London, England
The air was thick with the smell of fire and melting metal, just as it always was inside of his Reality Marble. The distant gears ticked away endlessly behind the vast expanse of rock and sword. It was his world, or so it had been told to him. In reality, Shirou often thought of this as a borrowed power.
The endless sacrifice that had born this alternate reality had not been his. It had been another him that had paid the price for it. Many times Shirou had thought of sealing it away, promising himself that he would obtain his own power from his own hands. However, both his lover and his teacher had convinced him otherwise each time.
Rin had told him that it would be an insult to the sacrifice that had made it if he had just given it up. It had been a gift to him, to help him forge a new path that did not lead to ruin. Sealing it would be the same as escaping from his responsibility that the gift had represented. Not to become what HE had become.
Sensei had told him much the same, but also that it was a chance to explore its boundaries further. She equated it to her own acquisition of Blue, the Fifth Magic. Since it was hers, she was going to explore every aspect of it had to offer and become worthy of the power her own way. Rin had scoffed, saying that she only wanted him to keep it so she would have a place to let loose and not have to worry about property damage.
Whatever the case, Shirou had embraced it as they had suggested. He could now contain it himself, without having to leech off of his wife and sustain it himself. By doing that, he could freely trace his weapons with no cost of his own mana besides what the Reality Marble was already taking from him. And, of course, the greatest advantage was that they could have a full out war inside with no chance of outside casualties.
Another advantage was the one they were currently engaged in. He and Rin stood next to each other in their full combat attire, facing his Sensei. As normal, she was in just her white T-shirt and jeans, standing at the ready. This was the way they trained. He and Rin would face off against Sensei in an all out duel.
They had yet to win once.
It was infuriating to Rin to say the least, but the most they could get off of Sensei was a few blows. Not once had any of Rin’s spells touched her directly and most of the hits they did land had been unarmed punches or kicks that had barely stunned the woman. Not only was she a Sorcerer of the highest caliber, she also had incredible skill in unarmed combat as well.
As he said every time to himself, he told himself Today would be different. Today was the day that they would win. His beloved falchions came to his hands as the Magic Gunner raised her hand to motion to them to start the match. He and Rin took their stance, letting their mana pour throughout their circulatory system and reinforce the sinew of their muscles. As his Sensei’s hair kicked up when she charged them, they charged her in return.
Sensei never let Rin get to casting in the beginning of the fight. She always charged them, forcing at least the beginning of the fight to be close quarters. Honestly, it had helped them in adapting to a non-ideal situation. Normally, his wife would take to ranged attacks while he ran in to deal with things in melee range. There had already been situations that had forced a diversion from those tactics in the field, and these training sessions had proved more than a bit useful.
As they had planned, Shirou dropped his stance lower as he ran. Rin lunged upward and landed upon his shoulders briefly. He helped her jump off of him by jumping slightly himself. She sailed upwards in the air, the intent obviously to get to the other side of Sensei to trap her in between them. Their chances of landing a blow attacking simultaneously were dramatically increased.
Rin pointed her finger at their enemy as she flew over her, and Shirou heard her call the name of the spell as she attacked. “GANDR,” came her voice and was then drowned out by what sounded like the report of a machine gun. Multiple inky blobs erupted from her fingertip and streaked towards their target. Shriou himself threw both of his swords, having them swing wide so that if they were shot by Sensei’s deadly magic, he would be out of the line of fire.
Sensei raised her hand but kept her eyes on him. A ball of blue light appeared in it and the approached curses were enveloped inside of it. She then tossed the sphere away as the curses disrupted its constitution causing it to eventually explode off to the side violently. As the swords approached, his teacher made no move to avoid them.
At the last possible moment, Sensei kicked off the ground, letting the swords crash into one another right under her as she lurched her foot out to meet his face. His forearm met the blow, angled so that it would deflect rather than risk taking the force of the kick full on. His swords appeared in his hands again as he pushed back against the kick, to spin her backside towards him.
