Beta read by Shigiya and Darklord331
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--Fuyuki City-
The situation was dire, stressful enough to have Shirou's body tense, his mind panicking from what just happened.
He expected this day to proceed normally, or at least, normal in the sense of his hunting out any of these beasts if there were any. As his luck would have it, one did appear and it was actually being hunted down by someone else — an Enforcer most likely. Except now the Enforcer was also after Ayako!
With clenched teeth, he pulled the trigger and fired the round with a loud bang. The recoil of the sniper pushing against his shoulder which he had Reinforced out of habit. He didn't want to kill her, that was the last option he wanted to consider. But if all things failed then… no, he would find a way!
The bullet sailed through the air, flying at Mach speed and even beyond that. The shot packed quite the punch, capable of even tearing someone's limb off entirely if aimed properly. Like he had done now, Shirou aimed to hit the Enforcer's leg and incapacitate her long enough for Ayako to escape.
"—!"
She seemed to have noticed his shot!? Her eyes turned towards his location as he could feel the hair all over his body rise, a dreadful chill going down his spine from what she did next.
Just like before, her hands blurred before he saw with his own eyes how she literally punched the bullet into dozens of pieces!
'What the… Just what kind of Reinforcement was that!?' He had never heard of the spell being capable of allowing someone to destroy a SNIPER shot so easily! "No, it's those gloves again… it has to be them!"
Either that or he was going to deal with another monster soon.
From how she dispatched the creatures before and how ominous they looked, that was the only possibility he could think of. Unless she practiced a form of Magecraft that provided a superior form of defense or if she had some sort of Mystic Code on her — there were many options when it came to magic.
Thankfully, she stopped her pursuit. 'I'll need to buy enough time for Ayako. Hopefully, that girl will not be stupid by going to the police.' His biggest concern now was her safety and getting her off from the Enforcer's radar.
With the carbon steel barrel still smoking from the initial shot, the scent of gunpowder filled his nose as he prepared another shot and fired a second time.
Bang!
Unlike last time, the woman did not try to punch the bullet and instead jumped backward to dodge it. The shot impacted the concrete below, creating a fist-sized hole. Her eyes wandered around a bit until they locked onto his exact location, now certain of where he was.
'She traced it back!' With four more rounds left, Shirou repeatedly fired the remaining ammunition in quick succession. Half of which were destroyed like the first one and the other ones missing his target. As he started to reload, the redhead saw how the Enforcer started to move at a fast pace. Making a beeline right at the building he currently atop
'Damnit, I'm just wasting my bullets on her!'
What should he do right now? Escaping was the logical solution, given she wouldn't reach his location this fast. He could leave and hide until she lost track of him. But then again, there was a slight possibility for her to resume her hunt on Ayako!
'I should retreat, for now, I still have eno— what!?' To his astonishment, the woman suddenly turned toward a one-story shop, dug her fingers into the wall as if they were made of butter, and jumped onto the roof. She did the same with a two-story building and a three-story one after that, getting far too close to his location instead of taking the main entrance below as he expected her to!
Shirou was beginning to sweat in trepidation, having learned from Luvia with how outclassed he was against her — he wasn't stupid enough to test out his skills against someone potentially more dangerous and skilled than the Edelfelt heir. A plan surfaced in his head, watching the bag beside him and all of its contents, he only had one option to slow her down.
{Break}
She messed up.
Bazett Fraga McRemitz, was born in a coastal village in Ireland as a descendant of an old family of magi that had detached itself from the Mage's Association and lived in the shadows quietly. She wished to pursue a different path than that of her ancestors and chose to join the Association. Normally, her job was to hunt down those given a Sealing Designation and not monsters or cases of chimera experiments escaping their cages. But her current orders came from the higher ups and the heir to the Galliasta family got involved — she could not ignore them.
Though to capture whoever was responsible for these things remained her top priority, she still needed to track down these creatures nonetheless and start from there. She met Kirei Kotomine, an old acquaintance who aided her in the past with other missions — one could even call them friends to an extent. He permitted her to operate in this territory and a place to stay while she was here; though she wondered why he would do that instead of the Second Owner. Being a member of the Church usually did not give him authority greater than that of the Second Owner as they needed to be recognised by the Association.
In the end, she ignored this small detail and thanked him for the help. This wasn't her business nor was she inclined to snoop in areas that did not concern her.
Bazett came here for one purpose alone and nothing else.
Yet as she successfully tracked down one of these chimeras and took it out, a civilian stumbled upon the scene.
