Land of the Blades

44. Distortion

I had been thinking about what I would say since I was informed of his disappearance, practicing several iterations of the conversation we could have when we finally met again. But now that I had him right in front of me, I didn't know what to say, my mind was completely white. The gold alloy between my cracks started to move on its own and pushed me a bit towards him. I got the hint, if I didn't found the proper words; I just needed to show it through actions, right? I got a bit closer and hugged him. After a couple of seconds, he returned the hug, with a bit more force than I expected, but his skin felt way softer than I remembered. He felt like Caster when we were on the moon, and even before when I had touched Ventricosus. I could also hear his "heart" beating. At that point, I finally realized what I wanted to say.

—I missed you so much —I was barely able to whisper.

—Ahem! —Antarc faked a cough to call our attention, not close enough to hear what I had said. Hopefully.

We let go of each other and saw that most of our brothers were getting off the ship to greet Shirou. I felt Kiyohime's piercing eyes watching me from the deck, but I didn't dare to look in that direction just yet.

—I'm glad we didn't had to find you passed out in the deep of an ocean trench —Antarc said.

—You managed to survive, but I'm not going to let you off the hook after leaving your post for so long —Bort added.

Goshe and Morga were very excited to see someone they have only heard about, and asked him lots of questions about his fights and exploits.

—Have you been eating and resting properly? —Cinnabar asked after greeting him in a very polite and formal way.

—Eh? Ah, sure, thanks for worrying —was the only thing Shirou could said.

I could imagine it was very weird for him, as the last time he had seen Cinnabar had probably been before he had his mercury sealed off, when he was even more of an introvert. Cairn was the last of us in approaching him, I had to go and drag him to the front.

—This kid is the one who used to be inside of Ghost, I had graced him with the name Cairngorn —I said, very proud of myself.

—I know... —Shirou said, a bit less enthusiastic than what I would have expected.

—He-hey —Cairn dared to say—, I'm glad to see you still in one piece...

Shirou didn't answer; he just crossed his arms and stood in silence.

—Come on! You can't be still be mad about that? —Cairn said, pointing towards me—, Phos is fine! You didn't had anything to worry about.

—W-wait, what is this about? —I tried to chime in, getting a weird feeling out of that part of the conversation.

—Ah, well, you see... —Cairn said, looking away.

—I didn't agree with them putting the head of Lapis on your body —Shirou finally said—. There was a chance Lapis could overwrite herself over your body, or so said Ghost. Rutile said you might not even be able to wake up at all. I told them I rather let myself get captured and get your head back from the moon.

—WHAT?!

—I dissuaded him of doing something so stupid —Antarc said—, and we agreed that the majority would decide. It ended up in a draw between the two groups with some refusing to cast a vote to either side, but it was Cairn's vote who decided it.

—If we had captured Emiya Shirou at that time, we would have willingly give up the head of Phosphophyllite in exchange for his help —the Prince said, as their vessel got to our level.