Her other leg hit the ground and she ducked down below his counter swipe, using the momentum he had given her to continue the spin around and use the outstretched leg to try to sweep him. It had been telegraphed enough that he hopped over it just enough to clear and kicked his own leg forward. She stopped it cold with both of her arms and he retracted it quickly to avoid her grabbing it.
All of this had happened within but mere seconds, but Rin was fast approaching from Sensei’s rear. Shirou had to keep her attention for just a bit longer so that they could attack her together. He kept his assault going, swinging with his swords again. Sensei effortlessly dodged one and brought the other one to a stop by catching its broadside between her knee and elbow.
He let go too late and the moment of hesitation was rewarded with her pivoting and driving the foot of the leg that had caught the sword into his midsection. Even with the armor, Sensei’s blows hit impossibly hard. He was thrown backwards and momentarily paralyzed by the pressure and pain of the hit. His concentration returned and he rolled when he hit the ground, lunging forward again to rejoin the fight.
Rin had been met with Sensei spinning around and trying to blindside her with a backhand. She blocked the attack and began her own assault. The decidedly Chinese style of the Tohsaka martial arts came out as her arms attacked in circular arcs, making predicting where they would land more difficult. Sensei was forced to defend as she looked for a hole in the assault.
Shirou would be the first to admit that in hand-to-hand, Rin was far superior to him. She had been training in her family’s martial arts since she could remember, and the movements came to her naturally now. Her style was graceful and fluid, while Sensei’s seemed like it was born from the streets. It looked to almost be kickboxing or Tae Kwon Doe related from her stances. Whatever it was, it worked for her. Incredibly so.
He brought his swords to bear as he closed the distance. Sensei must have sensed his approach and changed her tactics. She let Rin hit her in the midsection with a jab, shaking it off and using the chance to grab his wife’s collar of her jacket. She then pulled with all her might and brought her forehead into Rin’s nose, causing her to cry out and drop her defense.
Sensei then brought her leg around and spun her body, her hands still attached to the collar. She threw Rin at Shirou, forcing him to catch her and stop his charge. Despite knowing it a mistake, he had to check on her and found her nose gushing blood and a string of curses coming from her mouth. He got her to her feet and looked back to Sensei, ready to charge again.
His mind almost went blank as he saw her standing there, only a few meters away, with her hand made to look like a gun. On the end of her finger, a blinding buildup of blue mana was collecting. Without further hesitation he swung out his hand, envisioning the odd flower-like structure in his mind. Right as the massive beam of energy erupted from her finger, Rho Aias formed before him, meeting the approaching death.
Despite the suppressive power that Rho Aias supplied, it was near nothing compared to the Fifth Magic. Already, the pedals of the shield were withering and Shirou looked down to Rin, desperate for a plan. He saw her crouched on the ground, chanting. Blood was still dripping from her nose freely, but her face was still in concentration. The crest on her arm was burning brightly and he knew that she was casting a heavy spell in counter.
He trusted his wife. Shirou himself had no idea what spell could possibly counter the seemingly impossible might of the Fifth Magic, but his faith kept him still. He concentrated on the shield, keeping it together as best he could as it steadily eroded from the assault. Soon it was down to its final pedal, and the heat from the blast was starting to burn his skin.
As the final pedal wavered, Rin slammed her fist into the ground and an intense release of mana could be felt. Shirou almost panicked as nothing seemed to happen, but all of a sudden the beam of mana arced off of them and then died out. Rho Aias collapsed and he stood to see Sensei up to her knees in sand and fallen back to a sitting position trying to free herself.
Rin’s had used one of her elemental spells to break the bonds of the rock below their enemy, forcing her to fall into the now sand. His wife wasted no time and lunged forward, tearing her way towards Sensei as fast as she could. Shirou soon followed and watched as his wife got to her right as she freed her feet.
Sensei was still on the ground, however, and had no leverage to truly defend herself or even dodge effectively. Rin overstepped the patch of sand and drove a kick straight forward, ripping through her enemy’s outstretched hands and delivering the heel of her boot into Sensei’s own nose.