'I should have put up a bounded field!' The Irish woman cursed herself repeatedly. She didn't expect to encounter this creature inside a building, one of her informants gave her details about a particular apartment with suspicious activities for the last few months. The possibility that the one behind this mess hid here was something she couldn't ignore. But instead, the moment she opened the door, a concentrated stench of blood and rot overwhelmed her. Inside she encountered the boar-like monster who charged straight for her in blind fury, forcing her into combat before she could set up a field.
This prompted a civilian to witness the act, and if it were any other Enforcer — then they would have killed her. Fortunately, Bazett was a skilled user of Rune Magecraft which had a similar ability to change memories. But before she could catch up to the girl, her body reacted to the presence of danger and moved just in time to smash a sniper round into pieces.
'Is it him?' That was the first thing that surfaced in her mind, that this person could have been the one behind the creation of these creatures and if not, he might know who is. She tensed, bringing her guard up while surveying her surroundings.
The use of guns was highly unusual in the magi community in general and even generally looked down upon. Very few even used them aside from the Edelfelt Family who were known to use a myriad of methods aside from their gem magic to kill an assigned target. Still, if this person was working together with the mastermind then she hady to capture him!
Getting into position, she waited and immediately jumped backwards to dodge another shot then saw a small glint of light coming from a tall hotel building at the center of the city. 'Found you!' She dashed forward, planning the quickest path to the top.
'No, if I take the main entrance then I'll lose this person…' four more shots were fired which she used both her speed and gloves reinforced with runes to destroy them.
'Aha!' Having mapped out a plan, Bazett rushed to a nearby shop where her gloved hands easily clawed into the walls which she then used to push herself high in the air. No more bullets were being fired as she drew closer to her target's location whilst jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Yet despite all of this, the glint of the scope did not disappear. 'He's not running away?'
Was he planning on facing her head-on?
In less than a minute, she reached close enough to see the general outline of a person lying on the ground with the gun pointed right at her.
She poured all of her Od inside her leg, pushing herself off the ground with enough force to crack the concrete. With her arms raised high, she slammed her fist onto the target, crushing the gun into bits.
"A decoy!" What she hit was not a person, but just a bag of ammunition covered with a large cloak to make it look like a person!
Click
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Bazett's eyes widened from the ominous sound, her head turning downwards as she saw her foot stepping on a thin silver wire. Looking over, she witnessed dozens of grenades and C4 explosives connected through a web of wires. The sound of beeping entering her ear… this was a trap… and she got fooled.
"Bollocks…" Her voice drowned in a loud explosion of fire and a shockwave that spread throughout the building, breaking all of the upper floors windows.
{Break}
Rushing through the hallway, Shirou nearly stumbled when the entire building shook. The lights flickered as dust and any paintings on the wall fell to the floor.
"She got there faster than I hoped for." He whispered, glad that he made the right decision. Ayako by now should have ran far enough for him to no longer have to worry about the Enforcer finding her, unless she had a form of magecraft that allowed her to track certain targets.
"I don't know where she lives, or I would have brought her to my house immediately. It's much safer there than anywhere else." Fortunately, there weren't many people inside the hotel, or at least, no one on the upper floors.
He didn't want her to be involved with the Moonlit World, there were infinitely more cons than benefits. Living a life where you walked a razor-thin line between life and death was not something he wanted an innocent girl like her to ever experience. What was most frustrating was he couldn't even use a memory erasure spell, all he knew was Projection, Reinforcement, and Structural Analysis.
As he ran, the halls continued to shake, growing worse by the second — even the walls began to crack under the pressure. It even made him start to worry about the structure possibly collapsing. "Did I set up too many bombs?"
Crash…
That couldn't be possible, there wasn't enough to cause so much commotion. And certainly when he was already a few floors below by now!
Another sound came of something impacting the upper floor. This pattern repeated for a few times, the sound growing louder and louder, almost as if something extremely heavy was falling through the floors.
Shirou's heart trembled with fear, he was forced to stop running despite the shaking. His mind raced, a vague sensation of danger creeping up on him. A second later, the noise stopped, but that didn't give him any relief. Instead, Shirou went for one of the two guns strapped to his holster. Two handguns with fifteen rounds each, he should have brought his father's Calico, at least that had a bigger cartridge size.
Crash!
It happened in an instant, the ceiling broke apart with a fist showing itself, quickly followed by the woman he saw before.
