[Complete] Ch 8.2 Is it Wrong for a Sword to Remain Sheathed Against Injustice? (Patreon)

Is it Wrong for a Sword to Remain 

Sheathed Against Injustice?

Story Starts

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Chapter 8.2

One Sunny Day

The sky was clear, the bright air filled with joyous cries, and the city knew peace.

But in a corner of the street, a woman stood watching the sun take its place in the heavens.

"Finally decided to show your face, huh?" Valletta Grede drew out each word, slow and deliberate. "About time we had some good weather." A grin split her face. "Even the skies are givin' me their blessin' today!"

An animal man bumped into her. The street was packed thanks to the soup kitchen—a little collision here and there was expected.

"Oops, sorry about that," he said, already moving past.

Valletta waved her hand. "No worries."

Her other hand found the sword beneath her overcoat. The last thing the man heard was his own flesh tearing open. A rasping croak escaped him before his eyes rolled back and his severed head tumbled from his neck. Blood fountained across the cobbles. The body crumpled.

Valletta sneered down at the corpse. "You can pay me back with your life."

Silence. Those nearby stared, frozen, at what they had witnessed.

Valletta hoisted the crimson-stained longsword onto her shoulder and licked blood from her lips.

Then—

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh!!"

Time lurched forward. The scream was joined by others.

"W-waaaah!"

"What happened?! What just happened?!"

"She killed him! She murdered him!!"

Chaos seized the street. Men and women, young and old, shoved each other aside, fleeing the epicentre of violence by any means necessary. Crazed as they were, they understood what they'd seen. This was the Age of Darkness, and that meant only one thing.

Evilus had arrived.

Valletta paid no attention to the pandemonium her blade had unleashed. She strolled towards the volunteers, observing the scene with idle curiosity.

Vito had already engaged someone. For once, the bastard looked agitated—charging a redhead who wielded two daos, one black and one white. Every time Vito lunged, the redhead slammed a boot into his face and flipped backwards, opening distance. Vito's growl of frustration carried across the chaos.

Valletta ignored him. She planted a hand on her hip.

"Nice little kitchen you got goin' on here." Her gaze swept across the terrified volunteers. "Gimme a taste, you Guild shits."

Her hair was toxic pink. Tattered underclothes hung loose above leather trousers. Any adventurer worth their salt recognised her at once—only one person on the Guild blacklist matched that description. A human known as Arachnia. Evilus's top field commander.

Valletta Grede had arrived, herald of the carnage to come.

"Let me help you all out," she said, rolling her shoulders. "I see some nice, ripe berries just waitin' to be squeezed!"

She unleashed her blade upon the crowd. Its edge danced—carving limbs, slicing heads, drawing blood in elegant arcs. She was Level 5. Not a single man, woman, or child could escape her reach.

"V-Valletta! What are you doing?!"

A man burst from the fleeing crowd—one of the Evilus operatives who'd been hiding amongst the civilians. He sprinted towards her, shouting, "We were told not to—Gaaah?"

The blade took him mid-sentence. He fell like the rest, another body added to the growing pile.

Valletta's sword was indiscriminate in its slaughter. Between the terrified citizens and her bewildered allies, she alone wore a crimson smile.

"Don't tell me what to do, worm." She spread her arms wide, gazing heavenward. "Look at this beautiful blue sky! Ain't it the perfect weather for turnin' everybody into a mushy pulp?!"

Blood dripped from her blade onto the cobblestones. The sun blazed overhead, warm and golden, utterly indifferent to the horror beneath it.

A natural-born killer, accompanied by evil and singing its praises.

"We gotta remind these idiots of the hell they're livin' in!" Valletta's voice rose to a shriek. "They don't get to smile and be happy! Now—get 'em!"

"Y-yes, ma'am!"

The Evilus soldiers obeyed their brutal mistress without hesitation. Not one dared object after what had happened to their compatriot.

