Anomaly Ch. 78 (Patreon)

The scepter had not finished falling. Shirou was on one knee beside the broken pillar, his left arm hanging from a shoulder that no longer obeyed him, and Tyuule was still between Ivan and the girls. Alaya had returned him to the instant he had left. It had given him no strength with which to change it.

He reached into the shape of the shield he had failed to complete. A single petal of Rho Aias unfolded above Tyuule, crooked and thin. It could never stop the whole blow. Shirou tilted it instead, putting his weight against the projection as the scepter struck. The petal burst, but its breaking surface turned the weapon towards the pillar. Rory caught Tyuule around the waist and pulled her down. Lightning blew the top from the stone, and Shirou found himself crawling through the fragments towards them before he knew whether anyone had survived.

“I am the bone of my sword,”

Tyuule was coughing. Lelei had Tuka by the arm, and Rory was already pulling her halberd from the rubble. They were hurt and frightened, but all four were alive. Shirou tried to tell them to get clear, then remembered the trench beyond the garden wall and the Worms beneath the only open stretch of paving. He had made much of that damage himself while trying to cut off the energy feeding Ivan.

The Tsar looked from the shattered shield to Rory, then to the three women beneath her. Shirou saw his gaze linger on Lelei's staff. Ivan had watched who pulled whom out of danger, and now Shirou could feel him measuring the distance between them. He pressed his good palm to the ground and traced Kanshou. The black blade formed with a flaw near the guard. As he dismissed it, Ivan stepped towards Lelei. Shirou forced the replacement into existence before his Circuits were ready, stumbling into the Tsar's path with the unfinished hilt burning his fingers.

The first line had come by instinct. Shirou knew where the rest would lead. Beyond the weapons he could bring into his hands lay the whole of the world that held them, the one card he still had left. Opening it now would take the strength he was using to keep his damaged body moving. He could not do it while Ivan had a clear path to the others. He needed them together, the Tsar within reach, and enough time to finish the words. Every sword he made until then would leave him less time inside.

“Steel is my body,”

Shirou expected Ivan to step over the broken pillar. The Tsar drove his foot through it instead, sending the remaining stone into the gap where Lelei and Tuka were trying to stand. Shirou turned towards them. That was all the opening Ivan needed. The scepter struck from the side, its shaft catching Kanshou before Shirou could raise the blade. His feet left the paving. He landed on his ruined shoulder and heard the weapon scrape towards his head before he could draw breath. Rolling saved him; the stone beside his cheek became a white-hot furrow.

Rory came in from the other side. Her halberd hooked Ivan's ankle and forced him to shift his foot. Shirou saw a seam widen in the paving beneath it, and through the gap came a pulse of magical energy. The Worms were still bringing Zouken's work to the Tsar. Ivan could recover from cuts as long as they kept reaching him. Shirou waved Rory away before the scepter could catch her, then shouted for Lelei to break the stone beneath the seam.

“And fire is my blood,”

Lelei's spell tore a narrow trench across the garden. Worms spilled from it in a dark mass and dug towards the next unbroken passage. Tuka sent a gust of wind into the opening, lifting loose earth and grit until the creatures were exposed. For a few breaths, the lightning around Ivan dimmed. Tyuule saw the change as clearly as Shirou did. She ran along the wall, drawing the Worms after the blood from a cut on her palm, and Lelei closed the stone across their path.

Shirou saw Ivan turn towards Tyuule and shouted, “Away from the wall!” She threw herself behind the pillar, but the scepter struck the arch beyond her, bringing down the only part of the garden wall they might still have climbed. Before the dust settled, Ivan swept the weapon back towards her legs. Shirou intercepted it with Bakuya and felt the blade break in his hand. Rory dragged Tyuule out of reach while he fell against the pillar. The Tsar had closed their escape before forcing them to spend strength saving her. Shirou spat grit from his mouth and tried to find where the others could move now.

Ivan advanced while the Worms sought another passage. His lightning was weaker, but he needed only its first crackle to make Lelei stop her spell and scramble clear. He moved the head of the scepter a little farther, towards Tuka, and the elf's wind faltered as she dragged Lelei behind her. Shirou put himself between them and the weapon. The Tsar had crossed half the garden without swinging it again. Beneath his feet, the Worms turned towards the palace, and Shirou marked their route while backing into a space that was becoming smaller with every step.

