[FSN][AU][short]War Journal

[Rieverre]

---

somewhere in the Swiss Alps
I remember ...
It was snowing. Not heavily, yet, but still heavily enough.

... my father told me, once upon a time, to follow my dreams. Just that. He knew, even back then, that they weren't easy dreams to live by.
By the time it really started coming down, he wouldn't have needed the clothes to stay hidden. Still, best to stack the deck.
He rose up to a crouch, shaking the by now snow covered tarp off, retrieving a set of high end IR goggles.
Carefully. He needed to move carefully, but still decisively. This was, in a way, what he'd been living for ever since ...
He took them seriously, though. Maybe because, in part, they were his dreams as well. His ... regrets?
Step after step, one flowing into the next, mind fixed with total focus upon the task. Entirely centered in a state of Zazen, slipping past the tingling of a warning ward.
The goggles went dark, but it didn't even phase him. He hadn't expected that to work, really. A disruption ward was pretty much standard fare in any of the scenarios he'd imagined, but he'd needed to check.
Wouldn't do to let an advantage go.
Perfect? I guess every child thinks that of their parents. Well, most children. He had his faults and was pretty open about them. Didn't stop me from admiring him, though.
There it was.
A faint outline in the white-out world he was stalking through.
Just where he'd expected it to be, and where the notes told him it was.

He gave me his name, his teachings, and left me with everything I could ever need when he died.
He closed his eyes and focused, feeling the raw, burning sensation of fire running through his veins, down one arm, to pool in its palm and bleed into the steel, lead, and plastic.

And a letter.
Howling wind dissipated the noise, but he still felt the vibration traveling up his arm.
He grinned.
It kicked like a mule.

And a journal.
The wind kept at it as he strode forward, with a vanguard of snow swirling around and past him into the building.
And then thunder spoke, clearly this time.
Again.
And again.
And again, as levinbolts and discharges shot towards him.
But they were hastily aimed, hastily loosed, and he was a white shadow obscured by a torrent of the color flowing in behind him.

And his guns.
Twin thunders, echoing in the usually still hallways of the mountain estate. Bullets biting into wooden walls, sparking off bronze finish, battering down half-erected shields before the ones that followed bit and blew holes through flesh.
Twenty.
He threw himself forward, underneath a halberd blade that swooped down from above, wielded by a willowy, white haired, empty eyed woman, even as his eyes narrowed behind mirrored spectacles and his nerves burned once more.
It tore the ether, winding its way into the blued steel, and creating out of seeming nothingness ...
Slides slammed forward of their own volition, and fingers depressed the triggers of weapons that should, by all rights, have been empty.
Guns were impossible. They were too complex, too ... modern. Armor was very difficult, but possible. Not really worth the effort, though.. Small things, not so much. Blades were surprisingly easy ...
Twin thunders spoke.
... and bullets were only marginally less so.

And a task. One I would have undertaken anyway, even if he hadn't asked me.
The girl looked young. Far younger than she should have been.
It wasn't as surprising as it would otherwise have been, given his research - haphazard as it had been - on the nature of homunculi.
That didn't matter.
What mattered was the look in her eyes. Fear, determination, puzzlement ...
Utterly and totally human.
He imagined he was quite a sight at that point, white clothes and coat smeared with blood - both his and not - a smoking gun in one hand and a gladius in the other.
He spoke.
His words made the spear of mystical energy she was about to unleash fizzle, and her entire body go stiff with shock and recognition.

Even if it isn't by blood, even if she isn't quite 'normal'...
"Hey, sis. Sorry I'm late."

... she's family. And I'll see her free of her destined Fate, even if I have to die to do it. My Justice demands it.

---

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

[Valles]

...oh.
Oh my.
Oh yes.
OhyesohyesohYESohYES!!
This is brilliant, and perfectly Shirou.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[Rieverre]

---

This is brilliant, and perfectly Shirou.

