Battle Continuation

Everything hurt. Every swing of his sword felt like it would tear his arm off. Every step shot hundreds of painful spikes into his brain. His bones were brittle and broken, his muscles ripped and torn. His vision had blurred, there was only a vague outline of his opponent across from him.

And yet he still swung his arms, pumped his legs. Trace on. He couldn't stop; if he stopped it would be admitting defeat. He couldn't possibly be blamed for it, the odds were insurmountable. It was like a fish swimming up a cliff, an animal breathing in the vacuum of space.

But he couldn't stop. It went against every fiber of his existence. He had to fight, and fight, otherwise he was spitting on everything that had come before. If he gave up it would have all been for nothing. That just wasn't acceptable. It was impossible; the chances of victory weren't even a possibility—but what of it? He'd struggle futilely. He'd run head first into that inevitability. After all—

He wanted to be a superhero.

That's what superheroes did. The inevitable, that impossibility – would break. Against a superhero, such a thing as impossible didn't exist. The impossible was impossible. That's why—

He fought. The burning desire in his chest sparked a roaring inferno, a towering fire that wished to stand up to everything.

That's why even though it was useless, even though it hurt, even though a true victory was impossible even if he won, he fought. He wouldn't admit defeat, couldn't. He wouldn't fall against that despair; he would face the impossible and win. Because… that's what superheroes did.

The lance pierced his shoulder again. The thrust was the fourth to gouge his right shoulder. At this point he was surprised that it was still attached to his torso. Shirou had no time to take his eyes off his enemy for even a split second glance, but he imagined that it resembled ground meat.

Yet he was still able to swing a sword with it, no matter how much it hurt, and that was enough. His strikes continued to be dodged, and sometimes blocked. Not a single blow rung true, yet he had already lost count of the times his death had been avoided by just a hair's breath.

And, with some chagrin, Shirou knew that the moment his opponent grew serious, his life was forfeit. Even so, he would win. Not this battle, not the fight against the blue spearman, but the war itself, he would win.

Shirou parried a near supersonic thrust and pushed forward to swing. Throwing himself into a roll, he slashed upward while striking directly against Lancer's weapon with his other hand. Kanshou shattered, but not even another moment lapsed before another materialized in its place. Lancer kicked back to regain the distance, and Bakuya left his right palm along with its sibling in the other. Breathe. Shirou took in a suck of air and then traced another pair.

And then charged.

Lancer spun his weapon in a beautiful halo, obliterating the flying twins with one smooth motion as they cut towards his face. His spear turned back towards Shirou in a seamless movement. But the flung blades weren't meant to distract him, only bring his lance overhead. The pair in Shirou's hands creaked, but didn't shatter as they held Gae Bolg in a cross. Shirou stared directly into Lancer's eyes for a moment—and then smashed his head against the Servant's face with a flare of reinforcement.

Pain splintered through his skull, but with it a sense of triumph.

The battles, though it was so one-sided that it could only barely be called such a thing, was over. Even though it had lasted only a couple of minutes at most, it had pushed him to his limits. Exhaustion, overuse of his magic, and blood loss caused his limbs to waver. That was simply the difference between a human and a Servant.

But he stood firm. He couldn't stop, he couldn't fall.

Sometime during the skirmish, a fierce grin had split the face of his opponent, although Shirou hadn't been able to see it. His vision started to clear, and that smile greeted him. Blood dripped down into the incredibly white teeth, but it still held—no, it was even wider.

"Wonderful." Lancer gave a barking laugh. "That was just great!"

Shirou wanted to speak, but he didn't know if his throat would croak out anything audible, so he simply smiled weakly. He stared into Lancer's mirthful eyes and saw a burning light—a fire that he knew was raging within his own eyes as well.

"Yeah, now that I think about it," the Servant nodded thoughtfully as he shifted his bloody lance, "You're really the perfect type of guy.

"Both my Masters are dead, and I'm running on adrenaline at this point, honestly. But there's no way I'd ever do anything with that damn witch." The Servant grimaced. "And things have already wrapped themselves up, really."

Shirou nodded at that. There really wasn't any cleaner way to put it. Things had taken a worse turn at every opportunity, but the war was at its end. The victor was all but certain now.

