1. to go to the Archery Dojo and train. It’s your best skill, after all.
Day 10
Zouken's Feel
Near Side
Ryougi
04:10
The neon green numbers on your bedside clock glare at you oppressively.

You sit on your bed, wrapping the blankets around you tightly as you stare into nothingness in the darkness of the room. You have a feeling that you won’t be able to do anything.
—or more precisely, anything you do will be useless. You confronted Heroic Spirit MATOU in the forest, and he showed you exactly how big the difference in power is. For every move you make, he can make ten. Forget confronting him, you cannot even avoid him now that he’s on the hunt. Only Gil can stop him, but you know that he won’t be here to help you. He has gone somewhere, doing something that is probably more important than the Holy Grail War.
You punch the bed in despair.

The seconds tick by.
Not even half a minute has gone by. You rub your sore eyes and step out of bed, walking into the bathroom.
Seeing your pathetic figure in the mirror, you punch it with all your might.

It cracks, just as your fingers crack. Yelping in pain, you quickly massage your abused fingers. You probably can’t use your left hand much for the rest of the day or so, but the pain has woken you up. You stumble back into your room and change out of your dirty clothes.
Out of habit, you slip into your school uniform, but as you zip up your pants, you stop mid-motion and question yourself. Why are you even preparing for school? There’s nothing for you to do there, and the only club you have, the Arc—
“—that’s right…!”
And a moment of inspiration hits you. You hadn’t thought about this before because it seemed so mundane, but...
“The archery range! I’m the best at archery, so I should be practicing my archery skills!”
The next few hours fly by like a breeze as you concentrate on preparing on school for the first time in what seems like ages. You cook a hearty breakfast of eggs and toast, and practice a few moves with your dagger. And soon enough, you are all prepared for school.
You take your bag and walk out of your house.

The crossroads seem to be rather deserted, you note absentmindedly. You blink and shake your head, deciding that you are probably too early to see the mass of students hurrying towards school. You continue on, mulling over your archery skills silently.

…
No one is here.
You look around you. The only things you can see are birds perched on trees and the odd mosquito flying around. The school feels abandoned.

You step in. Still no one.
You’re starting to feel a bit uneasy.
—and then.

A sudden wave of death crashes into you.
”He’s here.”
You run.

You end up at the archery range, panting as you blast into the area, still feeling the suffocating killing intent.
It is only growing stronger. It tears at you, breaking down your mental defences, making you feel fear you haven’t felt since—
“…Matou Shinji…?”
The killing intent vanishes, as if it were never there in the first place.
And in place of that is—

The Archery Club’s captain, Mitsuzuri Ayako, who had walked into the range right behind you, looking relieved for some reason.
“…Mitsuzuri…?”
Of all the people you thought you would bump into, you didn’t think it would be her. Archer had made it seem like you raped her, so you had thought that you would be attacked by her when she sees you.
But for some reason, she isn’t angry, instead looking relieved and…curious…?

“Well, I can finally ask what that was all about,” she says as she walks over to you.
“W-W-what…? I didn’t do anything to you, alright?” you wave your hands as you vehemently try to deny everything.
But she only tilts her head and asks, “Oh, the rape thing? Yeah, I wanted to ask you about it.”
…what.
You have no idea what is going on, so you grind your teeth and say, “That wasn’t me.”
“Of course it wasn’t you.”



…so she knew about Archer…? Your head is spinning. What did she mean by ‘of course it wasn’t you’? Archer had seen to it that the girls thought they were raped by you. How would she—
“And besides, I didn’t get raped, you know,” she continues. “But that weird guy jumped me in an alley and told me ‘Matou Shinji raped you. You will report this to the police’, and then jumped on—”
“—a weird guy…?”
“Yeah, a weird guy. Dressed in a purple hakama and carried some takeaway in his hand. It smelled like mapo tofu, maybe...? I don't remember too much about him, only that he jumped onto a roof and ran away after that.”
“…you remember being hypnotised?”

“…ah, so that’s what you were trying to do, Matou?” she laughs as she responds. “Nice try, but I didn’t fall for it!”
You are speechless. Normal humans would be easily under Archer’s hypnosis spell, especially if his claim that his Formalcraft was refined over years of training was true. Then how…

“Anyway, Matou. You haven’t been attending your classes, and you’ve been skipping out on our training sessions. Care to explain why?” Mitsuzuri breaks into your thoughts with a mundane question.
You reply bluntly, “I have better things to do.”
She huffs and turns to walk away. “And I have better things to do than talk to you now that I’ve cleared that up. See you.”
And as she leaves—

—that feeling of death returns.
“—hey, that’s unfair,” you mutter in anger. “Are you saying you won’t attack me if there’s an innocent person around?”
You run up to Mitsuzuri, and the feeling vanishes again.
“…hey,” you say, trying to think of something to talk about.
She turns around and smirks.

