White Ink

9

He awoke beneath an unfamiliar ceiling, silently cursing Evangelion for getting him to use that phrase. Thinking back over the previous day he started remembering the battle and immediately wished he hadn't. Groaning he pulled the pillow over his face and curled up deeper in the bed his face flushed with crimson. The battle was so close it ended up in a showdown between him and Chaos. He almost died. He almost died. His hands almost started trembling but he got it under control. He had long since progressed past the stage where he would freak out about combat. In fact he privately admitted to himself he really enjoyed combat and the showdown against Nrvnqsr was suitably dramatic. He will probably remember this fondly in future when he gets over how much of an idiot he was.

Footsteps sounded outside the door. That was probably Sumire he thought come to give him an epic chewing out. Sure enough the blond Apostle Ancestor entered the room in her customary bikini. Contrary to expectations she had a smile on her face, the same smile that she would have on before engaging in some flirtatious behaviour. "So Shirou," she said. "What's this I hear about you defeating the tenth?" She walked towards him slowly tracing her hands across her chest. "Such a brave thing you've done."
Shirou suddenly found himself unable to move not even an inch. He reached for his magic circuits but they seemed so far away. Looking up his eyes widened as he saw the bikini top break off and falls to the ground revealing an extremely nice pair of breasts that were extremely distracting to Shirou's thirteen year old mind. Sumire then stepped forward and bent down her pink lips heading towards Shirou's and then slowly moving lower.
"Stop," suddenly shouted Shirou his hands on the shoulders of the topless Sumire impersonator. He struggled to keep his eyes on her own despite the much more alluring sight below her neck. "This is a dream isn't it," Shirou said. "I haven't really woken up. It makes sense why I can't feel my magic circuits." Shirou thought about the lengths he had to go to be able to move. He had been forced to use his magic to change the description of his body from [immobile] to [mobile]. Shirou groaned as he thought, "Yup as long as I can keep a clear head there is never a time when I can't use my magic."
"But that's enough about me," Shirou said once again staring at the Sumire imposter's breasts. "I didn't expect to have an intruder in my dreams, please display your true form."
At this the Sumire imposter simply shook her head.
"I see," said Shirou still scrutinizing the magnificent pair of breasts in front of his face. "Then do you mean me any harm." Once again the imposter shook her head. "I see then was this some weird kind of gift." The imposter nodded her head once.
Shirou sighed to himself looking down, "What colossal moron sends a child a succubus." Suddenly he came to a realisation. "Hey you're not a talkative sort are you; I mean if I talk to you can you keep a secret. I just," Shirou wilted sounding defeated. "I just really need somebody to talk with right now."
The Sumire imposter got up and her bikini top appeared back in its proper place. A chair appeared out of nowhere and she sat down and looked anticipatorily at Shirou.
"Okay, okay. It's not easy to say this," Shirou hesitated. "I'm a really prideful person. It comes with being a magician." At this the Sumire imposter's eyes widened and she started to look slightly agitated. "Oh you recognize that word. Of course you must have. Magician of the fourth that's me," he said with a weak smile. "And I have amazingly good circuits. That is not bragging but merely a fact." Shirou's weak smile was replaced with a proper one. "And I love it, I absolutely adore magecraft and I have long fallen in love with my own magic. There's nothing more I like than to come home after a long day and unwind by discovering cool shit. And even that's nothing to the feeling of using cool shit on those that I have to battle against. I don't go looking for fights," he clarified. "Really I don't, but I have a hard time backing down from a fight once it starts."
"Anyway yesterday I fucked up. I planned so much that I neglected the one thing that was important. I went into the battle with multiple plans and back-ups and forgot to account for the fact that I had been awake for forty-eight goddamned hours." He looked at the Sumire his eyes widened in self-disgust. "Seriously what the fuck was I thinking? Don't answer that I know what I was thinking "Avalon will take care of it". Well apparently Avalon, miracle that it is, doesn't fix lack of sleep."
"Honestly all those fifteen hours of preparation wasted, if I dropped down next to Arcueid and took a nap it would have been more productive." He snapped his fingers. "It would have been much nicer way to spend the afternoon as well."
Shirou sighed and a look of utter frustration crossed his face. "My first plan was so simple you know. Runes weren't involved and neither was my endothermic fluid or Arcueid's gloves." Shirou shook his head. "You should see them I created these amazing gloves and this special fluid. Combined they took me over nine hours. They were truly a miraculous work that surpasses the work of professional mystic code crafters. And it was time I could have spent sleeping."