What followed was a barrage of violent explosions.

"Gaaaaaaaagh!"

"Eeeeeeeeeek!!"

The telltale gleam of magic filled the streets. Blasts tore through everything—roads, buildings, people. Flesh burned. Stone walls crumbled. The street, once bathed in sunlight, was bathed instead in blood.

"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!" Valletta threw her head back. "What a wonderful prelude to despair! This oughtta liven up your boring lives, adventurer scum!!"

Her mad laughter echoed like thunder. It travelled down the streets, mingling with screams and the roar of collapsing masonry, and reached the ears of the two adventurers escorting a group of men, women, and children to safety.

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Ryuu spun towards the eastern quarter. "I hear more screams, and... explosions?"

The distant rumble of collapsing masonry punctuated her words. Smoke billowed above the rooftops—black columns rising against the perfect blue sky.

"Come on, everyone, follow!" Alise's voice cut through the panicked noise, sharp and commanding. "No matter what happens, head towards the Guild!"

Ryuu caught up with her captain, who was already escorting another cluster of terrified civilians. Her report tumbled out in fragments—Shirou facing Vito, the children she'd carried clear, chaos erupting from multiple directions at once.

"I need to go back," Ryuu said. "Shirou is—"

"You can't." Alise grabbed her arm. "Look."

More cloaked figures emerged from side streets and alleyways. Evilus operatives, dozens of them, crawling out of the city's woodwork. Each group of fleeing civilians became a target, and a single defender couldn't protect them all.

Ryuu's jaw tightened. She understood. One person escorting a group meant one person overwhelmed when the next wave struck.

"We find Ganesha Familia or bring them directly to the Guild," Alise said. "Those are our options."

Around them, violent scenes unfolded beneath the mockingly clear sky. The adventurers responded quickly—those who had been running security for the soup kitchen drew their weapons and engaged. But their enemy was numerous, and their targets indiscriminate.

Voices of terror filled the air. Buildings lining the street crumbled under magical bombardment. There was simply too much to protect, and not enough hands to protect it with. Orario's defenders could barely contain what was happening immediately around them, let alone strike back.

Valletta Grede saw all this and grinned.

"Die, die!" she sneered, basking in it. "Let me hear your screams! Let me hear you beg!"

She stepped onto the body of one of Orario's townsmen and ground her heel into his chest.

"This city can send all the reinforcements it wants—none of them are gonna stop me from squeezing the life outta you!"

Several members of Ganesha Familia broke formation, weapons raised, charging towards the killer. Ryuu intercepted them before they reached her.

"Please escort these people to safety," she called out, gesturing to the huddled civilians behind her. "Prioritise the citizens. We'll handle the rest."

The Ganesha members hesitated, caught between duty and rage, but training won out. They gathered the civilians and began moving them towards the Guild district.

Valletta's wanton disrespect for her victim drove a nearby adventurer into a rage. "Arachniaaa!" he yelled, rallying his two allies to attack her in unison.

None of them stood a chance.

One moment, Valletta was standing there. The next, her blade had decapitated all three. Their heads tumbled through the air in grotesque synchronisation.

"There ain't no easier target than some righteous prick with his head stuck up his own ass!" She cackled as the bodies sank into the spreading pool of blood behind her.

Ryuu watched Valletta position herself at the street's centre—a symbol of fear driving the townspeople into panicked frenzy. But even whilst revelling in terror, the spider did not neglect her true purpose. She drew out key targets and eliminated them with surgical precision, all whilst feeding the chaos. Ruthless and cunning to the bitter end.

Ryuu's grip tightened on her wooden sword. She exchanged a glance with Alise.

No words were necessary.

Ryuu dropped from above. Alise struck from behind.

Valletta sensed both attacks in the same instant. She reached beneath her coat and drew a dagger, holding it in reverse grip alongside her greatsword. She wheeled around and parried both blows simultaneously—steel meeting steel, steel meeting wood.

