Chapter 4 Part 3, Raid on Aylesbury

"Shirou…"

"Yes?"

"You will need to learn to locate yourself in places like this, and I need to speak to some associate, so we will meet here when our part of the operation begins, do you understand?"

The redhead nodded.

"Don't get in trouble, this place is like a powder keg and it only takes one spark to set it off."

"I understand."

Shirou wandered around the place for a few minutes, not far from the central area. He was not well received by the Executors of the Church or the Association, however, when he went near the Association side...

"Ouch…" the redhead groaned, not realizing that he had collided with someone. "Excuse me," he said quickly, not wanting to create any problems.

"It doesn't matter. I wasn't very aware of where I was going either..."

Shirou raised his gaze toward the person he had bumped into, she was a woman taller than him, and she must have been around 21 years old. The woman wore a black two-piece suit with a purple-red tie. Also, she has short magenta hair and a mole just below her left eye.

"Aren't you too young to be here, boy?" she asked while narrowing her eyes.

"I'm only here with my father," replied the redhead.

This attracted the woman's attention, "Your father... who?"

Shirou didn't know whether to reveal this information, as it was very likely that many of those present had grudges against his father, "Excuse me, that's private..."

"I see… Then be careful, this place can be as dangerous as Aylesbury," with that, the woman walked away.

Seeing that the time was approaching, Shirou returned to the place where he had met Kairi and where his father was waiting for him.

"Ready?" Kiritsugu asked.

To which Shirou nodded.

The duo walked towards one of the Ainsworth magi, the family leader, Zachary Ainsworth, a grown man with long blue-black hair.

He directed them to go where his daughter was, as he was going to send a large group of magi, and he wasn't capable enough to send more at the same time.

Depending on what you wanted to replace and exchange, the amount of mana would vary, and at this time, the Ainsworths were substituting space itself, which would cause degradation in the textures of reality and was extremely dangerous. The space substitution was a high-level substitution, and it was also being done largely to send various magi at the same time, which normally shouldn't be possible for them, however, Aylesbury had been chosen by the bloodsuckers to be able to perform the ritual since it was a good mystical land, or, in other words, this was crossed by a thaumaturgical line on which the camp was also and which the Ainsworth were taking advantage of through various rituals to enhance their magecraft.

They headed towards the young woman and, for a moment, both, Shirou and Ainsworth's eldest daughter, stared at each other.

She is a young woman slightly older than him. It could tell that she was tall and beautiful, with long golden hair tied in long pigtails and blue eyes. She wore a ruffled white dress shirt, a long black skirt with white boots, a small brown leather belt at the waist, and a pair of low-back knife sheaths.

Physically, she looked a bit like Rin, except for a few slight... no, rather, except for a few big differences. On top of that, both Rin's hair and eyes were darker, while the young woman's hair was lighter.

She stared at him, wondering to herself: What was a boy his age doing going to a battlefield? And Shirou stared at her for, well, hormones...

"They are ready?" she asked gently.

They both nodded and the girl stretched out her arm, and, from the tips of her fingers, a diamond-shaped portal opened. They went right through it, and from one moment to the next, the whole scene changed.

Suddenly, they were in the middle of a street. Shirou analyzed the surroundings and realized the state of the city: it was a fusion of two styles. There were old buildings more than eight decades old, some of them destroyed, probably as a result of the fighting thirty years ago. Aylesbury had no financial value, so it only began to flourish when the dead apostles began to invest money, and since the ritual was stopped, no one had made any major investments in the town, at least, not until five years ago, as a result of this, there were also new buildings to contrast, although few and some unfinished.

But there was something that gave him a bad feeling. Aylesbury was a farm for the dead apostles, and although its population was not even close to being very large, it was still considerable, and even so, the street was empty.

"Old man…?" Shirou asked worriedly.

"Stay alert, Shirou. They will come any minute. We have to get off the main streets; it is better if we fight in narrower places," said the magus killer as he pulled out a CalicoM950, a submachine gun, from his briefcase and placed a knife holder on his belt with a knife similar to those used by the soldiers of the army.

Shirou nodded knowing that all the villagers would probably be his enemies, and it would be bad if they were overwhelmed by a mob of these dead apostles.

Sooner than later, dead apostles started showing up, no, more specifically, Ghouls and Deads started showing up everywhere. It was getting dark, so the sunlight should have hurt them, but they still charged at the duo without a second thought. They weren't an absurd amount, so instead of running away, Kiritsugu aimed his submachine gun at the ghouls and began firing. These possessed great reflexes and superhuman strength, which allowed them to dodge a good part of the Calico's bullets, however, even with their speed and reflexes, they could not avoid all of them. The bullets pierced their heads, torsos, and other limbs.

However, the number of ghouls progressively increased and they began to use each other as meat shields. In this way, they got closer and closer, but when one of them got close enough to the duo...

SLASH!

The bloodsucker's head was severed from its neck and sent flying through the air. With the long length of his Monohoshi Zao, Shirou slashed anyone who got close enough to enter his range. Thanks to this combination, Shirou and Kiritsugu held their position for several minutes...

"Kiddo, back!"

Hearing his ancestor's warning, Shirou drew his second sword just in time to stop a blow from one of the ghouls that had managed to sneak into his field of vision, and just after Muramasa stopped the bloodsucker's attack, the redhead used the Monohoshi Zao to stab it and split its body in half.