Looking incredibly bitter now Shirou continued. "My plan was originally to lure out Chaos and engage him with Arcueid. When he sent his beasts at me I was going to take ownership and make them subservient to me using my magic. When I own them the beasts start to become existences on their own and separate from the Chaos. It took me ten minutes to test this. And then I tried it in the fight and it didn't work."
Shirou had started ranting now and the Sumire imposter looking him over with interest. "I have fought drunk before against the actual Sumire and this was far worse than this. I can use my magic after downing an entire bottle of Vodka yet when I tried to tell a little dog that I was its master now my magic failed me. For the first time in a long fucking while I wasn't a magician for that short period."
Shirou placed his chin upon his hand, "Now that I think about it collapsing the roof and flooding the lobby was probably the best thing I could have done in that situation. I'm strong and fast enough in water that I could probably could have continued fighting while Arcueid did her thing even without my use of the fourth."
He shook his head. "And then the mother of all bad decisions. At this point I was panicking that my magic had disappeared so I decided to try out a new spell that I hadn't even properly named yet and in doing so I used fifty percent of my prana reserves. That spell should only take a maximum of five percent. The cost of the prana is only to analyse the area around me and the rest was my magic. And my magic responded perfectly well freezing my natural advantage and almost sending me to dream land."
"And then later when he was walking away almost drained of energy I should have let him go." Shirou said hitting his hands against the bed. "It was five-thirty he has no time to recover his energy. I could have just tracked him down during the day and sent Arcueid to paste the motherfucker. But no backing down from a fight like that would hurt my pride. It would prove I can't handle it. Well guess what, I can't handle it."
"I was so close to dying. Even now thinking back on the last moments of the fight scares me." Shirou let out a hollow laugh. "Do you know my one principle when it comes to my magic?" Looking at Sumire imposter shake her head he continued. "I refuse to alter a person's being without their express permission. My power has so much potential for harm. I could kill somebody outright yes, but I could also inflict the concept of pain on them that they would feel every day. Worse I could make somebody nicer to me or even like me. That's a road that I refuse to go down." He stood up out of the bed. "But I was scared I almost deleted the concept of Nrnqsr Chaos just because he's the only one to ever come so close to killing me."
"What do you think about that?" he said turning around but Sumire was gone. In her place was a small white haired girl with pointed ears and red eyes. "Huh," Shirou said, "You know looking back I'm incredibly glad I didn't go through with the sex.
The young girl frowned at him and then clicked her fingers and Shirou once more woke up in bed.
Looking around the room he noticed a black cat with a ribbon and white pom-poms. The cat gave a glance at Shirou and then slowly sidled from the room.
Shirou smiled feeling as if a weight had lifted off his shoulders and lay back in bed.
xxx
Many hours later Shirou awoke again in the soft bed to the sight of red eyes watching him. Yawning he blinked blearily and the visage of Arcueid came into focus. She was examining him while lying down on the bed opposite him. She looked up and down as if she could discern his very nature by his external appearance.
"Len offered to become your familiar," she said. "She must have seen something really special in you."
"Len," Shirou replied feeling as if he were a million miles behind in the conversation. "What's a Len."
"Len," repeated Arcueid the familiar cat that I was taking care of. "The one who I sent to give you that dream."
"Wait a minute, you were the idiot," replied Shirou dumbfounded.
"Hey that's very mean. And after I sent Len to help you out," Arcueid pouted.
"Who sends a succubus to a thirteen year old? Don't you have any ideas of common decency?"
"Didn't you enjoy it?" Arcuied asked.
"Of course I enjoyed it; I'm a hormonal thirteen year old. My lack of restraint does not invalidate your lack of common sense."
"Anyway ignoring that," he said cutting off Arcuied's next comment. "You said Len offered to become my familiar."
"That's right. Something you said must have impressed her. Did you put on a good performance Shirou," Arcueid said.
"I can't believe she's asking this," Shirou thought inside his mind. "Does she not get what she's implying or does she not care."
Outwardly Shirou didn't show anything but merely stared at Arcueid. After a short while Arcueid started to fidget and her smile faded.
"Nevermind," Shirou said.
"Don't just ignore me," Arcueid replied heatedly.
"How long have I been in bed," Shirou asked.
About a day and a half," Arcueid replied. "You slept through all of Monday and it is now about eleven on Tuesday."
"Okay," Shirou said while shaking the stiffness out of his limbs. "First things first." Shirou turned Arcueid. "Do you have the jar in which I stored the remnants of Nrvnqsr Chaos in? Please tell me you haven't lost the jar."
"Of course I haven't," Arcueid replied. She went to the fridge and pulled out the jar of Chaos. "I kept it in the fridge so it wouldn't escape."