"So," Lancer shrugged. "Wanna team up? I'm guessing you're planning on fighting that sneaky woman."

Each breathe he drew was painful, and every movement sent a jolt of incredible pain throughout his body from the numerous wounds covering it. The blood covering him dripped at places and was stiff from coagulation at others; he should have already been dead from how much of it he had lost. Over and over, if you looked at some part of him, there was something wrong, some sort of injury.

But he could still stand; he could still swing a sword. The pain was merely fed into that raging bonfire, it made him stronger, it steadied his aim to razor precision—it made everything all the clearer.

"Yes." Shirou smiled grimly, his voice was raspy, but somehow audible. "Yes, I plan on continuing this war to the very end."

The light of the setting sun burned into their eyes as they took in the sight of Ryuudouji. The trees seemed to bend, creating an archway up the numerous steps. The dying sunlight slid down the stairs like a liquid. There was only a single guardsman to greet them. They weren't at a distance they could easily communicate, but such a thing wasn't necessary. They all wanted just one thing. The warrior clad in traditional Japanese clothing merely waited atop the stairs for their attack.

Lancer charged in while Shirou stood at the bottom of the steps. Despite the countless trees surrounding the temple, the path to it was a straight shot up. The distance was the greatest factor. Despite his great agility, it still took Lancer more than three seconds to reach the top. Shirou's magically enhanced eyes peered at Assassin, gauging their enemy—waiting. His circuits crackled in preparation.

The moment Lancer came into range, Assassin went into motion, his lengthy blade cutting a flurry of blows through the air. Lancer's first thrusts were made only to parry the numerous strikes. The offensive was switched to a defense once Lancer found a purchase on the landscape, however. Despite holding the high ground, Assassin found himself steadily being forced back as his foe's rain of thrusts continued, absolutely relentless.

Lancer's charge was ridiculously foolhardy, but effective. A single opening would allow Assassin to make a fatal strike, but until then he was at the mercy of that raging storm—unable for even a second's time to pull himself into the proper stance for the Tsubame Gaeshi.

Assassin's expression quickly turned into a grimace. The battle was superb, the reckless abandon that Lancer threw himself into showed that his opponent enjoyed a similar battle lust. If it could have lasted forever, Assassin could have been truly happy. But he was already vividly aware of his own impending death. As he was pushed up the stone stairs, his superhuman instincts screamed in warning.

But he couldn't stop! How could he flee when this was exactly what he'd been waiting for all these boring days? He'd faced Lancer once before, but both knew that it was a farce. This… this was a true battle, one with an enemy worthy of every ounce of his concentration. So, he ignored that warning, that urge to flee from his death. Death was far preferable to throwing away such an opportunity.

.

Shirou hesitated. For a few short seconds he paused, a strange regret filling him as he watched the battle from afar. Both of the combatants he was watching earnestly wished to fight, to slowly dance to the death. It seemed almost like a sin to interrupt that desire.

But he couldn't stop either.

Shirou loosed his arrow, and saw Assassin's skull fragment into a whirlwind of golden dust with his enhanced eyes. The regret didn't fade, but Shirou threw it into that furnace inside him—stoking the flames to even greater heights. Letting the bow dissipate, Shirou started running up the stone steps. Unlike Lancer, it took him several minutes to climb up to his partner. The Servant glanced at him, a half smile lingering on his face, like a fading afterglow.

"You ready, kid?"

Lancer shrugged a shoulder towards the yawning gate of the temple yard. His eyes were filled with anticipation, a blazing light of desire that was only burning brighter after his battle with Assassin. He wanted more of that blissful feeling of action, a continuation of that addictive dance upon a razor's edge.

Wordlessly, Shirou nodded, the flames in him dancing in tune to Lancer's as they moved onto the next battlefield.

Only the fact that they already knew what their enemy was going to do before they set foot on the temple grounds prevented Shirou's death. The modified, twisted steel came in a velocity far exceeding the speed of sound. It was impossible to dodge by human means even knowing it was coming beforehand.

A spear of red shot up behind him and thrust straight into it, resulting in a terrible crack of metal that reverberated into his brain. Lancer shot past without another look. His own enemy would not wait either. The short swordswoman shot through the air like a bullet and the two Servants clashed for the second time.