"Oh, well, if it isn't Astraea Familia!" Valletta jeered in a singsong voice. "I don't remember invitin' a pair of suckling brats!"

"Silence!" Ryuu snarled. Any reservations she might have held about striking a foe from behind had evaporated the moment this woman drew her blade. "This was supposed to be a joyous day! How dare you come and spill blood in this place!"

Alise landed a short distance away and immediately lunged with her straight sword, following up her failed opening. "You shall pay dearly for this! We will strike you down where you stand!"

Ryuu's wooden sword strained against the dagger. Alise's blade locked against the greatsword. Valletta pushed back against both of them, muscles bunching beneath her tattered clothes. Her eyes met theirs, and her lips curled upward.

"Idiots!" she sneered. "How could two Level Threes possibly hope to defeat a Level Five?"

An impossibly powerful fist answered her question.

"If numbers mean so much to you, then what do you make of mine?"

Gareth strode directly into the engagement and delivered a rock-solid punch whilst Valletta was occupied with Ryuu and Alise. The evil warrior attempted to shrug off the girls' weapons and extricate herself, but too late—the blow connected with her ribs. She was knocked clean off her feet and skipped along the cobblestones like a stone across water.

"Elgarm!" Alise shouted in surprise.

"Are you okay, lasses?" Gareth asked, his weathered face grim. "Curses, what was I doing? How could I have allowed these deaths to happen on my watch?" He cast a glance at the carnage surrounding them. "Finn and Riveria ought to be ashamed of me."

But it wasn't long before he returned his attention to the battle. A short distance away, Valletta had ground to a halt by driving her greatsword into the earth.

"Damn, that hurt!" She gave an ominous chuckle, rising slowly. "So Loki Familia finally decided to show, did they? Where's your crew, old man? Is the great Finn Deimne too scared to come help?"

Ryuu knew the history. Loki Familia and Valletta Grede had crossed paths many times in the eight years since the Dark Age began. Finn and the spider had foiled each other's machinations so often that Valletta viewed Braver as her despicable archnemesis.

Gareth was unfazed, his voice steady as bedrock. "Sorry, but it's me you're dealing with today. Finn's seen through your little distraction and is dealing with your true plan as we speak."

Valletta did not have to weigh the dwarf's words for long. A messenger sprinted towards her, dodging through the chaos.

"Boss!" he cried. "There's smoke rising in the distance, where our allies are hiding! It looks like they've been attacked before they could carry out the assault!"

Ryuu followed the messenger's gesture. Dark pillars of smoke loomed to the east and west, rising above the rooftops. If Valletta had been versed in magic, she surely would have recognised the faint yet unmistakable traces woven through it.

When she heard the news, the smile dropped from her face. Only a bitter scowl remained.

"Man, fuck you. Here I am, swingin' my sword round like a lunatic, and there wasn't even any damn point."

So Valletta's rampage had been a diversion—meant to draw the Guild's eyes away from Evilus's true objective. But Finn had been one step ahead, joining forces with Ganesha Familia to intercept their main thrust.

With her side's plan in shambles, Valletta looked more fed up than ever.

"Shit, what's even the point?" She sheathed her dagger and hefted her greatsword onto her shoulder. "You lot, hold 'em off. I'm leavin'."

"L-Lady Valletta?" Her remaining operatives stuttered. "You can't be serious!"

"You can't expect me to screw around here like a moron when there's nothing happening anymore. I'm goin' home, and you're gonna be my meat shields. Understood?"

Her gaze slid, briefly, to the far end of the street—where Vito was still eating boot leather from a redheaded cook. She shrugged.

"Vito can find his own way home. He always does."

Valletta was a bloodthirsty spider, but her lust for violence had not crossed into madness. Her sharp wits made her a terrifying foe—she would turn tail the moment the situation called for it.

