Chapter 156 - 57

Chapter 57: Endgame

Endgame

Vlov was dead.

Vlov Arkhangel was dead.

He was dead, and his Idea Blood, his Crown and Authority, was gone.

He'd only just left her lair after she'd rescued him from the redheaded Magus, and now he was already dead. She hadn't even blinked twice before he'd kicked the bucket.

It seemed impossible, yet it was true. Her little ones had brought her the news, and they never lied, nor would they be mistaken about something so momentous.

Vlov was dead.

And now, the redheaded Magus, that dogged figure, was tracing Vlov's steps back to her laboratory, undoubtedly in order to kill her too.

Needless to say, the Spider Queen was consumed by fear, a dread potent enough to make all her appendages shake uncontrollably.

She did have defences, Magical and mundane, but while those might hold up against an unprepared interloper, they wouldn't be able to withstand a concentrated assault, especially not from him.

Although she was an Ancestor, one of the older Upstarts even, she was a coward at heart. In fact, it could be said that it was her cowardice that had kept her alive for so long in the first place, especially since her combat-capabilities were rather low for a Dead Apostle Ancestor.

She wasn't ashamed of it. Nearly all Ancestors were cowards, preferring to avoid violence and dangerous situations as much as they could, with only very few exceptions. Exceptions that rarely lasted long out there in the real world.

Vlov Arkhangel had been one of those exceptions, refusing to cower and hide like the rest of them, and look what had happened to him!

And to make matters worse, she was still weakened from when she saved Vlov! It had taken her massive amounts of energy to create enough powerful Dead Apostles to assist the late Knight, and it had left her with precious little, even after she'd fed on every Yakuza and vagrant she could find.

No, the Spider Queen wasn't sticking around any longer. It was a shame that all her hard work on setting up her laboratory and preparing her grand experiment in Misaki Town was going to waste, but as long as she stayed alive, she could always start again.

Not so much if she was dead.

She wasn't about to leave absolutely everything behind though. Currently, she was standing on but two of her many legs, as all her other limbs were hard at work packing away the contents of her laboratory. Vials, jars, and containers were rapidly being thrown into bags, suitcases, and cool bags, as she tried to preserve her most valuable and precious resources. The resources she couldn't easily replace.

Of course, with her appendages shaking as much as they did, many of the vials and jars ended up shattered on the ground, their contents spilled all over the floor. Perhaps as much as one-third ended up destroyed and useless.

But that was fine. They said haste makes waste, but at the moment, she needed so much haste she did not care about the waste.

She needed to get out of here before the redheaded Magus would arrive.

By now, Shirou completely understood why the Burial Agency and the Enforcers found it so difficult to track down the Dead Apostle Ancestors.

They had proven to be incredibly stealthy creatures, seriously sneaky. They flew under everyone's radar even as they committed atrocity after atrocity, slipping past the Burial Agency's best tracking-devices and the Enforcers' greatest Warding spells seemingly without effort. They were even capable of fooling both Shirou's nose and eyes, which was saying something, considering both of those senses had been imbued with literal divinity.

It was only to be expected though. The Dead Apostle Ancestors were enemies of humanity, hunted and reviled by all, and they wouldn't live long if they were easy to find. Hence, they had developed superior methods of hiding themselves, refining those methods over the centuries until they were completely untraceable. Furthermore, since they were technically the children or grandchildren of a god, the Crimson Moon, it wasn't entirely illogical for them to be able to contend with Shirou's budding divinity using some false divinity of their own.

They were just too good at hiding, and it had rankled Shirou fiercely to know he was in the same city as three Ancestors yet to be unable to find any of them, especially since they didn't seem to be able to stop killing people for any longer than five minutes at most.

But now, the situation had rapidly changed.

Vlov Arkhangel was dead, the name of Roa's vessel was known, and the Spider Queen had accidentally revealed herself in her arrogance. The Dead Apostle Ancestors had been dragged into the light, and the hunters were now moving in for the kill.

Arcueid Brunestud, Tohno Shiki, and Ciel were pursuing Roa, aiming to kill him once and for all. Easier said than done of course, but perhaps Tohno Shiki's special ability could succeed where everyone else had failed so far.

Meanwhile, Shirou was going after the Spider Queen, the third and last Ancestor within the city's borders, trying to find her main base of operations.

He'd already found one of her lairs earlier tonight, in the Tohno-manor of all places, but Shirou felt reasonably secure in saying that she likely had a base somewhere else in the city as well. She had been living in Misaki Town for decades now after all, so she needed a place where she could work on her Dead Apostle-business in private, away from her closely-monitored room in the Tohno-manor.

Yes, it was technically possible that she'd spent all those years living only in her disguise as doctor Arach, but Shirou frankly doubted a Dead Apostle Ancestor could ever be so disciplined or so passive.

She had to have another base, a place where she could be herself, and it was up to him to find it.

He didn't have her scent, or at least not enough of it to reliably track her down, so he was following Arkhangel's trail instead, tracing it back to where the Russian knight had come from, which he suspected and hoped to be the Spider Queen's secret base.

She had rescued her fellow Ancestor only the day before after all, sending her minions to help him out, and Shirou was fairly certain that those minions had brought Arkhangel back to their Queen's lair.

There was no guarantee of that of course, they might have taken him to a random location in the city instead, but Shirou's gut told him they had not.

After all, Arkhangel had suddenly disappeared from his radar last night, soon after being rescued, which suggested that he'd entered a place protected by potent Bounded Fields, and on top of that, he'd been equipped with the mysterious syringe, indicating that he'd met the Spider Queen in person.

So yes, it was fairly certain the late Ancestor had been brought to the Spider Queen's base.

Though even if that was not the case, if he had been brought to a random location after all, Shirou would just have to find that location and track her down from there. It didn't change all that much in the end.

Fortunately, Arkhangel's trail was incredibly easy to follow all of a sudden. Perhaps it was because the Dead Apostle Ancestor had perished a mere hour ago, but whatever tricks and techniques he'd used to hide his tracks had suddenly lost all their effect. The scent of ash and frost was crystal clear to Shirou's nose, and the trail couldn't have been easier to follow if every footprint he'd made had lit up in the night.

Shirou's search soon took him into a more rundown part of the city, a part filled with abandoned warehouses and derelict homes that were due to be demolished soon, covered in filth and trash, looking unfit for even the seediest of drug deals and the most desperate of vagrants and Yakuza.

In other words, the perfect location for a Dead Apostle to lie low for a while.

As if to further support that theory, Shirou soon noticed an unusual number of spiders skittering about in the shadows, their beady eyes watching his every move, and he also did not miss the fact that he was very close to the place where he'd lost track of Arkhangel the day before, during the chase after the battle.

It seemed he had come to the right place then.

Eventually, the scent brought him to a large warehouse, seemingly abandoned yet with subtle signs of someone having inhabited it up until very recently.

Cautiously hopeful that he'd found his quarry, Shirou hopped through the nearest window, keeping a sharp eye out for possible traps, before his face fell when he entered the building's main hall.

Corpses.

More than a dozen of them.

Yakuza, by the looks of it, which meant he was wrong in his assumption that this part of town was too filthy even for them.

They had been butchered in all kinds of gruesome ways, ripped apart as if they'd gotten on the wrong end of a pack of bears, yet there wasn't a drop of blood to be found anywhere.

It was clearly the work of a Dead Apostle.

This warehouse was not a base, but a feeding trough.

Shirou spared a moment of pity for the slain men, who had not deserved such a terrible end no matter their crimes, and he promised them to inform the police of their demise once he was done in the area, before he moved on, still following Arkhangel's scent.

Which was suddenly mixed in with that of the Spider Queen!

Shirou's heart leapt up in excitement when he noticed it, irrefutable proof that the two had been together at some point, that she was near, and he increased his pace as he left the warehouse again, following the mixture of scents with the eagerness of a young hunting dog.

He didn't have to go far. Only about a hundred metres away lay another warehouse, even more derelict than the one before. At first glance, there seemed to be nothing out of the ordinary about it, but when Shirou took a closer look, he noticed the faint shimmer of cleverly-hidden Bounded Fields surrounding the property.

That, and the hypermodern, state-of-the-art truck standing just outside. A truck that was obviously still in use and did not fit its surroundings at all.

Things couldn't have been clearer if the Spider Queen had put a large sign outside announcing her presence.

Using the tricks he'd learned at the Clocktower, copied from the Bounded Field-savant Khamul, Shirou slipped past the defences without triggering or destroying them, approaching the truck to take a closer look, noticing that its hatch was opened and its cargo bed half-filled with a variety of bags and boxes.

"Guh?!"

The moment he fully passed the Bounded Fields however, the redhead nearly retched as a terrible odour hit his nose, almost burning his sinuses. An odour reminiscent of rotting blood and sulphur, indescribably bitter and sour at the same time.

This… This was the Spider Queen?!

It was her scent, definitely, but it was a thousand times more potent and a million times worse than he'd expected.

What on Earth had she done to smell this bad?!

His eyes watered from the indescribable stink, but he ignored it as best as he could in favour of focusing on the truck. The bags and boxes inside produced an awfully alarming smell of their own, which meant he better check them out.

Entering the truck, Shirou quickly opened one of the boxes, holding Mjolnir at the ready in case he found something dangerous, before he blinked in surprise when he found not a Dead Apostle, as he'd half expected at this point, but rather a variety of cigarettes.

Yes, cigarettes.

All kinds of different brands and sizes, stuck together in one container, with their only common denominator being that they all carried the smell of Dead Apostles.

A bit confused with his discovery, Shirou opened another crate, finding that it contained a suspicious-looking white powder, which he quickly recognised as heroine. Heroine that also smelled like Dead Apostles for some reason.

A third crate held more cigarettes, while a fourth held cigars, expensive ones too. There were more kinds of drugs, and even several supposed medicines.

Unscrewing one of the vials, Shirou tasted a drop of the medicine, before he stiffened when the foul taste hit his tongue, a taste he'd never experienced before yet immediately recognised.