As she reeled, Shirou used the opportunity to get behind her. Sensei rolled back and got to her feet, but Rin and he were already attacking. Even Sensei could not completely block an assault from both her front and back and he and his wife were finally scoring solid blows.
He traced his swords again to force her to concede when there was a lurch in his stomach from a massive amount of mana being displaced. Sensei kicked at him, but this time a flood of energy blasted forth from her foot, forcing him to jump flat on the ground to avoid it. The beam had been almost the same as had come from her finger. He had never seen her use something like this before.
The attack had been blinding and when his vision cleared and he was back on his feet, he saw Sensei standing over his lover with her finger pointed towards her head. “Make a move and she’s dead, kid,” she said in a gravely voice.
Shirou sighed and raised his hands. “You got us again, Sensei…” he admitted.
*********************************
Her nose felt as if it had a rod stuck sideways in it, but to be completely honest it felt wonderful. It was the first time her little fledglings had ever really hit her, and so it was an accomplishment to be excited about. It really was her hope that one day they might even overcome her.
“Ya know, Shirou, you might have won if you had forfeited Rin,” She said to them as the Reality Marble collapsed and they were back in the back yard of their duplex.
“I can’t do that, Sensei. You know that…” he responded, helping said Rin off of the ground.
“Why not, she would forfeit you…” Aoko responded, wiping the blood from her nose.
“I would not, Aoko, you know that! That’s not funny!” Rin called out as she got to her feet.
Actually, she really didn’t. She loved the girl, but every once in a while, Rin’s cool calculating nature made her look very cold. She was willing to trust the girl as she said that, but she just hoped that she was being truthful. More than anything else for the pair, she wanted them together. Even if she was seemingly destined to walk her path alone, she wouldn’t wish that on anyone, especially not her students.
Aoko then addressed Rin, “And you still refuse to use your gems, huh? How do you plan on having the mindset to use them in real combat if you withhold them from training?”
Rin crossed her arms and said, “They are way too expensive to waste on just training, Aoko. Not only the monetary cost, but the countless nights of drawing blood upon them to get them to a level where they are effective.”
Aoko inwardly sighed. It seemed everything she said to this girl was taken as an insult, even though none of it really was. She did enjoy teasing the girl, but most of the time it was the girl’s own paranoia of her that induced it. Sometimes Aoko didn’t even realize what had happened until later, after Rin had left the room steaming.
“Fine, fine,” Aoko said, raising her hands and conceding the argument. “But anyway, I say you kids are well prepared for this war.”
Rin then looked at her seriously. “Aoko… I understand having only one of us go first, so that only one of us becomes a Master and we don’t have to fight each other. But I don’t understand why that Master is to be me… and not you.”
Aoko faced her and sobered herself. “Well,” she began, “that’s due to the fact that as a Sorcerer, I’m great, but as a Magus… I’m a little less great.”
“Even so, that didn’t stop you from having an incredibly strong familiar,” Rin returned.
“And we saw where that led…” Aoko replied. “But still, I do think the summoning ritual will be better handled by you, and the other reason is that you are now used to a strategy using more than just yourself. Honestly, even if I had a Servant, I’d charge right into battle making its job a lot harder than it needs to be.”
Rin smiled a bit and said, “That’s true, I suppose.” She then sighed and paced around a bit. “Well… then I guess it’s me that’s off to the airport tomorrow.”
“And I’ll be there after you summon your Servant,” Shirou said to her. He wrapped his arms around her, driving a slight pang from Aoko. Not that she wanted the kid, of course, but to just to have someone TO hold her wouldn’t be so bad.
**************************************
Munich, Germany
There were 2,387 little holes in the ceiling tile directly above her. She had counted several times to make sure and had arrived to that very conclusion. Exactly 2,387. It was both exciting and disappointing in a way. Now she was free to move to a different tile, but it wouldn’t have the same welcome atmosphere that had been gained in this one. But soon enough it would be just as welcome as she explored it more.