"Running away?" Alise moved to block her path, fury burning in her eyes. "You think we'll let you go that easily?"

Ryuu flanked her captain, wooden sword raised. Gareth completed the formation, his battle-axe gleaming.

But Valletta was not perturbed. "Oh, don't worry. You'll have much better things to do than chase a rapscallion like me."

"Lass, leave her to me." Gareth charged forward, his axe locking against Valletta's blade in a shower of sparks. "There are still others in need!"

Ryuu hesitated, torn between the spider before her and the screams still echoing from the surrounding streets.

"Ryuu," Alise called out, turning towards her. "Shi—oof!"

Something slammed into Alise from the side. Ryuu's sword came up—then stopped, because the something had arms, and the arms had wrapped around her captain mid-impact, and the two of them were skidding across the cobblestones in a tangle. Two swords clattered across the stones in their wake, flung clear—one black, one white—as the figure twisted through the slide, took the stone on his own shoulder, and came up in a crouch with Alise set down beneath him with surprising gentleness.

Shirou.

He hadn't jumped. Ryuu's eyes tracked the line of his skid back across the street—he'd been launched, blocking something with enough force behind it to throw a grown man ten medr into her captain. And he'd still had the presence of mind to drop both blades mid-flight rather than land on Alise holding them.

A low growl rolled out of his throat.

Ryuu had heard Shirou Emiya sigh, deflect, apologise, and chuckle. She had never once heard him make that sound—though her mind strayed to a certain incident a few nights ago. Well. Grunting didn't count. Ryuu shook the distraction loose.

Shirou rose and charged towards Vito, scooping both daos from the cobbles without looking at them.

Vito came through the smoke at a dead run, blade already swinging—and Gareth, without turning his head from Valletta, batted the slash aside with the haft of his axe, the way a man waves off a fly at dinner. Vito's charge carried him past the dwarf, stumbling—

—straight into the sole of Shirou's boot.

Square in the face.

Vito reeled back, and this time the scream that came out of him had nothing to do with battle.

"MY SENSES ARE DULLED!" He scrubbed his sleeve across his face, gagging. "ALL FIVE! DULLED! DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS?! AND STILL—STILL—ALL I CAN SMELL IS SHIT!"

Shirou flipped backwards, landed, and charged with a cross slash.

Vito's rant died. He brought his sword around to meet the black dao's arc—

The blade broke.

A bright, glassy crack, and the upper half of Vito's sword spun away end over end, glittering in the sunlight. Ryuu was already moving, already committed to her own strike, as her wooden sword came down.

Vito caught her blow on the broken stump. The impact jarred up her arms—even halved, even one-handed, Level 4 strength was Level 4 strength—and his other hand was already moving, a dagger clearing its sheath in time to catch the black dao's follow-through with a shriek of steel.

Two weapons. Two attackers. No third hand.

The white dao, half a beat behind its twin, opened him from hip to ribs in one pale arc.

A diagonal gash split Vito's torso, and his blood joined the rest of the day's on the stones of the common table's street.

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"WHY THE FUCK DO I SMELL SHIT?"

Shirou raised an eyebrow.

"My apologies. I didn't quite manage to get all the horse dung off my boots."

He shifted his weight, watching Ryuu guide the children away from the soup kitchen. Alise met her halfway with a group of civilians in tow. More Evilus members emerged from side passages and alleyways—some engaging adventurers, others cutting down civilians without distinction.

Shirou exhaled. 'Trace On.'

His circuits flared to life, mana cycling through his body in familiar patterns. Reinforcement flooded his limbs, his eyes, his spine—preparing him to fight someone of a higher level for the first time.

Well. Second time. There had been that drunken werewolf from Loki Familia. Shirou couldn't remember the man's name anymore.

Shirou charged.