Dead Apostle blood!

And with that discovery, everything became clear to him.

In a flash, he understood the purpose of the syringes he'd found, and he realised the full scope of what the Spider Queen had been up to in the past three decades.

She was planning to create and unleash a veritable tsunami of Dead Apostles by dispersing cigarettes and drugs that had been laced with her blood. She was going to create an army, one that was so massive that even the Burial Agency and the Magus Association would be hard-pressed to deal with it.

That alone was already enough to make Shirou grit his teeth in anger, but when he discovered, among the many crates of drugs, a box filled with flu-vaccines, vaccines meant for children, he lost it.

With a roar, he threw the box against the side of the truck with such force that it dented the metal, completely shattering the wood and the vials, before he kicked a nearby crate with cigarettes hard enough to make it explode.

He stormed out of the truck, seeing red from how angry he felt, but just as he prepared to incinerate the vehicle and all its contents with the hottest and most powerful flames he could produce, he noticed something that made him pause.

Something was approaching.

Something inside the warehouse, not yet visible to his eyes.

Something large, powerful, and very much inhuman, which hadn't noticed him yet as far as he could tell.

It was obviously the Spider Queen. That was evident even with several Bounded Fields and other Wards still in the way.

And just as Shirou realised that, a nearby door opened, and the creature stepped outside.

At long last, the redhead laid eyes upon the Spider Queen, seeing her in the flesh for the first time.

And the sight was enough to make him forget about his anger at once.

Hideous. 

That was the only word that sprang to mind.

Hideous, revolting, nauseating, and foul, to a degree that frankly boggled the mind.

He'd been prepared to face an inhuman creature. Knowing that she was the Spider Queen, and that her clan saw spiders as the ultimate lifeform, he had expected that she would have various spider-like body parts. Her minions had too after all.

But whereas Shirou's mental image of her had been slightly cool and rather intimidating, as befitted a Dead Apostle Ancestor, the real thing was uglier than he could possibly have imagined.

Words could not do it justice, yet he gave it a try anyway.

The lower body was grotesque and bloated, seemingly half-eaten by maggots and larvae. Legs were sticking out from random places, covered in welts and green slime, and ending in appendages that looked like human hands, if human hands had horned skin and fingers three times as long as they should be.

The upper body seemingly burst out of the lower body like a worm bursting out of a fresh corpse, also covered in slime and grease, while six arms with multiple elbows each were wrapped around more bags and containers.

The head was that of a spider, clearly, though it had far more than eight eyes, all of them milky and dull, while the mouth was hidden by mandibles that were seemingly rotting away where she stood.

Her skin was hairy and wrinkly in all the wrong ways, covered in welts and poorly-healed lacerations, and there were spots visible where the skin had seemingly peeled right off her flesh, never to return.

But while she looked revolting enough to make an ordinary person throw up on the spot, Shirou found himself most bothered not by the sight, but by her smell.

He'd noticed before that her scent was a bitter one, unpleasant even by the standards of Dead Apostles, but now, with no spells and other tricks to obscure her and fool his nose, he was hit full on with the indescribable stench that was wafting from her body, both Magical and mundane.

"Kccccchhhhhh!"

Shirou choked. He had never smelled something so foul before. Not at the Clocktower, not in Fuyuki, not anywhere else. It was a sickening odour that seemed tailor-made to make him gag. A biological weapon, designed specifically to counter him.

It was so overbearing and eyewatering that Shirou could barely understand how she'd managed to hide it from him for so long. Truly, it was a testament to her talent at remaining undetected that he hadn't picked up on it long before his train even arrived in Misaki Town!

For a moment-and-a-half, both Shirou and the Spider Queen were too surprised to react, staring at each other in abject horror at what they saw.

Then every bag and container in the Spider Queen's arms was dropped with a thunderous crash, and she bolted.

She didn't get very far.

She hadn't even made it back inside the warehouse before Sarpanitum, the Noble Phantasm that had proven its worth against Arkhangel, pierced no fewer than three of the legs on her left side, causing her to topple over.

Shirou didn't immediately pursue however, instead turning to the truck filled with cigarettes and drugs.

Sowilo, the Rune of the Sun, would probably have been enough on its own to destroy it all, but Shirou linked it together with Thurisaz, the Rune of Thorns and Directed Destruction, and with Fehu, the Rune of Abundance, to make absolutely sure that not a single atom would survive.

The vehicle turned into a conflagration in the blink of an eye, burning so fiercely and hot that not even a whiff of smoke could escape. Before Shirou could even turn around again, there was nothing left but molten slag.

"KYAAA!"

The Spider Queen led out a screech that was filled with horror and anger in equal measure, and for a moment, it looked as if she wanted to jump at Shirou's throat.

That moment passed quickly however, and she ripped the legs that had been pierced by Sarpanitum straight off her body, before she tried to run away again, rushing back into the warehouse.

This time, Shirou pursued, though with some healthy caution, wary of tricks and traps as he entered the warehouse too.

At first sight, the warehouse seemed rather ordinary, the kind you could find in every city where the manufacturing business had seen its best days. A better look though revealed thin threads of spider-silk that had been spun everywhere, the giant webs that covered the ceiling and the walls, and the countless spiders guarding the doors.

Undoubtedly, anyone caught in those webs would have very little chance of escaping, and then the Spider Queen could take her time killing them, if she didn't have her minions take care of it instead.

There was a single path leading to the back of the warehouse where no webs had been spun though, most likely to allow possible visitors, like Vlov Arkhangel, to enter. The path was barely visible, cleverly hidden from normal eyes, but unfortunately for the Spider Queen, Shirou could see it perfectly well nonetheless.

Using that path, he easily caught up with her.

Gritting his teeth and promising himself that he'd take a bath as soon as this was over, he threw himself against the Spider Queen's side to knock her over, having to suppress a shudder when large quantities of puss and slime were splattered all over him as a result.

Never mind a bath. He'd cleanse himself in fire instead.

"N-No!" The Spider Queen wheezed when she fell, desperately crawling away from him, before she grabbed two nearby vials, from among the many that had been scattered all over the warehouse's floor, and threw them at him.

One of them exploded in a foul green fire, while the other unleashed a massive burst of acid, far more than should have fit in the small container.

A powerful gust of wind deflected both however, and Shirou answered with a burst of lightning.

It wasn't very effective.

The Spider Queen was massive and bulky enough to tank the lightning with little effort. She merely grunted in pain when it hit, twitching as the current rushed through her gigantic body, before she continued skittering away from him.

Until she reached a Magic Circle.

Slamming one of her horrendous appendages down upon the Circle, the Spider Queen activated one of her defences, one not linked to any kind of Bounded Field, and Shirou braced for its effects.

Nevertheless, he was still caught by surprise when the floor suddenly started liquefying beneath him, changing into an extremely potent acid that rapidly consumed everything inside the warehouse, even the discarded steel tools that had been stacked everywhere.

The entire front half of the warehouse turned into a green fluid, and within moments, nothing was left of the abandoned waste that had been so ubiquitous before. The acid was extremely strong, strong enough to consume metal in moments, perhaps even strong enough to blister Shirou's skin.

Fortunately though, he could fly, and so he rose above the acid, having no desire to test his durability, before speeding after the Spider Queen again.

She looked horrified at his ability to fly, which rendered her acid trap completely ineffective, but she didn't look desperate yet.

It became clear why when the roof suddenly came down upon him, giant plates of iron and bricks collapsing and tumbling down to crush him.

He dodged of course, rather easily, but his breath hitched in alarm when pieces of the ceiling fell into the acid pool, where they turned into clouds of ominous, red vapour.

Poison!

The Spider Queen clearly loved her concoctions, and once more, Shirou took no risk, holding his breath until he'd made it past the deadly vapour.

Just in time to see the Spider Queen enter a back office.

He pursued again, leaving the warehouse itself behind, and in the back office, Shirou quickly found a hidden door, leading to a long hallway.

The hallway was rife with traps, including but not limited to more poison, more acid, various explosives, horrid curses that aimed to strip the flesh off his bones, and vast amounts of spider silk having been spun between the walls, floor, and ceiling.

Frankly, the curses were the easiest to deal with. He just let them strike him, after which they were immediately dispelled by his Magic Resistance.

The spider silk he burned, using the Cleansing Power to call forth white flames, which also worked decently well against the fist-sized spiders that tried to ambush him at regular intervals.

The poison and acid he dodged and deftly avoided. It was definitely Magical poison and acid, meaning that his Magic Resistance should be effective against them, and he was far more durable than most to both, but even so, he didn't take any chances. Not when he didn't have to.

As for the explosives, he relied upon his armour to weather those blows, using his cloak to shield his face.

Woven by lady Frigga herself, from the silken fur of a hundred different Divine Beasts, it easily held up against every attack thrown its way.

The traps slowed him down however, giving the Spider Queen many extra seconds to get away, and he wasn't surprised to find himself at a dead end eventually, with her nowhere in sight.

Except it wasn't a dead end, thankfully, but only a change in directions. When he came closer, he saw that the hallway did continue, but straight downwards, changing into a deep crevice.

The hallway Shirou had just crossed had already been pitch-black, with the last source of light having been the lamp in the back office, and down in the crevice, it was even darker, like a black hole swallowing every bit of light that could possibly have existed down there.

But Shirou's eyes no longer needed light to see, so he was able to discern the roof of an elevator, a crude metal box that slowly descended into the Earth, moving without the need for electricity or support cables.

The redhead quickly scanned the shaft for any nasty traps or surprises, and when he found nothing of importance, he jumped down, letting gravity run its course, before he landed on top of the elevator.

There was no hatch to be found, so Shirou simply ripped himself a new opening, tearing apart the low-quality metal with little effort.

But once again, he was too late.

The elevator had already reached its destination, the lowest possible floor, and the Spider Queen had fled again, mere moments before Shirou caught up.