“Oh, you haven’t left yet, Matou-kun? Alright then, practice archery with me for the rest of the morning. You need to make up for not attending our training sessions,” she says, reaching for a bow and handing it to you.
“Why am I stuck with her? Why is my survival hinging on her?!”
“This is one sick joke,” you mutter under your breath as you notch an arrow.
“Huh? Did you say something?” Mitsuzuri asks from behind you. “I think I heard you say ‘Please let me train more, Captain’.”
You release your arrow, and in your anger you forget to control it and it flies far away from the target.
Slow, sarcastic clapping from behind you.
“As expected from the vice-captain~”
You groan. The longest day of your life begins.
~~~
As noontime approaches, Mitsuzuri starts packing up. As she opens the door to leave, you sigh in relief. At least your survived the day, though—

And you knew, deep inside you, fate was never this kind.
You run after her at breakneck speed, catching up to her as she reaches the school gates.

“You know, if you want to accompany me for lunch, you just have to ask,” she folds her arms and says something outrageous.
“W-W-What?! No! I…!”
“I’ve heard rumours that Sakura’s been on leave because of some sickness, so I guess you’re bored right now,” she says.
You know you have to say something that can attract her attention. You take a deep breath and—
“—please go on a date with me, Mitsuzuri!”

“…”
“…”
“…I’m serious!” you yell while sweat drips from your stylish hair. Your whole life depends on her answer…!
“…wow, you really are something, Matou,” she says and turns around. “Alright then, since I can’t find Emiya, you can accompany me for one day.”
…!
She begins to walk away. “Hurry up, Matou! I’m heading over to shopping district!”
You hesitate.

“…! Fucking Archer, you’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
No reply. You run after someone you hate with a passion, hoping she can keep you alive.
~~~


“Seaweed? Wow, you really are Wakame-kun!”

“…!”

“You really are persistent, following me like this. You remind me of a pet dog.”


“…”


“You want to watch Fate/Zero? I didn’t know you like watching horror movies~”
“…horror…?”
“Yeah, Fate/Zero is a horror movie. What, you still want to follow me?”

“…yes! I’ll do it…!”

~~~

—and finally, the day of torture ends.
“Well, I have to go home now, Matou,” Mitsuzuri says, walking away into the crowd of people. “It was fun today!”
…!
If she leaves, and the crowd disperses, you will be a target again for Archer. What can you do?
You decide that it is time for drastic measures. If you injure her, Archer will be forced to materialise and help her as the hero that he thinks he is. But you can’t kill her, or he’ll be even angrier. So...
You run up to her, and brandish your black dagger. You’re unsure where to stab her so that she is injured but not fatally injured, but then again you don’t have time if you don’t want to be seen with a dagger. But you—

—she turns around, as if she had felt you approach her—

And your aim is off, the dagger sinking into her stomach.
“…shit.”
Mitsuzuri collapses in a pool of blood. Someone screams.
You run away, still clenching your bloody dagger. Out of the corner of your eye, you see a purple figure approach Mitsuzuri.

You run and you run, your feet pounding the ground faster and faster as you realise you have truly angered Archer.
“…and Emiya. Emiya will be very angry. And this isn’t some helpless Emiya I knew. This Emiya felt dangerous.”
You have dug yourself a bigger, deeper grave with this act.
But you put that away for the moment and focus on running. There is only one place you can run to.

The Kotomine Church. It is the last resort for Masters, and it is your only chance for salvation now.

You push open the doors and rush in, breathing heavily.
“Kotomine!” you scream shrilly. “Kotomine! Help! Kotomine!”
You turn around and close the great oaken doors. As you turn back—

Kotomine Kirei stands right in front of you.
You leap back, flattening yourself against the doors.
“—y-y-y-you…!”
“Good evening, Matou Shinji. Are you well?”
“…you!”
“I assume you’re not. What is it you need from this humble church?” he asks gravely, though his eyes betray his amusement.
“…I want shelter. Someone’s out to attack me.” And then, for good measure, you add, “Your Servant’s attacking me. You’re such an incompetent Master that you can’t even control him.”

The is a short silence while the priest stares at your pale face. Then...

“—I understand, Matou Shinji. I will take responsibility for this. Come, you may sleep safely here for one night.”
He walks down the pews, motioning you to follow him.
“Come, lost lamb. This priest shall guide you to salvation.”

He guides you to a small room.
“Here, rest for the night,” he says as he closes the door. “Sleep well, Matou Shinji.”
You walk over to the bed and fall onto it. It has been a stressful day for you.
“What did I do to deserve this…” you mutter as you drift off into a peaceful, dreamless sleep. “I did nothing wrong…”
Day 11. Kotomine boots you out of the Church, and you estimate you've got ten minutes before Archer comes after you like the rabid dog that he is. You’re Matou Shinji, genius and magus extraordinaire though, and you cannot admit defeat so easily. You decide to—
1. Fight at the Church. There’s no time to do anything else.
2. Run. You don’t know where, but anything will do to buy time—!
I think I promised someone best Fate waifu will show up at some point, and well...it hurt more than I thought it would, doing that to her >_< |