บท 28: Chapter 28: Blood Letting

After going back to Japan Kiritsugu Emiya was forced to wait for 15 days, this much was the time it took for the scardy cat Altair to find the tail of the tuner. After having breakfast kiritsugu turned to shirou and said

"shirou I am going back to Europe to track down Tuner so have your luggage prepared as I will come back to get you as soon as I get hold of him."

Understanding his father`s plight shirou nodded and smiled slightly as he said

"Best of luck Dad."

The magus killer also smiled slightly after hearing this and ruffled the boy`s hair before leaving the emiya residence. After kiritsugu was gone shirou rushed into the kitchen to pack his lunch box.

Locking the door shirou went to school in a jolly mood and sat down beside his deskmate Shinji. After greeting Shinji shirou noticed dark circles under his eyes and asked

"Hey Shinji are you alright, you are strangely quiet today ?"

After being questioned Shinji looked over and clenched his fist inside his sleeves as he answered with his usual smirk

"What will happen to me emiya, i am very far from having you worry about me."

Then he went off his usual bragging and obnoxious tangent dispelling Shirou`s doubts. During lunch, shirou ditched his friends to go to the rooftop and meet Rin. As he left the classroom he heard Issei saying

"Emiya needs to come to the temple more often, he needs guidance and tempering."

Laughing at Issei`s words he reached the rooftop and activated a simple bounded field as he waited for Rin. Sensing the bounded field being activated she came by within 15 minutes and elegantly took a seat in front of the boy.

She asked

"So why did you call me here shirou?"

"I wanted to talk about our spar tomorrow, dad has gone to Europe so i alone will come to pick you up tomorrow." said shirou

Understanding the problem with the absence of kiritsugu she agrees with shirou and then they talk about things that somehow end up in a bet about tomorrow`s winner.

After finishing school shirou leisurely went home. Taiga said she would not come for 2 weeks as she has participated in a kendo tournament whose venue is in another city.

Reaching home and taking a bath the boy went into the dojo to practise magecraft. After nearly 6 months of practice, he felt he was about to breach some invisible wall in his practice of structural grasp.

He remembered the spontaneous visions he sometimes had when mediating with a sword. He had a gut feeling that this wall he was perceiving had something to do with those visions and the scattered information they fed into his brain.

Finishing his magecraft practice by trying to use basic shields over his body but failing miserably. The redheaded boy woke up and had dinner, after dinner, he activated the bounded fields that he constructed around the house. Then wrapped 2 bandages made of pure white cloth around his arms from palm to shoulder.

These two bandages were hemostatic mystic codes that were brought from the Miller family. Checking the bounded field again and finding no problems he fell asleep.

….

Shirou woke up in the void with the sword hilts floating below him, he looked at the horizon and saw some sparks of orange unusually conspicuous in the blank void. His visions started twisting and turning and disappeared in a swirl.

Shirou felt himself directly appear in his future self instead of above the location like always. This made him unable to judge the location prompting him to quickly analyze the surroundings.

His eyes captured the corridor he was in, the plain floor and the dust-covered white paint of the walls. Looking at the rooms and boards similar to his school, he concluded the location to be some kind of educational institution.

The only thing bugging him was the strange red tint to the atmosphere as well as the smell of blood in the environment. Especially the smell of blood and flowers was intense enough to be off-putting but instead, it held a strange beguiling charm.

Finally, his eyes focused on the figure of the woman in front of him, the woman clad in black clothes had a purple eye fold on her eyes matching the colour of her hair. The woman was the source of the smell he was perceiving and shirou felt his mind going into a trance similar to mediation as he recognised the servant that ambushed them in the last vision.

Her presence became vague as she started to move. Shirou felt his body tighten and go into a state complementary to his mind. His body kicked on the floor and took motion towards the servant.

This revealed the figure behind the servant, it was a boy wearing a high school uniform very similar to Taiga. The boy had blue curly hair that resembled seaweed, his moth was curved in a sneer of superiority.

Seeing the boy standing 6 meters behind the servant shirou refers to him as the master while feeling a deep sense of deja vu.

He felt his sense sharpening to a degree that he didn't know was possible and he felt a stinging sensation on his left side. The servant`s fist makes a small motion and shirou feels his body dodge it cleanly and rush into the gap between the servant and the wall.

The female figure disappears from his vision making his body release a surprised yelp.

"Enh—"

After disappearing from his view the familiar reappears in front of him proving his move to exploit the gap meaningless. Shirou feels his body straining itself to stop but it is futile as even the inexperienced shirou can sense the maneuver to be foolish.

The servant climbs on the wall like a spider with the agility of a snake. She moved as if her boy lacked joints and swung her arm. Shirou felt an impact from behind along with sharp pain at the junction of his spine and head.

Shirou perceives the crescent track of her attack after he had been stabbed by her. Shirou gurgles as air leaves his neck

"Phew– gruh.."

Shirou felt stinging pain but after feeling it thrice he was more acquainted with it or rather his personality was changing but he lacked the answer. With his dying body, he admired the swing performed by the servant.

He felt it to be truly beautiful, the grace carried in it invoked the imagery of a lady touching a daffodil or a dragonfly touching the water's surface, unlike the casual swing done by the caster.

"Hahahahahahah! What is that? You are just like a specimen. The sound your neck is making is awesome."

Said the boy whom shirou assumed to be the master. Answering the outburst of the master the servant`s voice echoed. The voice was chilling in a way very similar to the hissing of a snake.

"I have gone easy on him. I believe he can still be saved if you heal him."

"Hey… what are you doing by making choices on your own? Who said you can go easy on him? Servants should just listen to their masters and not give opinions." said the magus in a tone as if mocking the whole world.

Even with a dying body, the figure of the master of the lancer from the 4th holy grail war flashed in front of shirou. The memory of what a cruel death the magus received at the hands of his father came to the forefront of his psyche.

Shirou`s blood flowed out as he felt his lungs making futile attempts to take in air through his punctured throat. For some reason, shirou felt the current master would end up in the position of the previous master as the woman said

"Then you have no intention of saving this person?"

"Nope. first of all, I can't use any healing magecraft so he is just going to die. So let him go in ease." said the master in a commanding voice as the servant replied

"Understood. So I shall not melt him in my bounded field but rather quench my thirst directly."

The sound of metal dragging on the ground echoed as shirou felt his body being lifted into the air. The woman brought his face close to hers and then gently opened her mouth.

She bites his bleeding neck as if kissing it and starts sucking his already-depleting blood. The bloodsucking was like euthanasia as he stopped feeling any pain and he just felt he was slowly being melted from inside by spider poison.

Shirou`s violin started cracking as he felt blood leave his body. Even when dying shirou1s mind was struck by that strike, and he felt an intense desire to be able to perform something similar.

It felt like the solution to most of his problems he left the vision with a question echoing in his mind.

< Dad said that humans can't match servants so I can't perform that strike. So what can I do to achieve that strike?>

….