Not yet deterred, he lowered himself into the elevator proper and also stepped through its open door, finding himself in yet another hallway, though this one was much wider than the one above and was properly lit with various candles, giving it a fairly open atmosphere despite being dozens of metres underground.

The Spider Queen's disgusting scent was all over the place, potent enough to make Shirou pull a face despite his best efforts not to, and the further he got, the stronger it became.

Unpleasant, but it did mean he was going the right way.

Which was confirmed once more when he triggered another trap.

Unlike the traps in the hallway above, this one did not involve poison, acid, or explosives. Perhaps it was because the Spider Queen did not want to use such destructive measures so close to her main base, but the trap consisted of nothing more than two large dogs being released from their cages.

Shirou could not help it, he huffed a bit. Compared to the earlier defences, potent enough to slow him down considerably, this seemed rather lacklustre.

That was not to say those dogs weren't dangerous though, because they were. Clearly, they had been tampered with extensively, sufficiently so to make them dangerous even to the likes of seasoned Enforcers. They were the size of polar bears, with eight legs each, teeth like daggers dripping with venom, gigantic muscles rippling beneath leathery skin, and eight eyes like black beads, radiating pain and hatred in equal measures.

The moment they were released, they pounced on him, like attack-dogs were wont to do, though they did not bark, nor did they growl. Instead, they were squeaking softly, continuously, in both madness and agony.

If Shirou had had any qualms about fighting the beasts, out of reluctance to harm creatures with no inborn malice and no choice in their actions, those squeaks made him harden his heart.

These dogs had been maimed and altered beyond all hope of recovery, both physically and mentally. They had been sliced apart and put back together without any regard for their health and well-being, in a way that even the Meluastea would have considered needlessly cruel.

All they had left was pain and hatred. Even if he managed to restore their original forms, somehow, they'd never actually recover, not from this.

All he could give them was a swift, merciful end.

One of the dogs was faster than the other, eagerly snapping its jaws at everything it could see, and Shirou let it bite into his left vambrace, which its teeth, despite being awfully sharp and horrid, could not pierce.

Then, he swung Mjolnir with his right hand, bringing the hammer down upon its temple, the weakest part of the skull.

The poor creature immediately went limp, its jaws relaxing as it toppled over. Death had been instantaneous, free of any pain.

Shirou didn't have much time to feel sorry for the beast though. The other dog, even larger and even meaner-looking, came up next, and unlike its deceased counterpart, it did not go for any of his limbs, but targeted his throat instead, aiming to rip it out.

It was by far the best move available against an armoured opponent, and although Shirou did consider the possibility of the dog knowing that, the sheer madness and frenzied panic in its many eyes quickly disabused him of that notion.

It had no idea what it was doing. It just wanted to kill, and it happened to have chosen the best way by coincidence.

Fortunately, Shirou knew what to do about that, courtesy of his father's training.

Dogs were used as guard beasts pretty much all around the globe, and their sharp senses and resistance to bribery made them a serious obstacle to any potential anti-hero mercenaries who might want to 'dispose' of cruel dictators or corrupted officials.

Kiritsugu had taught his son much about fighting dogs, and even though he'd never needed the knowledge before, now that he was looking a rabid dog in the face, the redhead was once more grateful for his father's excellent foresight.

Dropping Mjolnir for now, he used both hands to grab the dog's cheeks, thereby pinning it in place, before he sharply jerked it to the side, bringing it off-balance, after which he managed to drag it off its feet.

Using his core and arms, he then slammed it down on the ground, hard, and while its eight legs flailed in the air, he called Mjolnir to his hand and brought it down upon its malformed head.

Its struggles ceased immediately.

Grimacing slightly, Shirou mumbled a short apology to both beasts, and he hoped that, if there was a dog afterlife somehow, they were now happy there, free and restored to their proper forms.

Then he continued, now with one more reason on the long, long list to kill the Spider Queen.

He wasn't exactly a dog person, but all the same, this kind of casual cruelty could not stand.

Although Arcueid Brunestud, in her latest rush to find Roa, had started out with a considerable head start over Tohno Shiki, courtesy of Emiya Shirou, who'd kept the latter back for a while to have a private conversation, it didn't take Shiki all that long to catch up with her.

The reason for that was simple. Arcueid had started out nicely, tracking down Roa using her connection with the Earth, but she'd soon run into an old rival, and she was now stuck in an alley, arguing with said rival.

When Shiki entered the alley too, he was at first surprised to see her there, having expected she'd be much further away, and then outright shocked when he realised whom she was arguing with.

It was no one else than Ciel-senpai.

His own Ciel-senpai, the captain of the tea club at his school, his newest and oddest friend, and the girl who'd been giving him so many headaches lately with her tendency to appear and disappear at will.

She was right there, shouting at Arcueid, while wearing an outfit that he could only describe as that of a warrior-nun, guns and all.

Now, Shiki was many things, not all of them good, but he wasn't dumb. He soon understood what was going on, that Ciel-senpai was also a denizen of the Moonlit World, and frankly, he wasn't even that surprised anymore.

He'd suspected from the very beginning that there was something off about her, and now he had his suspicions confirmed. His gut-feeling had been right all along, and that honestly made him feel pretty good about himself, especially after feeling like a complete idiot for the past two days.

He didn't have long to bask in his own cleverness however, as the two women quickly noticed his presence, ceasing their argument at once in favour of welcoming him.

"Oh, Shiki!"

"T-Tohno-kun?!"

Arcueid looked pleased to see him, much more pleased than when she saw Shirou, but Ciel looked almost horrified.

That horrified look was a bit rankling, especially from someone who'd pretended to be his friend, but Shiki ignored it for now.

"You took him along with you?!"

But he couldn't ignore Ciel's sudden outburst at Arcueid, her eyes blazing in anger.

"I chose to come along." He replied before Arcueid could, crossing his arms as he glared at his supposed senpai, daring her to protest further.

"But it's dangerous!" Ciel did in fact protest further, paying no heed to his warning glare, and for a moment, she once more looked like a proper senpai trying to look out for her kohai, a normal girl with normal concerns.

Which only pissed Shiki off even more. There were few things he hated more than people trying to be normal when they were not.

"There is no need to be concerned about me." He informed her, his voice terse and decidedly unkind. "I can look out for myself, can't I, Arcueid?"

"Absolutely." Arcueid happily confirmed, and the pride in her voice went a long way to sooth Shiki's irritation. "Shiki killed the Knight, you know. He killed Vlov Arkhangel."

"W-What?!" Ciel's unabashed shock at his most recent feat was pleasant to the eyes, as was the fact she seemed to be struggling for words now. She'd always been so composed and mature, so unlike what a normal teenage girl was supposed to be like, that it was nice to see her like this for once.

"And I will help you kill Roa." He added for good measure.

"R-Roa? I-I am not sure that is wise. I discovered his true identity earlier tonight, and it could be a shock for you to-"

"Roa has taken over the body of Tohno Shiki, Shiki's older brother." Arcueid interrupted her, smugness practically dripping off her voice and expression. "Shirou told us."

"You knew, and yet you still took Shiki along with you?!" A bit of the earlier anger returned, but Shiki was having none of it.

"I don't care." He said bluntly, getting quite fed up with people treating him like he was a porcelain doll they had to protect. If it wasn't Akiha, then it was that Shirou, and now even Ciel. "I don't even know him. All I know is that he killed people, he is one of those Vampire Kings, and he needs to be stopped. I want to help."

He made his desires clear, yet the warrior nun still seemed reluctant. She just wasn't listening to him, and the urge to brush past her grew by the moment.

"I am going, Ciel-senpai." He informed her again, trying to make it clear it was not up to negotiation. "With or without your permission-"

"Fine!" She suddenly snapped at him, relenting at last when she recognised the futility of trying to stop him. "But you will stay within my line of sight and you will run if things seem to go wrong."

"But-"

"That is final, Shiki!"

"A-Alright." Now it was Ciel who didn't budge, and after he glanced at Arcueid, who seemed to agree with the nun, it was Shiki's turn to relent.

"Yay! We're all working together!" Arcueid cheered once the negotiations were over, which earned her a dirty look from Ciel.

Then they were off together, and as he followed behind the two women, Shiki wondered for a moment whether he should inform Ciel about his ability.

About the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception.

It would be the logical thing to do, to make sure that Ciel, who seemed the most tactically and strategically minded of them all, knew what she was working with. It would certainly increase efficiency.

But in the end, he did not.

She had kept secrets from him, pretending to be normal when she was anything but, and that still stung.

So he kept his mouth shut. She'd find out about his Mystic Eyes when it was relevant.

Until then, it was none of her business.

When Shirou entered the laboratory of the Spider Queen, having made his way past all the traps trying to stop him, he noticed several things at once that made him purse his lips in disapproval and even outright anger.

For one, the laboratory was filthy, with dust, grime, mould, and who knew what else sticking to the walls, the ceiling, and even the benches and what little equipment remained. Drops of unidentified liquid had been spread around everywhere, and the floor was a veritable minefield of broken glass and sticky patches.

That might not have seemed like such a big problem, especially considering the circumstances, but Shirou was a bit of a neat-freak, making this laboratory an eyesore, not to mention the fact that Waver had thoroughly imparted on him the importance of keeping one's working space clean and tidy, which made this place an affront to look at.

But that was a mere irritation compared to the pungent smell of blood, actual blood, hanging over the laboratory like a dense cloud. Most of it was animal, blessedly, but a not insignificant part was human.

Hardly surprising, considering this was the lair of a Dead Apostle Ancestor, but that didn't make it any less terrible.

Having taken that all in with a glance, Shirou continued making his way into the laboratory-

"HSSAAAAAHHH!"

Before he was bowled over by the Spider Queen herself, who'd hidden behind a hastily erected Bounded Field.

Though he was physically stronger than her, she outweighed him by an order of magnitude or more, so he ended up on his back with her on top of him.