"Good thinking," Shirou said. He examined the jar for a bit longer than placed it back in the fridge. "Better leave it there right now. The first moment I can I'm launching that thing into space."
"What about the other jar you had wasn't there Chaos in there as well?" Arcueid asked.
"Yeah, but it's neutralised," Shirou replied. "I was thinking of making a familiar using it but if Len's offering then I would rather have her. There were a few things I didn't get out of it I'll take it back to my workshop and properly dissect it later."
Shirou changed the subject, "So what have you been doing while I was worshipping Hypnos."
"Oh I went looking around town for the other vampire that was my original job." She then smiled. "I also got Shiki to take me to a movie as a way to make it up for killing me."
Shirou looked at her calculating his response and then sighed and let it go. Trying to apply logic to an alien existence like the True Ancestor was an exercise in futility. That she could even pass as a human was an achievement and appeared to be the upper level of what she could achieve.
Shirou looked at Arcueid, "What vampire would this be then. Please tell me it isn't another ancestor then."
Arcueid looked at him, "Michael Roa Valdamjong. The serpent of Akasha." At those words Shirou's head sprang up and he examined Arcueid intensely."
"Why is he called that," Shirou said, anything with Akasha in its name could be very dangerous. He would know.
"He reincarnates in a new body periodically. I've killed him plenty times and then in a few years he would be back."
"What has the poor bastard done to have obtained so much of your animosity White Princess?"
At this Arcueid turned away from him so that he only saw her back leaving the conversation definitely over. Chuckling at the True Ancestor's childishness Shirou got out of bed and stumbled. While his body had no tiredness or injuries and he could feel his magic circuits awake and ready to start converting od and mana into prana the same could not be said for his stomach. His mouth was parched and his stomach rumbled its displeasure with him.
The first was easily fixed as he condensed water from the room around him filtering out impurities and took a few deep gulps. His hunger however would need different means of sating. He reached inside his clothes finding his wallet miraculously intact and filtered through it noticing that he still had a good amount of cash.
"Right first food then to retrieve my Black Goo then to get a familiar," he had always wanted a familiar of his own but he had never had the time to make one or the know-how. Kiritsugu stubbornly refused to teach him until he became more responsible. He stepped out of the door noting as he did that the building Arcueid took him into was a complex of several floors. Stepping out of the compound he set off in search of a restaurant.
"Hmm let me see, a seafood restaurant. No I like seafood but I already eat too much of it due to Sumire. Fast food yeah if I want a lecture from the oceanic vampire about how I'm going to ruin my body." He came to a stop outside a curry place and after a moment of hesitation headed inside.
The inside of the restraint had a traditional Japanese feel but it was incredibly empty. Apparently eleven o'clock wasn't a good time for business. He walked up to the man at the counter and asked for a menu. While scanning the menu the man tried to make conversation with him.
"Shouldn't you be at school now kid?" the owner asked looking Shirou up and down. "You're the second child today that's come into this store today. Your parents aren't going to come looking for you are they."
"Nah my dad's pretty lax about stuff like this," Shirou replied. "Don't worry about it just get me the green curry with bread on the side."
"Alright coming right up. You can take a seat," the man said as he yelled out the order into the back.
Shirou ambled through the restaurant. Looking among the various empty seats he noticed that only one was not empty. Sitting in the corner of the room away from prying eyes sat a black haired youth. Something about the posture of the person sitting there caused him to take an interest. He took a step forward to go speak to the individual when he was suddenly overcome by a feeling of dread. Waves of terror racked his body and the figure now looking at Shirou with cold green eyes loomed over him promising death if he were to walk any closer. Shirou's body yelled at him to retreat his hands started sweating and his brain was preventing his legs from going any further. Whatever this young looking figure was it was supremely dangerous.
Shirou let out a soundless snarl and his circuits leapt to his defence. Every drop of water in every cell in his body stood firm against the assault and step by step he walked towards the table and sat down. He clamped down on his need to immediately analyse her leaving it for a possible future. Instead he placed his elbow on the table placing his chin into the palms of his hands and just stared her down.
"My, my," the young individual who Shirou now identified as a girl said. "How rude just up and sitting at a ladies table without even introducing himself." She flicked her long hair to the side and stared down at him as if he was some disgusting organism that she found at the back of her shoe. "I had better things to do than to converse with some truant child. I had hoped you would excuse yourself and leave when it became evident you are not wanted here, but it's obvious that your intelligence leaves something to be desired."
"If you are a lady I'll eat my hat. You have such a repulsive nature it's actually tainting this fine establishment. I'm afraid your proximity may make the food taste bad maybe I should do the owner a favour and take you out right now."