---

Thanks. My coffee demanded it.
Consider - this one has an actual reason to seek the Grail. He doesn't want Illya to die. That's a considerable change of attitude, and a heapload of problems, even if he does have Kiritsugu's old journals as reference material. His backup plan, if he can't manage that for some reason, is to kidnap an Association mage and threaten/blackmail/bribe them to rip Avalon from him and implant it into Illya.
Now, an FSN challenge for the people here, and what I was going to do as skit about before Gunman!Shirou ambushed me:
Issei invites Shirou over to the temple - maybe it's because he needs to get something repaired but doesn't want his Gramps to find out, maybe just because they're friends, etc. Regardless, Shirou ends up going back home in the evening, and there's a storm brewing. He cuts through the woods as a shortcut. Everything is pretty much as expected until he wrecks his bike and a bolt of lightning strikes somewhere nearby, lights up the otherwise gloomy forest path, and Shirou spots and unconscious woman a ways off to the side.
It's Caster, before she was found by BadassTeacherDude.
Where you go from there is up to you, people. It can be as short or as long as you want to, and as Dark! or WAFF! as you want it to be. Just make it interesting, yanno?
-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

[Elsa Bibat]

Disturbingly appropriate use of guns since reading Kiritsugu's write-up from Fate Zero:
Emiya Kiritsugu
A person who feels it's a sin to be happy when he has to be cruel in order to reach whatever utopia he's aiming after. Came up with a theory of battle which makes use of what blind spot that magi have towards technology and their own arrogance in their own powers. Technology is inferior itself in performance, but magi seem to be understimating it significantly to the point that situations that a solder would be able to adapt to would catch them completely off-guard. Uses a Walther WA2000 semiautomatic sniper rifle, 90 cm long, which fires 300 Winchester Magnum rounds, and has a range of over 1000 meters. Also equipped with AN/PVS04 night scope and with modified Spector IR heat thermal scope (Kiritsugu discovered that body temperature changes after magic circuits are activated, so with research and training, he's able to read the status of magic circuits from the distribution in the thermal imagery; good for determining magi from other people and also seeing any opening that might be there after a magus releases maryoku). Other weapons include a M950, stun grenades, C2 pastic explosives, and finally a Thomspon Contender that works as his Mystic Code which fires normal bullets as well as special bullets containing parts of his pounded bone which works like semi-conceptual weapons; striking the magus origin of Kiritsugu into whatever it hits.
Hisau Maiya
Surprisingly didn't do much, other than the Kiritsugu assistant thing. Armed with an AUG Steyr.
Surprisingly lots of guns there Emiya. ^_^

[Rieverre]