“I have forged over a thousand blades,”

In Ginza, he had spoken the Aria on a rooftop while wyverns flew towards a helicopter. He had needed a weapon that could reach them before they killed the people inside. The words had steadied his thoughts as he followed a sword's structure, composition, and history, then made of it an arrow. He remembered how certain he had felt that whatever the cost, he could still find another blade for the next person in danger.

The familiar opening had carried him back to that rooftop, but the next words had changed. Forged. He had expected created. Shirou glanced at the empty hand in which Bakuya had broken, then looked towards Rory as she dragged Tyuule clear. He had not decided to alter the Aria. The new words had come as naturally as the old ones had in Ginza, though he could no longer follow them without listening. He took another breath, searching for the next line while Ivan advanced.

He had fought the King of Heroes once. Shirou remembered the sneer, the contempt with which Gilgamesh had watched him reach for weapons that could never equal the originals. Gilgamesh had given him time because the idea of losing to him was offensive enough to dismiss. Even when Shirou began to answer him, the king had kept fighting as though taking him seriously would concede something intolerable. By the time he understood that Shirou could win, he had already surrendered the openings that made it possible. Shirou had survived that one battle. He had never mistaken it for proof that he could overcome any Servant who stood in front of him.

Ivan was trying to kill him. He followed every retreat, broke every defense he could reach, and threatened the others whenever Shirou needed a moment to think. The power gathering around his scepter made Shirou's Circuits ache before the weapon moved. He remembered Alaya's certainty that he could not win without its help and, watching Ivan cross the ruined garden, understood why it had been so certain. Hurling more Noble Phantasms at him would only spend what little strength Shirou had left. The Tsar already knew where he had to stand to protect the others. Another sword would not change that.

The world behind his closed eyes had no palace wall to pin them against. He knew its slopes, the distances between the blades, the places where his hand could find a weapon without waiting for one to form. There, Ivan would have to enter the reach of swords Shirou already knew how to use, over ground Shirou understood before the first step. It would not make him stronger than the Tsar. It could give him a fight in which strength was not the only thing deciding the outcome. He looked towards the damaged knee, measuring how Ivan turned to keep the others within reach, and continued the Aria.

“Walking forward without end.”

Shirou sent Kanshou at Ivan's face. The Tsar knocked it aside, and Shirou traced its partner, following the pull between the blades beneath the scepter. Ivan's knee was exposed. Bakuya cut into the flesh behind it, opening a dark wound beneath the mantle, and Shirou had begun to twist the edge when the Tsar's hand closed around his wrist. Ivan had not tried to withdraw the leg. He had watched the sword in Shirou's hand and waited for the moment when cutting deeper would keep him within reach. The pressure crushed Shirou's fingers against the hilt.

Rory's halberd struck Ivan's forearm. The Tsar turned his grip and dragged Shirou into the path of her returning blade, forcing her to wrench it aside. Shirou let Bakuya dissolve. With the hilt gone, he could twist his hand through the space it had occupied, tearing skin from his knuckles as he threw himself backwards. Rory caught his collar and pulled him clear of Ivan's closing fingers. They landed together, and Shirou saw the cut behind the Tsar's knee seal with the next pulse from the earth. Ivan had spent a wound he could replace to try to make Rory kill someone she was protecting.

Ivan flexed the hand that had held him, working a scrap of Shirou's skin between two fingers before letting it fall. His gaze passed to Rory, then to Lelei beside the broken channel, “You send them where you cannot stand. You call them back when they are hurt.” Shirou got his feet beneath him as the Tsar continued, “You have learned the beginning of command. Now learn what it costs.” He raised the scepter towards Lelei. Shirou shouted a warning and ran, because whatever answer he might have given, Ivan had made certain he would have to give it while someone else was in danger.

Shirou ran with his right hand pressed against his ribs. The reinforcement holding him upright wavered whenever he tried to form another sword. He had to keep enough of it working to reach Lelei, and enough energy unspent to bring Ivan into the Marble. The distinction was becoming difficult to feel through the pain. He shortened his stride rather than force more into his legs. Rory passed him on the right, and for once he let her reach the danger first.

