laden wood that was now replacing the slats that previously served as walls. Shirou grabbed the attention of the remaining men and brought them over, introducing Thundercloud and explaining what was going to happen in the next hours while they waited for word from headquarters.

[***]

Soon enough there was a knock, and Shirou allowed one of the infiltrators back in. One hasty report later, and Shirou was out in the Greyfalls night, making his way to the base of the Purple Hawks. Apparently the vast majority of the gang's forces were now owned by Shirou, and the half that had been reported dead was a large enough force that the leaders were delaying their assault until they could call in some favors and lay down a proper siege with overwhelming manpower. Shirou's infiltrators were turned back out to the docks to keep an eye on the warehouse and the surrounding area to look for anyone trying to slip away or slip inside - but not to attack by themselves. As they were loyal to Shirou now, he simply nodded as he passed them and tried to avoid any lookouts he had not yet subverted.

Once he made it to one of the nicer residential areas, he had to be even more careful, as he stuck out like a sore thumb, dressed as he was for battle. Guards were now just as dangerous as enemies - back in the rougher parts of town they didn't look twice at anyone openly armed, but here in the pricier districts, one was either bedecked in obviously expensive looking artifacts, wearing a uniform with mundane equipment, or up to no good.

The sky was cloudless and the moon was almost new, so there was plenty of concealment to help him slip past patrols. Eventually he reached his objective: a large, multi-story building spread over many wings. It was isolated within a yard wall, but that was only a token barrier. Its drab paint was occasionally broken by flashes of violet trim. He slipped around behind the outer wall and easily scaled it, barely hindered by its height or the spikes crowning it. After taking a few moments to restrain an inexplicable desire to sneeze, he surveyed his location. Sure enough, there were open windows on the lower floors in the back, to let in the warm night air. Poking his head inside and finding the room empty, he climbed in, careful to not catch his bow or swords on the frame. Once in, he drew his bow, nocking an arrow and quietly slipping deeper into the building. It had few men on site, given that most had left to deal with his previous troublemaking.

As far as he was concerned, this whole facility was marked for destruction. It had to be; or they would never stop coming for him. He'd only gotten surrenders out of his previous opponents after he had crushed them in body and spirit; he doubted this situation would be much different. From a supply closet he found some lamp oil and candles, noting the location for later. Perfect. The building was large, but easy to navigate. The smoke would fill the rooms, but enough windows were open that no one should suffocate - and the people he couldn't allow to escape would be on the upper floors, anyway. He tipped one of the oil jars over with a foot, gently, and let its contents spill out and start to soak into the wooden floor. That would be his escape distraction. He'd come for more oil before setting the blaze. Noting where the wall lamps were, he proceeded to the center of the building, opened the sliding doors, and stepped through the chamber that contained the stairs to the next floor.

Next floor meaning downstairs, in this case, as his foot broke through the paper floor and he staggered forward. He barely managed to land on his feet in the darkened basement. A quiet footstep told him everything he needed to know. He spun around and flared his anima, allowing the baleful green fireglow to illuminate the deathtrap he had apparently stumbled right into.

Instantly, he made out the flinching man with a raised sledgehammer. Around him were four columns, with a heavy door past his new assailant, across the room. A hasty glance up revealed the trapdoors that had been opened at some point, leaving only a thin layer of paper to fool intruders.

The second he had bought himself was up, however, the muscle-bound man blinked and refocused, then brought his hammer down in a vicious overhand arc. Shirou was already hopping backwards, levelling his arrow with the man's chest. He looked up, and rather than the wide-eyed stare of a man about to die, Shirou beheld the smirking face of someone who knew something he didn't. He threw himself down and to the side, praying he guessed correctly - and as the second sledgehammer whooshed over him, his heart skipped a beat.

Rolling smoothly to his feet, he brought up his bow once again, but the two hadn't even paused in their steady approach. Their identical approach. They were twins.

"The 'Hammer Brothers,' I presume?"