---

The barrel pressed against her temple, cold steel on warm flesh. The hand holding it didn't as much as quiver even once.
"You're making a big mistake."
She tried to make herself cool and collected. It didn't work.
And only in part because she was being kept at gunpoint. She wondered, for a moment, if she could ever bring up the sort of resolve that kept her 'patient' ... or should that be 'kidnapper' ... from doing more than gritting his teeth as she methodically worked to tear something that was literally and metaphorically a piece of his Self away from his Magic Circuits and Spiritual Gestalt.
"So people keep telling me, right before I shoot them," was the half-grunted reply. The gun remained steady.
She really wasn't cut out for this. The sort of finesse the procedure required was something that only came with practice, and outside of combat magicks she really hadn't delved into many topics before ...
... and even that was something she was beginning to have second thoughts about, seeing as she'd been caught off-guard as easily as she had.
Sweat beaded on her forehead, plastering bangs to skin, and her breathing quickened with the effort as the final connections were nudged away from the mass of condensed, contained mana ...
"Almost, almost ..." she worded as she breathed out, her Circuits flaring in concert with those of the man as they worked to _keep_ that mass from solidifying into the Material.
What followed was a frenzied scramble, streams of energy flashing out from the tightly constrained core as it was moved, searing the room's wall and ceiling before the Circuits of the third person in the room stretched out, unfolding to make room for the mass with almost ridiculous ease.
She couldn't help but admire it, even knowing the price of that ...
... something they were attempting to recitify with this 'infusion'.
The energy-state Artifact and Magic Circuit mana-flare interfaced, and then there was only light.
***
His head ... ached.
"... ou! Shirou!"
No, his whole body ached, in a way that reminded him uncomfortably of heartburn ...
"Onii-chan! Wake up! Onegai!"
What? Was somebody calling him? Why? The last thing he remembered was ...
"Don't leave me alone! Please! I don't want to be alone again!"
And then the sensations crested, his body was filled not with a dull, enduring ache, but with enough pain to make him believe, for a moment, that he'd been set on fire.
Eyes slammed open, then slammed shut as the intense, almost blinding light assaulted his optic nerves, while at the same time his body's reaction was to bolt upwards ...
... then collapse, shouting out in agony, to curl himself into a ball and try not to puke while every single muscle felt as if it had been stuffed full of glass shards.
Moving hurt, hell, breathing hurt.
It was as if every single nerve in his body had been turned into ...
... he froze, clarity piercing through the veil of suffering, bringing momentary tranquility as he centered, and violently purged the mana overload from his Circuits.
There was a dull *thump* as the charge was dumped into the air, and a burning in his hands ...
... and then, blessed salvation.
Something wet went *splat* against his cheek, which he realized was moist, and he opened his eyes ... carefully.
A crying, puffy-eyed, dishevelled Illyasviel was kneeling next to where he was curled on the tattered rug.
"Oni ... onii-chan?"
And relief flooded him, seeing that she wasn't hurt. Upset, maybe ...
"Ouch," he mumbled, getting used to moving his jaw again, and noting that his throat was hoarse, like he'd been screaming for a long while. "Never doing that again ... um, what the hell did I do, anyway?"
"Onii-chan!"
"Owowowowowcareful!" he hissed out, though mostly needlessly. The glomp wasn't nearly up to her usual standards.
Finally, he managed to assure her that, no, he wasn't going to be dying anytime soon. In fact, he didn't seem to be hurting very much at all, and could she please get out of his shirt because it was getting embarassing?
Then the state of the room registered, and he cast a furtive look around, slowly piecing together what had happend as one hand furtively, though blindly, searching around for his gun.
"Looking for this?"
Oh. Yes, he was. Not only look for, but also apparently staring into the barrel of. And past that, into a pair of angrily sparkling eyes.
Meanwhile, his hands were slowly becoming sticky with blood, since most of the mana overload had been shunted through his most often used route - the palms thereof.
Now, how to avoid having Tohsaka scion clobber him to death when she notices the mystical safety on the sidearm made it useless for anyone but himself, and maybe get some bandages in the process?
Nope, he was coming up blank. Having had a near-death experience sometime in the last half-hour, or so he reckoned, could maybe excuse that ... but it wasn't really helping at the moment. Nosiree.

---

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

[Valles]

A thought.
Shirou has l33t gun skillz, plus tracing.
Illya has magic like t3h w04h.
Rin doesn't have Illya's 'natural' raw power, but I suspect that she's more skilled, and she has access to her family's gem-based techniques.
Right?
Now. At some point, once he manages to talk Rin out of wasting his ass (and, incidentally, do they know each other? Does she have the 'I don't like him because I can't afford to' denial thing going on that she did in canon?), he's going to find out what Sakura's home life is like.
Violence ensues.
And, after she's safe, he hand her a weapon and some basic lessons in its use, so she can keep herself that way. Which is just good sense.
So she thinks about it. And asks - as pursuasively as she can - to be taught more.
The skills to make use of them come with the things Shirou traces. If he can somehow transfer them to her...
Gun Fu Sakura. In Matrixwear.
And... Kiritsugu's Time Magic? Shirou just doesn't have the knack for it. Sakura, however, does.
So that there might be balance in the Force.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[Rieverre]

---

Now. At some point, once he manages to talk Rin out of wasting his ass (and, incidentally, do they know each other? Does she have the 'I don't like him because I can't afford to' denial thing going on that she did in canon?), he's going to find out what Sakura's home life is like.

