Scene #1980: Emiya Quest

Owner	Pose
Emiya Shirou	It's not been a pleasant month for Emiya Shirou. Well, it's not really been that pleasant period since unification. Interspersed with great things like learning he had two sisters and actually wasn't THAT bad of a magus - in a sense - and making many impossible friends... was learning things that his spirit plain rejected. Tohsaka Rin and maaaaaybe Sakura were involved in the dangerous world of magic? His adoptive father was a cold-blooded assassin? Hundreds of lands are in the midst of brutal war and terrible curses? A noble knight might need to sacrifice himself for the sake of all humans in Lordran's neighboring lands? And amongst this, Shirou faces terrible worries about his home life. What are Fuji-nee and Sakura doing in his absence? Will he have a home to return to, being missing this long? Can he return to that life anyways? What will he say if everyone finds out he's a squire of a legendary knight? His thoughts only aren't jumbled because he's squeezed most of these into a tight little corner of his mind where he doesn't have to think about it, only focusing on what's in front of him. A rugged, unpaved road between two warp gates on the Asian plains. He's found at least five Fuyukis, but none of them were his. Maybe the next will be the right one! Dressed in his usual jacket, shirt, jeans, and shoes, he's a fairly ordinary traveler with both hands in his pockets and his jacket's hood up up. About ten minutes to the next warp ate! The surroundings are lightly forested grasslands... this is about as 'middle of nowhere' as it gets in the Asian Plains, really.
Chloe von Einzbern	It is a nice journey to think of such things. Even out in the middle of nowhere, sometimes the solitude of going from one place to the next can lend to a good time to put effort into thoughts of one's life and the world surrounding. While the red haired youth is caught in his musings; lost in thought of life, the multiverse, and all things familial and philosophical it is... A fairly good day for travel. Sunny with a chance of swords. Wait that doesn't sound particularly right... Still, a sudden TWANG-snap in the distinct crack of a bowstring letting loose says Shirou isn't alone in the grassy forest, streaks of gleaming silver hailing down in a sudden lightning assault. A jagged black blade embeds in a nearby tree. A gleaming golden sword comes flying from a new angle a split second later, whizzing by an ear. A slender and elegant rapier might nick his jacket. Before a sword shaped more like a spiralling corkscrew embeds in the ground at Shirou's feet. The speed of the launched projectiles and each one getting dangerously closer than the last says the shooter is skilled, rapidly changing position between shots, but... Toying with him.
Emiya Shirou	WHOOOSH WHOOOOSH CLANG WHOOOOOSH! Swords, swords from the heavens! The only warning Shirou gets is glints of light from the sunny sky that get him looking upward. He manages to put a little power through his eyes to reinforce them and - oh. Oh dear. "SWORDS FROM THE SKY?! WHAT THE--" The jacket gets diced up, he swerves about left and right to avoid what he considers a near impalement and gets grazed over an arm... "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?! ...Trace... ON!" Prana rushes through his circuits, what few of them he usually uses. It flows from his hands in great wasteful arcs of emerald lightning and forms into the familiar forms of Kanshou and Bakuya. "This is ridiculous!" Yelling and complaining, Shirou starts hopping backwards. The swords that get too close he batters away with his yin yang swords. A rapier here, a longsword there! CLANG CLANG WHOOOSH! But he's still grazed and nicked by the few he can't catch in time. In the end he's driven back and down to his knees, gasping for a split-second, then executes a backflip back ten feet. He's way better at this fighting thing than when he entered the Multiverse, but sheesh, that was clumsy looking... "Who'd be attacking me with swords?!" Cue him glanccing everywhere at the nearby trees... and looking for an escape route.
Chloe von Einzbern	That IS a good question. Who would attack by launching so many different swords with such speed and precision as to miss on purpose like that? From an elevated and distant position, no less. The answer comes in the form of a flicker of motion. A sudden flitting of something moving unnaturally fast in the trees above, before it's just gone. And then re-appears in a flash of red beside Shirou. No warning, no transition of movement. Just a quick glimpse of silver-pink, and then then it twirls, twin streaks of black and blue swinging at a breakneck speed as Elucidator and Dark Repulser WHOOSH in identical, parallel arcs that would cleave a man in half. Shirou had best hope his reflexes are up to snuff as Chloe von Einzbern flashes a sly, killer, grin. "Gee, I don't know. Who COULD it be, big brother~?"
