(Shirou's pov)

It was time to meet up again. I had no idea where the card was this time, so I was forced to follow Illya. Thankfully she isn't great at detecting others, but I was still careful. Ruby was more competent than she was letting on. She may act silly, but she is Zelretch invention, and she takes slightly after him.

Soon after meeting with the group, we teleported to the mirror world. I, of course, advised them to be especially careful, reminding them about the possible dangers. I feel like a babysitter at times.

(E/D: The Queen has his duties. Those who get it explain it to the others.)

I also noticed that Rin was in a good mood, probably because of tomorrow's lunch.

"Rin-san, did something good happened today? You seem in an unusually good mood today." Illya asked.

"Yeah, you even smile from time to time. It's creepy seeing you like this. Are you planning on killing someone?" Ruby added and Rin smashed the talking wand into the ground.

"I wasn't, but maybe I should. Any ideas, Ru...by...san?" Rin smiled, but that smile hid her killing intent. I can see similarities to Sakura now.

"I heard that if you electrify someone underwater, it doesn't leave any marks."

Surprisingly Ruby shared some of her ideas.

This exchange wasn't anything important, but Luvia was suspicious of Rin. Is it the famous "woman's intuition" that I've heard about?

We left this exchange for now and entered the Mirror world.

Inside we were met with... nothing. Complete silence surrounded us, and with the fight with Assassin, it's never a good sign.

"There's no sign of the enemy or the card... It's completely deserted." Luvia said what everyone was thinking.

Originally the mirror world was much larger, but every time the card was collected, it shrank. That's why it would be easier to search for the card.

That's what the girls thought, but Ruby disagreed and recommended blasting everything away to skip the boring part. It wouldn't be such a bad idea if we knew that the enemy was weak and where they were.

The enemy is not weak, and we don't know where the assassins are hiding. The presence concealment of Hassan is really strong. At least Rank A if I remember correctly, so even with my senses, I couldn't detect even one of them.

The Assassin card was unique in many ways. That's the second problem with fighting the Assassin. It materializes itself as many Hassans and not just one, so in short, this fight isn't against one heroic spirit but a group of them.

I looked around in hopes of at least catching a glimpse of the enemy. I even reinforced my eyes for that, which could be dangerous as a small mistake could end up with my eyes exploding. Thankfully I had experience with using this, and even in the worst-case scenario, I could regenerate them.

We all walked slowly through the park without finding anything. It's strange... very strange. I know that they have Assassin's instincts, but this is ridiculous. It's like they are waiting for something- !!!

I quickly turned to Illya, but before I could take a single step or before I could project a single weapon, Assassin's blade pierced Illya's skin.

Just like I thought, they were looking for a weak link in our group. While Rin and Luvia were more vulnerable than her and were probably the easier targets, Illya was more powerful but also more defenseless as she wasn't trained in fighting, and Assassin, as their class suggests, should be good at choosing targets.

I could also be completely wrong, and it might just be a coincidence, but I didn't have time to think about it.

I ran towards Illya to check on her, and the wound wasn't deep. The dagger barely scratched her, but it was enough for our enemy as the blades they were using were covered in some kind of poison.

At the same time, Miyu shot at the hidden assailant but missed him entirely, and Rin ran toward Illya to check on her as well.

"Illya! It's alright since the physical barrier worked. It's just a small puncture!" Rin tried to reassure, the clearly shaken Illya, but I knew better.

Seeing her in that state, I was starting to doubt if I had made the right decision. I didn't want to force any choices on Illya so she could grow independently. I would also give her advice if she asked. If she wanted to escape, then I would let her. If she wanted to stay and fight, I would support her as well, but maybe it was a mistake. Maybe I should protect her before anything terrible happened to her.

!!!!!!???!!!!!!

