In one of the corridors of the Clock Tower, father, and son walked in silence, receiving looks of hatred, disgust, and fear from everyone they encountered. They left the premises, and Kiritsugu directed him toward a car that he had rented.
"Old man, why?" the boy said as he sat in the co-driver seat.
"We have less than three months for the Lords to meet and decide what to do about the crest. But, for them to give it to you, you must reveal your relationship with me."
"Why don't we wait for those months?" he asked, confused.
Kiritsugu pulled out a cigar while driving and opened the window so he could smoke. "I need to take you to a job to raise our chances of getting the crest back. On that mission, whether you like it or not, our relationship will be discovered. Do you understand what this means?"
Shirou nodded.
"All are going to discover our relationship no matter what, so I prefer you to be by my side when it happens. My reputation as a freelancer never mattered much to me, but, right now, my reputation is an important tool to protect you."
"And what will we do now? What is the mission?"
Kiritsugu voted for cigarette smoke as he said, "the first thing we will do is take a little trip before the mission starts in two months."
"What will we do while we travel?"
"I'll train you. I know you don't like using firearms, but I need you to be able to defend yourself with ranged attacks."
Shirou frowned, but he understood his father's reasoning.
"We will try to expand your arsenal of weapons, and finally, now that we know that the part of the crest you have works, I will teach you how to use it."
"Did you hear about my fight with Matou?"
"Yes, that I haven't been able to contact you regularly doesn't mean that I haven't kept an eye on you."
Shirou nodded smiling. "By the way, you haven't told me yet, what is the mission?"
"We will hunt down a dead apostle..."
"What!?"
A dead apostle, his father had gone mad, they were part of the most dangerous and powerful beings in the world! Although the latter depended on the apostles themselves, and not on their species in general.
Well, he knew that his father had hunted at least one of these before, and at least they weren't talking about one of the ancestral dead apostles.
So, it couldn't be that bad… could it?
"Specifically, we are going hunt to Altrouge Brunestud."
Shirou looked at Kiritsugu as if he had grown a second head. "O-Old man, I am listening well, right? Are you saying we're going after the Princess of the Dead Apostles?" Shirou lost all color on his face. "That Altrouge Brunestud?"
Kiritsugu nodded.
"We are dead."
"I would think twice before facing any of the ancestral apostles, even with my entire arsenal of swords," Muramasa said. "We obviously don't have a chance at present, so... what are we really going to do?"
"We will go to earn merits," replied the freelancer.
"To earn merits?" the redhead asked, momentarily coming out of his state of resignation.
"Do you know the Aylesbury Valesti ritual?"
Shirou shook his head.
"The Aylesbury Valesti ritual was first performed in 1970 and is the cause of the mana in our world is drastically running out."
"What? But I believed that it was by the human actions that caused irreversible deterioration."
"That's only half the story, the natural half to be specific, the one that science can explain. The other half is due to the Aylesbury Valesti ritual.
"And what is this ritual?" Shirou asked interested.
"No one knows exactly. It is said that, through this, the dead apostles seek the rebirth of The Dark Six, whatever that thing is." Kiritsugu sighed. "The important thing you should know is this: the ritual was interrupted in 1970 by a combined force between the Church and the Mage's Association. It is one of the few events where both organizations have worked together."
"But…?" the boy asked.
"Even after interrupting it, the world's mana began to fade, and the planet began to deteriorate at a worrying rate. There may be, at most, a half-century before the man disappears in its entirety, and who knows if life human will still be viable then."
Shirou clenched his hands tightly. "So all we're living through is that? All because of that ritual?"
"That is what is believed."
At that time, Shirou realized. "Wait! If we are going to hunt down a dead apostle and you are telling me about this ritual... Don't tell me..."
Kiritsugu closed his eyes for a moment before opening them again. Shirou had never seen that look on his father's face, he was strong and determined, as opposed to his usual melancholy. "Yes, it is what you imagine. It is believed that the dead apostles will try again to perform said ritual a second time."
"Within two months?"
The freelancer nodded.
"But, what are we supposed to do? We can't face the dead apostle ancestors…"
"And we won't, as I said, we're just going to earn merits." After taking one last puff from the cigar, the magus killer continued with his explanation. "We don't have any kind of chance against the twenty-seven dead apostle ancestors, so what we will do is eliminate as many of their children as possible..."
"And Altrouge Brunestud?" the confused boy asked.
"Like 30 years ago, the Church and the Association will work together. Their goal is to deal with Altrouge, not ours."
The boy let out the air that he kept trapped in his lungs. "Uff, you should have started there you know." After calming down himself, Shirou asked, "and, what are these merits that you are talking about?"
"The Barthomeloi family is known to hate dead Apostles, if we manage to kill a good number of them, they might be more in favor of giving us the crest back."
"I understand, but do you think I'll be ready to help you?"
