Chapter 7 Post-Incident Matters
There was a loud clang.
Impacted against the ground with enough force to see stars, Shirou felt his whole body aching as if his bones were dislocated. A one-way trip through the air on a high-speed vehicle that almost never carried passengers resulted in a mid-air stall; it was a mercy that he only blacked out momentarily.
It took Shirou a considerable amount of time to recover his strength.
By the time his vision refocused on the distant, azure sky, Shirou's intense migraine had subsided. A gentle breeze brushed past, and from the ground beneath him rose the scent of wild park grass.
Grass again... maybe, probably, perhaps Shirou was just destined to be associated with grass. With a slight shake of his head, he saw Saber sitting nearby with her knees pulled to her chest.
Amidst the surrounding greenery was a jarring patch of brownish-black earth, where one could see shredded weeds and churned-up gravel—the bruise left on nature after being struck by two irreverent figures acting like human cannonballs.
"How many kilometers?"
"Three. That is the limit without using a Command Spell. I am sorry, Shirou."
"There's nothing to apologize for, Saber. You even made sure to protect me from being injured during the landing. I'm the one who should be saying thank you."
"Because, if that thing had continued to pursue us, it would have been troublesome. I should have adjusted the landing speed to ensure mobility, but I have used this application so rarely that I failed to manage it."
As it turned out, the "darkness" did not follow. Saber sensed no similar presence approaching; it seemed to have finally given up.
Early morning migratory birds chirped freely in the silence before the crowds arrived.
"—Let's rest a bit longer."
Shirou voiced Saber's inner thoughts. As if their hearts were in sync, both let out a breath simultaneously and remained paralyzed in that position on the grass, unmoving.
"What if tourists come by?" Saber asked, resting her gauntleted hand on her forehead. Realizing she was still in her armored dress mode, she dispelled the magical garment.
"We'll just say we're sunbathing."
"? Sunbathing in a place that looks like it was hit by a missile?"
'So Saber has started using words like "missile" too. Modernization is a terrifying thing.'
Then again, according to the principle of concealment, one cannot expose content related to magecraft, or else memories must be erased via magical suggestion. But that was the problem—neither Shirou nor Saber knew how to use suggestion magecraft, and neither of them felt like moving anyway.
Compared to being surrounded by the thick aura of "Death," the scent of the green grass felt just a little too warm and pleasant.
"What do you think 'that thing' at the Kuruoka residence was?" Shirou turned his head to ask Saber. He watched the blonde hair that usually remained tied at the back of her head spill out, flowing over the blades of grass like a golden waterfall.
It flowed right in front of Shirou's face.
Saber blinked and thought for a moment: "Likely... a Heroic Spirit."
"A Heroic Spirit associated with 'Death.' However, the presence was faint. It was only at the moment it struck that I could sense the properties of a Heroic Spirit."
Then, she furrowed her thin brows and corrected herself: "Not faint—dispersed?"
A "faint presence" and a "dispersed presence." Though the terms were similar, their meanings were worlds apart. The former is the concealment of presence. The latter suggests... that some quality of the opponent is diffusing over a wide area.
Shirou's chest hitched as he breathed, basically understanding Saber's point.
Something was perched at the Kuruoka estate; the estate had the black mist, which would be triggered upon investigation. The pitch-black Heroic Spirit was like death, like demise, like plague—its manifestation was akin to annihilation itself.
"I see... then my guess is its main body is at the Snowfield Central Hospital."
The black mist at the mansion had no core. Since the Kuruokas' only daughter, Tsubaki Kuruoka, was its Master, Shirou reasoned that the main body was likely protecting the oblivious Tsubaki.
The clues the two could grasp had temporarily reached a dead end. If they wanted to do more, they would eventually have to step inside the hospital to investigate.
The hospital, where "that thing from the Kuruoka residence" was perched, was temporarily marked as a red danger zone. Acting rashly would undoubtedly be a high-risk move.
In truth, Shirou had plenty of complaints.
First, he met that magus, who guided Shirou to look for the Kuruokas.
Then, across a phone line, he met Luvia, who found the Kuruoka address. Only after going to the Kuruoka address did he find out the Master was at the Snowfield Central Hospital.
'Where did they learn this rule that you have to finish one link of a quest before opening the next?'
"Tsubaki's brain was eroded by bacteria magecraft..."
Shirou raised his hand toward the sky. He wasn't projecting anything, but he toyed with the air as if a blade had already manifested. Sunlight shone down through the empty air where nothing appeared.
Saber, beside him, turned on her side, propping herself up with one arm. She forced an uncharacteristically serious expression onto her face as she looked at Shirou:
"You cannot. The Master's location is the enemy's stronghold. Shirou, currently we have no way to approach her without being a threat. Besides, that blade of yours removes magical influences; if the magecraft has already caused physical damage to the brain, it may not necessarily solve it."
"We won't know unless we try."
Shirou sighed defiantly, then fell silent in admission of the odds. He and the blonde girl lay flat once more.
"In my view, we can't avoid that hospital forever."
If tragedy was to be prevented, Shirou had to go.
"I do not object, but not now. It must be at the perfect moment—however, Shirou, the fact that you wish to save that child makes me somewhat happy."
Saber wore a gentle expression, as if proud, and whispered: "From the past to the future, I will always believe in you."
Clouds drifted silently from one end of the horizon to the other. After about fifteen minutes, Shirou's mind had settled enough to respond:
"That sentence seems grammatically incorrect, Saber."
Saber tilted her head.
"Saber, you said you believe in me from the past to the future, right?"
"Indeed, Shirou."
"But didn't you not believe that I would retreat in time?"
"!?"
If one were to use abstract art to represent it, two exclamation/question symbols would have surely popped above the head of the struck-by-lightning Saber.
She averted her gaze at a very subtle angle, but her words remained firm:
"That is one thing, and this is another."
Then, realizing something, Saber suddenly snapped her gaze back. Her eyes were so cold Shirou felt like taking a quick step backward.
"Wait, if I remember correctly, didn't Shirou also think I was reckless?"
"...I think that might have happened?"
"In that case, I also charge Shirou with failing to give me his trust!"
Shirou tried to follow her example by looking away, but his gaze was forcibly aligned with hers; there was no escape.
They stared at each other. Then, they kept staring. After a few moments, they suddenly burst out laughing together.
It was laughed off.
"By the way, this incident proved that setting the Invisible Air on the blade is very useful. It is by no means an immature act of compressing ten-fold sharpness down to one-fold."
To this, Shirou's evaluation was—
"I really give up on you."
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