Kanshou and Bakuya sang through the air in a one-two slash. Each time his blades locked against Vito's sword, Shirou felt the structure of the metal—a minor Noble Phantasm he'd traced and fired at the man during the Rivira assault. He hadn't dismissed it afterwards. A mistake, in hindsight. Dispersing it now would scatter it into pale motes of light, and that would invite questions he had no interest in answering.

So instead, with every parry and blade lock, he altered the weapon's composition. Degraded its structure. Weakened the bonds holding it together.

Vito thrust. Shirou sidestepped, sliding past the extended blade.

The Level 4 pivoted to track him—

—and met Shirou's boot square in the face.

Shirou kicked off, flipping backwards to create distance. The blow was a minor annoyance at best. A Reinforced body striking a Level 4's enhanced physiology? It was less about damage and more about disruption. Breaking rhythm. Forcing mistakes.

Distance wasn't optimal. Range favoured the faster man, and the married blades wanted close work—unless he threw them, which he wouldn't, not today. But keeping Vito off rhythm mattered more than keeping the ideal measure. And Shirou was limiting himself further—refusing to trace additional weapons, refusing to use the married blades' ability, relying on nothing but hard-earned skill and Reinforcement.

The Noble Phantasm in Vito's hands grew weaker with every exchange. Patience. That was all he needed.

"ARGH! WILL YOU FUCKING—"

Baiting him into anger was easy.

Vito rushed in, thrusting for Shirou's chest. Shirou dodged, letting the blade pass by his ribs, and slid Bakuya along its length as he closed the distance. Both daos came around in a scissoring slash.

Vito twisted away. The blades caught nothing but air.

The moment distance opened between them, Shirou planted his boot against Vito's face again.

"STOP!"

Shirou said nothing. He simply shifted his stance, weight settling onto his back foot, blades held loose and ready. An invitation.

'Come.'

A Level 4's Falna-hardened skin would turn mundane steel aside. It would not turn Kanshou and Bakuya. These were Noble Phantasms—crystallised legends given form. Even the minor traced blade Vito currently wielded had pierced the man's shoulder during their first encounter. The difference in status meant little when the weapons themselves transcended mortal craftsmanship.

Their battle had shifted far from its origin point. The soup kitchen was behind them now, obscured by smoke and fleeing civilians. Ahead, through the haze, Shirou caught glimpses of pink hair and crimson arcs—a woman carving through adventurers the way a scythe goes through wheat.

He angled his retreat. Drew the fight towards the commotion.

If he could position himself near that slaughter, he might serve as a distraction. Buy time for others to escape. Maybe—

Movement. A side alley.

A hooded figure stood over a fallen prum, blade raised for execution. The small figure beneath them wasn't moving—stunned or injured, Shirou couldn't tell.

Shirou swiped at Vito's blade, forcing a parry.

Vito roared and swung horizontally, putting his full weight behind the slash. Shirou brought both daos up from below, meeting the strike at its apex. His strength couldn't hope to match a Level 4's—the impact jarred through his arms, his shoulders, his spine—but it didn't need to.

It only needed to create an opening.

Shirou kicked off Vito's face, using the man as a springboard. He launched himself towards the Evilus operative, sailing over the prum's prone form.

The operative looked up.

Kanshou took their head before they could scream.

Blood fountained. The body crumpled. Shirou landed in a crouch, gore splashing across the cobblestones around him.

The prum stared up at him—a girl, he realised now, with chestnut hair and wide, terrified eyes. He couldn't tell her age; she was a prum. Blood from the operative's corpse had splattered across her face, and she sat frozen in the spreading pool.

Shirou grabbed her shoulder.

"GO!"

The word cut through her shock. She scrambled to her feet and ran, vanishing into the chaos without looking back.

Shirou rose, turning to face Vito.

The Level 4 had followed. Of course he had. His face was a mask of fury—features twisted with a rage that had nothing to do with the battle itself. The repeated boots to his face had done their work. Vito wasn't thinking anymore. He was simply angry.