'She punched her way all the way down!?' Was this woman a rhino!? That was a crazy show of force that even he would need multiple bombs to recreate, not just his fists! 'She's fast, to be able to jump all the way up here with just reinforcement is impressive by itself. She used her fist to break through the concrete, I can't tell if those gloves are mystic codes or something more simple but regardless, letting her hit me once can put me out.'
"Got you!" Purple eyes locked in onto his amber ones. There was a trace of surprise within them which vanished soon after he brought up his gun and aimed at her legs, if she couldn't move then his chances of winning easily tripled or even quadrupled. 'This is a better option than to aim for her shoulders, as given her status as an enforcer — fighting with only one hand barely makes her less dangerous. Always go for the legs with tough opponents and brawlers.'
He pulled the trigger and fired five times.
The bullets he expected to pierce her legs with ease at such a close range were dodged at the last second. It impacted the wall behind, sending a gray spray of dust and concrete flying across the room.
"You can't be serious," a frightening reaction speed, even though he doubted to dodge a bullet at merely a few meters away from him. Making Shirou realize that if she caught up to him and managed to make him lose his gun, then no amount of hand to hand experience he had would help him whatsoever.
'I have another magazine remaining on my belt, this gun only has about ten bullets left so if I change now then she might catch up to me.'
In the end, he decided to go on the offensive immediately.
Bang!
His next shot missed once again, this time hitting the ground without causing any damage. Third one she blocked it with the soles of her shoes and immediately followed by grabbing his fourth bullet in the air!
"Are you some kind of beast!?"
Shirou clicked his tongue, seeing how she easily dodged the shots. 'Firing the last six rounds at this point is pointless. Perhaps getting closer will make it harder for her to dodge or use her hands by then she might just come after me!' Left with no choice, Shirou took the risk and rushed forward, she looked at him with calm eyes, as if able to sense what he was planning on doing.
Like a gust of wind, she closed the distance between them with greater speed than before. Shirou raised his knees to strike her in the abdomen which she caught with her palm and proceeded to clench hard enough, making his joints crack slightly under the pressure. "Hargh!" The sudden pain made him falter for a split second which was enough for the woman to effortlessly landed a punch on his face that sent him flying through the wall.
A sense of deja vu washed over Shirou, this type of opponent with overwhelming strength was starting to get far more common than he liked.
"Ah," he massaged his cheeks, feeling them swell already and the taste of blood filling his mouth. That strike must have cut the inside of his mouth on his own teeth. "This will be hard to explain to Fuji-nee…" Having a few cracked ribs and broken bones wasn't that hard for him to cover up if he kept walking normally while enduring the pain. But having a swollen cheek with a few more injuries to come would be an unavoidable disaster waiting to happen. He supposed he should consider himself lucky that at least none of his teeth had been broken.
Whatever, he would deal with that later, now he needed to worry about his own life first.
"Who do you work for? Answer me and I'll make this as painless as possible." She demanded while walking through the rubbles, adjusting her glove while giving him a stern glare.
"Says the woman who punched me through a wall. I'm already in a lot of pain." His body groaned as he got up from the ground. He held his Calico firmly, carefully watching the woman's every move, having Luvia's lessons replay in his mind.
'Remember, Sherou, when facing an opponent far stronger than you strength-wise, then your best option would be to maintain some distance at all times. Use your speed to outmaneuver them, make sure they can't catch you, or else you're doomed.'
"Identity yoursel—" she was cut off from her speech with Shirou bringing his gun up once again, and firing six times. Though this time, he didn't aim at her. "—!" Metal screeched as Bazett leaped to the side to avoid a large chandelier crashing where she once stood, the chains that held it to the ceiling having been destroyed by bullets.
This small window giving him enough time to switch guns.
Shirou's finger tightened around the trigger. The next three consecutive rounds shot towards Bazett. However, each one of them missed as she ran for cover, faster then he could keep track, unlike before.
"What the hell!?"
His eyes widened when Bazett disappeared from sight, only to reappear behind him. Out of pure instinct and muscle memory, Shirou pushed himself against her as hard as he could. Using his Reinforcement to grant him the capability, he slammed her to the wall before immediately rolling away. He couldn't risk getting caught by her, Shirou didn't have the confidence to match her strength at all.
Taking the few seconds of her being temporarily stunned, Shirou rushed to the opposite side. Using his guns won't work on her as she was too fast and could have had other protective measures in her body, furthermore, he wasn't trying to kill her. All he wanted was to buy time for Ayako and to have the Enforcer focus on him instead of her.
