Chapter Text
“Would you do it all over again? Knowing what you know now? Knowing that you end up here, at gunpoint?”
Whatever happened after that question, I can’t recall.
Everything faded to black.
The only thing I remember was at that point, I made a wish.
I wish I could start from the beginning.
* * *
I heard a voice.
No, ‘heard’ wasn’t the right word. I had no body, no way of sensing sound, and I’m not sure that ‘sound’ was an applicable concept where I was. I heard it moreso as one here’s a thought that they have, but it wasn’t my voice.
Desperation. Anger. Despair. Shock. Indignation. I felt those feelings as if they were my own. Running through the flooded streets of my home, warning whoever I could of the attack. Sitting handcuffed in the PRT headquarters. Seeing my friend’s organs displayed while he still lived. A meeting at the principal’s office. The destructive whims of a god. I turned my attention close to this voice that brought back such memories.
Why do I have to be the one who goes through this?
I can’t die in vain here.
I can’t let my savior’s actions be in vain
I need to fulfill my obligations. I can’t save anyone if I die here.
I can’t die until I become a hero.
He’s going to die. Probably at the hands of someone he has no chance of defeating. He’s tried everything he can and it still wasn’t enough. All of his plans for life are going to be snuffed out without a thought. Yet despite all that-
I’m not gonna let myself die senselessly…to the likes of YOU!
He wanted to at least go down fighting.
I could relate to that.
* * *
Shirou Emiya, Fuyuki, 2004
All at once, the shed was engulfed in darkness, thousands of flying, crawling, and biting creatures blocking out all light. The steel that had been aimed at my heart was knocked aside, sparks briefly providing glimmers of light in the darkness. For a moment, I was concerned that the swarm would harm me, but the thousands of stingers and mandibles were focused solely on my assailant, who retreated from the shed in confusion. The swarm pursued the man in blue, and while I couldn’t tell if they managed to actually harm him, he at least was no longer focused on me. As the majority of the swarm left the shed, the light of the moon shone on my savior. A tall girl with curly black hair that trailed past her shoulders, dressed in some sort of black bodysuit with panels of white armor. She turned to look at me, and I saw she wore a black mask with blue lenses that evoked an insect’s. Looking up at her, I knew I should be terrified of what she could do to me. And yet…
Why do I feel like I can trust her?
Impatient with my staring, she breaks the silence with a single question.
“So… are you my Master?”
* * *
“Eh…Mas…ter?”
What was she talking about? No, more importantly, where did she come from? I was being chased by that man in blue, and right as he was about to kill me, a light began to-
“Gh…!” I clutched my hand to my chest. It felt like a hot rod of metal was being slid into it from the top, and for a moment it too glowed with a bright red light. After a mere moment, the pain subsided, and I saw a symbol burned on to my skin, only with magic instead of heat. My ears rang, and a voice that was not my own echoed in my head. Assassin.
The girl sighed, turning to look outside the shed. “I suppose that answers my question. Our contract is formed. Get ready for a fight, Master. Tell me your abilities.” Despite asking me a question, she darted out of the shed before I had a chance to answer, or even ask any of the dozen questions I had of her.
“W-Wait, I don’t understand! Y-You’re gonna fight that guy?!” Even though I couldn’t get a good look of her under the mask, I could tell she wasn’t much older than I was. Even if she was a magus or something, she had no chance against a guy like that. I had to do something, or she was gonna get herself killed. I ran out of the mansion to warn her, only to see something I never could’ve expected.
Well, “see” was perhaps generous. Most of my vision was taken up by the same swarm of bugs that had previously swarmed from the shed. Did this girl summon them? The shed may have been a bit dirty, but there was no way there were that many bugs infesting it. Clouds of yellow, black, and orange shapes darted across my vision. These clouds dissipated rapidly around what I could only assume was the man in blue, slashing at it with the same speed he’d attacked the swordsman from earlier. Even he was almost hard to make out, the swarm covering his body. It didn’t seem to be damaging him, but given the sounds he was making, it at least hurt.