Neither man so much as opened their mouth, as one raised his sledge high, and the other got ready to swing wide and low. Shirou took a step backwards, and-

-jerked forward violently, as a sledgehammer hit him square in the back. Staggering, he dropped his bow and rolled forwards in between the two he had seen, drawing his twin swords as he came to a crouching halt. Crossing them in front of him, he watched the three similar men begin to flank him and had an insane, wild thought.

What if there are even more? Or will be? Golems? Duplications?

This kind of insane trap and gimmick felt like some of the more sadistic things set up by bored Dead Apostles or Philosophers guarding their workshops. The longer he delayed, the more copies of this warrior were going to flood into the room and attempt to thwack him. Now that he was (mildly) injured, he allowed the pulsing, throbbing pain in his back to guide his mind in a familiar direction. He hadn't experienced pain in his spine to this degree since . . . before the Holy Grail War. When he was futzing around without his proper circuits nightly, and then the handful of times he flexed them under pressure before Rin corrected his technique.

All of his worry, doubt, hesitation, and other useless emotion faded over the next few heartbeats. He took a breath, flooding his mind and body with unworked power and filling his lungs with air.

Furnace charged.

The metaphor came to him in a flash. It wasn't a circuit. It wasn't a delicate, etched pattern of routes for prana to flow over his flesh and soul. It was more - magnificently so. The reason why his earlier attempts failed was because he was sending his old, gentle streams of energy through completely different hardware. No, he wasn't simply tracing now, he wasn't activating a mere circuit.

Arc on.

He took the whole of the power he had grasped, and forced his will through it, overwhelming it with intent. Had he done this with his magecraft, he would have shorted out his nervous system instantly - and perhaps even Avalon wouldn't have been able to save him, if Saber wasn't literally right next to him. He cycled his will through, around, and through again, in a loop that gradually warped the green glow of power to an ever brighter white-

Meltdown complete. Commencing blow.

As he lowered his posture, the power he had gather started to shrink; he merely discarded the excess, the impurities. The things he didn't need - the hungry flames, the bright light, arrogance, cruelty, sadism. This thematic slag floated to the top, and with one final push, he also seared away the power's tendency for collateral damage.

Now, finally, his intentions and his power were in alignment, on his own terms. It was time to test it.

Begin tap.

He shot forward in a blur, anima flashing white for the merest instant. He had ducked low, dived between the legs of the center attacker, and hamstrung both legs as he passed. He could hear as well as smell the searing of the wounds as his blades came free. Hitting the ground prone on his chest, he flipped over onto his back and kicked himself up to his feet as the man he targeted fell to his knees and the two to his sides turned to face Shirou once more. He gave no hint that he had noticed the fourth and fifth men hiding behind the support columns beyond where he had landed.

His limbs burned, and his chest heaved - not with exhaustion, but with energy. He stepped back towards the downed man, and sent him flying with a vicious kick into the second, without breaking his stride towards the third. He kept moving so as to keep the two sneaking up behind him from gaining any ground, for the moment. He raised his dual blades in a telegraphed overhead strike, causing the third mad to being his hammer up in a horizontal guard. Shirou twisted his wrists, spinning his swords with a flourish and noting the the locations of the men behind him with the reflections on his blades once more, before flinging them both behind his back. The pair of choked gasps of two men with suddenly punctured abdomens was all the confirmation he needed. The smell of scorched flesh intensified sharply, as well. The wide-eyed look of shock of the man in front of him served to distract him for the second it took Shirou to reach out and grab the center of the hammer. It was merely steel - not magical, and not resistant to damage. He emptied fire into it, watching it start glowing. He could tell that this technique was raw and rudimentary; it could be done better, faster. He could have reduced steel to ash, with the proper application. However, it was merely a first attempt, and the man screamed and dropped his hammer, staggering back as he beheld his palms.

This gave Shirou the opening he needed to turn to face the second man, who had gotten up from under the crippled first man and charged him, hammer held high. Shirou merely crossed his arms and walked into the oncoming blow, letting the last bits of his power flare through his skin. The hammer bounced off of him, not even affecting his power in the slightest, and the second man's mouth fell open as Shirou stepped up to him, reared back, and headbutted him with overwhelming force. He fell to his knees, then onto his side, unconscious, a fresh burn where their foreheads had touched already visible.