Her stench was eye-watering, especially from so close, but Shirou ignored it in favour of grabbing her head.

Her many milky eyes stared at him with unhidden fury and terror, and her fangs dripped with venom and her own blood as she snapped her jaws at him, trying to rip into his throat.

Having no idea whether his skin was durable enough to withstand her fangs, and also no idea what effect it would have if she succeeded at getting her blood into his system, Shirou kept a tight hold on her head, keeping it far away from him.

He might be a Demigod of sorts, which could possibly give him a resistance to Dead Apostle blood, but then, Ancestors were also Demigods, kind of, which might overpower his resistance.

Better safe than sorry.

For a moment, he struggled with the Spider Queen, before he shifted one of his hands to her chin and the other to the back of her head, and snapped her head to the left.

Her neck broke with a dry crack.

Not a fatal wound to an Ancestor, but the shock of suddenly having the connection between brain and body severed made her go limp for a moment, allowing Shirou to throw her off of him.

She came down with a crash at the other end of the laboratory, right on top of a pile of glass shards, causing her to let out a shrill cry.

As if in response to that cry, a legion of spiders then emerged from the shadows, rushing straight at Shirou, who lifted an eyebrow when he noticed that none of those spiders had been Magically altered in some way. Unlike the dogs, they were in their natural state, and quite well-fed on top of that.

They were normal spiders, coming to the aid of their queen.

It was almost beautiful to behold, an army rushing in to save their monarch, only ruined slightly by the fact that the monarch was a Dead Apostle Ancestor and the army consisted of spiders.

Fortunately, Shirou wasn't afraid of spiders, so he kept his cool even when they started crawling all over him, attempting unsuccessfully to pierce his skin with their tiny jaws.

In response, he summoned solar flames, using them to burn away the miniature army.

"No!" The Spider Queen let out a pitiful cry at the demise of her underlings, but unlike Vlov Arkhangel, she didn't charge at him with reckless abandon to avenge the slight, but rather tried to use more Curses and strange concoctions from a distance.

None of which survived the flames either.

Evidently, combat wasn't her strong suit by any means, and that, combined with everything else he'd seen of her so far, led Shirou to the conclusion that she was likely an Alchemist.

She brewed her potions and her concoctions, she performed experiments on animals and humans alike, she even worked in an actual laboratory, filthy as it was, and she had no aptitude whatsoever for combat outside of directly throwing her mixtures at her opponents.

An Alchemist indeed.

Knowing that her bulk gave her a measure of resistance against attacks, Shirou fired a powerful bolt of lightning at her, striking her in the abdomen.

Letting out another pitiful cry, she went down, spasming wildly as the electricity burned through her system.

The spear Sarpanitum formed in Shirou's hand, eager to drink more Apostle blood, and Mjolnir glowed white as he channelled the Cleansing Power, before he advanced on her, keeping an eye out for unexpected surprises.

He wasn't going to let another Ancestor slip through his fingers at the last moment. Absolutely not. One had been enough.

He needn't have worried though. Already weakened from helping Arkhangel and with no more tricks up her sleeve, the Spider Queen could do nothing but stare in horror as he approached, crawling backwards until she hit the wall.

She was well and truly cornered, and that made Shirou even more cautious of anything she might try in order to escape. Prey was most dangerous when cornered after all, and that probably went doubly so for Dead Apostle Ancestors.

In the end, she did indeed try something, something radical, though not in the way he was expecting.

Suddenly, she started convulsing like she had a seizure, spasming and jerking this way and that. Her bones cracked and warped, her skin seemed to melt and harden simultaneously, and her spider legs literally popped off her body, discarded as if they had no more use.

It was a disgusting sight, but Shirou had seen so many disgusting sights already over the past hour alone that it didn't really bother him anymore. He just braced himself, ready to face whatever scheme she'd cooked up now.

Only to be surprised once more when the metamorphosis ended, not five seconds after it began, revealing an unexpected sight.

Suddenly, he no longer stood opposite the Spider Queen, that horrific monstrosity that gave the humble spider a bad name.

Instead, he found himself facing a human woman, who didn't look so bad at all. The opposite rather.

She had long, brown hair that was tussled up in a rough but charming mess, a face with distinct royal features, and a body to rival Arcueid's. She wore an orange blouse, a black mini-skirt, black-and-orange tights, and black high heels, with a lab coat over her shoulders.

There were no lacerations to be found anywhere, no imperfection marring her skin, no puss or slime coming out of any orifice, and even her repulsive stench had been replaced by a subtle, sweet scent that suggested she'd taken a shower not too long before.

It was a baffling metamorphosis, and even though Shirou had known already that the Spider Queen had a human form, he was still taken aback by the sheer contrast between the one form and the other.

In fact, the difference between them was so great that he almost couldn't connect the two. The monstrosity had been the Spider Queen, undoubtedly, but this… This was…

"Doctor Arach, I presume?"

"H-Huh? A-Ah, yes." The woman, Arach, nodded rapidly, making a brave attempt at a smile now that he had struck up a conversation rather than kill her immediately. "D-Doctor Arach, medically-trained general practitioner and certified architect, at your service."

The politeness was a massive tonal shift from her earlier hostility, but it wasn't hard to see through her ploy. In this form, her combat-abilities were even less than in her monstrous form, so the only reason she would have changed it would be to try and negotiate with him in order to wriggle her way out of the fight.

By assuming a more human shape and behaving submissively, she tried to appeal to him, to make him forget, even if only for a moment, that she was supposed to be a Dead Apostle Ancestor.

And the frustrating part was that it actually worked. Even though he knew she was still the Spider Queen, Shirou had paused upon seeing her look so human, he had failed to follow through on striking her down, and he had even struck up a conversation, thereby fully humanising her in his eyes. For all intents and purposes, Arach had successfully separated herself from her Ancestor-persona, at least in his eyes.

Frustrating indeed.

"Please don't kill me." Arach wasted no time in getting straight to the point, milking her newfound advantage for all it was worth, assuming a full-on dogeza-position. "Please!"

Shirou tried to remain deaf to her pleas, knowing that he should kill her. By all accounts, he should kill her right now and end her miserable life, saving thousands in the process.

A swift lunge with his spear and a finishing blow from Mjolnir. That was all it would take. Then it would all be over.

"…"

But he couldn't. He couldn't get his arms to move. Not when his opponent had surrendered and was begging for mercy. Not when she was no longer a threat. He wasn't that coldblooded.

He wished he was, just this once he wished that he could kill in cold blood, but he couldn't.

He was well and truly stuck.

It hadn't been like this with his previous opponents! Vlov Arkhangel had fought until the bitter end, never surrendering or begging for anything. He'd been desperate when it seemed Shirou was about to kill him, yes, but he'd still been resisting!

But now the Spider Qu- Doctor Arach had prostrated herself, and Shirou was left in a bind.

A Hero of Justice couldn't kill his opponents in cold blood, but he couldn't let her go either. Taking her prisoner was a fool's errand, and any promise on her part to never harm a human again was guaranteed to be a lie.

"You killed people." He spoke at last, in an attempt to convince himself to strike her down more than anything else.

"Only a few!" She protested, as if that made a difference. "I-I lived mainly from animal blood! A-And the humans I killed were criminals! Criminals and vagrants! No one will miss them!"

Those callous words actually provided Shirou with a bit of motivation, and he took a step closer.

"I-I can give you information!" Immediately realising her mistake, Arach tried another approach, still in her dogeza-position. "I-I have been living off the grid for a while, s-so I don't know much about current affairs, but I can tell you things, useful things, about Roa, about Sumire, a-and even a big secret about Altrouge Brunestud! Things no one else can tell you!"

Shirou paused again at the promise of information, his interest piqued despite his best attempts to ignore her. She had mentioned three names, only the first of which he recognised, but she wouldn't have mentioned this 'Sumire' if she wasn't important, and the name 'Brunestud' was significant all on its own.

"I-I will tell you everything I know!" Heartened by his pausing, Arach's voice gained some strength, and she lifted her head to look at him, her face set in a perfectly pleading expression, one that made it clear at once that she'd practiced it in the mirror many times. "S-So again, please don't kill me! I would seriously die from that!"

A terrible joke, but it was such a tonal shift that Shirou couldn't help but huff all the same. And with that huff, and the fact that his killing instincts quieted completely, he knew that he had made his choice already.

The choice to hear her out at least.

"Speak."

"Roa is here in Misaki Town, in the body of Tohno Shiki." She revealed, to which he nodded.

"I am aware."

"Eh?! A-Ah, but, d-did you also know that his Reincarnation this time was a mistake?!"

"No, I did not." That made Shirou's ears prick up in interest. "In what way was it a mistake?"

"Tohno wasn't the one whom he aimed for." Arach looked immensely relieved that she did have something to offer him after all, eagerly spilling the beans. "It is said that he actually wanted to possess one of the Nanaya."

The Nanaya…

Shirou knew that name.

The Nanaya were a family of powerful assassins who specialised in killing Demons and Demon-like creatures. Famous for their massive successes at fighting the inhuman and infamous for their tendency to slaughter anyone with even the merest drop of Demon Blood even when they had done nothing to warrant execution, they had been Kiritsugu's allies and enemies alike.

"The Nanaya were all killed ten years ago though." Shirou protested, remembering that Kiritsugu had been both pleased and saddened at that fact, before he blinked when he realised something. "Is that why Roa's Reincarnation went wrong?"

"Yes. W-Well, it's pretty complicated, but I'll try to explain." Arach genuinely looked pensive for a moment, before holding up a finger in an impromptu lecturing pose. "It is rumoured that Roa's Soul goes to the Root of Akasha in-between his Reincarnations, though no one has been able to confirm that. Not even Roa himself, as he doesn't remember those periods."

A Dead Apostle going to the Root of Akasha?!

Wow… Shirou really hoped that was an exaggeration.

