He had to give them this much, they had skill.
Well, they wouldn't have been set on his trail if they didn't, but that was beside the point.
And what had he been thinking, anyway? Alright, he hadn't. He'd been pretty much preoccupied with finding some way to keep Illya alive to spend a lot of time thinking.
Emiya Shirou had long since admitted to himself that a one-track-mind was one of his faults. So far, he'd managed to use that to his advantage or work around it effectively.
Sadly, he knew well that it wouldn't last before that sort of lackluster compensation came to bite him in the ass.
Of course, it wouldn't have been nearly as bad if this crap hadn't happened only half an hour after he and Illya had managed to talk Tohsaka down.
Well, after he'd managed to talk Tohsaka down, then talk Illya down ... it was just his luck that his sister was more than a bit overprotective. And trigger happy. Or should that be 'spell happy'?
The good news was that the after-effects of having Avalon ripped out of his Gestalt weren't as severe as he'd feared they'd be. Or just seemed to be fading faster. The bad news was that there _were_ after-effects. His hand-eye coordination was coming back from being shot to hell, yes, but Tracing hurt like a sonuvabitch. Well, more than what he was used to, anyway.
In a way, it was a good thing this was Fuyuki. Here, he at least had the home field advantage over whoever these bastards that were hunting them were.
'Whoever' ... wasn't the right word, maybe.
Well, of _course_ the Einzberns had to respond to the blatantly humiliating blow he'd dealt them in snatching their ticket into the next Grail War away from in front of their faces like he had. He just hadn't quite figured on their response being so swift. Or so overkill.
It was only because he and Tohsaka both knew the area that the three of them were still up and ... well, running.
"I think we've thinned them out some," Shirou commented, sitting back against the wall and panting.
The house was small, didn't stand out, and was well enough positioned to give a few decent lookout points if they needed them. Hopefully, the inhabitants wouldn't be coming back anytime soon, though.
They had enough crap to deal with without needing to cut and run after a case of B&E.
"That's good, right?" Tohsaka asked, also breathing hard as she collapsed onto the living room's couch. "Who the hell are they, anyway? And _why_ were they after _me_ too? You, I can understand, Emiya. You have no manners or tact."
"Oy."
"You shoved a gun in my face," she grumbled. "Not something I'm going to be forgiving anytime soon."
"They're after me," Illya cut in, hugging her knees to her chest as she settled down beside Shirou. "I just want to be with Onii-chan."
Rin blinked at that, her mind racing, then putting some recent information that she'd mostly discarded in favor of preparing for the upcoming War together with what was happening ...
"Oh, hell no," she hung her head, pinching the bridge of her nose and wishing for some painkillers. She was suddenly experinecing the mother of all migraines. "You're the missing von Einzbern, aren't you?"
"She's my sister, damnit," Shirou retorted. "Those bastards were going to use her as if she were some kind of tool! I sure as hell wasn't about to just _let them_."
Tohsaka recoiled as if slapped.
"And anyway," the white-clad gunmage went on, wincing as he re-bandaged his hands. "No, it's not exactly good. Einzberns don't usually do the fighting themselves. They hire out. Hell, that how my old man fits into this. These guys are going to wise up soon and start herding, and this isn't exactly a good defensible position. Cover? Yes. Other than that?"
He knocked a knuckle against the wall.
"Not exactly thick. Eventually, they'll run us down and we'll have to go into things head-on," he went on, wincing as he tried to draw his guns. "Illya, could you ...?"
The white-haired girl nodded, taking his pistols from their holsters and checking the magazines, reloading where appropriate.
"So we'll need to hole up somewhere else. Preferably somewhere with wards up. That about rules out our place - it's big, but other than that?" He shrugged helplessly. "Besides, they'd get the drop on us before we could get there from here. It's likely the first place they'll look, too."
"Ryuudouji," Rin said suddenly.
"Huh?"
"Ryuudouji," she repeated. "It's close enough, it's got old wards around it ... it's as good as we're going to get at this short a notice."
Question: how exactly does Bazett fight? From what I managed to gather, she's sort of like a Physical Adept, only with Fragrach as backup against artillery. Anything else?
Quote:The former, yes. The latter, not so much. He's had enough trouble figuring out how to effectively use the former, and no inspiration for the latter. Besides, he isn't in any shape to use UBW right now, even if he did know of it. Hell, he isn't in any shape to do much Tracing either.
Does Shirou know about his about his ability to trace weapons and his reality marble?
-Griever
When tact is required, use brute force. When force is required, use greater force.
When the greatest force is required, use your head. Surprise is everything. - The Book of Cataclysm