"I'm ok my last bullet, I should have rigged some explosive around the halls and detonated them just to buy myself enough tim—Argh!" Pain erupted from his leg, forcing him to fall on the ground. But before he could even have time to recover, a shadow descended over him, with Bazett's fist coming straight for his face again.
He moved just enough to have the strike miss and impact the ground below, the floor cratering as a result. His ear left rang with blood streaming out, though he used the butt of his gun to strike Bazett's head hard enough to push her away from him.
"Haa… Haa… Haa…" Shirou breathed heavily, coughing from the smoke around him. His back aching from the old wounds and bones still not having completely healed from his first battle. At this point, he was glad his spine didn't break, that would have been the worst-case scenario. Even in his current state, he still kept his senses sharp and heard the sound of her steps coming closer and closer.
"You have one more chance to reveal to me the location of the Magus who created these creatures. You are obviously not him, but since you're working with this scum then you must know where he's hidding." Bazett said not looking tired or hurt at all. Her face was still as pristine as ever without a trace of injury, even the slight amount of dust on her clothes was patted and swiped away, still looking immaculate.
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"What?" Shirou said, giving her a confused stare. "What are you talking about?"
"Don't act ignorant with me, boy. You're part of the group responsible for these creatures running rampant in this city."
"W-Wait! You're mistaken!" Shirou quickly put his hands up. "I'm hunting these creatures just like you and even killed one recently at the museum." He quickly gave a detailed recap of what happened that day, how he heard a crash and then found eaten bodies at the entrance before encountering the creature.
"So why did you shoot me?" Bazett asked, not letting her guard down.
"Because you were about to kill that innocent girl from before." Shirou said, his eyes narrowing.
The Irish woman just gazed at the boy with disbelief covering her face. "You… you do realize how severe it is for a civilian to learn about our world? The consequences this could pose to the city and its inhabitants is far too grave to worry about a single life!" The more she spoke, the more frightening she got in Shirou's eyes. "And I was only planning to erase her memory! And you thought shooting at me would be a good idea!?" Now, he looked like a kid getting scolded for his mistakes.
But in the end, he remained firm with his choice. "I'm sorry that I shot you. But that girl is someone I know, and I was not willing to risk the possibility of you killing her." He said stubbornly.
Bazett sighed, looking at the damage around her before gazing at the gun in his hand.
"Using a gun… what kind of Magus are you?"
Shirou shook his head. "I'm not a Magus, I'm more of a spellcaster than an actual Magus." He said curtly, not wanting to be associated with the mage association. He knew not all of them were bad given his friendship with Luvia, but he believed that she just happened to be an exception.
That… wasn't the type of response Bazett was expecting. Still, her mind couldn't help but grow suspicious. "So a spellcaster going around in the dead of night patrolling the city just so happened to encounter a chimera and killed it. And not that long after meets a different one, which I took care of and then proceeded to fire at me." She mentioned with a dry tone.
"Yes!" He nodded confidently, wanting to make the woman sigh a second time.
Her eyes twitching, Bazett wondered if this person was being serious, she grabbed his wrist. "I still don't fully believe you. You didn't even tell me your identity, who are you?"
Not breaking under her interogation, the boy let out a slight chuckle. "Kinda rude to ask for someone's name without giving your own."
"Bazett, that's all you need to know. Tell me yours."
"…" This time, Shirou didn't answer. He stayed silent long enough for Bazett to start applying more force in her grip. Shirou flinched from the sensation of his bones bending and possibly a step away from snapping.
"You aren't helping your case." There was only one way she could confirm his identity. "You're coming with me, I'll bring you to the local church where one of my allies is stationed. He'll make a background check on you to verify if you have anything to do with this."
As soon as she mentioned the church, Shirou's body tensed up. Going there would just have his name and identity possibly revealed to the Mage's Association and the Holy Church, and thus any number of Kiritsugu's old enemies. Even though many years had passed since his death, Shirou couldn't take the risk. And he wanted to remain anonymous to continue his role of guarding the city without much trouble from other parties.
He stood his ground, resisting Bazett as the latter now started to look more hostile towards him. "You're making a big mistake." She whispered.
Shirou closed his eyes, having no choice but to continue resisting. "I'm sorry."
As soon as he mentioned those words, his head slammed against her face in full force. Though this time she did not let go of his arm, "Argh!" Her knee slammed onto his stomach multiple times in a quick burst of speed, breaking another one of his ribs and forcing the boy to cough up more blood.
Though he pushed through the pain and went for his second gun, only to have her beat him to it and snatch the weapon away before crushing it into pieces. He tried to throw her off by using her arm as leverage, but she predicted his move and made a powerful jab to his kidneys. This was followed by her returning a headbutt but that most likely broke his nose.