---

Well, you've per-empted that part of my plans. You get a No-Prize. ^_^

---

Gun Fu Sakura. In Matrixwear.

---

You're just saying that because you want her and Rider to do the matching outfits thing. I'm still wondering whether or not to have Sakura summon Rider for when the Grail War inevitably comes around.
That being said, I'm considering the Sevant Roulette for when that happens. I've got some ideas knocking about, but they require groundwork. The first bit has already been laid down.

Arturia is going to get a really bad case of Deja Vu. And I need to go bother Elsa about whatever she can dig up on Irisviel von Einzbern.
-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

[Elsa Bibat]

Someone over at Fuyu uploaded all the info better than me:
fuyuki.pbwiki.com/Fate%20Zero
Apparently, Saber can use her "riding" skill to pilot airplanes.
Weird.

[Rieverre]

because I couldn't resist using a particular line ...

---

"Emiya, if we get out of this alive, I'll kill you!"
A mana burst tore through the impromptu barricade, raining bits and pieces of concrete down on where they'd been just moments ago.
Alright, so he could see where she was coming from.
And this sort of thing just had to happen when he'd convinced her not to bludgeon him into unconsciousness. Barely.
Tohsaka Rin was, in addition to being a skilled Magi, a very temperamental person.
Not that this particular discovery had any time to settle in before they were having a whole 'nother set of problems descending down around them to worry about.
"What was that?" Illya's eyes narrowed, glinting with the crackling light of the levinbolt restrained in her left hand.
"Alright, alright, I won't kill him," Rin amended, then grumbled: "I'll only maim him severely."
Shirou looked over his shoulder, swore, and dove on top of them, garnering a pair of outraged shrieks for his trouble before a ram of pressurized air slammed into the wall right above their prone forms.
"Can we talk about this after we're done running for our lives, please?"

---

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

[AbyssalDaemon]

Does Shirou know about his about his ability to trace weapons and his reality marble?
Dwarven Vow #16: You can do anything if you try! We're dead anyway if we fail.
-Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

[Rieverre]

---

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?

---

Does Shirou know about his about his ability to trace weapons and his reality marble?

---

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.
-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

[AbyssalDaemon]

---

"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_."

---

Ouch, that has got to hurt.

---

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?

---

Not really, she probaly knows one or two spells. But her abilities from what I know of them are more of something thats a part of her like Shirou then something that she really learned.
----------
Is Shirou going to play the same role in the 5th grailwar that his father played in the 4rth and given how he was supposed to have read his father's journal does he know about the events of the 4rth grailwar?
Dwarven Vow #16: You can do anything if you try! We're dead anyway if we fail.
-Lloyd Irving (Tales of Symphonia)

[Valles]

The impression I've gotten of her abilities can hardly be considered accurate or authorative... but as far as I can tell, she's like Scary-Sensei, only without the need for Caster to run the boosting.
Ja, -n

===============================================
"Puripuri puripuri... Bang!"

[Rieverre]

Yes, it's been a while.

---

Originally, part of the reason he'd chosen to come back to Fuyuki for this whole thing was the home field advantage.

The possibility that the Einzberns wouldn't figure things out from the utter and complete _mess_ his and Illya's departure had left in their wake was
so remote it didn't even bear contemplation. There'd been enough brass that might as well have been signed with his name lying around the place to
stock up a small armory, and he hadn't really been all to thorough about taking care of possible surveillance after he'd gotten in. He lacked the time
and ability.

Fuyuki was a calculated gamble. If they knew where you were going _anyway_, you might as well go somewhere where keeping the so-called neutrality is a concern.
Well, where it's a concern during those intervals that the locals aren't busy killing one-another over ancient constructs said to grant the powers of
Magic to the conqueror in.

Still, all things considered, the advantages had seemed to far outweigh the disadvantages.

Knowing your way around being an added, and most welcome, bonus.

... plus, he'd been a bit worried about Fuji-nee going and burning the house down or something during his several months' worth of absence. That was
about the only thing that _hadn't_ gone wrong.