Shirou didn't—couldn't—even glance at them. To do so for even a moment would spell his death, after all. The bowman's eyes held nothing but murder—there was nothing else left for him anymore, he'd thrown everything else but that burning desire away by now. Shirou saw that his enemy had already notched another arrow; it had taken less than a second, a mere flicker of movement.

But Shirou had only needed that single moment. The rooftop that the bowman stood on exploded. The air behind Shirou rippled like water as his own projectile exited from his mind and ripped into reality. It wasn't an arrow, to be sure, but its effectiveness was undoubted. The rooftop exploded as if a giant's fist had thrust down onto it, and the bowman was forced to flee from the high ground altogether as the building collapsed.

Inside his body, Shirou's circuits crackled with power, and his body ached. It was already too much, but there was no longer any sort of limit of self-preservation holding him back. Pain that might have been crippling felt as mild as a paper cut, and the flames only rose higher.

The layout of the temple and all its occupants seared itself into Shirou's mind as he strafed towards his foe. The enemy he couldn't lose against. Not because of some sort of clash of ideals, but because to do so would mean he'd failed everyone. He'd already failed too many, he wouldn't accept anymore. It was galling. At one point he hadn't wanted to acknowledge it because Archer was scornful of the ideal he represented. Now, it was merely sickening. It made him ill that any possibility of Emiya Shirou could throw away everything—everyone—for some sort of selfish gratification.

Shirou's eyes were locked with that twisted mirror. Words weren't necessary anymore, the grey eyes he glared into sharpened from his unspoken challenge. Archer discarded his distance advantage and flung himself at Shirou. A red lance sprang to life in Shirou's hands; it had been ready since before Archer abandoned his sniping post.

Shirou closed his eyes for a fraction of a second as he braced his legs and threw the lance. It was only way. With their eyes locked, Shirou was certain that Archer would realize his mistake from the triumph smoldering in Shirou's eyes.

Despite not physically watching that ephemeral moment, Shirou could see it all. The copy of Gae Bolg that he loosed passed above Archer's skull in a clear overshoot, and then his enemy's expression would slacken in a realization, that one terrible moment of impending doom. No. Shirou couldn't imagine his expression. Was it regretful? Angry? Bitter? Emiya Shirou couldn't recreate his face because he didn't understand Archer. He couldn't understand why he made the choices he did.

And he never would.

Shirou opened his eyes, and saw the thrusting lance of death flight rip off his enemy's head. There wasn't any gore or sprays of blood, the corpse dissipated into dust before even fully collapsing. Shirou didn't even take another second's time to contemplate his dead foe—that moment had already passed. Dashing forward, Shirou ripped his Servant's weapon out of the ground with strength that shouldn't have been possible from his frail mortal body. Pieces of the shattered stone tiles cracked off the tip of the lance as Shirou whipped it into an overhead position. Taking only a second to brace himself again, Shirou returned Lancer's true weapon.

Archer had been too focused, that was his fatal mistake; he'd never spared any attention to Lancer after he'd engaged Saber. On the other hand, despite never even glancing at one another since they entered the temple grounds, both Shirou and Lancer were fully aware of each other's position. It was the only thing that would have allowed them a possibility of victory, after all. Their entire strategy had no fallback, it was do or die. One-on-one, they'd lose. That's why they were always cooperating even when forced apart. Assassin could have held off Lancer indefinitely with his skill, but with his attention on that battle, he couldn't defend against Shirou's arrow. Archer's defeat was the same tactic, although much more difficult.

While Shirou drew Archer close to him, Lancer positioned himself exactly opposite to Shirou while attacking Saber full-out. The moment Archer left himself open Lancer jumped into the air and unleashed his Noble Phantasm at the back of the bowman's head. What should have been an attack to demolish a battalion of soldiers completely obliterated a single man. If Lancer had aimed even a little lower, the only thing left of the other Servant would have been a sprawled pair of legs. At the same time, Shirou created a copy of his lance and threw it directly at his ally. The time Lancer had let go of his original weapon was less than a second before he pulled in the copy, but it was not a moment too soon as Saber had never left the offensive.

