The dead apostle saw the boy just getting up and, without waiting to be cured, rushed against him. Shirou managed to react in time to stop the bloodsucker's attack with one of his swords and used the other to pierce his foot, preventing him from moving freely. But little by little, the curse of restoration began to take effect and heal the wounds of the dead apostle.
"Now!" Shirou yelled.
"Hmm...?" exclaimed the stunned apostle.
¡Pump!
A bullet went through the boy's head, killing him instantly, he fell towards the redhead, and Shirou pushed him away and watched in surprise as the girl laughed at what had happened to her brother.
"T-That fool, h-he really let two humans kill him a second time. Ha! Ha! Ha!" she laughed at the girl as if she didn't care.
"It seems like it worked," Shirou said as he approached his father.
The magus Killer nodded. "Yes, although it probably only works in conditions like these, where the apostles are not that strong, they depend so much on magecraft and, on days like this," Kiritsugu whispered so that the girl wouldn't hear him.
"Ha, Ha, Ha."
"Will you keep laughing?" Shirou asked, "your brother is dead, you know?"
"What about that? The curse will bring him back..."
"Then, why hasn't he come back?" Kiritsugu asked, "it was just a shot to the head."
At that moment, she realized they were right, her brother was not regenerating.
"What?" she exclaimed in surprise, "what did they do to him!?" she screamed desperately.
"Nothing special. Your regeneration curse is not absolute," said the magus killer.
The Curse of Restoration was the way the dead apostles recovered, this returned the dead apostles to their original state before receiving the attack. But there was a big problem with this curse: it depended on the phases of the Moon, and, just today, it was the new moon, the phase where the curse was weakest. Also, the bullet fired was an Origin Bullet, these were conceptual weapons that drove the Magic Circuits of any being they hit crazy, in addition to destroying them if they were active, causing an enormous amount of necrosis that prevented healing.
With the curse in its normal state, or at its full potential, the bullets would not be able to finish off the dead apostle, but with the curse in its weakest state, the conceptual weapon was able to surpass the curse and prevent regression.
"Bastards!" quickly, the bloodsucker lunged forward, dodging the bullets Kiritsugu was firing at her.
Shirou stood in front but couldn't stop her. The woman threw herself at the freelancer, and he received a strong blow that sent him flying several meters away, but not before throwing a bottle of Holy Water in her face that burned her and shattered her vision.
"GGGAAAHHH!" the uncontrolled woman screamed without being able to see anything.
The magus killer stood up while spitting blood, if he hadn't used the Reinforcement Magecraft right before the blow then he would have died with that blow, "Shirou!"
The boy understood his father's message and ran toward the apostle, and, not being able to see him, he managed to dodge her erratic blows, and, using his Projection Magecraft, he materialized a weapon, this was the same knife that Kiritsugu had on their belt, as well as one of his creations. He had used various Origin Bullets as material, in this way, the boy had created a knife with the same properties as bullets. Kiritsugu called this new weapon: The Phantom Punishment.
The Phantom Punishment was created from Kiritsugu's bullets, which, in turn, were made from part of his ribs, extracted from his body, crushed into powder, condensed in a container to preserve his soul, and sealed within sixty-six bullets, and this made the weapon difficult for Shirou to project.
Generally, the knife wouldn't be anything too special, probably a C-rank weapon, and it shouldn't be difficult for the redhead to project it, however, since this weapon was tied toKiritsugu's soul, a material he couldn't understand, it was not easy to project it for him.
Shirou had created the weapon, he knew perfectly how it was structured, and he knew almost all of its materials perfectly, but he could not understand the Kiritsugu's soul bound to his bones, and yet, after having reformed the bullets into the shape of a knife, his understanding about the Origin, or more specifically, about the concept of Union and Separationlinked to Kiritsugu's Origin, became much clearer to him. Shirou couldn't replicate Kiritsugu's soul, but, by judging the concept of the weapon's creation: a weapon with the concept of Separation and Union, he was able to mimic its effects.
And yet, this conceptual replacement at the time of its projection caused what should have been a C-rank weapon, without any kind of degradation, to become a -C-rank weapon, whose value was not reliable. Still, it was more than enough to mortally wound the bloodsucker as the redhead swung the knife through her neck.
"You Bastard…! Guh!" blood spilled from her throat, this prevented her from speaking, and she ended up choking. The effect was the same as with her brother, little by little, the Conceptual Weapon overcame the curse, corroding her entire being. Shirou looked at what he had done: the corpse of the woman writhing in a vain attempt by the curse to keep her alive.
Shirou watched her, her necrotic body, her torn throat, the blood staining her clothes… His father had prepared him for this, but, even so, nausea invaded him, and he was on the verge of vomiting.
