Fate: Kill

Chapter 23

The urge to make an example to all those that opposed him swelled from within Excalibur Morgan's blade. The effect was akin to a constant whisper in the ear, but for all intents and purposes, it had lost its value.
S

hirou looked from the sword in his hand, then to the people around him, and then to the blood that stained his clothes a vibrant red. The sickly sensation of vertigo nearly assailed him as the thick scent of iron wafted up his nose.
This was a familiar feeling.
The pitter patter of blood dripping down Excalibur Morgan's blade was the only noise permeating throughout the deathly still room, and it was all that he could focus his mind on.
Drop after drop, he began to rouse back his sense of morality as he instinctively forced away the bloodlust pervading his demeanor, and truly looked at himself.
A trail of corpses marked his path; a figurative carpet of red rolled out over the floor in a show of utter tyranny emphasized by pained groans and shocked wailing.
No mercy, no sympathy, nor empathy.
Brutality and fear were how a certain Alter enforced her reign in the British Isles, but since when was he an alter?
To sacrifice the few to save the many was a mentality embodied by an older aspect of himself, and even though he'd sworn not to follow in that man's exact footsteps, some things were inevitable.
You can't save everyone.
The only true difference between them was that he'd never given up despite the futility of his own goals, so why do so now? For a moment, he'd felt as if he'd went back in time and was walking the very same brittle trail that had led to his past life's end.
"Shirou."
He heard Akame call out to him in the silent din of the room where she'd kicked the entrance down and stood stock still. It was such a small voice, simple to ignore in favour of the carnage within the room, but it brought him back and got him to think.
His grip eased over Excalibur Morgan despite the sword's protest.
This wasn't him. Well, it was, but if one thing was true, he already knew what existed at the end of this path: personal tragedy. If it happened before, it would certainly happen again.
The looks of fear and trepidation the surrounding people leveled on him let him know full well that given the choice, he'd be killed even on a baseless accusation. The end would come when even his own allies would look at him in the same manner, and if he continued down this trodden road, it wouldn't be long.
A monster is a hero in times of war and conflict, but a danger and liability in times of peace.
He didn't even hold it against his own allies who'd seen him executed in his prior life.
With these hands that can never hold anything…Always alone on a hill of swords.
Buried sentiments welled up from within him, the expression on Akame's face forcing him once more to re-evaluate what should and shouldn't be considered a viable outcome.
She was making the same pained expression Rin had made when she'd arrived too late to stop his execution even after he'd turned his back on her to pursue his ideals.
Was this really the correct path to take when those he was protecting appeared so miserable?
The answer was simple: No. No, it wasn't.
He was no longer as naïve as he used to be, and his past life had already proven that being 'a stubborn fool,' as Rin would put it, would lead to his sure death.
Mistakes were meant to be learned from, not repeated.
Wiser words had not been said.
If there was another road that he could take for a happy ending where even his loved ones could be left satisfied rather than miserable, then he could at least try.
He let out a calming breath as Excalibur Morgan faded out of his grip, the ominous aura of its presence dissipating in the air and relieving all of the weight many felt over their shoulders.
The room's silence continued, yet rather than focus on the leaders of Wakoku and their guards, Shirou glanced at Akame to see tentative relief playing over her features. He didn't know what sort of emotions were crossing her mind, but one thing he could say for certain was that he'd never seen her look so anxious. Her lips were pursed together, her bottom lip quivering as a shiver travelled down her body. Leone caught up to Akame moments later and stood beside her, freezing as she took everything in with a wide-eyed gaze.
This was when Shirou decided that enough was enough. He turned his attention back on Wakoku's leaders who were now regarding him with a bit more courage as he appeared unarmed.
"I will let you live," he said sternly. It was true that he no longer had the menacing undertone in his voice, but the threat was still there.
"How kind," one of the more prideful leaders said scornfully.
Many of the other leaders nodded while a few of the shrewd ones chose to not voice their thoughts and instead inch their way back towards an exit on the opposite side of the room. This was something that didn't fail to escape Shirou's notice; however, before he could act out and seal off all avenues of escape, someone else did it for him.
A resounding kick shattered straight through the wooden wall on the far said of the room, and Selka and Lubbock made their presence known.
Selka entered in a rolling crouch, eyes darting left and right for any signs of hostilities before settling on him and blinking in relief that it wasn't the dangerous situation she was expecting.
Dirt, mud, and patches of red stains covered both Lubbock and Selka from head to toe while they'd served as a distraction and fought their way up. The clothes the two wore revealed no signs of wear and tear despite their circumstances. This piqued the interest of Wakoku's leaders especially when Selka batted away a thrown dagger using just her sleeve, but none dared say anything.
Lubbock himself paid more attention to the surroundings than anyone else including Leone before he whistled lowly. "Never seen one person do anything like this before," he said with an unreadable tone. It was hard to glean anything of relevance from the guy, but this was as expected of a merchant's boy.
Shirou turned his attention back to what mattered.