Case in point, the fact that while they may have gotten rid of most of their pursuers thanks to that abovementioned home ground advantage, most is not all.

In this particular case, 'not all' apparently meant one.

Something which in Shirou's experience and Kiritsugu's memories had never, ever, been a good thing.

The ominous rumble coming from the grey, heavy looking clouds gathering overhead, even as the two 'siblings' and their onetime hostage were halted in
their ascent of Ryuudoji's stairway, seemed only fitting.

Several meters ahead, Tohsaka didn't notice, but Illya seemed to be momentarily on edge for some reason and ...

It wasn't anything _he_ could notice, but suddenly his two pistols were in his hands and Kiritsugu's instincts were screaming bloody murder at him.

He moved. Then there was an oddly maroon-shaded blur coming down in front of him, and chips of the stone stairway filling the air as he half-stumbled,
half-hopped backwards.

"Emiya Shirou," the blur resolved itself into human form, one gloved fist buried up to the wrist in the stone. "By order of the Mage
Association, you are to accompany me."

"... can you people not use phones like the rest of the world?" Shirou said, regaining his balance. "What if I said 'no'?"

"I have been authorized to use any means neccessary," the woman said, removing her fist from the ruined section of stairway. "Your survival thereof has not been prioritized."

She was slender, short-haired, clad in a sharp pantsuit, and quite attractive.

"Why?" Shirou turned his eyes skywards, with a pained expression on his face. "Why do you insist on doing this to me? It's like every
attractive girl I run across wants to visit bodily harm upon me. Was it something I ..."

He flung himself to the side, bringing up his left arm and letting loose as soon as Tohsaka and Illya were out of the line of fire. The sound of the five
gunshots fired as rapidly as possible given the mechanical limitations of the weapon seemed as one continuous, distorted thunderclap rather than a series of
sharp barks.

Her speed was unnatural, even to Shirou. Especially to Shirou.

He'd learned to affect his senses as well as his body through simple reinforcement sorcery, but while his crude approach did not let her simply vanish, she
was still faster than he could make himself respond ...

The woman still almost blurred, seeming to slide underneath the path his projectiles had been sent along. Instinct saved him again, and the palm-strike that
would have shattered his sternum slid along the side of his ribcage instead as he twisted in mid-fall.

It still hurt like hell, though, even with reinforcement - his reserves were simply not enough to negate pure, directed power like that.

His back hit grass, and he rolled with the motion, away from the stairway and into forest that covered the hill. He followed momentum up into a crouch.

***

The crackling levinbolt dissipated, and Illyasviel growled in frustration.

"Stubborn, pig-headed, self-sacrificing _idiot_ of a brother ...!"

Before Tohsaka could do anything herself, the pale-haired von Einzbern had already started off towards the treeline, with little regard for anythinging else
...

Down below and some ways off, where Shirou and the woman had disappeared into the greenery, a tree suddenly - and without any warning whatsoever - came
crashing down.

Rin swore. Rin cursed. Rin gathered her reserves and followed.

***

"... was it something I said?" Shirou choked out, getting his breath back while his eyes searched ... and for a moment, gaped.

The woman was crouching on the side of a tree, legs bending to absorb impact.

Shirou had about enough time to think: 'Hey, I think I saw something like this in a manga once ...' before she launched herself towards him, with a
motion akin to the uncoiling of an oversized spring.

The heel drop shattered its way through the spot he'd been in a moment ago, throwing him off balance by the virtue of the fact that while _he_ had managed
to barely slip out of the way, part of his coat had not.

My, that knee was coming at his face rather quickly.

Momentarily panicking, he lashed out. Hell, he was out in his left, and his right was down to half-magazine. Given the state of his hands, he didn't think
trying to Image extra bullets was something he should try - the time he had, after waking up to a teary Illya and a raging Tohsaka, he'd just succeeded in
blowing blood through his bandages. And in blowing, he meant with near explosive force.

Whether it was just luck, or some lingering shade of Kiritsugu's skill, this time the blow actually struck ... pity it was just the blunt barrel of a
pistol against an obviously enhanced target ...