Suddenly, the earth began to shake. Several old buildings began to creak, and some even collapsed. It seemed that the pitched battle was increasing. Suddenly, two buildings behind him collapsed, and their debris fell from all sides.
"Old man!"
The rubble had separated them.
From the other side, the magus killer replied, "Shirou, go back to the camp, I'll meet you there. The apostles we killed were the Louvre children, and they were two dead apostles over a hundred years old. It should be enough for them to recognize our usefulness."
"I understand. Make sure you come back, old man!"
Kiritsugu smiled slightly.
I should be the one to tell you that.
Before walking away, the magus killer said, "Don't go down the main streets. The dead apostles, the ones among the 27, will start to fight each other, as well as the most powerful members of the Church and the Association."
1
That said, Kiritsugu and Shirou parted ways.
The apprentice magus walked away from the scene where the confrontation had occurred, though not without first taking up the weapons of both apostles. Also, he didn't realize that a little rat had been watching his entire fight.
Shirou ran through the alleys of the town, sometimes seeing executioners or freelancers confronting dead apostles. And, if he saw someone in distress, he would stop for a moment and cause a slight distraction with the Black Barrel. If he could help, then he saw no reason not to.
And, while fleeing the conflict area, he saw something that confused him. In a children's park, there was a girl, she was a pretty girl a little younger than him, with long black hair and very fair skin. Also, she wore a beautiful victorian evening gown.
But the strangest thing was how she played innocently in the park with a… Puppy? Well, that was what it appeared to be. Although for him, he looked more like a squirrel. A cute animal with white fur with some slightly bluish details.
"Fou?" the little being barked upon noticing his presence.
The girl stopped and looked at him. She had beautiful scarlet eyes that he could tell had a charm without equal.
"And you are…?" she asked.
Despite the strange situation, he replied, "Muramasa Shirou."
She smiled, "And which faction do you belong to?"
"Faction?" Shirou said, confused, "oh, no. I am a freelancer. More importantly, what are you doing here!?" Shirou was shocked. At first, he believed that the girl was an apostle, however, when he used his nose to smell her, he did not perceive any essence.
He had replaced his sense of smell to perceive magecraft, another of the things he had learned in the Clock Tower, and it had never failed him. In fact, although Shirou did not know how to use it consciously until he arrived at the Clock Tower, he had replaced it so long before he reached it. This was how he noticed the agglomeration of mana in LadyValualeta's office.
"Me? I was invited to come..."
"Invited?"
"So is." The girl smiled, "Although it looks like a big mess was made just like last time."
"Last time?" Shirou's thoughts stopped when suddenly the sky was covered with a canopy of wings, and this caused a huge change in the world, creating a world of death where absolute darkness began to swallow the light of the Moon and the stars, "w-what the hell is this?"
"Nevermore, it's the Gransurg Blackmore reality marble, one of the 27," the girl said dismissively.
"Moon Devourer!? Dead Apostle Killer!?" Shirou asked, terrified.
She nodded happily. "Yup, that one. He is a good joker, seventeen hundred years ago he made mankind believe that he had died, and no one knows why. He probably came to kill me along with Merem, and they must both be facing Rizo and Fina."
These names brought chills to Shirou. Fina-blood Svelten and Rizo-Waal Strout, and both are dead apostles from among the most powerful, both are part of the 27.
"Watch out!" Shirou used the Black Barrel to destroy a ghoul that was approaching to attack the girl.
The girl was surprised by the boy's action, "Did you protect me?" she seemed to be puzzled.
"Well, the ghoul was going to hurt you, right? I wasn't going to let that happen, at least not while I was here."
This brought a smile to the girl's face, "Oh! Now that I think about it, I'll be late. I got distracted by playing and also watching the fights. So, since you're going to protect me, will you escort me too?"
"Escort you?" the confused boy asked.
"Yes," she replied.
Shirou wanted to refuse, he had to go back to the camp as his father had told him, but there was something... something in those beautiful crimson eyes, something that did not allow him to refuse, "Sure. Where are we going?"
"To the caves! You know, there are some caves in this town, and we are supposed to meet there," she said cheerfully and innocently.
"Fou!" the little animal barked.
"Oh right, he is Cath Palug, although you can call him Fou."
"Nice to meet you, Fou," the boy said as he stretched out his hand toward the little animal.
The girl smiled, "Treat him well, PM."
Hearing his master's orders, Fou climbed up Shirou's hand and licked his cheek.
"Then let's head for the caves!" the girl said as she raised a hand happily.
"To the caves! / Fou, fou," said the two.
In this way, Shirou left with the girl and the little animal, forgetting that, literally, he was in the middle of a pitched battle between executors of the Church and the Association, magi, dead apostles, ghouls, and other creatures...
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AN: Chapter from the 7th review!