“D-Damn it…!” He leaped into the air, and before I could make out what he planned to do, he crashed back down, the impact creating a shockwave that destroyed hundreds of bugs around him, with the rest being blown back. The swarm’s attempt to surround him for a second time ended in failure, his lance swinging around him so fast that nothing could reach him. His eyes darted around in an attempt to find his opponent.
“There!” Ending his flurry of blows around him, he darted across the yard, his spear piercing the girl-wait, that’s wrong. What seemed to be his opponent dissolved into a horde of bugs, flying right past him. Grunting in frustration, he switched tactics. Shifting his spear to hold it in only one hand, he lunged at the largest clump of bugs, swinging widely through the swarm to cover as much ground as possible. In the hands of anyone else, a movement like that would be clumsy, but he made it seem as graceful as anything else he did. Still, after a few swings he hadn’t met any success in hitting her. I couldn’t help but worry, though. With the area he was covering, he was bound to hit her and some point, and a hit like that…
“Ah!!” A horrible sound cut through the buzzing of the swarm as his spear met its mark. Dammit, I need to do something…! At this rate, he was gonna kill her.
She was only a short distance away from him, wide open. “You’re mine!” He shouted, stabbing through-
“What?!” Right as he pierced his target, it once again dissolved into insects. An instant after he drew his spear back, it stopped abruptly, and his limbs drew inward as if he was being squeezed by something. I could only make out the briefest glint of light drawing a line across his torso. At the same moment his spear was frozen in place, the girl finally made her appearance dashing out of the swarm to stab the man with a combat knife. For a brief moment, it seemed like she had gotten the upper hand.
However, her opponent was no normal one. In spite of his arms being disabled, he kicked his knee up with a jump, staggering her before kicking her across the yard. He heaved his spear back to pull himself in its direction, the spearhead cutting through his bindings.
It was strange. I could’ve sworn I had heard her right next to him, but she attacked from the other side of the field. It didn’t seem like she had simply moved that fast, so how did she-
“I said, what are your abilities? Or do you have none, Master?” I whipped my head around, the words whispered next to my ear. They sounded strange, only passably resembling a human voice, unlike the way she had spoken earlier. It was almost as if… He listened carefully for the next sound. “If that is the case, then stay back!”
Her bugs. She wasn’t speaking to me at all, but communicating through them. It sounded so strange because, instead of speaking through magic, the bugs were simply imitating the sounds of speech, creating words from the chirps and buzzes of hundreds of different insects. It was a complex ability, to be sure. It was probably why she didn’t give me time to answer her question before fighting the blue knight. She intended to carry out the conversation at the same time. But hearing me through all that noise…could she listen through her bugs’ ears, as well?
As much as I wanted to protest my lack of abilities, I couldn’t say much. I could count on one hand the amount of times I’d successfully Strengthened in the past few years, and my body ached from doing it previously. Well, it also ached from being kicked 40 feet into a wall, but somehow the pain of magic circuits was worse. Dammit, I’m useless here!
At the same time she was talking to me, the spearman began pressing the offensive on his newfound target. Without the concealment of her bugs, she was forced to parry his attacks head on. It was a similar scenario to the fight from earlier with the swordsman in red, her using her knife and what seemed to be a baton to deflect his spear. She fared worse than the swordsman had, however. The reach of her weapons was much shorter, and she wasn’t as strong as he was. Her speed helped make up the difference, flexibly dodging the spear thrusts, but it was a losing game. Despite her attempts to blend in with her swarm, now that her opponent had found her, he wasn’t going to allow her to escape. Her parries got closer and closer to missing, until she finally stumbled from the weight of the blows. She wasn’t going to make it!
“You’re mine!” Just as he prepared to swing his spearhead down to cut through her torso, the girl vanished. It was almost too fast to see, but I saw her dash into the air diagonally, putting distance between her and her opponent. It was only a temporary respite, however. The moment she crashed back down, he would descend on her.