Emiya Shirou	Yeah the answer is obvious. If one has Chloe on the enemy list to hunt through. Shirou's barely tracking the motion through the trees even with his sharpened eyesight. This leaves him caught almost flatfooted when there's movement behind him. What tips him off though is the sudden surge of violent intent rushing through his head like a pain burst of molten lava. THUMP. "Ghhhkk--" There's a shower of sparks as Shirou crosses his arms mid-whirl. But the result is... The Black Swordsman's weapons were stopped but a bit late. They dug into SHirou's arms, nicking skin and drawing blood - stopped at the last moment by Kanshou and Bakuya with Shirou's crossed arms holding them with all the strength he's got! Lips spread in a pained grimace, his whole body is shaking when he croaks out a question. "Ch-Chloe?! ...What's gotten... into you...?!"
Chloe von Einzbern	Poor Shirou never saw it coming until it made itself blatantly obvious. Well, MORE blatantly obvious, than swords raining from the sky anyway. At first, the dusky-skinned girl's reply is wordless. Several quick, unrelenting, almost wild swings of the immensely heavy one-handed blades, after Shirou's split second defense, a brutal punishing intent to shatter the swords in his hands and get through to HIM. "I thought I'd do you a little favor, big brother." It's a simple enough explanation as she flicks her hair, one blade severing two strands neatly. In an instant they twirl and twist in the air, knotting and straightening and binding and weaving amid each other as though used for a game of cat's cradle, they form a pair of glowing silver-pink birds, which already start pelting bolts of magic for the youth in a VERY distracting fashion as she closes in with those punishing swords. "People are more easily recognized as heroes after they die, right~?"
Emiya Shirou	Kanshou and Bakuya fizzle and lose 'resolution,' a weird flicker that Chloe will easily identify as Shirou losing focus on the weapons' images. But somehow Shirou holds them together for a good half-dozen blows exchanged while he's struggling to get proper footing. Both knees are buckling under the assault. Despite being much taller and seemingly fitter, Chloe's blows are like hammer strikes compared to his! But he just barely manages to get some footing and purchase by the time that his twin blades shatter and dissipate in his hands. THAT saves him from a terrible fate. Elucidator goes whooshing past, dicing open his clothing and a tiny bit of skin above his belly button the instant he kicks backwards. this has two effects - one, it propels Shirou backwards wildly! two, it turns the road dust into a momentary smokescreen. Not that familiars or likely Chloe care about this. Shirou hits the ground on a shoulder and goes tumbling backwards several odd somersaults. then... in come the blasts! He stumbles and dashes in-between them, running with all he's got... But then Chloe's upon him again. With wide-eyes Shirou slams on the brakes and brings forth his projection powers again! He spins around in place and meets her blows with a fresh pair of the married swords... but whether it's those words or the blades slamming together, Shirou winces and staggers, faltering. It's no wonder. His head just practically split open at that statement. "What... are you getting... at?" He croaks out hoarsely. "I don't care about recognition... what are you doing?!"
Chloe von Einzbern	"Hmmmmm? Distracted, big brother?" It's a chiming tease when the twin blades flicker and nearly lose coherence. But that doesn't make Chloe think about halting this vicious assault. For every nick, or shred she takes out of Shirou's clothes-- or out of him, she only pushes her attack more viciously, lips still tugged into that sly little grin as the youth tumbles and dodges amid the fire of the familiars. With the newly traced copies of Kanshou and Bakuya in hand, Chloe darts in, but she's already put a fair amount of strain on the swords that cut through Aincrad. Dark Repulser cracks. Elucidator chips. Both shatter at the same time but then a flicker of red light and now SHE's holding Kanshou and Bakuya of her own. A side-arm hucking pitch launches both swords, their married nature immediately drawing the pair together as they arc through the air on a course for Shirou, and she traces ANOTHER pair, intent to charge at him and strike with simultaneous slashes forming an X as the first two draw in. "Isn't it obvious?" She answers fairly easily. "You're going to have to kill me, big brother. Because if you don't, I'm going to kill you. But I guess if you survive I can leave you with a little hint..."
Emiya Shirou	"Kill?!" THUMP-UMP. Kill someone else or die himself? The choice is pretty simple there. Why should he kill his sister instead of dying? But wait WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?! A thousand thoughts flicker behind Shirou's eyes and emerge as a series of confounded grunts. The air's filled with sparks from the clashing blades before, but now... now he's staring at Chloe using a far more refined version of a technique he'd just barely figured out a week ago. "--that move--?!" It's lethal. he'll die if he does nothing. Die painfully. Messily! Chloe is serious! Just as he makes that realization... she's right in his face. Crap, no time to dodge, only-- "HUUAP!" COUNTER! He counters with the same technique, crashing his weapons into Chloe's. This stops her advance - somewhat... Shirou's pushed back across the dirt road by the sheer impact and his weapons crack further and further under the strain. But what gets him is... The other pair, coming in like boomerangs to his rear! CLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG!! He's hit. Hard. They pierced him through the back between ribs, narrowly missing his spine. They cut deep... or so it seems. But... wait...? 'Clang?' Well, they hit hard enough to stagger Shirou and get him spitting out blood, but he isn't DOWN from it. Clang. Those weapons HIT something metal and it sure as heck wasn't armor. The sound of metal creaking against metal echoes from the redhead's body as he tries to rise. "I don't know what's gotten into you... but... I'll just knock some sense back into you! Come to your senses!" He'll have to do it. He'll have to fight and figure out what weird sorcery has influenced Chloe. Is this the work of a Servant, maybe?!