Suddenly a massive headache. Similar to the one when I observed Rin and Illya, but instead of seeing a silhouette of someone, it was like I was transported somewhere, or to be more precise, I was seeing through someone's else eyes, but everything was blurry. I couldn't make anything besides a silhouette once again. I couldn't move, I couldn't talk, I couldn't only witness whatever was happening.

'I' was standing in front of what I assume was a little girl. The only indication was her voice that, while distorted, I could recognize her gender.

"What are we going to do **i*-***n?" She asked, but it seemed it was just out of courtesy because after she asked, her head dropped slowly, and her voice became full of sadness. "It's my turn, isn't it? First was ***u**, then ***, so it means it will be me this time."

The person I was looking through didn't say anything, and neither did he feel anything. I don't know why or how, but I could tell what he was feeling at the moment, and the only emotion, if you could even call it, was 'necessity'.

Without saying anything, he raised his hand in which he held a knife and put it near the girl's neck. Before he made the decisive slash, the girl spoke up.

"You became just like him..."

And as she put her little hand on 'my' cheek, the hand that was holding the knife moved swiftly across the girl's throat, killing her in the process as blood splashed on 'my' face, but the person doing all that didn't even flinch and with that, the migraine returned, and so did my consciousness.

I quickly observed my surroundings to judge my situation. I don't know how long I was out and what happened during that time, and even how didn't I get killed.

Rin, Luvia, and Miyu started running, trying to break through the Assassin's formation, but they noticed too late that neither I nor Illya were following them. I because my mind was literally somewhere else, and Illya was poisoned, so she was paralyzed. At the same time, blades from many different directions flew at Illya and me.

I was about to grab Illya and try to protect her from many blades, even with my body if necessary, but as I turned to her, I saw a burst of mana spreading with Illya in the center. I instinctively knew that if I didn't protect myself, I would be done for.

The energy was quickly approaching me, and I didn't have time to deploy Rho Aias, so I projected a bunch of nameless swords that would be fast to make and used them as a shield, and at the same time, I was working on a big axe sword. I knew that the blades that I made in a hurry wouldn't hold off for long, although I chose more durable ones from the bottom barrel of available weapons.

The wall of swords didn't buy me much time, but it was enough to finish projecting Heracle's weapon. It took longer than usual to project it to perfect it as much as possible so it would withstand Illya's outburst. It was big enough to shield my entire body after all, but it was still a fake, so it wasn't as durable as the original, and under Illya's attack, it started cracking.

Seeing that it wouldn't last much longer, I bit my finger and drew defensive runes with my blood on the blade as I hid my body from the mana attack.

It didn't help much as the enormous blade started breaking out, so as a last resort, I summoned Kanshou and Bakuya to block as soon as my defense broke which I didn't need to wait for long. I used Byakuya and Kanshou once again for the speed of projecting them and for their magic resistance.

As soon as the famous twin blades materialized in my hands, the sword axe broke, but with an inhuman reflex, I managed to cross my arms to get Kanshou and Bakuya in front of me to protect my vitals which are mainly my head and parts of my body. The rest is negligible.

And so I got hit by the attack.

(3rd's pov)

Shirou's body was covered in magic circuits, indicating him using reinforcement to increase his durability even more.

The burst that Illya created was powerful enough to kill all surrounding Assassins, but that doesn't even start to describe the power of this attack. Assassin is one of the weaker Servants with low parameters and no magic resistance, at least not this specific one.

After the attack ended, the only thing left was a massive crater with Illya in the center, the Assassin card left after the defeat of the Assassin.

Shirou was barely standing in his Archer disguise with a partially broken mask that showed his mouth on full display while the rest was cracked and his whole body covered in burn marks and blood dripping from many parts of his body. His skin was dark in some parts, but it was difficult to tell if it was because of the burn marks or his overuse of reinforcement, but since he didn't use that much magecraft, it was probably the former.