The copy was subpar. Shirou had deluded himself into thinking the handful of seconds before Archer attacked was enough time to bring all of what Lancer's spear was together. It shattered on the sixth thrust, but Lancer didn't even spare a grimace as the red metal turned to glass and vanished. Those six strikes bridged enough time for Shirou to send the real Gae Bolg back to its owner. Lancer plucked his weapon out of the air, and in the same motion parried a fatal blow away from his torso. Seamlessly, as if he had never been parted with it, Lancer put himself back on the offensive. Saber's blank eyes made no movement of surprise, but she retreated back as Lancer's strikes came faster than ever. His full-out usage of his Noble Phantasm should have put a dangerous drain on his fighting abilities, but it was almost as if Lancer's power was never greater. Saber deflected his rain of blows without too much strain, but she was forced to keep a distance—unable to attack with his relentless assault in place. Lancer spared her no opportunity to prepare her trump card with his mad dance. If neither of the Servants had any limits to their stamina, the battle could have continued on forever.

But Shirou hadn't paused to admire Lancer's combat prowess after he returned Gae Bolg. He started a mad dash towards the pair as his circuits burned in an electric storm, and another copy of the red spear sprang to life within his hands. His body grinded—underneath his skin and muscle, he felt metal creaking. His flesh and bone could not withstand the coming movement, so his body prepared itself without his conscious bidding. Pain shot through every remaining nerve in his arm, and Shirou screamed as he flung himself into his attack. As Saber parried Lancer's strikes, Shirou threw a mirror of blows towards her back. The speed was not the same—his imitation was too inferior no matter how much he deluded himself—but it was nevertheless inhuman. Saber instinctively ducked away from the first strike, and then swung her blade in sweeping arc to deflect the second. The third gouged into Saber's side, as Lancer's continuous assault left her open to Shirou's barbed spear.

Numbers could make a huge difference. Even as powerful as Saber was, her single blade could not match two attackers with seamless coordination. Shirou's copy of Scathach's teachings was only a pale imitation, but was more than enough to allow Lancer to fill the gaps in his movements. Only someone who could ignore blows to their person entirely could brush off such an effort. Shirou's attacks forced her to divide her attention, which allowed Lancer to thrust into her blind spot. But Gae Bolg swished through air when it should have carved into Saber's skull.

Saber's instincts were the lone thing to save her from a quick end. Her sword was turning away Shirou's stab to her heart, it would take too long for her legs to thrust her into the air. She flung herself into the dirt, tumbling away from both Lancer and Shirou, and swung her blade in a sloppy arc away from the right of her face, deflecting Lancer's additional killing strike without a blink.

Her opponents seemed to have lost one of their advantages. Instead of encircling her from the back and front, they were now side by side in their assault. Yet, Lancer immediately made a leap into the air over her. Even as Saber struck at him—which he blocked with the length of his pole arm—Shirou recklessly dashed at her to continue his attack. His copy shattered on his tenth strike, but there wasn't even a pause in his attacks as another immediately came to life in his grasp. The dance entered a repetition, but Saber failed to notice the one variation even as her senses screamed a warning.

The air around Saber burst into flames. Thick tendrils of fire swam across her body, and even as her armor pushed away the licking inferno, Saber felt a shaft of metal rip through her armor. Her blade had managed to deflect Shirou's head strike through the blaze with her unmatched instincts, but she had had no way to stop Lancer's stab into her heart. Her downfall had been placed the moment she attacked Lancer while he jumped overhead. The sparks from her strikes against his lance masked the sowilo rune Lancer inscribed on the air.

"God, you're beautiful, Saber." Lancer spoke almost lustfully, but his eyes held nothing but admiration. "Even though you're completely seeped in that damned witch's magic, you held off two near equal opponents."

"S-Shirou…" Saber's eyes didn't clear. Caster's magic didn't lift, but tears streaked down Saber's cheeks. "Shirou…! I-I'm… sorry… Shirou…"

"Saber," Shirou felt his gut clench. The lit fire in his belly tightened and burned hotter than ever. Rages flicked into his brain as a sprinkling of realization littered his mind.