She had been strapped to this bed for quite a while, now. Time didn’t really have any meaning when the sun was never to be seen. It was a dull, white room with no windows and a single boring door. No, it wasn’t even white, it was DULL white. Like cream or manila or something.
At least there had been people around, but they didn’t really speak to her. They spoke ABOUT her quite often, but never really to or at her. And they came and went so often that she didn’t even know if they were in the room sometimes. The only person that was constantly in here was the one she had created… or ‘summoned’ as they said. But he never really said anything either…
Again, the silly men that always walked way too fast came into the room. She always listened to their conversations, but they never gave their names for some reason. So she called the one with graying hair Hector and the reddish-haired one Isaac. It seemed silly for one to be called Sir and the other one apparently nothing.
“These readings look promising, wouldn’t you say?” said Hector. He always seemed happy… in a way. It was the kind of happy that was also really scary, though.
Isaac sighed, replying, “Yes sir, I suppose you could say that…”
“And why would one not say that? The girl has regained full consciousness and has her motor functions back. We won’t have to use Berserker via direct brain stimulus at all!” said the graying man.
“Well, that was the original plan anyway, right? Back before we found that the cloning process had resulted in degraded telomeres and that our vessel was going to deteriorate before the war even began,” replied the other man.
“So we were supposed to just give up, then? Look, she might not be an ideal specimen, but she is more than able to function now,” said Hector. He was waving his hand in dismissal.
“You say that, sir, but the advanced aging we had to induce has left her appendages mostly useless! She can’t even walk now! Who ever heard of entering a war in a damned wheelchair?!” replied Isaac.
“She doesn’t NEED her arms and legs, you idiot! Her mind is sharp as the originals and she has summoned a magnificent Berserker-class Servant!” cried out Hector. He got this way often, it seemed. And once again, neither of them seemed to care that she was awake and could hear them just fine…
The other man looked sheepish and scratched the back of his head. He was weighing whether or not to say his rebuttal when it slipped out, “…So did Illyasviel…”
Hector turned to face him, his eyes narrowing and he pointed his finger to the other man. “Illyasviel was a failure! With the Servant she had, she should have been able to easily dispose of all opposition. Yet she was unable to kill a single one, spending most of her time at home. I tell you, it was that blasted rogue Magus’s genetics that screwed her up. It’s for reasons like that we used Justizia’s DNA to create this vessel.”
“And just how sure are we that the tissue came from Justizia?” asked Isaac.
“What are you getting at? Are you blind? LOOK at the girl!” bellowed the other man.
Isaac swung around and returned, “I HAVE, and she looks exactly like Illyasviel…”
The other man shook his head and said, “Of course she does… they all do.”
“Irisviel looked slightly different to me, Sir,” replied Isaac.
Hector shook his head and said, “You aren’t old enough to remember her at that age. I assure you that she did look exactly as this girl here.”
Isaac sighed and rested against the wall. “Despite all this… do you really think she can handle supplying the Servant in the field? After having to put her on life-support during the initial bonding to her circuits during summoning, I wonder what will happen if she is forced to use a Command Seal.”
“I understand the number of things that can go wrong. But what choice do we have? The girl’s cells will achieve senescence in a matter of weeks. Her cells will stop dividing and she will deteriorate within a few weeks after that. There aren’t the resources to try again and the Grail is full. We only have this one shot,” Hector replied, calming down a bit, himself.
The red-haired man began drumming his fingers on the wall, and said, “I just hope we’re not jinxing ourselves… I know we used the same procedure to modify the fetus in the donor womb, and the girl did come out made purely of Magic Circuits, but it just seems wrong to be mixing science and thaumaturgy so carelessly.”
“I actually agree with you, there. But, all we can do is tell ourselves that we are just modernizing practices to achieve the same goal,” Hector replied.
Isaac eyed him and said, “That’s why you named her that, then…”
Her name was something else that bothered her. It was so simple and commonplace. If she really was a recreation of this Justizia person, then shouldn’t she have a name like that? He had said it was a modernization… but Jessica Einzbern just seemed kinda dull. Just like the walls.