Shirou walked back to the center of the room, seeming to ignore the third man as he got his wits back about him and clenched his fists. Roaring in pain and anger, the thug made to rush the crouching Shirou, but couldn't react in time as Shirou spun to his feet and loosed an arrow from his freshly recovered bow. The man tripped and fell, the floor pushing said arrow further in.

Finally, Shirou turned to face the first man, who was on his ass and elbows, desperately trying to scoot himself away. As the immediate threats were dealt with, Shirou took a moment to confirm his gut instinct and flared power to his eyes. The hammers were, indeed, the exact shapes and weights necessary to cause the wounds inflicted on Stoic Thundercloud. Any trace of pity or hesitation he might have been holding in reserve burned away to nothing in that moment. These men had likely killed and tortured hundreds of people, and they would never stop so long as they were alive. Unlike Earth, he couldn't even cripple them to stop them; he had witnessed firsthand the miracles of supernatural medicine in this backwards world. He was certain their current employer, or their next one, would find a way to restore them to full, brutal functionality if he let them go. He sighed and shut his eyes, knowing that on some level, he was grasping for justifications. It would be harder to do so for the other members of the organization, but as for these five? The conclusion was obvious.

They cannot be saved.

[***]

The boss of the Purple Hawks sipped his tea in peace, ignoring the muffled sounds from the underground 'play room.' The Hammer Brothers had filed down there the moment the wards had detected the intruder, and the trap door before the staircase had been retracted without delay. They had expected an infiltration attempt soon, given that the stories from the men were too improbable to be believed - one man could not have taken down half of his crew in that warehouse alone. They even admitted that they hadn't all seen their attacker when they had been hit by arrows. Even if only one showed himself and made the ultimatum, there was no way he'd attacked alone.

So, he waited, with his personal guards around him and a few hidden men with clear shots to the staircase. Assuming the intruder was to be taken alive, they'd squeeze him for information about his collaborators, and his sponsor (if there was one) before finishing him off. The Hammer Brothers were blunt tools, but were extremely effective at what they were about. Even that blacksmith had given up everything he knew about the 'man with green flames,' as his group had taken to calling the troublemaker. Ironically, what the smith knew wasn't much; the boy had a talent for smithing and some fresh ideas about metalcraft, but otherwise hadn't made a single move to further impede Purple Hawk operations. Apparently the crippled man, Ferret, had been about to get rough with a local girl, which stoked the boy's temper. He was some kind of god-blood, and made quick work of both Ferret and his drinking buddy - not to mention their friends that had hunted the brat down for round two. That little hunting party had not been approved. As far as the boss was concerned, Ferret got what he deserved. Still, his friends went to cause trouble, and got their asses handed to them by a lone man.

After that second encounter, it was a matter of saving face, as now he had acted against the Purple Hawks in an open fashion. Even if the boss had wanted to forget about it, his men were calling for blood. The quickest way to restore morale was to put the kid in his place; yet when he ordered a squad to bring the boy in, they instead came back with the elder blacksmith. The boss had been made aware of that fact by the Hammer Brothers themselves after they worked the old man over and came back to HQ. He had been about to give orders to clean up the mess when the first reports of the attack started to trickle in, and from that point they had been on the back foot while they gathered more information.

So far no mention of green flames or torn limbs had accompanied the reports, so it seemed their young hothead enemy was uninvolved. That said, too many men failed to report back, and as much as it galled him, he had put out notice for a meeting with the other heads of the Color Gangs. Their benefactor wouldn't hear about this little problem if he could at all help it; it was a mess they needed to clean up quickly before it became the city's problem. Someone that wasn't in one of the gangs had all but declared war on them, and if things got out of control then the less corrupt city guards would likely find excuses to flood through the lower districts and pick clean any facilities they had 'probable cause' to 'investigate.' If the gangs were fighting other low level scum, then they weren't able to focus as much effort to 'dissuading' the law from bothering them.

The boss finished his cup of tea and rolled up the latest response he had gotten from the Red Lizards. Five of the seven color gangs said they were willing to meet tomorrow, the other two hadn't yet replied. Just as he started to consider if either of those two would have dared to attack his warehouse, he smelled the first wiff of smoke.