"Thank you." Shirou's voice was clear. He owed Saber too much to spoil their farewell with anger. Even if Saber had never realized what she was doing, and even now believed she had failed him, Shirou didn't want Caster to taint his gratitude. The only way the witch had finally broken through Saber's iron will was through deluding her mind to the point of believing she was still his partner.

"S-Shirou… Shirou…! S-shirou… shi…—"

Shirou's mind blanked as the golden dust whipped in the air for a moment and then disintegrated. The pain in his limbs—no, not just his limbs, his entire body was starting to reach the point it would begin shutting down. But it didn't matter. They were at the finish line. There was only one more obstacle.

Shirou didn't bother to signal Lancer as he started dashing; there wasn't any need to do so, their minds held the same thought after all.

Caster didn't afford more than a grimace before she proceeded to leap into the air and throw an array of destruction towards them. The open area turned into a battlefield of dust in less than a second. Kuzuki stood back with the grail container, his expression blank as he watched them dance around the blasts of magic in feats of acrobatics. It was absurd. They'd only been partners for less than a handful of hours, but their single-minded determination allowed for a flawless coordination. Their wounds and exhaustion should have slowed them down, but if anything they seemed stronger than ever. Caster bit out a curse, and then dive bombed towards Shirou.

Kuzuki held up his fists in a stance as Lancer approached. The blue spearman ignored Caster's attack on his partner and immediately went on the offensive against Kuzuki. Lancer's eyes narrowed as his enemy's fists whipped around in a bizarre motion. Lancer dashed to the side, avoiding a cracking blow to his skull. Saber could barely defend against the technique, confused as she was from it, but even without a legendary instinct such as hers, Lancer had the advantage of a far superior agility. He had no actual experience with Kuzuki's assassination technique, but Shirou had given a warning of its nature before their assault on Ryuudouji. Secondhand knowledge was a poor substitute for a combat forged awareness, but it was better than fighting blind.

Lancer constantly circled his opponent in a dizzyingly chaotic pattern, paying no attention to the unconscious, floating form near their battle. Kuzuki's attacks quickly stopped altogether as he was forced to parry Lancer's strikes. Kuzuki's movements were mountain-like. While his hands were enhanced to the point of being able to crush boulders, his footwork was unable to keep up with a Servant's. Just as he parried a thrust to his face, he had to snake his hand around to his back to palm away a gouge to his spine.

It would have only been a matter of seconds until Kuzuki met his end. However, Caster kept herself intimately aware of their battle. It was a simple matter to do so, in fact. Just as Lancer had been forcing Kuzuki into his death, Caster had been doing the same to Shirou. The moment Caster struck him, Shirou was on the defensive. His weaponry shattered from a handful of blows defending against her projectiles, and his agility could not completely protect him from her wide-range magic. Splashed with fire, ice and all manner of other elements, Shirou was almost killed within the first few seconds of their fight.

But he only needed to delay, not win. Thirteen. It was the largest number he could hold without killing himself outright in his condition. Eleven different weapons rippled into existence at supersonic speeds, only leaving a blur of motion as they raced towards their target. Caster immediately abandoned her attack to pull away into the air; a murmured word deflected two projectiles as they came close to her person. Projecting so many at once was debilitating; it would have been a simple matter for Caster to finish him off at that moment. But her divided attention forced her away from that decision to aid her master—her lover. She couldn't risk firing a volley of her magic for the fear of accidentally damaging the grail container. Instead, she shot downward in another dive bomb towards the other battle in the field, ignoring her original opponent as she focused her magic into her attack. It was lapse of no more than a handful of seconds, and Lancer was forced to pull away his spiraling attack on Kuzuki as Caster drew close with an explosion of power.

—No, he pulled away intentionally. Caster's attention was brought back to Shirou as he finished notching his modified arrow onto his bow. It was more instinct than deliberate action that made her pull up her barrier again, but it was meaningless. She was never the target in the first place.

Kuzuki attempted to deflect the projectile with his enhanced fist, but even though he was successful in bringing his hand up protectively, it only resulted in his arm being blown off in addition to his skull. Unlike the Servants slain before him, his body didn't disintegrate. It flopped to the ground in a tumbled heap, spurting blood out of the gaping wounds for a few moments before the heart soon stopped pumping the fluid.

"NO!"