"You," Vito snarled. "You piece of—"

Shirou charged.

This time, he didn't hold back. Kanshou and Bakuya wove through the air in patterns drilled into his body across countless battles. Slash, parry, riposte. Duck, weave, strike. Every movement flowed into the next without pause or hesitation.

Vito met him blow for blow, his degraded blade shrieking against the married pair. Sparks showered the street. The impacts rang like bells, sharp and clear above the distant screams.

Shirou took a cut across his forearm—shallow, but it bled freely. He repaid it with a slice across Vito's cheek that drew a howl of outrage.

Shirou gave him a quirk of his brow.

"I'LL KILL YOU!"

Vito's next swing came wild and heavy, aimed at taking Shirou's head off his shoulders. Shirou ducked beneath it, felt the displaced air ruffle his hair, and drove Bakuya towards Vito's exposed side.

The Level 4 twisted at the last moment. The white blade scored a line across his ribs instead of burying itself in his liver.

Close. Not enough.

They separated, circling each other amidst the chaos. Around them, the street burned. Evilus operatives clashed with adventurers. Civilians fled in every direction, their screams forming a constant backdrop to the violence.

Vito's chest heaved. Blood ran down his face from the cheek wound, dripping onto his collar.

"You're Level 2 at best," he spat. "How the fuck—"

Shirou said nothing.

In fairness, a calmer Vito would have made this far harder. The man was not unskilled—for all their exchanges, two shallow cuts was everything Shirou's defence had conceded. Vito was stronger. Faster. More durable.

But his weapon was failing. His temper was fraying. And he had never once fought someone who treated him as an annoyance rather than a threat.

Shirou shifted his grip on the married blades.

'Patience.'

The Noble Phantasm in Vito's hands had perhaps three more exchanges left in it. Maybe four. The structure was riddled with fractures now—invisible to the naked eye, clear as day to his structural grasp.

He could have dismissed the blade at any moment and handed himself a decisive opening. He'd chosen Alteration instead, grinding the weapon down one brief exchange at a time.

Three exchanges.

Shirou raised Kanshou in a guard position.

"Come, then."

Vito came.

The first exchange was honest. Blade against blade, high line, the broken rhythm of a man swinging through his own anger. Shirou turned it, gave a half-step, felt the fracture lines spread another hair's width under Kanshou's edge.

Two.

The second was a feint folded into a thrust. Better. The old Vito surfacing through the rage for a heartbeat. Shirou read it off the shoulder, let the point pass his ear, and paid for the read with a graze along his jaw.

One.

The third exchange, Vito changed the question.

The slash came from the outside line, flat and full-weight, and it wasn't aimed at cutting him. Shirou understood that a quarter-second too late—understood it in the angle, in the follow-through, in the fact that Vito had stopped caring whether the edge landed at all.

He blocked square.

Level 4 strength met Level 2 footing.

The street left him.

Cobbles. Sky. Cobbles. He got both daos crossed over his chest out of pure habit, rode the launch instead of fighting it—and in the tumbling half-second of flight, his vision sorted itself out just long enough to show him where he was going to land.

A figure. Red hair.

Vito hadn't landed a lucky hit.

He let go of both blades—they clattered away across the cobbles—and wrapped his arms around the figure before impact, giving his shoulder to the street on her behalf.

They skidded. Cloth. Skin. Nothing structural. He twisted through the slide and set her down in a crouch.

A growl. Already up. Already moving. He scooped both daos off the cobbles as he charged.

Vito was coming through the smoke at a dead run—and Gareth Landrock, without turning his head from the pink-haired commander, batted the charge aside with the haft of his axe. Vito stumbled past the dwarf.

Straight into Shirou's boot.

Another one. Square in the face.

"MY SENSES ARE DULLED!" Vito reeled back, gagging into his sleeve. "ALL FIVE! DULLED! DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT THAT MEANS?! AND STILL—STILL—ALL I CAN SMELL IS SHIT!"

