Several minutes before...
Kiritsugu had managed to get out of Aylesbury, and a magus was waiting for him on the outskirts of this, he had the job of helping anyone who wanted to leave the town escape.He was a boy with long blue hair with some dark circles in his eyes, and he was wearing a brown jacket and pants.
"Are you the heir to the Ainsworths?"
He nodded, "Are you going out of town?"
Kiritsugu nodded, "Has a red-haired boy your age come here by any chance?"
The boy shook his head, "No one of my age has left town," using his magecraft, he opened a portal and said, "come on, my father told me that when things got too dangerous, I should retire, and I think it's about time..."
Although worried, Kiritsugu crossed it, wishing that Shirou would come soon after or that he had fled the town in some other way. The portal closed with the boy on the other side, and the magus killer returned to camp.
"From what I see, you survived too." Kiritsugu turned to where the voice came from there was Kairi, "Everything got out of control when those demonic beasts appeared, and...Wait? Where is the kid?"
Kiritsugu was going to reply, but suddenly, a column of light rose in the distance, right where the town was.
That light is...!?
Kiritsugu recognized it as a light similar to the one released by the servant's sword he summoned in the past, and that only meant one thing: Shirou was still in town.
The magus killer ran or at least tried because Kairi stopped him, "Wait, where are you going!"
"Back in town, Shirou is still there."
Kairi understood and knew what Kiritsugu was feeling, he had also been a father, even if it was for a short time, but still, he had to tell him, "The Ainsworths are no longer sending anyone into town."
"What?"
The necromancer nodded, "After the superior dead apostles began to clash, they decided that sending more people would be the same as sending them to their death. So, they decided not to send anyone else, they only left one to bring them back..."
Kiritsugu wanted to reply, but his words caught in his throat because, at that moment, all the primates remembered the terror of death. Even half a kilometer away, Gaia's Beast was clearly visible, and everyone who saw him could feel for a moment as if the life was draining from their bodies. All the people inside the camp were paralyzed with fear, and it only disappeared when the beast disappeared.
After several minutes, everyone returned to normal...
Kiritsugu set out to look for any member of the Ainsworth family, but before he could go talk to one, another man stopped him.
"Your son is no longer in Aylesbury."
It was the same old father who was one of Merem Solomon's familiars.
"What do you mean?"
The King of Rats whispered something in the magus killer's ear, and, Before retiring, he watched the sky, "To my master is not going to like this..."
Kiritsugu was stunned by the information he had just received, but he instinctively looked up to the sky after hearing the father, the crimson moon was shining there.
Somewhere else…
He couldn't see anything, and his whole body ached, but he heard a few words.
"Are you sure of this, your highness?" said a voice.
"Yeah, this world does not have enough time left to allow us to doubt. Also, I saw something interesting..." this voice seemed to be Altrouge's.
"Something interesting? What was my lady?" asked a different voice.
"A land of swords..."
After a few minutes, Shirou managed to open his eyes. The sunlight bothered him a lot, "Huh!?" he exclaimed, surprised to see the Princess of the Dead Apostles inches from his being.
She smiled, "It seems that everything went well."
"P-Princess?"
She frowned, "I refuse."
He looked at her, confused, "Sorry?"
"No Princess, Altrouge. You treated me normally when we first met, keep calling me that."
Shirou nodded, "What happened? Where are we?"
"We are a few miles from the town, I brought us here after playing with Merem." For a moment, Shirou remembered the giant whale dog and the boy riding it.
"That was Merem?"
The Princess nodded, "It was fun playing with him." After that statement, her expression changed to one of pure curiosity, "By the way, why didn't you tell me that you were developing a reality marble?"
"I don't know what you're talking about…" Shirou replied, confused.
"I see, so it's completely natural, that makes it more interesting..." Altrouge smiled, "when you were unconscious you whispered some words, and I suppose these have to do with what happened to your wounds since after whispering them, blades of swords came out of your body to seal the places where I gave you the last blows. You were no longer fully-human when you hit me with the holy sword, am I correct?"
"I do not know what you mean, I've always been human, at least for as long as I can remember."
She looked at him confused and narrowed her eyes, "That doesn't make sense. We, the dead apostles, can negate the man-made Noble Phantasms, as well as the ones the gods have prepared for man, rendering them useless. But your sword managed to hurt me, do you know what means, detective?" Altrouge made a thoughtful gesture, "although, now that I think about it, I guess it also has to do with the compatibility problem I have with that sword, being a holy weapon."