“These hands have broken under all they couldn't save,”

Lelei broke the passage before Ivan reached her. Tuka's wind pulled the dust across his face, and Rory moved in on his right, aiming for the forearm he had used to catch Shirou. It was the same arrangement that had interrupted his supply before. Ivan brought the scepter down on the edge of the paving Lelei was lifting. Shirou shouted for her to get back, but the slab split beneath the impact. One half struck her shin and pinned her boot against the lip of the passage. Rory abandoned her attack and slid the halberd beneath the fallen stone to lever it away. Ivan stepped forward and caught the shaft. With Lelei trapped beneath it, Rory could neither swing the weapon nor pull it free.

Lightning ran from the scepter through Ivan's arm and into Rory's weapon. Her fingers tightened around the shaft before she could release it. The Tsar lifted her by it, turned, and drove her into the block behind which Tyuule and Tuka were sheltering. The stone cracked. Tyuule went down beneath Rory's body, and Tuka's wind broke into a choking swirl of dust. Shirou threw a blade at Ivan's eye and reached Lelei while the Tsar knocked it aside. He drove a projected blade beneath the fallen slab and levered it off Lelei's boot, then shoved her towards Tuka, and felt the scepter's impact through his ribs as it struck the ground beside him. The edge of the trench collapsed beneath his feet.

Shirou caught the edge of the trench with his right hand. His torn fingers slipped, and he nearly fell back before finding a crack wide enough to hook them into. For a moment he could only hang there, listening to the fight above him. He was afraid to open his Circuits further. He was more afraid of hearing one of the voices stop. Rory coughed behind the block, and Tyuule answered her. Shirou dragged himself high enough to see them, using the pain to keep his thoughts on the next movement.

“Yet they continue to reach for those still here.”

Tyuule dragged herself from beneath Rory and got an arm behind her shoulders. Tuka caught Lelei as she stumbled back to them, dragging the leg the fallen stone had struck. Ivan pulled his scepter from the earth and turned it towards the three women still on their feet. He could reach the block before Rory stood. Shirou climbed out of the trench and threw Kanshou across his path. The blade struck Ivan's chest and fell. The Tsar looked down at it, then at Shirou, and changed direction. Shirou had won their attention back at the cost of putting himself where there was nothing to hide behind.

Tyuule called across the ruined paving, “Shirou, come back!” Ivan moved to cut him off, leaving the damaged passage at his rear, and Shirou understood that repeating their earlier attack would only give the Tsar another weapon to use against them. He pointed at the channel behind Ivan and called to Lelei, “Open that one. Under the wall.” It was farther away than the others, beyond the scepter's reach for the moment. Tuka helped Lelei turn, while Tyuule pressed her bleeding palm to the broken stone to draw the Worms towards its edge. Rory struggled upright with the halberd. Shirou needed them ready when Ivan turned, but he could no longer count on the Tsar turning where he wanted.

Ivan heard Lelei begin. He kept looking at Shirou, “Which one will you leave?” The scepter lifted towards the wall, and Shirou charged. Caladbolg formed in his hand, each turn of its blade drawing from the magical energy he needed for the Marble. He could feel himself spending the time he would have to kill Ivan, but the Tsar was already bringing the weapon towards Lelei. Ivan pivoted and struck across the projection. The twisted sword broke before Shirou could drive it into the channel. Then Rory's halberd cut deep behind the Tsar's knee, forcing him half a step aside. Shirou drove the broken point into the open passage and released the energy inside it, throwing himself towards the others as the stone began to lift.

He could not make that sword again. He felt its loss as he hit the ground, in the tremor running from his Circuits into muscles that no longer had enough strength of their own. Rory had cut Ivan deeply enough to make him shift, and Shirou had spent a Broken Phantasm on the opening. The Tsar was still coming. Repeating that exchange would kill Shirou long before it killed Ivan. He reached towards the hill beyond his closed eyes while Rory pulled him into cover. He had to get them off this ground before the Tsar turned their next attempt to fight back into another execution.

