Cornwall, England

"So the dead apostles are trying to come out into the public in the wizarding world?" Kiritsugu asked with a frown.

"Basically," Assassin replied as he flipped through his book. He pointedly ignored Lily(Saber) glaring at him. "Found out that some of their enclave stuff have been banding together. I think they're probably thinking about attacking something."

"Who else are they working with, Kakashi?"

"Some white haired man calling himself an Einzbern like our ojou-chan."

Kiritsugu frowned. "Was he old?"

"Not really? Would you call me old?"

"Assassin, show your respect to our Master please," Lily chastised.

"But he doesn't like being called Master..." he whined.

"Were you this whiny in your life too?"

"No."

"Then?"

"I was lazy and depressed."

"... So you didn't kill yourself by starving?"

"Oi."

"Back onto topic," Kiritsugu clapped his hands once. "What did you find out about which enclaves were involved?" he asked.

"Danish Blood, Necromancy League of Paris, Dutch White Veela Syndicate, Nordic Jotunheim, Irish Grigori, and Irish Vampire Alliance."

Everyone raised an eyebrow at the last mention.

The Irish Vampire Alliance was not a big time member among the supernatural groups. Their dead apostle numbers were less than two dozen and they were focused on integrating the more pacifistic dead apostles back into society by suppressing their bloodlust with magic.

Why would the Irish Vampire Alliance, then, join a coalition of big time villain groups like the Danish Blood Enclave?

Hell, except for the Nordic Jotunheim and the Irish Vampire Alliance, other groups in that coalition had an annual murder rate of ten thousand people or so. One of the reasons why western European population wasn't booming as much as it should be.

Because seriously, if you keep on removing young woman and man before they can get on with it from the population, the population's reproductivity falls really hard.

Assassin chuckled to himself as he realized that it took humanity 7 billion fucks to reach the current population.

"I'll be meeting with them shortly about this then," Kiritsugu added. "Alright, meeting dismissed."

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Ireland

"GAH!"

A man tumbled down the stairs, and shouted in pain and alarm with each fall that struck his face, chest, and back. As he reached the floor below, he rolled away from the stairs. With a resounding crash, he slammed into the wall, bleeding out the last of his momentum.

He wheezed as he tried to stand up.

Instead of standing up, he got a shot to his arm.

He went down screaming.

He crawled away from the man slowly climbing down the stairs with the ease of a butcher preparing another day.

'To him, it probably is just another day,' the man thought to himself.

Crunch.

He froze, and slowly looked over his shoulder.

"W-Wait. I haven't d-done anythin-"

The man's foot came down on his head, and placed itself gently there on his temple.

"I have no patience for liars."

"B-Bu- P-please! I don't know what I d-did to deserve this!"

"Allying yourself to a coalition that's about to strike out against other magicals isn't?"

There was a pause before the utterly confused man looked up to the perpetrator.

"Wait, what?"

/\/\/\/\

The two man now sat in the mostly unharmed kitchen with a cup of tea in front of each men.

They may have been fighting (one-sided or not), but the two knew each other enough to stop when the issue in question was an issue unknown to the defeated party.

"I... didn't know my men did that," Tyler Eschera muttered. "I really really didn't know."

Kiritsugu didn't feel too bad about hurting Tyler Eschera, the official leader of the Irish Vampire Alliance. Before his reformation a decade ago by force (by the man's still living daughter), Tyler had been one of the most bloodthirsty vampire to live the world. His daily death toll was in the low dozens, if not hundreds. Kiritsugu had been about to put him down when the man suddenly changed. When Kiritsugu did meet the man, it was shocking to see a young woman keeping a leash on her father.

Literally.

He even had a muzzle and everything during his "rehabilitation" period.

"Well?" Kiritsugu asked. "How did you lose control of your own enclave?"

It was rare for a vampire of Tyler's prowess to lose his control over the enclave. Tyler may have been rehabilitated, but he was still strong. He may not be up to the level of Dead Apostle Ancestors, but he had vied for the position among them once or twice in his youth. That's not to say he grew weaker over time; just that he grew smart and less powerhungry.

Tyler winced. "I may have been delegating a lot of responsibilities to my lieutenants in the past … five years or so."

"Why?"

"... My son-in-law died, so Jenny needed a lot of help."

Kiritsugu nodded in understanding. "Are you going to step in to stop them?"

"Definitely, but I may need help. Do you have anyone you can spare for a month or two?"

Kiritsugu didn't move or express anything, but he was thinking.

'Berserker could definitely be useful to Tyler, but that might encourage the rest of this new coalition to attack our base,' he thought. 'If a figure that strong was missing from your enemy base, why wouldn't you attack? But it wouldn't exactly be bad for my alliance. Our defenses may not be good as Hogwarts, but it's definitely up there. Assassin? He may work, but he's also very lazy about everything.'

A pause.

'Tamamo... Unlikely to help. Leaving me with Lancer.'

Considering that his Lancer (or rather Harry's Lancer) was one Prince Vlad who hates his mythical title, Vlad may be a bit too happy about helping, and get Tyler and more amicable allies killed in the process.

'So Lancer is also out.'

He thought about it and thought about it.

'… Why not Shirou?'

Shirou was not vital to the defense of the Fortress, yet he easily ranked in the top 5% of the Emiya Alliance's fighters. Sending Shirou on this mission would also better educate the boy on fighting Dead Apostles/vampires. At the same time, he was neither experienced enough to be able to perform a job like this to its intended end, and considering the boy's nature, may end up being sidetracked...

"Very well. I'll send one of my agents to you within the week. I expect this issue to be solved within the month after that." For now, he will agree and make his decision when it came down to it later.

"Of course," Tyler nodded hastily.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Hogwarts

When Shirou got his missive, it was a call to mission.

Shirou was surprised. He didn't expect his father to send him out in the middle of the school year.

And then he thought about it, and realized that to his father, school year was not even an obstacle as far as he was concerned.

With a determined nod, he went to the headmaster to give himself a month-long leave -as stated in the missive.

The headmaster did not take it well.

Oh, he allowed Shirou to take his leave of absence, but at the same time, he loaded it with a hour long lecture about dissociating needless political maneuvering from school life -at least until summer- and even then, he went on to speak passionately about how mercenary life was not the way to go for a "genius student" like he was.

Shirou didn't get offended by that. Instead, he just thanked the headmaster for his compliment -which he did like- and made his way out of the castle.

His father was there to meet him.

Shirou hoped this wouldn't become a schedule.

"Dad," he greeted.

"Shirou," he greeted simply in return. "We have work to do. Do you have the swords I have requested?"

Shirou nodded. "You wanted Xanja, right? Disorder-Disrepair-Decay."

He nodded. "We'll be facing vampires, and I wanted to ensure I had something besides the normal methods to guarantee the success of this operation."

"What will I be doing?"

By this point in our conversation, we had left Hogwarts by the front gate and were walking across the bridge.

"You will be providing support and ensuring that no one will escape. I suggest you equip swords best suited for speed, tracking, or hunting."

He thought about it. His armory back home had a few weapons that met all three. Dunja, a 3 meter spear, was imbued with concept chain Speed-Seek, which were concepts very good for hunting. There was also Motogado, a double bladed glaive imbued with concept chain Sudden-Attack-Evasion; it helped its wielder against ambushes and following battles with minor improvements in all things combative.

Yes, he probably needed more than a few weapons for this.

"Who else is coming?" he asked.

Kiritsugu sighed. "Assassin."

Shirou sighed too. "He's going to be reading his book through the whole mission, isn't he?"

"Probably."