Coming to his feet more smoothly and quickly than a man his age and weight ought to, he stalked forward past his suddenly nervous guards. Sliding open his main chamber's door, he flinched back from the smoke that began pouring in, then he nodded to his guards before snapping the door shut behind him. They all made their way to the hidden escape stairs in the back. They slid a rug aside and were about to pry the hidden door open when he stopped them with a word and a wave of his hand. The three men watched as wisps of dark smoke began snaking out of the cracks in the trap door.

The boss' mind went into overdrive, considering how this much fire could have happened this quietly. He could hear the crackling of the flames now, faintly, and knew no accidental blaze could have filled his escape route with smoke at the same time as his front hallway - not without having already burned through the entire middle of his mansion first. As he made his way to the window that led to a lower section of roof, he paused, considering asking one of his guards to go first. An arrow or worse was likely waiting for him.

His fears were realized before he had a chance, however. An arrow burning with green flame flew into his chamber, sailing harmlessly past the occupants, and landed in the middle of the room. The flames caught and spread with unnatural quickness, answering all of his questions at once. Well, most of them, at least. Surrender was off the table, as was negotiation; he had dismissed the new young thug as a credible player the second time he'd sent his men, and now that decision was coming home to roost. Most importantly, pride and decorum were not going to save him tonight. He took a deep breath.

"Everybody, OUT! Make a hole in the wall! The mansion is lost!" If there were snipers, they'd be expecting him at the windows. His escape tunnel was compromised. Thankfully, this high up the walls weren't too thick; this mansion was built to repel intruders, not artillery. With their lives on the line, his remaining men took little time to tear down the fancy tapestries and hack at a side wall for all they were worth. A couple tried to extinguish the nearby flames with limited success; at the very least it wasn't spreading as fast anymore. The windows were big enough to allow smoke to escape, and there was no risk of immediate suffocation; they were simply racing the flames below. As the building was mostly stone, collapse wasn't too immediate of a concern. They had a bit of time, yet.

A few sweaty, fear-tinged minutes later and the men were helping him and each other down onto a side roof. Some more clambering and climbing and they were all hitting the ground proper. With a few words of encouragement and praise, the boss took attendance and ushered his remaining men away, knowing they were in no condition to stand up to whatever force had gotten the drop on them. As such, when the first verdant flaming arrow struck a man between the eyes, the leader of the Hawks reacted without surprise so much as resignation. He turned in time to catch sight of a few more arrows zipping past him to either side, and saw the man wreathed in flames on a nearby rooftop.

Apparently he didn't even register as a priority target to his assailant, given that he could have easily been taken out first. Regardless, he still had to try to survive, and ran for the cover of the walls around one of his neighbor's homes.

When the arrow struck true, he didn't even suffer.

[*****]

As the last man fell, Shirou lowered his bow and took a few shuddering breaths. His initial anger had begun to wane as the flames grew, and he had made certain to spare all of the obvious serving staff as they had evacuated the building. Not a single person burned to death, suffocated, or was otherwise killed by the fire. No, the killing tonight was all directed and deliberate, from the first man to the last.

Any man that seemed like a combatant had been put down. He could almost hear Archer laughing at him in his mind; chiding him for being reduced from savior to executioner; mocking him for failing, once again, to 'save everyone.'

As he began the trek back to his fortified warehouse, he desperately considered options that didn't involve more killing. Or at the very least, didn't involve more fire. A piece of him had died while tipping over the oil pots and starting the fire. His own ordeal in the Fuyuki fire was screaming at the back of his mind the entire time, to say nothing of his Japanese cultural heritage. Still, he wasn't likely to be granted that blessing given the nature of his new abilities. He was so lost in thought that it took him a few moments to notice Senbrek's voice in his mind.

-oss. Boss!

Oh. Sorry, I was a bit distracted, Senbrek.

S'fine. You wanna wrap this up nice and neat now, right? No more killing, right?

The demon's questions brought Shirou's full attention, mostly because Shirou had learned enough about the nature of his companion to convince him to be extra careful when considering his advice.

Right. I thought I could capitalize on this second move, and hopefully make it the last violent move.