But she didn’t fall back down. She stayed there, floating 25 feet in the air. The box on her back had unfolded into mechanical wings resembling a dragonfly. She hovered there, a small swarm surrounding her like mist. The rest of her bugs were darting across the field, some flying back and forth.
I felt something tie around my wrist. For a moment I panicked, grabbing at it, but it wouldn’t budge. It seemed to be mere thread, but it had the strength of steel. Before I could grab at it more, the same bugs that had been in my ear commanded me to stop. Whatever it was, it seemed to factor into her plans.
The blue knight scowled at her, his expression stoic even as hornets and spiders gnawed at him. Despite that, he lowered his spear, signalling a pause in hostilities. “Tch, slippery bastard. I suppose you’re Assassin, then?” The girl-Assassin-didn’t answer him, but her bugs did let up their assault.
“No point in hiding it, I’ve already fought the rest of the Servants. That leaves you as Assassin–though I’ve never heard of a Heroic Spirit controlling bugs. Anyways, how about we call it quits for tonight, huh? Your Master seems pretty useless and mine’s a coward who won’t show his face. Sounds like a good deal, right?” He smirked, his demeanor having changed entirely from just a minute ago.
After a few seconds, Assassin responded. All at once, sound resonated all over the yard from her bugs. “That is acceptable, Lancer. But if you are trying to trick us, I will know. I won’t forgive that.” It was a bit ironic, coming from a girl whose fighting style seemed to rely on trickery.
The irony was not lost on the man, apparently named Lancer. “Ha! That’s rich coming from you, bug girl. Good luck with that Master of yours-he’ll certainly need it.” With a smirk, he leaps out of the courtyard, returning to wherever he came from.
As soon as he’s gone, Assassin returns to the ground, her swarm retreating back into the shed, corners of the courtyard, and-into her clothes?! Some hordes of bugs simply vanished from sight, having apparently been constructed from magecraft. With the majority of the bugs gone, I finally got a clear look at her as she landed next to me. She watched me in silence, her expression unknowable with her mask covering her face.
“Wh-Who are you…?” I asked in disbelief. She had appeared out of nowhere and fought Lancer to a standstill. She clearly wasn’t human, but she seemed to be on my side. On top of that, she kept calling me ‘Master’.
“I am your Servant, Assassin. Surely you didn’t summon me without knowing what class I would be, Master?” She sounded irritated. Was I supposed to know what she was talking about?
I didn’t know what to say to that. For whatever reason, what stood out the most to me was the fact that she kept calling me ‘Master’. “I-I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but my name isn’t ‘Master’. It’s Shirou. Shirou Emiya. I, uh, live here.” I said, like an idiot. Who says something like that? Of course I live here.
She paused for a moment before nodding. “I see, Shirou. I’d rather call you that instead.” I felt myself blush. Calling me by my first name? That feels almost more intimate than being called Master. Before she has a chance to say anything else, she turns her head. “Another Master is coming, Shirou. We may have another fight on our hands.”
“A-Another fight?! Wait, I still don’t know what you’re talking about-”
The next few seconds went by in a flash. Her bugs, that had been summoned again, rolled like a wave over the wall of my house, only to be blown away by a powerful wind magic. Dashing out of that gust was that man in red from earlier, crossing blows with Assassin. But that’s not what drew my attention. Leaping over the fence right after him was a girl my age. A girl I was very familiar with.
“T-Tohsaka?!”
The fight between the knight in red and Assassin paused, and she turned to look at me. Her bugs had stopped attacking, but they remained ready to swoop in at a moment’s requirement. “Shirou, you know this girl?” I could hardly muster a response, I was so shocked. She landed on the ground, brushing dust off her skirt and smacking a bug that had landed on her hand. Had she been attacked by Assassin?
Just what the hell was going on?