Not far away, Rin and Luvia were protected by Miyu's barrier, but they weren't in the best shape either. All of them were injured, and parts of their clothes were torn. That wasn't because the barrier was weak. It was powerful enough to block Medea's spell, and she was using spells from the Age of Gods, and both Illya and Miyu could stop them using Kaleidosticks. While they could still feel the heat of the attacks, they escaped practically uninjured, expect some light burns here and there.

Illya was in distress seeing the destruction around her and was in disbelief that she was the cause of that.

"Did I... do this?"

"Illya..." Miyu called for her friend, worried for her even in her state.

Illya turned in the direction of the voice and saw what she had done. She saw Miyu, Rjn, and Luvia wounded to some degree.

"Miyu... Rin-San... Luvua-San..."

What caught her eyes the most was blood. As a regular elementary school student she wasn't accustomed to seeing so much blood.

'This is my fault...? That can't be...'

Then, the memories of the time when she fought against Saber surfaced. The way she included the Archer card, the way she fought, and... how she stabbed both Saber and Archer. Remembering the sensation of penetrating human flesh made her want to vomit. 'Killing' Servants was one thing, they were mindless beasts that wanted nothing more than to kill everything in their way, but she also almost killed Archer.

Illya suddenly turned around, looking for one more person that was missing from their group. She was scared. What if she killed him? She wouldn't be able to live with herself anymore, so she desperately searched for him, only to see a bloodied figure with two swords in front of his head. As soon as her eyes landed on them, they started to turn into dust.

Archer's sleeves were none existent and just like the rest of the group, his clothes were in tatters, but he was clearly in the worst shape.

"Feeling better? I heard that crying out helps you but I didn't know if that's the same with a big burst of energy."

Shirou tried to defuse the situation and calm Illya by joking, showing that whatever happened wasn't that serious. His wounds even started healing at a noticeable rate thanks to Avalon, but unfortunately, his clothes wouldn't recover until he 'unequipped' them and 'fed' them his od. He also was slowly approaching Illya.

Sadly it didn't work, and Illya panicked in her refusal of reality and escaped muttering something under her breath until she screamed, "NO MORE!!!" and teleported away.

Seeing this, Shirou scratched his head, trying to think about his next steps, but for now, he walked up to the girls. He wasn't adept at healing runes and to be frank it was a miracle that he learned as much as he did, including a few primordial runes, but at least he could do some first aid.

"How is everyone? Anyone needs immediate attention?" He asked.

"Thankfully, no. If not for Miyu's fast reaction, we would be goners." Rin answered as Shirou kneeled next to her to check on her leg.

"That's true. Miyu did an excellent job, but what a surprise it was for Illya to exude this amount of energy."

As Luvia talked, Shirou projected a cloth and started wrapping it around Rin's thigh, where she was bleeding.

"It will disappear soon, so I advise you to get a real bandage as soon as possible."

He then did the same to Livia and then Miyu.

"Thank you Archer-San." Miyu thanked with a bow, and Archer put his hand on her lowered head.

"No problem. I can't do anything about your injuries so that's the most I could do. Compared to Kaleidosticks I'm not much."

"Even then, we are grateful, but, shockingly, you are not versed in healing seeing your potent regeneration," Luvia noted as she witnessed his injuries healing for the second time.

Hearing that, Shirou shrugged his shoulders, not wanting to explain his healing any further.

It was a lackluster victory.

---

Illya was running through the city at high speed, trying to run away. The only thought in her mind was to get home. She was panicking and wanted to escape the situation that she found herself in.

She kept repeating, "I'm going home... I'm going home..." She was just a normal girl that was tricked into being a magical girl. She didn't know that she would need to risk her life.

She ran with all her might, breaking the ground with every step, but it wasn't enough. She wanted to get back home faster and faster.

In that state, she unconsciously teleported. It wasn't thanks to Kaleidosticks, and Ruby was surprised by that feat. Illya didn't think about it as the only thing on her mind was to get home, and thanks to that power that she used, it was just below her, but she was left without energy, so as soon as she landed and went through the entrance, she collapsed.

---

END

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