"That will be up to you. If I notice that you are not ready, then I will not take you with me."
The doubt disappeared from the boy's gaze. "I understand, I will be," said the determined redhead.
And so, slowly, the two months of preparations began...
During the first two weeks, Shirou was trained by Kiritsugu in two things: firearms and learning to use the Time Alter.
Although the boy did not like firearms and preferred swords, he had good aim, at least for someone who had never fired anything other also the arrows used in archery.
¡Bam! ¡Bam!
The bullets he fired flew in the direction of automatons his father had bought for his training.
In the third week, Kiritsugu added tracking and survival exercises to his regular workouts, plus he also bought some second-hand automatons to help him practice. SometimesShirou hunted them, sometimes they hunted him.
In the fourth week, Kiritsugu explained to him everything he knew about dead apostles as far as the practice was concerned: How proud the apostles were, how they each had their own abilities, who their potential enemies were, and those other kinds of things that he wouldn't see at a Clock Tower conference.
Another thing that Kiritsugu took care of was for Shirou to acquire the mentality of not hesitating to kill his enemy. He made it clear that they would show no mercy to him and that he could not afford to show mercy to them. The way he did, it was by showing him what they were going to face: a dead.
The deads are the traditional familiars of the dead apostles, they deceive death by eating the flesh of their victims to maintain their bodies, but over half of the absorbed energy is sent to their master. They are created when a vampire's victim, who had his blood sucked and then received some of the vampire's own blood, does not manage to become a Ghoul.
Kiritsugu led him to where a dead was rumored to have turned up recently, and, after tracking and finding it, Shirou was forced to confront it and subsequently assassinate it. The redhead still felt a knot in his stomach when he remembered it.
Of course, during these four weeks, the training with Muramasa continued.
In the first week of the second month, they tried to improve Shirou's repertoire of weapons, but it was mostly useless. Finding certain kinds of relics from the past today wasn't easy unless, of course, you were dealing with the right people (whom Kiritsugu knew) and willing to spend large amounts of money; however, they did not know which sword to look for. Still, they toured various museums in London and certain places where Kiritsugu thought they might find something...
"Eh…?" Shirou looked out of the car window.
Kiritsugu stopped it. "What's going on?"
"I don't know, just… a strange feeling," the confused boy muttered, "as if something was calling me."
Though concerned about the boy's attitude, the magus killer asked, "do you think we should head there?"
Without giving him much thought, the redhead nodded. "Please…"
After driving for a while to where the boy has indicated, Kiritsugu stopped the car. "It's here?"
The apprentice blacksmith nodded. The boy got out of the car and walked towards where there seemed to be some ruins; it almost seemed that he was in a trance.
How strange... Of all the places we were able to come to, we came to this place.
Thought the magus killer.
Glastonbury Abbey...
This place was where, supposedly, the tomb of King Arthur was located.
The magus killer followed the redhead. Even though it was the first time they had both been to this place, Shirou seemed to know exactly where he was going, and, sooner rather than later, they were in front of a grave.
"¿Shirou…?"
At that moment, the boy turned to his father. His gaze was empty, he no longer seemed to have a will of his own.
Understanding what was happening, Kiritsugu rushed to catch up with his son. "Shirou, wait!"
The blacksmith's apprentice lost his balance and began to fall on top of the tomb; however, before hitting the ground, he felt as if his body vanished and he was moving away into the depths. His body was left lying on top of the tomb, inert.
"Shirou!?" Kiritsugu's melancholic demeanor was totally abandoned, and despair filled his voice. He had lost the only thing he had been able to salvage from his biggest mistake."Shirou!? Where are you!?" no matter how much he called him, the redhead didn't answer. Such was his anguish that he was about to leave the place to take him to any other place where he believed they could help him, however, he was stopped by the blacksmith.
"Wait, Kiritsugu!" Muramasa spoke, and though he hadn't lost his cool, there was concern in his voice. "No matter where you go, you won't be able to help him."
"What do you mean!? Where is he!?" asked the magus killer while holding the katana. "He was being charmed by something, wasn't he?"
"Yes, I don't know why or by whom, but the only thing I can confirm is that the boy was dragged to the Reverse Side of the World."
This surprised the freelancer. "The Reverse Side of the World? But it is almost impossible to get to the Reverse Side of the World with the current situation, with the mana running out."
Muramasa nodded. "But perhaps precisely because we are in this place, it is that he was able to reach the other side."
"Will he come back?"
"I don't know, we will have to wait. You can feel as if the leylines had activated here like we haven't seen in other places..."
Kiritsugu nodded. "But these are getting progressively weaker."
"They're probably getting back to normal. The boy must come back before they get too weak, otherwise, he won't be able to go back."
That said, they both stood waiting as the power of the thaumaturgical lines decreased little by little.
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AN: Another review, so another chapter!