... there was a crack, and a metallic sort of sound immediately thereafter, and the wrenching sensation in his left hand told him that not only was he less one
pistol, he'd either broken or dislocated several fingers.

He was rewarded with the sight of the woman's face contorting into a brief grimace of pain as she hopped away, landing awkwardly and clutching at her knee.

'Kneecap?'

It gave him a moment of breathing room, though said breathing came in painful pants there and then, which was just enough.

His remaining pistol came up.

He didn't even need to aim - he knew how the weapon worked. That he couldn't create one like he could, say, blades or bullets, didn't mean he
couldn't feel how it had been put together. He knew every nook and cranny of the barrel, and every imperfection in a bullet. Every detail of how the flight
path would be, where it would take the bit of lead through, he could almost see before him in vivid detail.

He pulled the trigger, and ...

... knew exactly _when_ things went wrong. Knew exactly _why_. The past few hours hadn't been easy on it, and his condition being what it was, there was
little he could do to help with no time to spare.

He could do nothing about it without reinforcing the weapon - something he did not thing he could, at the moment, accomplish because of his hands'
condition.

"Ah, _crap_!" He swore as the gun jammed.

It was enough. The blued steel went flying, knocked out of his hand, even as the woman hissed in pain at the process of moving at near what he thought was her
top speed with a ... cracked? ... broken? ... kneecap.

"You try my _patience_," she said. "In your condition, why would you even try to fight?"

"... fight? This wasn't a fight," Shirou said, falling back with a resigned expression on his face. Then he smirked. "This was a
_distraction_."

The sudden spike of power coming from a ways up the hill made the woman turn, and her eyes widen.

There, in all her channeling glory, Illyasviel von Einzbern seemed to almost hover, the brilliant ball of pure power resting between her cupped hands glowing
scorchingly. So much so, in fact, that nearby vegetation was starting to slowly twist and blacken from the heat, and the Magic Circuits covering her body were
literally scorching their way through her clothes.

"Get away form him!"

In a moment.

In an instant.

In a flicker of motion, Shirou's expression froze.

Perception is a funny thing that way. It just happened that his own attention was focused on his attacker, instead of Illya's display. He noted the brief
flash of panic. The moment of resolve. The practiced, reflexive motion as a hand reached out.

Shirou's hand shot forward, fingers reaching.

Hers was faster, and grasped the small, ornately looking thing he'd mistaken for mere decoration ...

... but not before a tip of his finger brushed against it.

Realization came instantly, for his body if not for his mind. For instinct, if not for consciousness.

Weapon.

Knowledge came after.

Illya's spell was loosed, even as Shirou's assailant countered ...

It was a concept. A flash of energy realizing the perfect, the ideal counterattack, gathering and reflecting power back onto its source.

Shirou had never before moved as quickly as he did there and then, and in fact wasn't aware of what he'd done, merely that he had done it and stood,
sans coat, with Illya at his back, and the onrushing torrent of power before him.

He knew he wasn't much of a mage. A one trick pony at best. But at that one thing, he could say with certainty that he excelled.

His palm erupted in blood, the bandages not stemming the flow in the least, even as he strained to replicate that brief flash of realization. He had touched
it, therefore he knew it. He knew it, therefore he could _create_ it. He could create it, therefore it was _his_ to wield.

He had not come so far, had not given her her _life_ back, merely to let Illya _die_ like this.

Something within Emiya Shirou snapped, painfully tearing at the limits imposed by his body and fighting its way through to the world in a fine mist of
crimson-red.

Blood. Iron. Power.

Two out of three, and the third should have been provided for a month's time, but Emiya Shirou was a one trick pony.

An idiot savant or an art thought redundant by modern mages.

To him, its rules were more like _guidelines_.

In other words, he cheated like a motherfucker.

The look on his attacker's face when the perfect counter was itself countered was priceless, but deemed secondary as the interplay of energies coiled
together like two fighting serpents ... or one serpent attempting to bite its own tail.