"In any case, one of the leading reasons for that rumour to propagate is the fact that he always seems to Reincarnate in the ideal body. It's always someone weak, living in a place with few enemies, who are destined to develop some kind of ideal power for him. As if he's searched through the Records at the Root in order to select his ideal option. Hence, the fact that he ended up in the halfwit son of the Tohno-family was a shock to us all."

"Us?"

"A-Ah, m-me and my underlings." She explained quickly, and though it sounded like a lie, it was actually the truth. "I-I was already living with the Tohno at that point, a-and I almost couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Roa's Soul in Makihisa's eldest, Tohno Shiki. Frankly, I was tempted to kill him right then and there. That dirty slug!"

Right. Roa was hated by pretty much everyone, including his fellow Dead Apostle Ancestors.

"But?" He prompted the Ancestor to keep talking. "Why didn't you?"

"I didn't want to blow my cover." She admitted plainly, before shrugging. "And besides, Makihisa ended up killing him himself."

"He killed his own son?!"

"Yeah, he did."

"Why?!"

"Because he went out of control." Arach explained, before elaborating when she saw he still did not understand. "You probably already noticed that the Tohno are halfbreeds. They have a fair amount of Demonic blood. That blood sometimes goes haywire on them, a process they call 'inversion', and when that happens, the rest of the family kills the one afflicted."

"…" That sounded immensely harsh to Shirou's ears, both to the executioner and the executed, and unless he was missing something, it hadn't worked in this particular instance, considering Roa was still running around in Tohno Shiki's body. "I assume Tohno Makihisa wasn't very successful then?"

"Oh no, he was. He killed Shiki stone-cold dead, but this is where it gets complicated." Arach huffed, looking more than a little amused now. "When Tohno Shiki inverted, he ended up killing his younger brother in his sudden bloodlust. Their sister however, little Akiha, ended up giving half of her life-force to said younger brother, thereby reviving him. When Shiki was killed by Makihisa however, he stole half of that given life-force in turn, also reviving himself."

"So they all survived?"

"Certainly, and what's more, when Shiki, or perhaps I should call him Roa from now on, stole half of his younger brother's life-force, he also copied some of his abilities. This is relevant, because that younger brother, the Shiki who has been running around with the Moon Princess, is not actually a Tohno, but one of the Nanaya."

"What?!"

"Yup. Adopted during the massacre of his family, or should I say, kidnapped?" Arach pondered for a moment, as if choosing the right word was actually important right now, before she shrugged. "Well, whatever. In any case, Roa found himself a weak mind in a strong body, that being the older Shiki, and through a set of circumstances, also obtained the power of the Nanaya. It's everything he wanted, even if his reincarnation almost went wrong."

That was certainly interesting, and a lot of food for thought, but in the end, it didn't exactly seem important.

"That is all very interesting, but how is it relevant right now? You said you had useful information on Roa, but this doesn't sound very useful at all."

"It is useful!" Arach insisted, looking almost affronted. "Don't you see?! Don't you understand, Magus!? By stealing the abilities of the younger Shiki, Roa is more dangerous now than he ever was before, in any of his Reincarnations!"

That claim, which contained not a single falsehood or omission, made the redhead pause.

"How so?"

"It's his eyes!" Arach didn't even try to be coy anymore. She promptly replied with the whole truth and nothing but the truth. "His current form has Mystic Eyes! Really dangerous ones! They allow him to cut through anything! You know of what I speak!"

Yes. Yes, Shirou did know.

Really dangerous Mystic Eyes that allowed him to cut through anything?

An ability stolen from Tohno Shiki the younger?

That sounded an awful lot like…

"Roa possesses the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception! Mystic Eyes that allow the user to perceive death itself! To see the conceptual 'Death of an Existence'! The ultimate killing tool!"

The bottom of Shirou's stomach seemed to fall away, and his throat constricted painfully.

He'd never heard of the 'Mystic Eyes of Death Perception' before, but he'd noticed that the younger Shiki had Mystic eyes, and he had seen, firsthand, what their power could do against the unaware, even against the Moon Princess herself.

Tohno Shiki could grievously wound and perhaps even kill immortal beings, exercise some kind of horrible Authority that cut into Reality itself, and apparently, Roa also possessed that ability now.

It was the worst news imaginable!

Right now, as they spoke, Ciel, Arcueid and Shiki the younger were heading into battle against that fiend, and unless they'd somehow made a grand discovery in the short time he hadn't seen them, they were unaware of his true power.

It would be a massacre!

He had to hurry, before it was too late.

"What else?"

"H-Huh?"

"What else can you tell me?!" Shirou repeated harshly, urgency eroding his manners. "You said you had information on someone called Sumire? And on Altrouge Brunestud? Tell me now!"

"Sumire is the twenty-first Dead Apostle Ancestor and the only one of us who is capable of using a Marble Phantasm!" Arach immediately rattled off, slamming her head back down on the ground in another dogeza-pose. "She lives in the water, is weaker on land, is perpetually drunk, and I happen to know that she is weakest when she is in the air! Get her ten metres off the ground and killing her will be easy, or at least easier."

"Noted." Shirou could work with that, should he ever find himself in battle against this Sumire. "And Altrouge Brunestud?"

"My information is not about her directly, but about her pet beast. She claims that her wolf is Primate Murder, the ultimate mankiller and Beast II."

Yes, Shirou had heard about that monstrosity before. Primate Murder was a creature he planned to fight himself at some point, though only when his Asgardian side had increased so much as to make him sufficiently inhuman that the Beast had no Authority over him anymore. Otherwise, he'd be killed in an instant by the being that was the most adept of all at the art of killing humans.

But more information about the Beast was always welcome, so Shirou gave doctor Arach his full and undivided attention.

"It's a lie!" She wheezed out, laughing breathlessly. "Altrouge's claim isn't true! That wolf is not Primate Murder, but Fenris!"

"Fenris?!" Shirou's voice rose an octave or more, and he nearly reared back in shock. "The Norse Divine Beast?!"

Whatever he'd expected, it was certainly not that!

"At least a fraction of it." Arach confirmed, lifting her head again. "When the Age of the Gods ended and Mystery disappeared from the World, Altrouge helped it take on the guise of Primate Murder, so it could stay and serve her even in the modern age."

"And no one has figured this out before?! No one noticed it?! Not even other Ancestors?!"

"N-Not as far as I know. I-It is still a Divine Beast after all, one that managed to fool Gaia, a-and if Gaia thinks it is Primate Murder, then f-for all intents and p-purposes, it is. B-Besides, I don't think anyone can really tell the difference between one wolf and another. N-Not that many survive seeing it in the first place of course."

Had he not been standing opposite a hostile Dead Apostle Ancestor, Shirou would have needed to sit down at this point.

Primate Murder wasn't actually Primate Murder…

Instead, it was the remnant of a Divine Beast which had tricked the World into not banishing it to the Reverse Side by pretending to be something it was not.

It was a revelation that would make the Moonlit World shake on its foundations, and Shirou's legs weren't too steady either, as he struggled to maintain his balance in the face of such destabilising news.

Though at the same time, it was also, perhaps, maybe, possibly, good news, in a very twisted way.

Divine Beasts were bound by the laws of destiny, even more so than humans, and according to Norse Myths, it was Fenris' destiny to be killed by Thor.

Or, in other words, by Shirou.

If he could put any stock in those myths, and in Arach's words, then he might very well have a massive advantage over the Beast, one that would allow him to put an end to its reign of terror far sooner than he'd expected.

Of course, he shouldn't rely on Norse Myths too much, especially since they claimed that the World should have been destroyed already, which it obviously wasn't, but Shirou would be lying if he said that he wasn't getting excited again.

Thor's influence, no doubt.

In any case, this was immensely valuable information, and as he looked at the Ancestor, who was still scraping and bowing, he nearly decided to let her go right that instant.

Before he suddenly remembered a promise he'd made.

"…I have one more question."

"By all means!" Arach accepted eagerly.

"Why did you decide to live in the Tohno-manor?" He asked slowly, seeing how the Ancestor's expression froze. "Why did you deceive Tohno Akiha?"

When he'd discovered that doctor Arach and the Spider Queen were likely the same person, Akiha had asked him to determine why Arach had used her as an unwitting host and ally. For decades, the doctor had been a good friend to the family, or at least as good as could be expected in the Moonlit World, and it puzzled Akiha why a Dead Apostle Ancestor would go to such lengths for seemingly no reason, why she would be so kind to a Magus who had nothing to offer her.

It puzzled Shirou too.

So he asked the question.

"…"

It turned out to be a more difficult question than expected however, as Arach remained still for a few seconds, her expression shifting several times as she tried to come up with a proper answer.

…Was he seeing things wrong, or was one of the emotions she displayed actually guilt?

"I needed a place to lie low for a while after the debacle in Nice." She said eventually, pursing her lips as she spoke. "Misaki Town seemed as good a place as any, and Makihisa was easily fooled. I simply showed him how useful and mellow I could be, and allowed him to think he was manipulating me. From there on, it was easy to wriggle my way inside, into his house and into his confidence."

She spoke the truth, and it sounded about right too. Becoming too arrogant when you believed everything was going your way was a problem that afflicted not just Magi, but many people all around the world. The idea that a crafty Ancestor had hoodwinked an arrogant lord was not at all unlikely.

"I did not expect that Akiha would be so different from her father though." Arach continued, now looking even more displeased. "Knowing her, she probably didn't make a very good impression on you, but she's a good kid, honest. She looked after me, even before she became the head of her family, and I tried to look after her in turn."

"By causing trouble within her territory?" Shirou asked sceptically.

"I resent that!" She countered, baring her teeth slightly in her first display of aggression since she'd changed shapes. "I never caused trouble in Misaki Town! Not until Vlov and Roa started making havoc and lured the Burial Agency here! Before they came, I went to great lengths to ensure this city remained perfectly safe! Otherwise, Akiha might have been troubled by it!"

Once again, it was the truth. It seemed the Ancestor genuinely cared about Akiha, in her own, twisted way, and Shirou wondered whether the young lady would be happy to hear that, or only more saddened.