The leaders of Wakoku were gradually regaining their courage in light of Excalibur Morgan's absence. Even with Akame, Leone, Lubbock, and Selka's arrival, they were still heavily outnumbered. Raiko arrived right after sorting out issues she had with her clan.
Still, no one moved, and Shirou keenly understood why.
No matter who appeared to have the advantage or not, everything was hinging on him. Every idle step he took was met with sharpened brows and hitched breath by the opposing side when in truth, he was the one most in danger of collapsing. Still, he held firm for this was the moment that mattered most.
"There is no more need for bloodshed." He narrowed his eyes and stared at the leaders of Wakoku one at a time. "You will cease all conflict with Calla and agree to govern your people with just laws and no longer involve them in your petty civil wars. As far as I'm concerned your civil wars are over."
"What gives you the right to decide that!" A leader spat on the ground, uncaring if he'd lose his head so long as he maintained his dignity.
Resistance was exactly what Shirou was expecting. This was the result of stopping half-way through inflicting terror on the enemy, they'd grow defiant and believe that they're worth more than they really are. "Because I am strong, and your lives are no longer your own," he said.
He'd use one of the oldest tricks in the art of war to get his way.
A bluff.
Excalibur Morgan wasn't a Noble Phantasm he could just simply pull out at random. The stronger the weapon, the greater the repercussion and feedback it had on his reserves.
Unseen to all, but he tensed his muscles, the beads of sweat he felt running down his back doing nothing to change the neutrality of his expression. Saber and his own experience as the Lord of Calla dictated that to show weakness in a time of strength was to only invite further trouble.
Right now, he needed to be strong.
His hands balled into fists, resolve firming his figure into an indomitable obstacle.
Therefore, he would be strong.
His muscles groaned in protest, blood pumping furiously within him. His body itself screamed at him to not push himself any further, yet time and time again, he'd proved one thing true: the state of his well being was always secondary to his ideals.
Traces of magic energy swirled to life around him, thin wisps of translucent blew that circled beneath his feet in release. It was mystical, supernatural, and something never before seen by those around him.
Many in this new world believed that magic was but a figment of imagination, an error recorded in history due its sheer impossibility, but magic was the art that made the impossible, possible.
Where there was mystery, there would be magic.
The blue swirls of light congregated over his right palm, tinges of vibrant red overtaking the calm blue with the suffocating aura of slaughter.
Swaying grass and fertile fields make way for the predator lurking within.
The energy took shape, forming the outline of a malicious black great-sword. Its edges were sleek and curved: concave by the base, convex near the razor-sharp tip. The fuller of the sword appeared bottomless, grooves and cavities etched into the hellish metal.
A feral howl emitted from the sword, inaudible, yet still heard as if the mind were playing tricks.
Winds blow and carry scent, the tracker follows.
It was a weapon of legend: A sword used to slay monsters not because of holy properties, but through its overbearing intent to seek out prey.
"Hrunting: Hound of the Red Plains," Shirou introduced the new sword in his hand while dipping the sword's tip into a pool of blood on the floor.
The blood sings. It calls.
The red liquid trickled up the sword's fuller before spreading out evenly across the black blade. The sword began to hum, glowing with an eerie crimson that illuminated its features, and suddenly the blade no longer looked like it belonged in the hands of humans. It warped and expanded, the blood forming a crystal-like encasing over the blade that sharpened its edge to inhuman levels.
"It has your sent," Shirou explained idly despite none understanding what his words had to do with anything. He stared both at Wakoku's leaders, and then at all the guards in the room. "Every single one of you. No matter where you are, or where you hide, this sword will reach."
He let go of the sword's hilt, and let the sword clatter over the ground, and yet to everyone's stunned shock, it began to inch forward over the floor. All in its way were seamlessly cut by the blade's edge.
The words he'd just uttered weren't done in the figurative sense, but in a literal sense. All could see this now.
Willing for Hrunting to rise back towards his palm, he began to concentrate as wisps of magic energy once more converged over the sword. Slowly, it twisted while hovering atop his right palm, becoming sleeker and aerodynamic. A bastardized version of what it once was.
It looked far less intimidating which garnered many looks of confusion, but Raiko alone flinched when she seemed to recognize the familiar shape of the weapon in his hand. He grew confused as Raiko clasped her hands in a distinct way and muttered something about a 'Blessed Son.'
Regardless, Hrunting had effectively become an arrow.
A piercing fang.
In his left hand, he formed a black bow as long as he was tall.
The 'arrow' was notched, and shot into the night sky opposite of Wakoku's leaders in the same motion. The action was done simply as a demonstration, yet none other than those that had seen it before were prepared for the spectacle they'd see before them now.
An unrelenting hound of the red plains.
It was due to the sheer distance it travelled and the fiery glow of its crimson light that many eyes could see the 'arrow' abruptly turning and redirecting its trajectory back at the leaders. Its speed was unimaginable, the force of its turbulence allowing it to appear as nothing more than a dot in the horizon.