“No longer alone upon this hill of swords,”

The blast tore the paving apart. Shirou had aimed into the earth, yet the force still threw all five of them behind the wall. A stone struck his ribs. Through the ringing in his ears he heard Rory scraping her halberd towards her, then the slow scrape of something much heavier. Ivan stepped out of the crater. His mantle had burned away from one leg, and blood ran from the wound behind his knee. The current beneath the garden had thinned to a trickle. He should have stopped to let it restore him. Instead, he dragged the injured leg forward and set the scepter against the wall above Shirou's head.

Shirou tried to raise a blade, but the effort sent a spasm through his Circuits and left his right hand empty. The little magical energy he still had was feeding the reinforcement supporting his legs and spine. He would have to divert that flow into the Marble and trust his injured body to survive without it. Above him, stone cracked around the scepter's head. Ivan leaned into the wall while another current reached him from beneath the palace, deeper than Lelei could break in time. The Tsar watched Shirou glance towards the opening at its end, “Go, then. Let Us see how far you get.” Rory pulled herself between the weapon and the girls. Their last attack had injured Ivan, and he was still pushing the wall down on them.

Tyuule caught his sleeve, “Stay here.” Shirou looked at her hand, then at the scepter pressing through the stone above them. Every place they had tried to stand had become somewhere Ivan could kill them. He turned back to her, “He's choosing where we fight. I can take that away from him.” Tyuule searched his face as he continued, “I can bring him into my world. I'll know the ground. I'll have the weapons I need within reach. It's the only chance I have to kill him.” Her grip tightened, “And if you can't?” He made himself answer, “Then he'll kill me. I won't have anything left.” Shirou wanted to offer her something more certain, but she had seen the Tsar break too much for another promise to help. Tyuule looked towards Rory, straining beneath the weapon, then back at him, “Tell us what you need.”

“I have no regrets, this is my only path-”

The last word caught in his throat. If he spent everything and failed, he would never see Rin again. Sakura would still be waiting on the other side of the Gate, and he would have no way to tell her that he had tried to come home. He wanted another breath to think, another chance to find something less final. The scepter scraped through the wall above them. Tyuule's hand was still on his sleeve. He asked her to help him stay upright, and she put her shoulder beneath his good arm before he had finished asking.

Shirou released the reinforcement in his legs. His knees folded at once, and Tyuule caught his weight while he forced the remaining flow into the working he had begun. He finished the line. Red light spread beneath his palm. Ivan looked down at it and tore the scepter free of the wall, driving the head towards him before the rubble had fallen. Lelei thrust her staff against the paving. A slab rose across the opening, and the weapon punched through it. Tuka's wind caught the fragments while Rory wedged her halberd beneath the shaft, holding it a hand's breadth from Shirou's face.

Ivan leaned farther into the weapon. Rory's boots slipped, and Tyuule eased Shirou against the wall before bracing Rory from behind. Shirou let the reinforcement leave his back as well. Pain returned so violently that his vision went white. For a moment he lost the garden, the scepter, even the sound of his own breath. He held on to the shape of the hill and forced the working through Circuits already shaking under the strain. A hot line opened beneath his collar, and blood soaked into his shirt. The boundary moved. Through the ringing in his ears he heard Rory tell him to hurry.

Shirou swallowed blood and drew enough air for the name. The garden pressed close around them, all broken stone and distances Ivan had made impossible to cross. He let the hill beneath the red sky take its place in his thoughts, fixing on the rise beyond the Tsar and the blades standing along its slope. He was spending everything he had left to bring that ground into being. Once there, he would have to kill Ivan before the Marble failed; there would be nothing left for a second attempt. His hand closed against the paving as though the hilt he needed were already there. He had refused Alaya's price. Now he would stake his life on making this fight his own.

“Unlimited Blade Works.”

The garden vanished. Rory's halberd slipped beneath the scepter, and Shirou threw himself sideways as its head tore into a slope of red earth. His right hand closed around a hilt already waiting beside him. He knew the ground beneath his knee, the blade behind his shoulder, and the rise beyond Ivan's wounded leg. Thousands of swords stretched beneath an endless sky. The Tsar wrenched his weapon free and faced him, still carrying enough power to kill him with a single blow. Shirou had spent his last chance bringing him here. 

This time, the battlefield was his.

…

A/N: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA I KEEP SCHEDULING IT ON THE DAY AAFTER IT SHOULDDDD