Counter. Counter. Counter. One after another, the energies rebounded, returned, and were reflected a dozen, two dozen, a hundred times in the blink of an eye
in a blinding ballet that suddenly turned on itself. Inverted.

For a heartbeat, what looked like a perfect sphere of pure nothingness hung in the air between him and the woman, warping energy, warping space, warping light
around it in a vertigo-inducing display.

Then, like a soap-bubble, it popped.

The last thing he remembered was channeling the dregs of mana still within him into reinforcing his body, as it was picked up by the rush of expanding air and
then ...

... he woke up to wetness and chill.

For a moment, confusion reigned, before he realized that he was on his back, looking at the sky.

Oh, he was getting rained on. Slowly, and with moments of not-quite-but-almost-agonizing pain as interruptions, he managed to sit up.

There was a sort of path, if you could call it that, leading upwards through the trees. You could tell because of all the broken branches.

And speaking of broken ...

'... I did _that_? And didn't break anything ... just ... ouch ... feels like I bruised _everything_ instead.' He blinked, taking in his
surroundings. 'Wait, isn't that the stairway. The _bottom_ of the stairway. The one I was on the other side of last I recall? How am I not dead? For
that matter ... oh, crap.'

He tried to rise before remembering about his hands, though they did that well enough on their own, and spent another moment looking at the mess his right hand
had become. The good news was, he still had four fingers and a thumb. The bad news was ...

'Eew ... damn ... well, at least it looks like whatever I did cauterized it so I'm not bleeding to death.'

The left one was in better shape, at least after he winced through getting the index and middle fingers back into joint.

That still left him at the bottom of the damn hill, sans coat, slowly getting further and further soaked by the rain and with no clue as to where either of the
girls were.

He _hoped_, on top of the hill, at the temple.

Finally, after a minute or two worth of further trying, he managed to get upright. Oddly, he wasn't feeling exhausted _other_ than physically, which was
just plain strange given the amount of power that last bit of Imaging had taken. How or why this was, he had no time to delve into at the moment. Instead, he
reached to the small of his back, and grinned - the weatherproof holster for the holdout SIG was still there, contents and all.

Not really up to snuff, considering his now likely late CZs, but it would do for the moment. He needed to get up that hill, and ...

What the hell was _that_? The rain was making sound garbled, but he could have sworn he'd just heard someone. Stepping onto the stone stairway, he took a
look around.

Oh.

A few more steps were enough to work through the lingering stiffness and ignore protesting muscles, as he descended to the stairway's base. Carefully.

That someone was apparently unconscious on the ground there, he was only assuming, and assumptions got one killed more often than not. And when not, they
usually involved pain of one kind or another, which he really wasn't up to enduring at the moment.

'I wish I had a sharp stick to poke whoever it is ... with ...' Shirou thought as he finally saw the face under the voluminous hood. Figures.

Also, hooded robe? Well, _that_ was just modern fashion, surely. Certainly. Rrrrrright.

With a heavy sigh, he knelt down beside the prone woman and checked for a pulse ... then froze at the brief spark of mana that seemed to flash along the area
where his fingers rested on her neck. He had no time to do anything else, though, as the woman's eyes shot open in ... panic?

"... please, no ... please, leave me alone ..." She seemed to want to scramble backwards.

"Easy, easy, don't hurt yourself ..." Shirou tried, but as soon as he'd said the first bit her eyes fluttered closed once more, and she was
still. The pulse, and the _other_ one as well - whatever the heck that meant - was still there. Alright, obviously, she was _some_ kind of mage. Sorceress.
Whatever. Point against, as he was fairly sure there were no mages whom he would consider friendly, or even non-hostile, in Fuyuki at this time.

Plus the other problems.

On the other hand ...

Shirou scowled at the sky. "Alright, alright ... but if _this one_ wakes up and decides to try and kill me too, I'm off to find a few gallons of
gasoline and see how well the damn shrine will burn."

But still, couldn't she have fallen unconscious near the _top_ of all these stairs? Would that have been too much to ask?

---

tbc ... eventually ^^

-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