White Ink

10

Shirou stretched as he walked down the street. The food had been good and he had found that Narbareck had apparently not ordered too much before she walked out so he still had some money left over. Walking to an out of the way spot in the park he mentally looked for land marks then spun up his circuits and stamped his foot on the ground.

What actually happened was that water was created from his prana an inch from beneath his foot and seeped into the ground pouring in the cracks in the dirt. The water drifted down until it encountered a glass object then it latched onto the object and with a jerk the ground erupted. Shirou caught the glass object heading towards his head and then examined it. The black liquid roiling around inside the jar seemed to eagerly greet him.

Of course it would, the first thing he did when he obtained it was to bind it to him. While the Piece of Chaos may have had its origins in Nrvnqsr's body but now it was as much under his control as Avalon. It sat there as a formless substance that just begged to be moulded into something. Looking it Shirou believed he could almost see the primordial ooze from which the earth sprang forth. Shirou couldn't wait to get his hands on it. Reluctantly he strapped the bottle to his belt, noting down the fact that in future he needed to get some form of bag of holding to carry all his stuff around. Yeah, he needed some wallet or pouch that he could open and pull out various mystic codes. That was definitely something to consider later, once his work here in the city was done.
His work here in the city that was a thought. He really lacked the ability to avoid sticking his nose in these kinds of business didn't he? From what he heard about Roa he wouldn't die even if he was killed. Shirou didn't really have a way of preventing his soul from reincarnating. Except one, the big one, the one he swore he would never use.
Shirou smiled ruefully, he truly felt better today. All the things piling up, complications that ate up his time and gave him more to worry about. The stress of having to deal with such a high-ranked ancestor welled up in him and he found himself giving a horribly sub-optimal performance. Now that the pressure from Nrvnqsr was gone he could finally think clearly.

Roa was not a Dead Apostle Ancestor. That did not make him not dangerous but it did mean that Shirou would be able to handle him. Unlike the previous one if he kept his wits about him he should be able to go into the fight and win. Shirou's hand drifted to his necklace for the third time in the last half an hour. Upon activating [Poseidon's Eye] he should know exactly where the reincarnating Dead Apostle is and he should be able to track them down instantly. The problem with that was he knew he should get Arcueid before he went to confront Roa but he also knew that if he located him he would be very tempted to charge in immediately.
Shirou stood paralysed momentarily with indecision before he deliberately raised his hand to his necklace and poured his prana into it. Getting an image of the city he quickly signalled out the various power sources. There were quite a few sources of prana. The large one at the school he identified as the blue haired exorcist that he had faced a few days ago. There was also the massive one at Arcueid's place whose identity was obvious. He tried to look for Narbareck but found him unable to pick up anything about her at all. The fact that he couldn't track her made him severely nervous for a few reasons.

Lastly he scanned the Tohno mansion and what he saw made his blood run cold. Usually there were about four moderate powers in the mansion. He referred to moderate powers as beings that were not on the level of an Ancestor or a very powerful magus or him.
Now however there was only one and moderate did not seem to be the correct term to apply to it. Any magical energy that approached the being got devoured and he could feel the water in the air start to get colder.
Shirou started to immediately take off and then stopped. Arcueid was sleeping and a way's away from him but whatever was in there could lead to serious danger. Thinking quickly he came up with a plan.
"Len," he yelled out ignoring those few people around in the afternoon. After a minute or two the black cat popped out. "I think I found Roa," Shirou addressed the feline. "He's at the Tohno mansion. Go find Arcueid and tell her that. I'm going to go ahead and engage him. Thank you."
At that he took off heading for the Tohno mansion. He ignored the stares of the bystanders as he ran at speed barely verging on human. Arriving at the mansion and seeing the locked gates and the vacant streets he vaulted through over the gates and headed towards the door. Knocking on the doors once he noted they were locked he immediately kicked the door breaking the lock and causing the hinges of the door to bend. Sprinting through the door he entered the dining room and stopped.
Sitting at the head of the dining room sipping tea was Akiha. She looked ever the picture perfect beauty that she portrayed herself to be and yet something was clearly different. Ripples in the air approached and Shirou flung himself back noticing as he did that the water in the air froze in front of him.
"You," Akiha said, looking at him, "Shirou wasn't it." She laughed and it was a hollow thing. "You said you would be the one to stop me." Her voice started to rise and a note of hysteria slipped in. "So why the hell didn't you."
"Suddenly Shirou's mystic sense went haywire and he felt ripples converging on him from all sides. Channeling prana into his ring a wall of water around him and after an instant became a wall of ice. Shirou's eyes grew wide as he examined the ice.
"Temperature control. No, you're just absorbing heat." He shook his head a strained smile taking its place on his face. "But this is still not enough to even scratch me." He raised his hand and pointed at Akiha and the ice broke off into shards and flew at her. Akiha dodged the ice flying at her with graceful movements. "Ice would be your weakness as it is already in a state of low temperature. You can't affect something that is already without heat."