"Please tell her I am sorry." Arach continued, her frustrated expression making way for a sorrowful one. "If I had known I would cause this, that I would hurt her, I never would have come to Misaki Town at all."

The regret in her voice was so clear that Shirou didn't even need his budding Clairvoyance to tell she wasn't lying, and he lowered Mjolnir at last, unable to remain hostile in the face of such sincerity.

"You have my word I will never come back either." She then swore, pressing a hand to her heart. "I will leave Japan immediately. By next week, I'll be on the other side of the world, with all my underlings, and I'll never return."

She slowly got to her feet, keeping a wary eye on him, as if he were a hungry lion.

"I have told you everything I know. S-So, s-since you need to go and kill Roa, w-would you please let me go?"

She took a careful step towards him, and Shirou didn't react.

"I-I wish you the best of luck with Roa, a-and with Sumire and Altrouge." Emboldened by the lack of a reaction, she took another step forward, and then another. "I-It's them you need to k-kill, n-not me. L-Like I said, I never caused trouble here. I'm harmless."

Her pace increased, as she prepared to slip past him and make a break for it. Her freedom was close now, and in her haste to escape, she missed how Shirou suddenly froze, one of her words ringing in his head like a church bell.

Harmless.

The Spider Queen claimed to be harmless.

But that did not sound right.

What about the truck full of cigarettes and drugs he'd found outside? All of them spiked with Apostle Blood?

What about the ominous syringes, one of which he'd found on Vlov Arkhangel's person?

What about the blood-laced vaccines, intended for innocent children?

And what about the bands of Spider-Apostles and Spider-thralls he'd fought throughout the city?!

The memory shot to the forefront like a bolt of lightning, the memory of fighting a group of Spider-thralls in the alley where he'd met Ciel for the first time.

Arach claimed that she only preyed on criminals and vagrants, people whom society would not miss, yet now he remembered that among that group…

Had been a young boy.

Not ten years old.

"The humans I killed were criminals! Criminals and vagrants! No one will miss them!"

Those callous words once more echoed in his head, rattling his very bones, and just when Arach tried to weasel past him, Shirou's body moved on its own.

"GAAGGRH?!"

The next thing he knew, his hand had pierced straight through Arach's ribcage, her blood dripping down his arm, and he found himself gripping her still-beating heart.

"No! Please-!"

He squeezed.

Whilst summoning an immense amount of the Cleansing Power, he squeezed as hard as he'd ever squeezed, crushing her heart in his grip and burning her body to cinders.

It went so quickly he almost missed it, despite being the one who killed her. One moment, the Spider Queen was there, a terrified expression on her face, and the next, there was only ash and white flames.

White flames that did not douse by themselves, as they normally did when the target of Shirou's ire was gone, but rather spread rapidly throughout the laboratory to consume everything in sight.

Shirou knew that they were just flames, merely an expression of his power given the form of a physical phenomenon, and that he shouldn't anthropomorphise them, yet he couldn't help but feel as if the fire was actually hungry.

Hungry for the vileness and horror that hid inside that laboratory.

The redhead watched as glass and steel melted, as the filth and dirt was vapourised, and as the mysterious substances were thoroughly destroyed. The fire acted as if it had a will of its own, determined to erase every trace of the Twenty-Sixth Dead Apostle Ancestor.

That, more than anything, proved that the Spider Queen had been utterly evil after all, and utterly delusional on top of that.

She'd claimed, with a straight face and no deceit in mind, that she was harmless and hadn't done any damage to Misaki Town, yet the Cleansing Power vehemently disagreed, burning away with a vigour that showed her laboratory had been the scene of unspeakable atrocities.

The drugs outside had been meant to change thousands of people into Apostles, she had changed even children into mindless thralls, and she'd done experiments that even the Meluastea would have been horrified by.

Yet she'd still had the temerity to claim she was harmless and mean it too.

As he'd said, delusional.

For a few moments, Shirou watched as the fire rapidly consumed the underground laboratory, appreciating how the putrid stench rapidly disappeared, before he turned around and headed back up to the surface.

As if that was the signal it had been waiting for, the white fire pursued him, leaving the laboratory as well, though it always remained a single step behind him, slowly creeping up to the surface, to continue vanquishing the vileness above with its aforementioned hunger.

By the time Shirou left the warehouse, the building had become a conflagration. His humble flames had become a storm of fire that neatly erased every trace of the Spider Queen and all her underlings in its entirety.

By the time the emergency services were called and the fire brigade arrived on the scene, there was nothing left but smouldering remains.

The firefighters were quick to thank their lucky stars though, both for the fact that the fire hadn't spread and that it had happened in a derelict part of town, where the only things that could burn were long-discarded materials and heaps of filth and grime.

Nothing of value had been lost.

Something Shirou wholeheartedly agreed with.

"This is my school!"

Shiki couldn't suppress the cry of surprise when Arcueid and Ciel led him to a very familiar place, one that he'd been going to nearly every day for the past three years or so.

"Yes, it is." Ciel agreed, reminding Shiki of the fact she'd been pretending to be his Senpai at this very school for several weeks now.

"It's a lot more charming after sunset." Arcueid added, having also come here before to pick Shiki up for their shared hunt for Roa.

Neither of them seemed to be particularly surprised or upset to have ended up at Metropolitan Misaki Town High School, and Shiki grumbled softly at the confirmation that they didn't care at all about this beautiful bastion of normality.

"Roa is definitely here, right now." Ciel stated, pulling out three of her strangely long knives from… somewhere. "I can't tell where exactly though."

"I second that. He even changed this building into his own personal territory." Arcueid nodded, and despite the fact that the blonde woman had just agreed with her, the blue-haired nun's face twisted into a displeased grimace at the mere fact that her hated rival was talking to her at all. "There is a considerable chance he is watching us now, waiting for us to get closer."

"Heavens, did you figure that out all by yourself?" Ciel huffed.

"Just making sure we're all on the same line, miss Executor."

The dislike between them was so strong that even Shiki could easily pick up on it, just like he could pick up on the fact that it was actually pretty much one-sided.

Poor Ciel. It wasn't easy to hate someone who didn't care much about you in turn.

"Let's go inside." Arcueid decided after a few moments of further observation. "We gain nothing by waiting here."

"…Shirou might join us." Ciel ventured, sounding a tiny bit hopeful all of a sudden, and Shiki found he rather disliked that hopeful tone. Not half as much though as he disliked the fact that Arcueid nodded.

"Can we afford to wait on him though?" The Moon Princess asked nevertheless. "Every moment we wait is a moment the Serpent can use to either flee or prepare."

"I am not too keen on walking into an obvious ambush with no reinforcements and only you as company." Ciel argued, making Shiki feel rather overlooked. "I am more than willing to wait for a few minutes if it means we get another reliable ally-"

"We can handle it."

That remark was a lot more pleasant to the ears, and Shiki made to nod, but he stopped when he realised that the voice that had spoken hadn't been female.

It took him a few moments to realise that he had been the one to speak up, only making the link between that voice and his own when both women turned to him.

The next few moments were awfully awkward, until Arcueid started beaming.

"I'm with Shiki on this." She declared swiftly, making the teen's heart soar in delight. "It's two against one now, miss Executor. You can either come with us, or you can wait here for Shirou on your own."

"Kch." The prospect of staying outside while Arcueid and Shiki killed her archnemesis was enough to cast all doubt from Ciel's mind, and she nodded firmly. "I'm coming too!"

Thus, the three of them went inside, and Shiki was sufficiently delighted over the fact that Arcueid had been so quick to agree with him that he barely even noticed the creepy shadows and the creaking sounds that seemed to be ever-present in the large, old building.

Y-Yes, he barely even paid them any mind.

"Don't worry." Ciel said helpfully when she noticed his apprehension. "Those are just the normal sounds you hear at night. They're nothing to be afraid of. If something's coming to kill you, you won't hear them until it's too late."

Shiki deadpanned at her in response, but she'd already turned her back on him, carefully studying every perch and alcove that looked big enough to hide a Dead Apostle Ancestor from view.

"Do… Do you see anything?" He asked eventually, after what felt like an eternity but the clocks in the classrooms claimed to be only a few minutes.

"Nope." Arcueid declared cheerily, not looking the least bit bothered about it. "But I can sense him staring at us."

"R-Roa?"

"I suppose it could be someone else, but that's hardly likely." Ciel replied, apparently sensing the same, before she raised her voice. "Right now, that coward is the only one here aside from us."

Her insult garnered no reaction, but judging from her expression, she hadn't expected one either.

"Seems like we're going to have to search the whole building piece by piece." Arcueid huffed, not sounding too thrilled about it, before her frown morphed into a smile as she had an epiphany. "Or perhaps I could burn down the school?"

"What?!" That was an awful idea, and Shiki gave her a shocked stare in response.

"Hm…"

And why was Ciel actually contemplating it?!

"We are not going to burn down the school!" He declared strongly, crossing his arms in an 'X' in front of him.

"It would be more practical though…"

"No!"

"Tsk, fine."

By some miracle, Shiki managed to convince his companions not to destroy public property by means of arson, finding himself questioning their common sense. The mere fact that it had even been considered was already bad enough, but that they didn't even seem to think anything of it really made him wonder whether those kinds of methods were acceptable in the Moonlit World.

…Shirou would probably do it. That bastard seemed like the kind of person who enjoyed mindless destruction.

"That we are not going to burn down the school does not mean our objective has changed." Ciel declared, pulling everyone's attention towards her again. "It just means we'll have to search this building piece by piece, like the White Princess-

"Please call me Arcueid."

"-The White Princess suggested. It's a huge place, so I suggest we split up to cover more ground."

That she also wanted to get away from Arcueid was readily apparent, so much so that no one felt the need to comment on it.

"I disagree. Splitting up is a bad idea under the circumstances." Arcueid shook her head however.