'Dulled senses. All five.'

Shirou filed it.

He flipped backwards, landed, charged with a cross slash—and spent the last of the Alteration on the line he'd been widening ever since their fight started, right where Kanshou met the spine of the blade.

The sword finally broke.

The upper half spun away, glittering. Shirou marked the landing point without moving his eyes. Between the toppled bench and the gutter.

Ryuu was already committed from the flank—he hadn't heard her arrive, which said something about her, or about him—wooden sword falling. Vito caught it on the broken stump. His dagger cleared its sheath and caught Kanshou's follow-through.

Two weapons. Two attackers. No third hand.

Bakuya went in from hip to ribs.

The white blade cut clean—Falna meant nothing to it—but Vito twisted at the last instant, and the edge rode along bone instead of through it. A gash. Deep, bleeding, survivable.

'Not enough.'

Vito went back three steps. Looked down at the red sheet spreading over his hip.

And stopped being angry.

Shirou watched it happen with a professional's regret. The rage drained out of the man's face.

"Well struck." Level again. Dagger low, broken sword raised like a main-gauche. "Truly."

"…"

"VITO!" The shout rode over the ring of axe on greatsword. "We're LEAVIN'! Stop playin' with your food!"

The pink-haired commander disengaged from Gareth in a single bound that carried her half the street, landed beside a knot of her surviving operatives, and jerked a thumb over her shoulder.

"You lot—buy us the road."

The grunts had watched her execute one of their own for offering advice. They obeyed the only way desperate men could.

They went for the civilians.

Not for the adventurers. Past them. A dozen cloaked figures peeled off in a dozen directions—the family in the shop doorway, the old men behind the toppled serving line, a girl frozen over a dropped bowl in the open street.

The cheapest tactic in the world. It worked because it always worked.

"Civilians!" Alise's voice cracked across the street, and the pursuit died before it drew breath. Her sword's flat put the nearest operative through a shutter.

Ryuu became a green blur. She crossed the street twice before the girl by the bowl finished inhaling. The man above the child was simply elsewhere—deposited in a gutter, six medr away, unconscious.

Shirou ran his own arithmetic. Three runners on the doorway family. He hurled Kanshou—the black dao spun end over end and caught the first runner behind the knee mid-stride. The man hit the cobbles face-first. Shirou was already sprinting, caught the returning blade out of the air without breaking stride, and brought it down across the fallen operative's neck before the man could rise. He shouldered the second into a wall hard enough to crack the plaster. The third looked at the first two, looked at Shirou walking towards him, and lay down on his own.

Ahead, the two commanders were pulling back in good order. Valletta gave ground step by step, trading every celch of retreat for another civilian her grunts put in danger. More operatives poured in from side streets—not fighters, just bodies, warm enough to carry a blade towards a child and force a defender to choose.

The pursuit became a running fight. Alise caught a thrown knife a hand's width from a shopkeeper's throat, turned the catch into a throw of her own, and dropped the operative who'd flung it. Ryuu cut loose.

"Luminous Wind!"

Orbs of pale green light bloomed from her outstretched palm and tore down the street, punching through three grunts in quick succession. The impacts flung them sideways into walls, into carts, out of the path between the retreating commanders and the civilians they'd been aiming for.

The lane cleared. Gareth and Shirou surged forward.

The dwarf was not bothering with nuance. Anything between him and Valletta—crate, cart, operative—got the axe-haft or the shoulder. The grunts had worked out that the old dwarf was the one obstacle they could not slow down, and parted around him the way water parts around a boulder. It didn't save the ones who parted too slowly.

Shirou stopped pulling his strikes. The grunts were Level 1 at best, most of them unbaptised thugs with blades they barely knew how to hold. Kanshou and Bakuya went through them cleanly. Arms. Legs. A throat, when the man behind it was a step from reaching a mother shielding her infant.