Caster let out an anguished wail, and her visage twisted in rage visible to neither of her enemies. But her rage quickly warred with panic as the air turned sickly, a void of energy. Lancer's own expression held nothing but death as he finished preparing his Noble Phantasm's true potential. His war cry of its name mixed with her scream of hate as her barrier was shattered like glass—the spear of impaling barbed death claimed another victim.

It wasn't over. Not yet. As much as it hurt—not physically, the festering wound in his spirit burped a burning pus at the sight of her. Shirou stood next to the grail container and tried not to cry. He wished he could still call it Tohsaka, but there obviously wasn't anything left of that girl. The eyes told all, and there wasn't any sign of life in hers. The doll stared blankly at him as her two hearts beat in perfect synchronization.

Was it because of Caster? Did the witch break Tohsaka's mind? Or was it because of the grail itself? Did all that power surging through his loved one's body destroy all that she was?

Shirou shook his head. It didn't matter. The result was the same, and he couldn't change it, and he didn't have the luxury of time to contemplate it. The burning flames were now crackling embers. The war wasn't yet over, not until the wishing well was taken care of.

It was the final act of the grail war. He stabbed down with the sword in his hand. The grail container made no sound of pain—the nerves in it most likely no longer worked. He didn't look away as blood gushed out of the external, beating organ, splattering him with gore. Memories flashed through his mind, good and bad, mundane and extraordinary. The moments when he felt his heart skip in excitement, and clench in terror. In a decade, he could have looked back at all of them with a laugh if she was still by his side. But with the source of those memories gone, they could never be the same.

It was time to let go—to stop.

"This is goodbye, Tohsaka."

He wasn't speaking to the doll—whatever had been that proud girl had already fled that vessel of flesh. He was talking to his memories, the parts of the girl that still existed in him. A part of him wished he could mourn longer, but another more immediate part of him knew there was no time. He stabbed again, this time thrusting into the other heart that still beat inside its chest. Blood splattered again, a fleck burst against his eye. It was barely noticeable against the stinging already present.

"Yeah, this is goodbye, kid."

Shirou turned to Lancer as the spearman spoke. His partner was crouching on the ground several meters away, Gae Bolg leaning against his shoulder. A mellow smile was in place of the now familiar grin. Shirou nodded in understanding, feeling the weak link between them waned, and then snap. For Lancer, this was the best outcome. The light in his eyes was as mellow as his smile. It was a forest fire that had run rampant, consuming everything, and now quietly wisped away. With a short wave, the last Servant disappeared.

Glancing around the ruined temple grounds, Shirou let out a sigh. Slow thoughts of the future spun through his mind, of the repairs needed, of school life—all absolutely mundane. Shirou let himself slide to the ground as a pleasant haze filled him, heedless of the corpse nearby.

As darkness started to creep up on him, Shirou drifted off. The cares of the world no longer in his grasp as the embers lost their strength and went out.

End

End Tally of the Fifth Holy Grail War

Masters:

Bazett Fraga McRemitz – Killed by Kotomine Kirei

Matou Sakura – Lost Servant; alive

Kotomine Kirei – Killed by Caster

Illyasviel von Einzbern – Killed by Gilgamesh

Matou Shinji – Killed by Caster

Kuzuki Souichirou – Killed by Lancer and Emiya Shirou

Tohsaka Rin – Killed by Emiya Shirou

Emiya Shirou – Died from injuries

Servants:

Rider – Killed by Kuzuki Souichirou

Berserker – Killed by Gilgamesh

Gilgamesh – Killed by Saber, Archer, and Caster

Assassin – Killed by Lancer and Emiya Shirou

Archer – Killed by Lancer and Emiya Shirou

Saber – Killed by Lancer and Emiya Shirou

Caster – Killed by Lancer and Emiya Shirou

Lancer – Vanished after the Lesser Grail was destroyed

Author's notes

This was an entry in I put into a contest a few years back. It didn't win all that much praise, and honestly it doesn't deserve much either. This was mostly an experiment in writing in a specific style of writing. Ironically, I succeeded in doing what I set out to with this small piece, but as a result it ended up being rather dry, disjointed, and - probably most damning - boring. As far as writing goes, this wasn't very enjoyable for me, but if you did end up liking it, that's at least one small victory.