"Shirou, the alleys!" Kiritsugu said as he saw how, little by little, the undead began to overcome them.

The boy nodded as he began to back away, with his father following close behind, towards one of the village alleys. When they were close enough, the two gave up all attempts to hold their ground and started running towards it. As they ran, Shirou slashed at anything that moved towards him intending to hurt him, and in turn, Kiritsugu shot backward, making the bloodsuckers unable to capture them. Thus, both continued running for several minutes until they managed to lose their pursuers.

As they left the alleys, they both came to a small street.

"It's weird, why did they stop chasing us?" The redhead asked, confused.

The magus killer began to analyze where they were, and seeing no ghoul, he narrowed his eyes, "This is bad…"

"Why?"

"The dead apostles use their ghouls to harvest blood. If they are not prowling around, then that means..."

"That they have brought us our food, is that what you mean, isn't that so, sister?"

The father and son duo observed two people, two teenagers. They both had the appearance of being slightly older than Shirou, and they both possessed crimson eyes and platinum-colored hair and wore clothes in the purest Victorian style.

"You are..." Kiritsugu soon recognized them, "Shirou, watch out, these two are the sons of a candidate for a position in The Twenty-seven Dead Apostle Ancestors."

This seemed to anger the young man apostle, who rushed over to them while yelling, "My father is not a simple aspiring one of The Twenty-seven Dead Apostle Ancestors, he will become one of them!"

From a sheath on his belt, the young apostle drew a sword. It was a silver and white sword with blue details, a western bastard sword. And, with the superhuman speed of a dead apostle, he arrived in front of Kiritsugu in a matter of seconds and prepared to cut him in half.

"Time Alter, double accel…" Shirou said as he reinforced himself.

Clink!

The bastard sword slammed into the Monohoshi Zao and was deflected to the side.

PAMP!

The dead apostle blocked the bullets from the gun with inhuman speed and stepped back.

The young woman laughed seeing her brother being countered by the other duo, "How pathetic you are, do you want help?"

"Shut up! Just support me from afar," the other apostle replied.

"Good, but don't destroy the boy, I want to eat him as a reward," she said, licking her lips.

"Do what you want…"

Shirou used his Structural Grasp on the sword, and he was surprised to discover its identity: it was the so-called Vorpal sword. A sword capable of weakening various phantasmal species and creatures from the World of the Magecraft. For a moment, Shirou remembered that, within the ritual, several members of the factions of the dead apostles were going to participate, and he supposed that the apostle had the sword as a form of prevention against a possible conflict. Unfortunately for him, said sword did not affect magi.

Steel collided with steel in fierce combat. Shirou deflected every blow from his enemy, but his katanas were not made for this type of combat in which he had to compete by crashing using only brute force against other weapons. If he put too much pressure on his swords, they could be damaged.

Despite the dead apostle's agility, strength, and reflexes, Shirou was able to match him with every blow.

"Tsubame Gaeshi!"

The dead apostle was hacked to pieces, but his restoration curse would bring him back in a matter of minutes, and, while the bloodsucker recovered...

PUMP!

Shirou heard a shot, and he saw how the sister had drawn a gun and fired at him, "Time Alter, double accel," activating his magecraft once more, the redhead was able to narrowly dodge the enemy's attack.

PUMP!

Two shots flew toward the girl, and she dodged them with ease. Suddenly, bullets rained down like raindrops as they crossed the battlefield.

Shirou used his Structural Grasp on the weapon, and while he couldn't project things like modern firearms due to his specialization, that didn't mean he couldn't use his Structural Grasp on structures other than swords to understand them better. However, when he used his magecraft in the rifle, although he was able to understand it better than just by seeing it, he could say that he only understood the basics about it, this was an extremely complicated weapon at a structural level, and, a conceptual level, it was even worse, giving him huge headaches just trying to understand the basics, to the point where he finally gave up and just stuck to the basics.

"Kiritsugu, be careful! I think that rifle is a Conceptual Weapon known as a Black Barrel, and, from what I understood, it is an aether-disintegrating weapon, and it seems that it was modified by the dead apostles to react to the activation of Magic Circuits, so it should increase its damage if it hits you while your circuits are activated, and, by disintegrating the Aether, I guess elemental magecraft backfires against it, as it will go out of control when interacting with bullets."

"Hmm...? How did you find out that, brat?" The boy's discovery caught the apostle's interest.

Listening to his son Kiritsugu understood that a bullet from that rifle would be fatal, whether it hit him normally or hit him while using the Time Alter.

The male dead apostle recovered from the wounds caused by the famous swordsman's technique, and seeing that he needed more strength to overcome his enemy, he reinforced his body and launched himself at Shirou. Again, he began a rapid exchange of attacks.

PAMP! PAMP! PAMP!

A flurry of shots was directed towards the redhead, piercing even the male dead apostle. Shirou tried his best to dodge them, but there were too many bullets, and in the end, these reached him and threw him several meters behind, leaving him close to his father.

"You bastard! Could you warn me, you know!?" The boy complained.

"Oh, come on, you weren't going to die for that," the young woman shrugged, "Now go and take advantage of the fact that he is wounded"

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AN: This chapter is for the 30 powerstones goal, since we have 67 at the moment I will post 3 more along the next 12 hours or so. Remember there are 4 chapter for reviews left!