"I agree with Arcueid." Shiki ignored the hurt look that Ciel sent him in favour of looking through the window, at the track field outside. "Like you said, Ciel-senpai, the school is very big and complicated. If we split up, Roa can easily isolate us and then pick us off one by one."

That was what always happened in the films after all. Those who split up were definitely going to die, and this situation was a bit too much like a film for him to be comfortable with them following old cliches.

"It won't be that easy for the Serpent to pick me off." Ciel countered, looking vaguely insulted at the notion that she'd be caught off guard.

"But you said yourself that you don't know where he is exactly, and that he is likely watching us now, preparing an ambush."

"It's hardly the first time I've purposefully sprung a trap or two. I'll be fine on my own-"

"Ciel-senpai!" Frustration warred with worry in Shiki's heart, and he gave the recalcitrant nun a pleading look, practically begging her to see sense. "Please."

"…F-Fine." At last, he got through to her, and she reluctantly agreed, though not before holding up a stern finger. "But Brunestud will be in the front of our group, I'll be behind her, and you'll be at the back, where it's safest."

"That sounds good to me." Arcueid supplied, though she went ignored by Ciel, who kept staring at Shiki with a stern look, daring him to disagree.

"Sounds good to me too." There was nothing to disagree with however, so he nodded his assent.

"Hm." Ciel made a satisfied noise, and once they had assumed her preferred formation, they continued on their way.

Slowly and cautiously, they traversed the hallways of the school's main building, checking every nook and cranny for suspicious activity. They didn't have torches or other sources of light, but neither Arcueid nor Ciel needed anything like that to see in the dark, while Shiki found that the light of the full moon was actually rather sufficient for him.

Since they were being extremely careful, they proceeded at a snail's pace. It took them well over half-an-hour to properly clear the first floor, after which they climbed the stairs to repeat the process for the second, where they went even slower.

Rather than getting bored however, Shiki only felt more tense with every classroom they searched and broom closet they checked. Sweat was beading on his brow and temples, and his pocket knife hadn't left his hand since the second classroom they'd looked through.

"It's because you can feel the Serpent's eyes on you." Ciel had told when he'd asked about it, which did absolutely nothing to calm him down. The knowledge that they were being watched by a creature they could not see in turn awakened some kind of primal instinct inside of him, the kind that demanded he find the nearest cave and did not come out until the sun was high in the sky.

A remnant of the times when mankind had still been hunted by the top predators in their ecosystems. The instinct that had kept the humans alive even while sabretooth tigers and bears were on the prowl.

He felt like a spooked prey animal, and he hated the feeling. He fingered his glasses, wishing he could just remove them, but since going without his glasses gave him a splitting headache after a few minutes, he needed to save that for when Roa finally came out.

For now, he just remained on edge.

"Oh my!"

Hence, when Arcueid suddenly let out a cry of surprise while they were rummaging through yet another classroom, he almost ended up cutting her in half, again.

"Woah there!" She laughed, taking a quick step back. "Sorry, sorry, it's not an emergency. Nothing happened."

"What is it then?!" Ciel had also been startled, her long knives held ready in her hands, and she bit out the question through gritted teeth.

"Whoever was sitting here has been a naughty boy." Arcueid laughed, holding some kind of magazine she'd fished out of a desk drawer, which she showed to Ciel. "Mankind truly has progressed very far if they can make beautiful things like this. Look at how flexible these women are. And this one's butt is almost as nice as yours."

The nun glanced at the cover that was being presented to her, before she flushed red, her grumpy expression turning immensely embarrassed in the blink of an eye.

"Give that here!" She barked, snatching the offending magazine out of Arcueid's hands. The next moment, it was on fire.

"Hey now." The blonde woman pouted, but the nun ignored her.

"What was it?" Shiki asked, though he was reasonably sure he could take a good guess, judging by the reaction.

"Sin!" Ciel hissed in return, which was further evidence to support his theory. "Sin and vice!"

"What kind of-"

"Ask one more question and I'll force you to say a thousand Hail Maries to cleanse your Soul!"

Shiki's mouth snapped shut, and he quickly looked away as the nun continued to burn the magazine to a crisp, muttering furious prayers under her breath.

…If this was her reaction to what he assumed to be a porn-magazine, he really hoped she would never learn what the internet was.

"We continue." About a minute later, Ciel resolutely departed again, leaving Shiki and Arcueid to scramble to catch up.

In hindsight, that minute had been a wonderful opportunity for Roa to ambush them, distracted as they were, yet still nothing had happened. Not even a peep.

"Are you really sure he's here?" Shiki found himself asking when they reached the third and upper floor of the building, still without having found even the slightest hint of his presence.

""Yes.""

The simultaneous reply from the women, which elicited a giggle from Arcueid and a glare of annoyance from Ciel, was quite decisive however.

"Where is he then?" Shiki grumbled, his patience beginning to wane at last.

"Right here, little bro."

He froze.

He froze completely stiff.

That voice…

He recognised it!

Flashes of a distant past ran through his head, and memories began rushing up to the surface, memories of a beautiful garden and delicious treats for them to snack on.

Akiha was there, in the memory, smiling more brightly than ever, as were Kohaku and Hisui, tiny and not as competent as they would one day become, but there was another person as well, someone he'd forgotten so far.

Another…

Another Shiki.

Slowly, Shiki turned his head to the left, to an adjacent hallway, where the new voice had come from, and there, he saw…

"Nii-san?"

A face that seemed like a male version of Akiha, a head full of long, white hair, a tattered cloak concealing most of the body from view, and piercing red eyes glaring at the trio with amusement and bloodlust.

He'd changed over the years, in demeanour and appearance, yet it was undeniably him.

His older brother.

The brother who had murdered him.

"That's not your brother anymore!"

Shiki only had a fraction of a second to stare in stupefied shock before Ciel grabbed his collar and pulled him behind her with a strength that belied her small frame. He landed on his behind, hard, while she threw her long daggers at his bro-

No.

Not his brother.

At Roa.

The Parasite-vampire knocked them away with contemptuous ease however, smirking cruelly as he took a step closer.

"Vade Retro, Diabolus!" Ciel cried, throwing two daggers into the floor in front of her, one dagger into the wall to her right, one into the wall on her left, and two into the ceiling.

Immediately after, the daggers rushed away, slicing through the stone as if it were hot butter, cutting a spiralling pattern into the hallway, centred around Roa.

A blueish light enveloped the Ancestor's limbs, and judging by the pained expression that took over his face, it wasn't a pleasant sensation.

Roa's knees buckled under the strain of the light, and he nearly went down, prompting Ciel to ready yet another dagger to cut his throat…

"Nice try."

Before he escaped.

The Serpent suddenly leapt out of the pattern's centre, straight towards the blue-haired nun, forcing her to scramble back as he broke the hold that the blueish light had had on him.

Behind him, the six daggers that had been used to trap him had all snapped in two, and as if to rub it in, he laughed in Ciel's face.

"Your Bounded Fields improve every time we meet on the field of battle, my dear." He praised her, though it sounded far from kind. "But I too have improved."

"Evidently." Ciel snapped at him, before she charged headfirst at the false Vampire Lord, her knives at the ready again.

Roa's eyes widened for a moment at the suicidal attack, an attack that only the likes of Lorelei Barthomeloi could pull off successfully against a Dead Apostle Ancestor, before he raised his arm, aiming to crush her head in one blow.

She saw it coming. Shiki was certain that Ciel saw the blow coming from a mile away, yet she didn't change course, running headfirst into Roa's fist.

"NO!"

Shiki had never seen a skull shatter into bits before, but now, he witnessed the gruesome sight for the first time in his life.

One moment, Ciel was running at the Vampire with the intent to kill. The next, his fist impacted her forehead, piercing through skin and bone, and then, there was only a headless corpse left, covered in her own gore, her brain matter splattering all over the hallway.

Shiki screamed in horror, his stomach turning upside down and his head becoming woozy, and he stumbled forward, reaching out to the body as if he could change anything.

He couldn't. He was only good for killing, not healing.

Roa turned to him next, drawing back his blood-covered fist again, and Shiki saw his life flash before his eyes, when-

-Arcueid suddenly appeared in front of him, striking Roa even harder than the vampire had struck Ciel, her punch landing right in his ribcage, shattering the bones and sending him flying off into the distance.

By sacrificing herself, Ciel had created a minor opening in Roa's defences, and Arcueid had mercilessly capitalised on it.

It was impossibly ruthless, on Arcueid's side as well as Ciel's. Shiki liked to think of himself as a selfless and dutiful person, but he couldn't even imagine giving his life merely for the possibility of maybe creating an opportunity for his allies to strike.

It was as baffling as it was infuriating.

His breathing came out in ragged gasps, his stomach was still rebelling, and tears pricked at his eyes. It wasn't the first time he'd seen a gruesome sight, not even the first time today, nor was it the first time he had witnessed someone die, but never before had it been someone close to him. That, more than anything, knocked him completely off balance.

It was Arcueid's expression however, entirely calm and disaffected despite the demise of their ally, that changed his confusion into rage.

He straightened up, balled his fists, and drew in a breath, before-

"Did you destroy his heart?"

-Before Ciel suddenly reappeared again, right next to the Moon Princess, looking none the worse for wear.

Shiki's furious cry died in his throat, his hands relaxed again, and he stumbled, nearly fainting in shock as the nun had seemingly resurrected.

"No." Arcueid shook her head, pursing her lips a bit. "I did not. He still lives."

"Good." Ciel nodded approvingly. "Even if you had killed him, such a punch would only have destroyed his current body. If we want to destroy his Soul, we'll have to use other, more sophisticated methods."

"I know. That's why I held back." Arcueid frowned a bit at Ciel, before she turned to Shiki. "We'll need your talents to- Shiki?! W-What's wrong?!"

At last, she noticed Shiki's utter befuddlement, how he was swaying on his feet. Her cry also prompted Ciel to turn around, and she too gasped.