Although somewhat embarrassed by the girl's teasing, Shirou replied, trying, and failing miserably, to lie to her, "Well, maybe I know something..."
She frowned slightly, "That is not right, you should not lie to the person who will help you..."
"Huh?"
She took a graceful deportment, "I am The Princess of the Dead Apostles, and I promised that I would help you create the sword that will cut the dire fate of this world, and I plan to fulfill my promise, furthermore if we fail to create it, this planet will inevitably come to an end. Maybe we will need a miracle to survive."
A miracle…
Shirou thought as he watched the Moon disappear with the light of the new day.
"By the way, my apologies for your other sword," Altrouge was holding the Vorpal sword and his Muramasa, Neocaliburn was at her side, but she did not dare to touch it, "by the way, your grandfather is quite a funny person. It had been a long time since I spoke with another being who had lived more than three centuries without him being an apostle."
"Thank you," Shirou said as he accepted the swords.
"So, where will you go now?"
"I'll probably go back to London because, in a week, my classes will begin again in the Clock Tower."
That depressed the Princess, "London, huh... I probably have to talk to the old Marshal then..."
This statement confused the boy, was she going to come with him?
"It's no fun asking that old for favors… So, you want me to take us to London?" she asked.
Shirou was going to politely decline the offer because first, he had to go back to...
"The camp! Old man!" the redhead exclaimed, concerned.
"Old man?"
"He is my adoptive father, I was supposed to meet him at the camp, but we met, and well..."
"Oh, I understand, do you want me to take you there?"
"Please, although... will you come?" asked the apprentice magus, somewhat nervous. Carrying The Princess of the Dead Apostles would be like lighting the fuse on that powder keg.
"No, Merem is probably still around, but don't worry, we'll see each other again very soon." Altrouge turned to Fou, who had returned to his reduced form, he was next to Shirou, "Fou, you know what to do..."
The little creature positioned itself on top of Shirou and nodded.
"Foouuuu."
Fou barked, and the two disappeared in a halo of light right in front of the Princess.
The Magus Killer was in camp, waiting, he didn't know what he was waiting for, but he couldn't leave either. Merem's familiar had told him that his son had been kidnapped by one of the 27 Dead Apostles and, in a way, that reassured him, because everything they found in Aylesbury was nothing but corpses. But what would he do now? In his mind, there was no plan and no way to face one of those monsters, how would he get Shirou back? That question was repeated over and over in his head and, when he was about to lose hope, a great flash appeared in the middle of the camp. And, when it dissipated, his son appeared with a small dog on his shoulder; Kiritsugu was about to run to his side, but right now he was The Magus Killer, so he slowly approached, and he was not the only one.
Shirou had appeared in front of all the people in the camp, but something seemed strange: they all came closer looking at him with various emotions reflected on their faces, some, like curiosity or astonishment, were easily visible.
What the apprentice magus did not know was that after the attack on Aylesbury had ended, a certain rumor began to spread:
That the magus killer and his son had managed to kill the sons of Louvre, one of the closest candidates to become a member of the 27, and not only that, rumors also said that the killer's son had fought against the Princess of the Eclipse and the Black Blood and that he had somehow managed to hurt her. The most important thing was that these rumors were spread by the King of the Rats, a familiar of Merem, who was one of the apostles who were in the town at the time of the events. All of this only increased its credibility behind them.
In the distance, Merem was looking at the boy, and when his eyes looked at him, a small smile adorned his face, but when he looked at the creature on the boy's shoulder, his expression warped to one of anger and fear, "It seems that things will get more interesting from now on..."
Another person looking at the boy was Zachary Ainsworth, "Angelica, Julian, this year you will return to the Clock Tower; keep an eye on our objectives and cooperate with our allies."
Both nodded.
"And Angelica…"
"Yes, father?"
"Also keep an eye on the son of the magus killer, he could be a useful piece in our plans."
The girl nodded.
The last important person to observe him was the Queen of the Clock Tower herself, Barthomeloi Lorelei. She had a cold and calculating look, but she couldn't help but smile.
From that day on, the life of the apprentice magus became much more hectic, and his second year in the Tower would be living proof of this...
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AN: This is the end of chapter 5!