Fate: Hammer Time

Chapter 8: Follow the Trail

Shirou was about to reach an important milestone in his efforts to rid Fuyuki-City of most of its criminal elements.

He had been running around his hometown for two weeks now, taking down gangs wherever he went, and he was very glad to say that he'd be apprehending the last gang of the city that very night, just in time before school would begin.

Yes, he was completely certain of it. The gang he was targeting now truly was the last one in the entire city. Once it was removed, only the Fujimura-clan would be left out of all illegal enterprises that had been present before Shirou took up the mantle of the vigilante.

The location of the gang was already known to him, and all preparations had been made. All that was left was to strike the gang down and end its corrupting influence on the city forever.

Of course, new gangs would be moving in soon, not to mention there were plenty of evildoers in Fuyuki-City that weren't affiliated with a gang of any kind, such as muggers and burglars, as well as crooks that focused on fraud, laundry, or extortion, but defeating the last gang was still a great milestone to reach.

Not that he was planning on taking it easy after that of course. There were many more cities and other places out there that needed his help after all.

Before he could start travelling however, there was one other matter in Fuyuki-City that he needed to deal with, something that could very well throw all of his plans into disarray.

The matter of the criminals smelling like Magecraft.

During his nightly missions, he had found more and more of these criminals as he attacked gang after gang, all of them carrying traces of spells and Enchantments, and eventually, he'd been able to draw two conclusions.

The first conclusion was that there were five distinct smells that kept coming back, which, most likely, meant that there were five people (beings?) involved in the matter.

The second conclusion was that whoever was behind this, they had been at it for a long time. Shirou had been able to roughly estimate when each crook had come into contact with Magecraft, and his estimates told him that this whole business had been going on for years. Some traces were almost eight years old even.

Something big was going on, and Shirou didn't like at all that it had taken him this long to even catch wind of it. He didn't believe for a moment it was something benign, which meant he had to put a stop to it as soon as he possibly could.

Looking back, it had been a mistake not to interrogate the criminals smelling like Magecraft the moment he'd discovered them. Just taking one aside for a few minutes would have been child's play back then. Now they were out of his reach however, unless he wanted to break into prison or the police-headquarters.

As he had absolutely no wish to visit either of those places, Shirou hoped that he would encounter another person smelling like Magic tonight, so that he could interrogate them. If there wasn't such a person though, he would be forced to break in anyway.

It wouldn't really be difficult, as the police of Fuyuki-City was of subpar quality and he had his Magecraft, but he'd rather avoid it nevertheless.

Better cross his fingers and hope for the best.

But it wasn't evening yet, it was only afternoon, and that meant Shirou was working on something completely different from his vigilantism.

'And then some herbs to finish it. Yes, this should make for a good meal to celebrate the end of the holiday.'

Shirou placed the herb-mixture he had just found into his shopping cart, next to the many other foodstuffs and other items he had already placed in there. He was currently wrapped up in one of the most important tasks of the day, doing groceries, and so far, it had been going rather well.