Right, right. Exactly. The goons you have now are useful, and the rest of these rainbow kids or whatever they're called are likely to be more useful still. They'll just, you know, be more useful if you can 'take' them as opposed to 'break' them.

I thought you were all about breaking, Senbrek.

I am! Normally. When things need to be broken. But I didn't get to be my age without compromise. Sometimes, things only need to be bent a little. Turn their nature to your benefit, convince them to play by your rules, give them a bit of a happy incentive to offset a threat, and suddenly you've traded an annoyance for a tool. And as it happens, demons make the best tools.

Right. But these are humans.

So they aren't as specialized, and can't channel Essence, and are generally weak and squishy, and are otherwise almost garbage at anything they try to do. Guess what. It was humans, taken to the extreme, that threw back our masters in the old days. Bunch of souped up ones like you empowering and leading most of the rest, at that. Suddenly all the humans went from 'almost garbage' at anything to 'halfway decent' at everything - and while specialized demons are really great at what they do best, they are absolute crap at everything else, it turns out.

Blood apes are kind of versatile when they don't have to do much thinking, but only within the scope of brute muscle. Even we have trouble against an equal number of humans equipped with magic crap and leaking magic from their assholes from whoever's pulling their strings. And as good as demon backup will be, for the moment you can get a whole lot of humans under your thumb a lot faster, and keep them in line with less effort, given your lack of training.

Shirou was still mildly disturbed by how easily Senbrek could seamlessly slip from speaking like a completely brainless thug, to a wizened old crime boss, to an infernal propaganda lecturer - getting Shirou to underestimate him, then gain some respect for him, then to finally remember what kind of ordeal he had gotten himself into one after another in short order. Shaking his head a bit, he sighed.

Okay, I am open to your input for getting these color gangs in line.

Great! Okay, so you've opened up strong. They will know real quick that someone is not to be fucked with. What you need to do first is make damned sure they know that that someone is you . . .

[*****]

It didn't take much. He got back to his base, recalled his men, and advised them about what had happened. There were enough witnesses to various bits of the assault that he could fill in the gaps with his own perspective, and then send out his men to spread the rumors at their various regular watering holes. Those men that had families he sent home for a while to tend to them, and those men that didn't he kept busy, putting ears to the ground and leaving eyes open. He wanted to know the moment the other gangs started to make a move. Apparently the purple leader had called a conference, and with his fall it had gotten delayed- delayed enough for the other color leaders to all make it in person, as opposed to mere representatives as most of them had originally intended. The subject, of course, was 'the angry kid with the green fire.' Word on the street was that no one was to antagonize Shirou until the leaders had all put their heads together and decided if they were going to retaliate in force or let the insult stand.

Getting information on the details of the meet was easy; just a bit of booze to the right members got him a time, a place, and a general idea of the forces each group was expected to bring (an honor guard for each leader, more or less). Given what Shirou intended, he'd need to dedicate the entirety of his forces to this engagement if he wanted to make it through with the least amount of blood spilled.

The meeting was in four weeks. Four weeks of undisturbed peace in which to prepare. Shirou intended on his men from a haphazard assembly of mafia goons to a fully armed strike force - or at least, the appearance of such. That meant he needed to tally what his men needed, inventory the warehouse, find what he could sell for a profit quickly, and then buy the equipment (or raw materials to forge it). Stoic Thundercloud assisted as he could; Shirou had given him his pick of the warehouse's goods as an apology for getting him mixed up in this whole mess, and with this windfall, Thundercloud decided that he could afford to be closed for business for a bit to lend Shirou his forge. In addition, he introduced Shirou to his various contacts for securing ore and scrap, and helped with organizing the influx of said material and other various things Shirou was taking the time to acquire.

This allowed Shirou to spend most of his time hammering at the forge non-stop. At some point after the big fire, he had realized he no longer needed (or wanted) sleep; his actions that night had more or less crystallized into nightmares, and he hadn't actually felt tired or sleepy since then. He felt the oddest sense of detachment from his current activities, afterwards. Things were happening quickly, and progress was being made, but he wasn't taking much satisfaction in the various steps as they were completed.