"Please after such a poor showing against the tenth. You're an idiot that only won because God in his infinite mercy decided that you should have an artefact that clearly is too good for you."
"You knew about Chaos and you did nothing." Shirou shook his head. "Of course you did you're the kind of person who only cares about herself and her own whims. The sort of person who's going to die alone and unloved as their own colleagues celebrate their death."
"Probably," the woman smiled, "whereas you're the kind of person who's probably going to devolve into a monster massacring all those around you when you finally realise that you don't care about them at all." Her smile showed more and more teeth. "Yes, you hate me. But you still came up to meet me because I'm strong. I matter to you because I'm strong. What happens when you surpass those around you and you realise their opinions become utterly inconsequential to you. Can you bear to listen to them walk around as if they actually have any say in the world around them, or will you snuff them out. Just. Because. You. Can."
She leaned back but Shirou was not finished. The words landed like blows but Shirou shrugged them off and went back on the defensive. "A monster has no right to comment on those who can still live in society. Not only will you die alone but you most likely will take your own life. When the thrill of killing no longer sates you. When the strong are dead or out of your reach. When suffering inflicted on those lesser than you is not enough to tide you over you will turn the knife upon your own flesh and in the moment before you die you will realise nothing. Even death will not be a reprieve for the madness that taints your soul. But if you are willing to go ahead I will deliver it to you sooner if you want."
The black haired lady in front of him smiled and it was a gentle and beautiful smile utterly unfitting of the monster hiding beneath the mask. "First in the burial squad Narbareck," the lady said. "This is where you introduce yourself."
"Magician of the Fourth," Shirou Inke he stated his utter hostility hidden behind a blank exterior. "What brings a relentless murderer of the supernatural to this town if not Nrvnqsr Chaos."
"Why to see the boy who defeated him," Narbareck said grinning at Shirou. "And to offer him a pos…"
"I refuse," Shirou said immediately. "If I were to spend too much time with you I have a feeling I would either end up trying to kill you or liking you. I'm honestly not sure what is worse."
"My you really do know the words to a ladies heart," she said waving her hand in front of her face to mime cooling off. "Well that's all I suppose, I was going to meet you later but you were with the White Princess so I decided to see this curry my subordinate raved about." She put her hands together. "Thank you God for guiding my target to me." Turning back to Shirou she said. "Think about the offer it really does come with some good benefits and you would surely lighten up the organisation. Well ta-ta." And she left the restaurant hips slightly swaying.
Shirou lay back in his chair suddenly feeling drained. "Such a fearsome person the head of the burial squad is." Another thought struck him. "She left me with her bill, that bitch."
Author Note Kind of a filler chapter. I only expect two more chapters to finish up the arc. Narbareck is the canonical head of the Burial Squad and she is a bit of a shitty person. Not much has been done with her. I even had to choose hair and eye colours. She is fifteen two years older than Shirou and has already captured three Dead Apostle Ancestors for the church. Truly a monster among monsters.
Reviews. Last chapter was controversial and I received a large number of reviews. Some of those problems I addressed in the chapter and the rest I will try to address now. I appreciate the criticism as it will make me a better writer.
Rawrking ex555 WhenWindWirls As I tried to display in the above chapter he couldn't use the forth was because he had severe sleep deprivation at the time. The effects of sleep deprivation are nasty and it is only a testament to how much he fought against Sumire that he could still launch water and perform punches and kicks. Shirou does not really have the mind of a researcher. While he is passionate about magecraft it is the passion of somebody who painstakingly uses all their free time to collect model trains of build up a stamp collection. It's not his job its his favorite diversion from his boring life.
Secondly about that Gary Stu comment. I try to show his flaws as well as his strengths and hopefully this chapter will allow you to get a better grasp of Shirou.
Dpss I hate Heracles' immortality. It's such a clusterfuck of what works and what doesn't. What constitutes a different attack. How great is the level of the resistance. Can resistance been gained multiple times. Is shattering a spine different from gouging out a heart or do they both fall under the ambit of "physical damage." And don't get me started on the taking off multiple lives thing. Let me rephrase that statement by saying Arcueid in my belief the physically strongest creature in the Nasuverse was tossing out ex-ranked attacks like it was candy in a free candy factory.
SentinalSlice Yeah it's my first fanfic so sometimes I don't do the words right or I forget to mention things until it becomes pertinent. I usually edit my chapter then but sometime I forget. In addition I switch between first and third sometimes... I'll stop now. Yeah I have planned how it's going to end and I do know how many arcs there are left. There is about two chapter of this arc then it is the invasion of Germany Arc.