Chloe von Einzbern	The resultant clash rings through the woodlands, the swords in Chloe's hands shattering on violent contact with the swords in Shirou's. But the victorious little smirk on her face says she hasn't forgotten about the flung pair. But Shirou can only defend himself from one direction... Right? When Kanshou and Bakuya are stopped by the resultant wall of metal WITHIN Shirou's body, they snap, but Chloe doesn't give her brother the chance to recover. Red mana flashes, gridlines forming, a pair of absolutely MASSIVE greatswords coming to hand as she slings the temple sword of Heracles over her right shoulder, and the equally bulky stone form of The Fake Rock upon her left. "Hoh... Still alive... Well don't worry I'll fix that if you don't man up and stop me." One CHOPS down, Chloe using the weight of the gigantic stone 'blade' as a bludgeoning implement, before the other swings after it to press her force. Though instead of hassling with the weight to lift the pair back up, she leaves them right where they are, embedded in the ground. "What kind of hero are you if you can't even defend yourself from a little girl? Isn't your body made of swords? How many blades have you forged? Are you going to just back down and die, big brother?" She demands, another flickering image of silver, gold, and blue, appearing in her hand as she lashes in, flickering a teleport to bring the brilliantly gleaming blade of Excalibur at Shirou from a blind spot. She is more serious than Shirou may know.
Emiya Shirou	"UWAOAH!!!" HUGE WEAPONS! Thankfully huge should mean slightly slow, right? NOPE!, it doesn't. But Shirou does have an answer at least. Gulping and forcing his burdened mind to concentrate beyond its means, he pulls out safety after safety and accelerates processes with everything he's got -- "GYAGH!" The Temple sword of Heracles appears again, this time in Shirou's ownership, a pillar that catches the blows just well enough to give Shirou a chance to backpedal. But that too is a mistake! Yet Shirou's not done. Something weird happens as Excalibur closes in! More prana surges out through his skin in every direction, forming a filmy white barrier... translucent, but with a texture like a castle wall. White, and shaped vaguely like plate armor. It's only part-formed when Excalibur strikes, but it absorbs much of the impact. The Sword of Promised Victory slams into it hard, breaks through... and clips flesh a few inches deep as Shirou throws himself sideways. He hits the ground hard, but manages to roll and recover in a wobbly sort of fashion. There's another flash of emerald light under him as he's doubled over, gasping and panting. "What kind of hero... hurts his little sister?!" Tears fly from Shirou's angry eyes the moment he raises his head. In the next instant... "KUSANAGI!!" The weapon he projected is revealed! The blade of Japanese myth, a holy sword of considerable strength. Thick, high-pressure gales fly from the blade with typhoon force, picking up a huge screen of dirt from the road and ripping out huge clumps of grass from the sides. Aimed right at Chloe! Well, it's not DEADLY to someone like her, but at least he's fighting back!
Chloe von Einzbern	By now this insane fight is tearing the landscape apart. Giant swords ripping the earth, trees cleaved asunder. Excalibur connecting with Montauban rings like a clarion bell, like a sword of legend assaulting the gates of a mythic fortress, the sound is heard ringing and distant for miles as, even though piercing the defense, the divine sword is left with a crack running dangerously through its length. "One who does what he has to." Comes her reply, when Shirou finally does retaliate. Because when Kusanagi is traced, and the gale-force winds are cast against her, even Chloe is forced to yield her ground. Rather than press her assault, she is forced into a momentary defense, her off-hand rising, causing a blooming spread of light in the form of seven pink petals. An unstoppable shield of seven layers, Rho Aias; capable of defense against almost any projectile. Kusanagi slams it with the force of a typhoon, stripping it away, layer after layer until but one remains. "SO DO IT, before I take that dream away from you, big brother!" She snarls, Excalibur brought to bear once more in one final all out attack. She's used up so much prana doing this. But still has enough for the holy blade to start glowing with a golden sun-like light. "EEEEEEX--..."