"Ah!" Clenching his hands into a fist then proceeding to reinforce them, Shirou threw his strongest punch to Bazett's stomach. The impact was loud enough to be heard on the other floors, yet the Enforcer barely reacted — she tanked it without trouble.
"You need to do better, kid."
Frustrated beyond belief, Shirou decided to resort to the last option… his hand dug into his pocket before pulling out a single grenade and pulling the pin between their faces. He could see the woman's face widening in horror, she looked at him as if he was crazy.
"You asked for it." He said with a grin, the grenade grew brighter until the entire room turned blindingly white followed by a loud noise that shook the hall.
With her senses affected, Bazett's grip loosened which he managed to break free from. She cursed out loud before her ringing ears managed to pick up the sound of windows crashing. A few seconds later after her vision came back, she hastily looked around before finding the glass on the wall was broken with the boy having most likely jumped out of it.
"We're on the 7th floor!" Flabbergasted by what happened, she ran to look if his body had survived to fall but grew speechless when she found no one below aside from a large patch of blood.
She… she lost him.
"I went too easy on him," she lamented, knowing how much she held back during their fight. She feared the boy would have died upon first contact if she had gone through full strength. She just couldn't bring herself to kill the kid so easily in cold blood… "I'll find you next time."
The battle hadn't impacted her that much, but her suit was ruined now and her ears were still ringing nonstop, but she never bled or got injured this entire time. The trap on the roof would have nearly gotten her if she wasn't quick enough.
"I'll bring that monster's corpse to Kotomine. He can probably uncover something from that."
Returning to the area of where she killed it, Bazett didn't expect to find the beast's corpse almost fully broken down into dust by now. As she tried to grab its head, the horns crumbled into sand inside her grasp. A few seconds later, all of it disappeared aside a small piece of horn that remained behind. The woman examined the item, glad that she wouldn't return completely empty handed at least.
{Break}
Shirou could barely breathe, walking through the alley with bloodied clothes and half of his bones broken from the fall wasn't ideal. It was a miracle that he survived the fall, let alone move. If it weren't for Reinforcement, he would have died or gone into a coma.
With each step, he could feel the fractured pieces of his bones rattle inside his body, almost threatening to collapse at any moment. His lungs burned just like last time, now it was followed by dizziness and nausea. Using the walls as a support, he tried his best to continue moving forward and create as much distance between him and that woman.
"Urgh!" A static shock-like pain spread across his legs making Shirou kneel on the floor before collapsing completely. The fall coupled with the battle had made his injuries far more severe than he'd realized; he began to doubt whether returning to his house would be possible or not.
While on the ground, he could see the heavy dark clouds covering the sky tonight. The drop in temperature and increased wind speed foretold that it would rain at any moment.
"That's good… it'll hide my scent if the woman has the ability to track me down by smell alone." At least one thing he learned from this situation was that whoever created these creatures was here in the city. Now came the question of how to find these people, he wasn't a tracker or detective of any sort. If Bazett hadn't insisted on bringing him to the Church to verify his identity, he would have gladly agreed to work with her to hunt down these chimeras and the Magus who created them.
Droplets of water fell on his face one by one until his entire body was being showered by heavy rain. His left ear was damaged and his right one still kept ringing, not to mention the boy couldn't find the strength to stand up anymore, let alone walk.
So he just decided to sleep there for the night. A few hours of rest would help him recover sufficiently to—
"Emiya!?"
He felt the sudden touch of someone else gently lifting his head up. He opened his eyes to the sight of a familiar brunette from before. "Mi… Mitsuzuri? W-What are… you doing… here? It's dangerous… for you."
"Shut up, you idiot! You're the one that's bleeding half to death! Oh my god, oh my god… W-What should I do!? I should call the hospital!"
"No!" Shirou exclaimed out loud, coughing more afterwards. "N-Not now… she'll… find me. And you. L-later, my injuries… aren't that bad." He tried to comfort the panicking girl with a smile, which seemed to worsen the case.
"D-Don't you dare die on me…" she began to sob, making him feel bad about it.
He tried to chuckle, "You're… being s-silly, I won't die right now. S-some rest will help me… "
Later on in the dead of night, whilst it was raining, a girl soaked from head to toe was taking a badly wounded boy with her across the streets. She did her best to ensure that no one would see them and decided to bring him somewhere she felt safe: her house.
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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 3 other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post monthly commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.