Mostly, he just wanted to be at the forge, either making or modifying the armor and weapons his men were going to rely on in the coming days. As he worked there, it was as if time sped up and flickered forward until the next moment someone came to speak to him, and he acted on autopilot in the meantime. Occasionally Thundercloud would catch his attention, stop him, and ask about what he was doing; it'd be an awkward moment where he'd have to examine what he was in the middle of and manually deduce the techniques or goals he was striving for on his current project. It was like that dizzying disorientation when first waking up, each time he was interrupted. Hopefully it wouldn't happen to him in combat, as that was a quick way to get killed.

Soon, it was noon on the final day. Beyond occasional breaks for securing supplies, eating food and general sanitation, Shirou had been working non stop. When he finally let the hammer rest, he stopped and looked around.

Stoic Thundercloud stood by his side, having been assisting him at the forge in an inversion of their original relationship. Around them were piles and piles of immaculately smithed equipment, each piece virtually identical to its stacked counterparts, organized by type. Helmets, swords, spearheads, bracers, and the like - all being painstakingly fitted with leather straps and other details by a handful of helpers. Shirou couldn't recall actually making any of those arrangements; he had been in a bit of a fugue state since he had resigned himself to his current course. Apparently Thundercloud had taken care of the details.

Blinking slowly, he felt his wits coming back to himself. Someone yelled out that there was food in the shop. Shirou made his way inside, and stopped fast.

On the wall, hanging proudly, were five scorched sledgehammers. Apparently someone had gone picking through the ashes of the estate and retrieved some trophies they thought were worth displaying. While normally not one to exult in the killing of an opponent, Shirou felt some small amount of satisfaction that he wasn't the only one content that those men had been put down.

He grabbed the rice and meat that was set on the shop's counter and devoured it, not even mindful of the mediocre taste. Once he finished, he stepped outside to see a series of carts lined up, already mostly loaded with his final batch of gear. The last one was for the men at the forge to ride to the warehouse, himself among them. Hopping on last, he took his seat and it began to move. He took in the sight of the nigh colorless city as it slowly passed by, hoping that the color he brought to it this night wouldn't be from splattered blood and roaring flames.

 

[South]

You. You actually had an exalt be attacked by five mostly mortals with hammers. They even got a hit in on him from behind.

 

[Golden Lark]

You. You actually had an exalt be attacked by five mostly mortals with hammers. They even got a hit in on him from behind.

Click to shrink...

I had been planning that scene ever since I had heard of the theoretical exercise.

 

[Chicago Ted]

Stoic Thundercloud got to his feet gingerly, feeling his ribcage and arms with his hands, shooting glances between Shirou and the demon, which had dropped the empty bottle and stumbled a ways off to the side of the room, giving off a quiet burp.

Click to shrink...

Don't just let the bugger wander off, Shirou, you need him in your belly!

leaking magic from their assholes

Click to shrink...

I think there are pills for that

You. You actually had an exalt be attacked by five mostly mortals with hammers. They even got a hit in on him from behind.

Click to shrink...

I had been planning that scene ever since I had heard of the theoretical exercise.

Click to shrink...

gonna need some more context here, what're ya'll talkin' about

 

[Walker of the Yellow Path]

5 mortals with sledgehammers surround an Exalt.

Since 5 is the max amount that can surround someone, one of them gets a free surprise attack on the Exalt's back. Because hammers have a rather high damage, and one can make the surprise attack, the Exalt has to be really quick on killing them, or else they are going to hammer him to death.

It's a theoretical excercise on the rather borked lethality problem in Exalted 2e

 

[Biigoh]

You. You actually had an exalt be attacked by five mostly mortals with hammers. They even got a hit in on him from behind.

Click to shrink...

5 mortals with sledgehammers surround an Exalt.

Since 5 is the max amount that can surround someone, one of them gets a free surprise attack on the Exalt's back. Because hammers have a rather high damage, and one can make the surprise attack, the Exalt has to be really quick on killing them, or else they are going to hammer him to death.

It's a theoretical excercise on the rather borked lethality problem in Exalted 2e

Click to shrink...

2e? This is legacy code from 1e. :3