Emiya Shirou	Each time Shirou and Chloe's Projections clash, it's as though liquid fire flows through Shirou's veins, through his head, through his soul. Flickers of images and feelings. Like a smith's hammer, pounding heated metal into shape... his head aches with every exchange. So does his heart. And his soul. Memories are entering him, just as they did when he first projected Kanshou and Bakuya. Echoes of a face, echoes of a chant... Visions of a man high atop a hill, body pincushioned with rusty legendary weapons. Nearly delirious. And horrible thoughts and feelings that his soul doesn't want to pay any attention to. Gasping and panting, he nearly topples... but the purest of golden light gains his attention, draws his thouhts back to reality. "Don't use it, Chloe! You'll vanish!!" The fact that she even can TRY to use it is astounding. He has to stop her. "Why do you care so much about my dream?! Sheesh, you're being such a crazy sister today!" Complaining complaining... nevertheless, he has only one shot at this. If he's to ensure Chloe doesn't kill herself! Over a dozen unused circuits flare to life, sizzling with most of his reserve prana. A familiar black longbow, upsized to Shirou's height, appears in his hands... along with the Reborn Sword of Victory, Excalibur Galatine! Wasting no time at all, he mounts the blade and alters it to the extent that he can - mostly, slimming its profile to be more arrowlike. The tip blazes with furious flame, shining white... FWOOOOOOSH, it's released! Far less flashy than what Chloe's up to, but he doesn't need to contend with her directly. He just needs to break what he's sure is probably a shoddy projection. or knock the sword out of Chloe's hands. At the very least, knock Chloe's aim off and force her to cancel! Yes. Galatine flies for Excalibur, not Chloe! But even as it's unleashed Shirou hunches down and begins a charge, Kanshou and Bakuya appearing in his hands. He staggers and stumbles through the charge, lungs, heart, and soul protesting, but he's determined to pin her and knock some sense into her. Hopefully that doesn't mean running straight into a huge sword laser.
Chloe von Einzbern	"CAAAAAA-" She means it. Clearly intent on using that last of her mana reserves just for the one all out final blow that will no doubt atomize the surroundings, even if it means her own destruction, Chloe grits her teeth, hoisting the Sword of Promised Victory over her head, hands tightly gripping to the hilt. How noble. Even when faced with his own imminent atomization, shirou still doesn't think once about himself, but about his little sister- while she's trying to kill him. But for all the resonace she's forcing upon her brother he still pulls through. "-CALIBU--" Galatine strikes true, impacting the already cracked Noble Phantasm with a riotous clash, the sudden snap and CRACK of the projection wearing out and simply shattering in her hand, The Sword of Promised Victory is broken in half at the middle with a neat cut across the blade and her swing expends nothing but a surprised gust of air. And Chloe is left panting and breathless. Why does she care? "... I care... Because you're my big brother. I wanted... To see if you could..." It's not a direct answer, not specifying what exactly she had wanted to see, as she collapses to her knees, and then lands face down in the grass in a heaped pile.
Emiya Shirou	CRACK! Success. The moment excalibur crumbles, Shirou topples forwards into a heap, releasing Kanshou and Bakuya. He's down, but only for about seven seconds of gasping and panting. His body's barely holding together - he's been beaten up far worse than this pile of slash wounds, none of whih hit vitals... SOMEHOW... But the pain in his head is unbearable. "Hh-hhaaaghhh---" Agony, indeed, is written all over his face. He gets to his knees though, fighting against gravity and pain in a hurry until he stumbles over next to Chloe and again collapses by her. His breathing's still labored to the extremes, as if he were dying, but he's mostly stopped bleeding. Mostly. Avalon is wondrous like that. "YOu've got to be kidding... all this to..." He can't even finish that. But he doesn't have to, probably. It's bad enough that his brain's on fire, throbbing red-hot with every heartbeat. "Aaargh--" Another sharp pulse of it... Visions of a miserable life. Being abandoned by a lover and friends. Visions of useless killing and endless salvation. Dictators slain and sufferers saved only to suffer again. Visions of hell on Earth and blood, oh so much blood. It all overlaps with a burning, choking fire under a blak sun-- Shirou falls forward to the ground, pained groans replacing labored breaths.
Chloe von Einzbern	And in the aftermath, when Shirou falls, and experiences the soul-ravaging resonance, a small, soft, hand rests warmly on his cheek. Barely conscious, Chloe reaches over and crawls herself closer. "You passed." Whispered as she closes her eyes, pressing he lips to his forehead lightly. Of course the grin and subsequent giggle says she's probably leeching away his own prana afterwards to survive after that. Oops.