"If you think that you can run away, or defend yourselves from this sword, you'd all be wrong."
The sound barrier was constantly breaking in the air, the deep reverberations of Hrunting's trajectory echoing deep within everyone's chests.
It never misses.
A screeching howl beyond any mortal comprehension roared as the dot that had turned back rapidly began to enlarge to appear like a raging comet. The swirl of conical red energy exuded from the arrow far eclipsed the size of the attack, and it was if the sky was falling.
"Fuck!" Lubbock yelled and jumped for cover; Leone forcibly dogpiled Akame to the ground; meanwhile Selka frowned before punching her feet through the flooring of the room to secure her.
Everyone else was too petrified to react.
By the time the leaders blinked, Hrunting's tip was mere inches away from the face of the closest leader, howling in anticipation.
Shirou forcibly dissipated Hrunting before impact, yet the gale force produced as the sound barrier caught up to where Hrunting once was, forced everyone to the ground. The leaders were all blown off their feet and sent tumbling, many pale-faced and beyond words.
The entire building was shaking, and if not for its sturdy foundation, the entire structure surely would have collapsed, and would have if Hrunting actually struck. With the primitive buildings of the era, there would be no stronghold sturdy enough to defend against a veritable missile moving at speeds of Mach ten.
"If any of you even thinks of endangering my people or starting civil war again, I wouldn't even have to leave my home to express my disappointment."
No one took light of the statement. More so, when he traced three more twisted copies of Hrunting to create the false impression that each copy was child's play to create. His vision swam, a wall of black crawling up his periphery view. Down by his legs, his knees were wobbling, but he hid that fact by standing his ground and not daring to take any steps until he composed himself enough.
"T-That's not possible," the leaders looked shell-shocked, many grudgingly slumping their shoulders.
Lubbock looked up tentatively from his position on the ground and looked more and more wary at the display, but this was a natural reaction. The odd ones were Akame, Selka, and Leone who didn't even flinch at the sight, exaggerated as it may have been.
He may have embellished a bit much about Hrunting's capabilities, but no one here really needed to know that.
What he was truly grateful for in this moment, was that Akame had appeared by his side and subtly supported him, knowing full well that he was in a state of exhaustion; something in which Selka would have done too if she wasn't slowed by having to pry her feet out of the floor.
Unlike Akame though, Selka didn't seem to realise how close he was to collapsing on his face at the moment.
"W-What are you?" Someone uttered as Wakoku's leaders picked themselves off the ground and gathered themselves.
Oddly enough, it wasn't him who answered. His response of a 'simple lord of Calla' to shirk the management and responsibility of Wakoku to its own leaders was replaced by a different title.
"He's a Blessed Son," Raiko suddenly called out while wiping pieces of debris and dust off of her. She sounded as if the statement would answer everything.
Much to his confusion, it did.
The surety of her tone and the somberness of her features had sway.
Flashes of muted shock and disbelief spread throughout the room, before much to his own resignation, Raiko kneeled in deference to him while speaking some sort of rite. The guards and people of Wakoku soon followed Raiko's example much to the consternation of the leaders who refused to acknowledge the claim.
Still, pressured by their own followers, the leaders gave a verbal agreement to at least accede to his demands. No more blood would be spilled by Wakoku from this day on under the divine watch of the Blessed Son capable of smiting any and all evil doers with his Arrows of Judgment and his blade of the darkest abyss.
"Grant us providence." Raiko and the other members of Wakoku inclined their heads with a mix of fear, awe, and hope for a better future.
"Did he just unite the warring states of Wakoku when we came just to give them a warning?" Leone's voice of disbelief cut into the stunned awe permeating within the minds of the members of Night Raid present. One in particular wasn't feeling that way.
Shirou noted Lubbock staring up from the floor with his mouth gaping open.
"Tell me, he did not just God damn unite a majority of the states of Wakoku? Please, someone tell me this isn't happening?!" No such luck would come.
Wakoku was the one country that even the First Emperor of the Empire had failed to conquer. What could a divided Empire hope to achieve where its far more capable predecessor had failed?
Planted Empire spies will surely raise the alert about a unified Wakoku.
It was only going to be a matter of time from there.
Neither the Empire or the Revolutionary Army would take this news well, and Najenda would surely grill Lubbock for details due to the sheer implications involved.
"Grant providence!" Selka suddenly joined in with Raiko, and knelt beside her fully understanding the meaning of her words.
"Well fuck." Lubbock let his forehead smack against the floor in defeat, not knowing that his sentiments mirrored Shirou's own.
He should have asked Selka for a one on one about Wakoku's customs.
This wasn't what he had been going for, and Akame wasn't helping with how tightly she was clutching onto him, but not saying anything at all. He grew even more confused when she cupped his face with her hands and stared into his eyes with such relief that it shocked him.
"You're still the same," she said more to herself than him. It was enough to get her to slump in relief.
As his mind processed those words and his situation sunk in, there was only one apparent certainty for him:
He was an idiot because nothing was making sense.
Sorry for smaller update!