The Huntsman of Red V2

Chapter 28 The Pride of Vale: Arc 3 End

Pain was all Shirou could feel as Summer thrashed in his grip. One look was all it had taken for him to understand that any sense of rationality had left her, and all that was left was instinctual.

The claws growing from Summer's fingers dug into his already bleeding back, creating an arc of red droplets that smeared over Ruby's face, stunning her silent as her mind shut down. Ruby was carried over his left arm, bent at the waist, and head facing away from his back. He'd managed to grab her at the same time he'd grabbed Summer and slung her over his right shoulder. The force of his inertia from his legs pushing off against the ground prevented Summer from dislodging herself from his grip.

Slowly, Ruby touched the blood over her face. Inadvertently, she smeared it over her cheek before checking her fingers to see all the red. Like many aspiring Huntsman and Huntresses that had unlocked their Aura's, the sight of blood was something they were never used to, especially when she knew where that blood was coming from. She glanced up to see four claws digging into his back and began crying amidst Summer's growls.

Wind whipped violently around them, causing Shirou's hair and clothing to whip violently before he staggered mid-air. He hadn't been in any condition to move actively, but forced into the current predicament, he was left with no choice. Summer was going out of control, and Ruby was at her mercy. Worse, he was unwilling to allow either of them to get hurt so he'd tackled the both of them and sent himself blasting off with a single reinforced bound.

There was just no way that the injuries he was putting off wouldn't catch up to him. Dust itself was Remnant's most potent form of magic available, and a Dust bullet was what had struck him in the back. Heroic Spirits had innate resistance against modern weaponry and could shrug off most ammunition, but magic imbued bullets like Dust rounds were different.

Fortunately, Heroic Spirits were durable if anything.

His magic resistance stats weren't the best to begin with, so he couldn't fully mitigate the earlier damage, but it allowed him to ignore it and recuperate under the Saint's Banner.

It was safe to say that any improvements to his prior condition was rendered null at this moment.

Having staggered mid-air, he, Summer, and Ruby began a rapid descent through a canopy of trees and directly towards a dense foliage of prickled blackberry bushes.

His back hit the ground first, the impact causing him to groan from the blood clots over his wounds tearing open. Twigs and branches snapped as he then rolled into a tumble.

Summer had been dislodged from his grip and impacted a short distance beside him, her momentum stopped by a large tree trunk which caught her by the waist.

Ruby was the one who got off the easiest. Moments before Shirou had struck the bushes, he'd managed to snag Ruby's red hood over the branch of a tree.

Left to dangle a good ten feet up in the air, Ruby had her hands gripped beneath her neck where the loop of her cloak threatened to choke her. Fortunately, Aura and her light weight meant that she was in no real danger of choking. Instead, she just swaying from side to side in the breeze, unwilling to cut her cloak as it was a keepsake.

Grunting, Shirou could hardly move anymore. His legs refused to listen to him, and his body was sprawled over his stomach. Fingers twitching and digging grooves into the dirt, he mustered what was left of his concentration to create a common mystic code, a single sword known as a Black Key.

A Black Key was a weapon of the Church used to combat evil. Not only was it effective against wraiths, evil spirits, and demons, but it held a special restrictive property.

Growling and thrashing from across from him, the fall did little to damage Summer at all. The only key difference was that it had shattered her mask, allowing him to see the red glow bleeding down from her eyes and across her face in red patterns. Crouched like a predatory animal, she was staring right at him.