Vito fell back alongside Valletta, dagger and broken stump weaving a tight, economical guard. The gash at his hip bled freely, but his footwork was steady and his eyes were clear. The calm Vito was a different animal from the angry one. Shirou pressed him twice more; both times the defence gave exactly enough ground and not a celch more. No openings. No temper to bait. Just a wounded professional buying distance with skill and spending his subordinates' lives for cover.

Shirou closed the gap again. Kanshou came in high; Vito deflected with the stump. Bakuya came in low; the dagger caught it. Clean. Textbook. The man had found his centre.

Valletta saw Shirou pressing her partner and took the opening. She disengaged from Gareth mid-bind, lunged across the gap, and slashed at Shirou's exposed flank—a full-armed cut, Level 5 behind it, aimed to bisect him at the waist.

Gareth's axe-haft intercepted. The dwarf had read the switch the instant Valletta's weight shifted, closed the distance in two strides, and caught her greatsword against the axe with a crack that threw sparks across five medr. The force of the block drove Gareth's boots into the cobbles up to the ankle, but his arms didn't give.

"Eyes forward, lad," Gareth said, not looking at Shirou. "I've got this one."

Shirou didn't argue. He pressed Vito again—Kanshou, Bakuya, Kanshou—three cuts, all parried, all giving Vito another step of retreat and nothing more.

Then the twins came off the rooftops.

Two slight figures in mirrored arcs. Hooded. Elven ears cutting the silhouettes. They landed on either side of the retreating commanders in the same instant, on the same knee, and two voices took up a chant in perfect unison—one an octave beneath the other.

The air between the pursuers and the pursued began to shine.

"DOWN!"

Gareth's bellow. The old dwarf was already turning, cloak flared, hauling Alise and Ryuu into the shelter of his own body—

Shirou threw himself sideways into an alley mouth. A child was crouched against the wall, crying. He grabbed her, pressed her beneath him, and flattened himself over her as the street behind him turned white.

The detonation came as a stitched line—one blast after another, walking gutter to gutter, chewing cobbles and throwing a wall of smoke and shattered stone across the full width of the street. The shockwave slapped every shutter for two streets. Fragments of masonry hammered against Shirou's back. He held the child down and didn't move.

Somewhere behind the smoke, receding, delighted:

"SEE YA, BRATS! GIVE MY LOVE TO BRAVER!"

The rumbling faded. The dust gave itself back to the sunlight, slow and grudging.

Shirou waited three more seconds. Then he lifted himself off the child, checked her—scraped, terrified, whole—and passed her to the first pair of arms that appeared from the settling haze. Her mother. The woman didn't speak. She just took her daughter and ran.

Under the cover of smoke that no eye could pierce, Shirou reached out with his senses. Four medr away, between the toppled bench and the gutter, the broken upper half of the blade-arrow lay where it had fallen. Its stump sat three medr further, wherever Vito had dropped it. Both pieces answered his structural grasp.

He dismissed them. Quietly. Two fragments of steel dissolved into pale motes of light, unseen in the haze.

When the street reappeared—coughing, ringing, strewn with the wreckage of the common table—the commanders were gone. The twins with them. The surviving grunts lay where they'd fallen, abandoned.

Shirou stood. Rolled his shoulders. Checked his arms—three shallow cuts, one graze along the jaw, all superficial. The married blades hung at his sides, unmarked.

Gareth straightened from his crouch, setting Alise and Ryuu on their feet. The dwarf looked down the ruined street, and his face closed like a door.

Alise's fists were clenched at her sides. Ryuu's knuckles were white on her wooden sword. Neither of them said anything.

Shirou looked at the overturned serving station. The spilt broth. The scattered bowls. The rice porridge he'd spent the morning building, spread across the cobbles in a grey smear, already going cold.

Overhead, the sky was still a clear and perfect blue.

It had been one sunny day.

-=&<o>&=-

End

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