"Tohno-kun? What happened? Did he hit you?!"

She grabbed hold of his one arm while Arcueid took the other, and it was a testament to their concern that they didn't even glare at each other as they did so.

"How…?"

"How? How what, Tohno-kun?!"

"How are you still alive?"

It was a completely reasonable question, at least in Shiki's eyes, yet it seemed to confuse the two women, as if he was the one not making any sense.

At least until Ciel gasped, her mouth forming an 'o' of realisation.

"I didn't tell you about my immortality yet?"

"Immortality?"

"Yes, Tohno-kun. You see, I am functionally immortal, for reasons too complicated to get into right now. Just take it from me that I cannot die as long as Roa is alive. It's Magic."

Magic…

A word that used to excite him, but now only gave him a headache.

Frankly, he wanted to scream in frustration, but at least Ciel was not dead. That was a huge relief, sufficiently so that he could supress his irritation for now.

Noticing how he relaxed slightly, Arcueid was quick to pull him back to his feet.

"Pull yourself together, Shiki. We can talk about this later. For now, we have to fight Roa."

"…" Her deeply ingrained dislike of Arcueid almost made Ciel disagree, but her hatred for Roa won out in the end. Thus, she only nodded, also pulling him back to his feet.

Slavedrivers, the pair of them.

"I'll go on ahead." Arcueid said once Shiki was ready to go again. "If Roa jumps me, you can attack him when I have pinned him down. Be ready to use your eyes."

Right, the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception. The only reason he was here at all. He couldn't mess this up.

Shiki took his knife out of his pocket, the beautiful, well-crafted knife that he'd gotten from his father, and he placed a hand on his glasses, ready to take them off.

"Are you certain you can handle Roa, Brunestud?" Ciel asked, more rudely than necessary.

"Easily." There was not a trace of arrogance in Arcueid's voice. Only well-founded confidence.

"Very well then."

As announced, the blonde woman took off first, playing the roles of scout and vanguard, while Ciel and Shiki followed at a more sedate pace, with Ciel holding on to his arm, ready to pull him aside should Roa try to ambush them instead.

"We agreed we wouldn't split up." Shiki protested softly against the current arrangement, not at all happy with Arcueid putting herself at risk on her own. "What if Roa attacks her?"

"The Serpent is no match for the Moon Princess." Ciel didn't seem worried, though considering her dislike for the blonde woman, that did not reassure Shiki at all. "She is much stronger than him, much more powerful. He lacks any means of harming her, while she could kill his current host with a flick of her finger. She is a True Ancestor, and he is only a false Upstart Dead Apostle Ancestor."

There was a grudging respect in her voice, and that, more than the unknown terms she'd used, slightly reassured him.

Though it did raise another question.

"If she is so much more powerful than him, why hasn't she killed him yet?"

"Because killing his body is worse than pointless. He is the Serpent of Akasha, a Reincarnator, and every time his current form is destroyed, he pops up somewhere else. It's his Soul we need to destroy, but so far, neither Arcueid nor me have found a way to do that. Until now that is."

She gave him a meaningful look, and Shiki glanced away, feeling a blush come up at the trust he saw in those eyes.

"I thought you wanted to kill Roa yourself though." He protested, fully aware of that little fact by now, after spending over an hour in the presence of both Ciel and Arcueid, who seemingly spent every moment on arguing over who would get to deal the final blow. "Are you sure you're okay with me doing it?"

"Okay? No, I'm not okay with that. In fact, I hate it." Ciel admitted bluntly. "I despise the fact that I won't kill him myself more than I've despised anything else in my whole life, save for Roa himself."

"A-Ah…" Hearing how she despised the fact that he was going to steal her kill was more scary than he'd care to admit out loud, especially since she was still holding on to him with a crushing grip, placing him well within stabbing-distance.

"But… If it is you…"

But then her tone softened considerably, and the tense lines on her face eased. Her grip on his arm became much more tender, and her hold on her knives became less strained.

"If it is you… It's alright."

That was an immensely surprising declaration, and he turned to give her a befuddled stare, but she suddenly refused to meet his eyes, pointedly looking elsewhere.

Though that did not stop her from closing the distance between them even further, their shoulders rubbing together as they walked.

It was strange.

But not, he had to admit, altogether unpleasant.

Of course, that was the moment Roa chose to attack. They were all distracted, and just about to enter another hallway. It was a moment so perfect that even Shiki had frankly expected him to profit from it.

From the shadows, he launched a blistering attack on Arcueid, a butcher's knife in his right hand as he crossed the distance between them in a fraction of a second, lunging for her spine.

Had it been Shiki in Arcueid's place, he would have died right there.

Arcueid proved Ciel's confidence in her strength was warranted however. She'd turned around before the vampire was halfway, and with a twirl of the wrist, she knocked the blade off course and grabbed him at the neck, holding him up like a toddler.

Just like that, the battle seemed to have been won, and Ciel tugged on his arm, pulling him along towards the struggling duo.

As promised, Arcueid had pinned Roa in place, and now it was Shiki's turn to prove his worth.

Knife in hand, he ran as fast as he could, attempting to keep his eyes on Arcueid's back.

Though he had assured everyone that he would have no trouble killing the husk that remained of his own brother, the rapidly returning memories threatened to make it a problem after all. The last thing he needed was to look the monster in the eye now, to see the torturous resemblance again.

Hence, he kept his eyes on Arcueid, going as far as to stare at her butt in order to keep his gaze away from Roa. He'd been glancing at it for days now, finding it had a hypnotic effect on him, and now, he counted on that effect to help him out.

But of course, today of all days, his teenage instincts failed him.

Before he knew it, his eyes met Roa's.

But rather than a pleading expression, one that he'd expected and would pierce straight to his heart, Shiki found only smugness there.

Smugness, and an odd glow about the irises.

A familiar glow.

For a moment, Shiki was stumped, but then he remembered where he'd seen that glow before.

In the mirror!

"Arcueid!" He screamed, and she stiffened in surprise at the terror in his voice. "He has the Eyes too!"

For half a second, the entire World seemed to come to a standstill.

Then the knife in Roa's hand flashed.

And Arcueid's arm came off at the elbow.

"Huh?"

The Moon Princess made a surprised sound, blinking at the stump which used to be her arm.

The knife flashed again.

"Ah!"

She stumbled, her left leg no longer connected to her hip.

Another flash.

"Guhk!"

A jagged tear appeared from her right shoulder to her left kidney, deep and wide, and she started falling backwards.

The final flash.

"AAAH!"

She was cleaved in two, a perfect cut separating her upper torso from her lower torso.

"Goodbye."

And with that remark from Roa, she was blown away by his Magics, cast out of a nearby window, falling three stories down to the ground.

A total and humiliating defeat.

Just like that, Shiki found himself standing opposite Roa on his own, with Ciel half a hallway away and Arcueid defeated.

"Fuck."

It was the best summary he could give of the present situation.

"Commander, look there!"

Noel, the leader of the Burial Agency's forces in Misaki Town in Ciel's absence, looked up to the sky at the prompting of one of her underlings, blinking in surprise when she noticed a human shape flying at great speed towards them.

None of their detection equipment indicated anything amiss with that shape, nothing inhuman, but Noel's hands automatically moved towards her Black Keys all the same, her instincts prompting her to take the shape down before it reached them.

She didn't go through with it in the end, thinking better of it, but she could almost feel how her lieutenant gave her a disapproving look all the same. Attacking before asking questions wasn't how the Burial Agency preferred to operate these days, despite most Magi thinking otherwise, and Noel had been reprimanded several times already for her trigger-happy attitude.

But since she'd never actually killed anyone she shouldn't have, and in light of her difficult past, she had never been punished before. Something she wasn't too eager to change. Ciel could only shield her for so long after all.

Thankfully, the shape was faster than her, and it came down in front of the small group of Executors with such swiftness that she couldn't have taken it down even if she wanted to. There, the shape was revealed to be a red-haired young man, clad in armour and holding a hammer in his right hand.

Noel had never met him before, but she'd read Ciel's reports of the past days, and was thus reasonably certain she knew who this was.

"Shirou, I presume?"

"Correct." He confirmed, slightly lowering the tension in the group, which had risen considerably upon his arrival. "Are you agents of the Burial Agency?"

"We are." Noel confirmed in turn, giving him a small nod in greeting, unwilling to offer a handshake. Not necessarily because she thought he'd do anything, but because she was unwilling to tie up one of her hands, however short, on a hunt.

"I am very happy to find you here." He did seem unusually relieved to find the forces of the Church, but he blinked when he took a proper look at them. "Are you all the agents the Burial Agency has in Misaki Town right now?"

Not a terribly illogical question, considering her team only consisted of six members plus herself, which would seem very little for an Ancestor hunt, but it wasn't a question she was going to answer. Not revealing sensitive information to outsiders was one of the first things you learned while becoming an Executor, and the exact numbers of your forces was the most sensitive information there was.

"You understand that I can neither confirm nor deny that." She huffed, crossing her arms. "But let me assure you, we might be few in number, but we are more than capable of isolating and fighting Ancestors. Even if there are three of them in the city-"

"One." Shirou interrupted her. "Vlov Arkhangel was killed by Brunestud and I killed the Spider Queen. Roa is the only one left."

His words caused a wave of shock to wash over the team of Executors, one of them even taking a step back, but it was a testament to their harsh training that they didn't say a word. Even as they reeled in surprise, their discipline remained intact.

"Good news if true, but we cannot simply take your word for it-"

"That doesn't matter! You need to go and help Ciel! She is hunting Roa now, if she hasn't found him already."

"We are aware." Noel lifted an unimpressed eyebrow at his rude behaviour, her impression of him going down considerably. "Ciel wants to fight him on her own. She is more than capable of-"

"Roa possesses the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception!"

Once again, he interrupted her, before hastily explaining what he meant by that term.

After only a few sentences, Noel completely understood and forgave his panicked behaviour, for she herself was now panicked too.