8 Chapter Eight

Vergil let out a slow breath and released his grip on his phantom sword, letting it dissolve back into demonic energy. For some reason, his heart was racing from something that had hardly qualified as a fight. More like an execution. "What a foolish young man," he muttered, mostly to himself. In over his head and drunk on newly acquired magical power. On a better day, he would have commiserated with Matou. Thinking of him that way made him wince and he felt his stomach roll in his gut. Right. Matou. He had just killed Sakura's brother. So much for not interfering too much with Shirou's life.

He raised a hand to his face and slowly rubbed his temples. He could feel memories that didn't belong to him banging against his thoughts, flashes of a younger Shirou and a younger Shinji together. Damn it, why was he stuck in a body that was sentimental?

"Hey, not bad work."

The voice's sudden intrusion gave him something to focus on and he shook his head to drive back the memories. "It wasn't much work," he deadpanned as she Servant trotted across the courtyard, her unbloodied blade over her shoulder. "But it was the most expedient way to solve the issue."

Saber gave him a flat look. "Don't tell me you're going to be one of those 'greater good' kind of guys. Because I don't want to have to deal with that annoying shit the whole time I'm here."

Vergil chuckled, though there was no humor in it. "Far from it," he replied. "I just don't think that qualified as much of a fight on my end. It seemed like you had the greater part of the action tonight."

"Yeah, that was a pretty good one. A little short for my tastes, but that Rider knew how to fight. Don't know if I'll get another chance to finish things properly with her Master down and out though."

Vergil was fairly certain that he was the one who had been stuck with a troublesome partner. He enjoyed the thrill of battle, but he wasn't the sort who relished combat for its own sake. He preferred to have a goal in mind. "Even if you don't, we will without a doubt have plenty of other enemies to face before this war is over."

"I still owe that big ass Berserker some pay back," Saber growled, though she didn't actually sound all that upset about it. She smirked toothily and Vergil got the impression of a wild beast who was just begging for another fight. Considering she was a head shorter than him, it came across as a bit more cute than threatening though.

Vergil brought himself up short when that particular thought crossed his mind. Ugh, teenagers. This body was never going to become more convenient, was it? At least, not unless he was stuck here for a significant enough length of time to actually grow out of it. Not an ideal solution. "You'll get a chance soon enough," he said instead, trying to direct his thought away from that line. "But for now we need to deal with… this." He gestured to the unmoving form on the ground at his feet. He stepped back as he saw the pool of blood spreading toward his shoes and he felt his stomach clench again.

"Riiiiight." Saber sheathed her blade and squatted down next to the body. "Can't just leave him here I guess."

Vergil grimaced. "That would be less than ideal. Let's get this taken care of so we have time to clean up. We should have all night before anyone comes along, but I'd rather not leave things to the last moment."

As if the universe was out to prove him wrong, no sooner had the words left his mouth and the sound of footsteps against pavement came from around the building. Vergil's hand went to his waist, poised to 'draw' his blade again before a voice called out. "Emiya!" He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding as he heard Tohsaka's voice and the girl rounded the corner a moment later. "Archer said he saw…" She stopped dead in her tracks and her words died in her throat as she took in the scene. "Something… happening…" She took a moment to find her voice again. "What happened? Is that Shinji?!"

"That it is," Vergil said. "He appears to have been the Master of Rider. He ordered his Servant to attack me and I responded in kind." He felt his stomach clench and he fought the urge to wretch. What was wrong with him? He had far more blood on his hands than one stupid teenager. "He was… not nearly as threatening as he thought he was." He shook himself again and took a deep, shuddering breath. Damn this body. "We should check to be sure, but he was probably the source of the sigils. We should clean this up and then get out of here."

Rin wrinkled her nose and looked a little green. "Ugh, right… I guess I need to call Kirei so he can make up some kind of excuse. That shady priest should be good at something like this. And it's his job as the overseer anyway."

"Do we have to take him to the church then?" Getting a body across town without someone noticing would take a considerable bit of effort. For all of their difference, he suddenly found himself missing the convenience of Nico's RV.

Rin hesitated for a moment. "I… we should probably hide the body somewhere and call him. I can use the phone in the student council room. Probably." She took a step toward the body and then stopped again.

"Alright alright, I got it." Saber grabbed Shinji's body by the back of his shirt and easily hefted it over her shoulder. "You go make your call or whatever. I'm pretty sure I can hide a body well enough."

"I should probably be more concerned about that than I am," Vergil muttered to himself as the Servant, utterly unphased by the blood dripping down her armor, headed toward the woods at the back of the campus.

Rin grimaced and crossed her arms. "You're taking this well. Didn't you used to know him?"

Vergil let out a soft sigh and shook his head. "It's been a long time since we really knew each other, but I'm… processing." He didn't have the same emotional connection to the Matou boy that Shirou did. No matter how much the memories attempting to force their way to the surface told him that he did. "My apologies."

Rin shook her head. "No, this is… this is how the Holy Grail War works. My father didn't make it out either. I just didn't think that we would be fighting anyone that we knew."

"Indeed," Vergil agreed. He was a little surprised by the amount of sympathy he heard in his own voice. Or maybe it was regret. He was sure that his family would be proud that he was sympathizing with a boy who had made a foolish mistake, even if he had ultimately dealt with him the hard way. "I'll walk with you to the office. I'm sure that Saber has Shinji well in hand."

Rin nodded and the pair turned to head back toward the main school building. "Let's get this taken care of so we can go home already."

--

Archer watched the two teenagers leaving the scene behind, but he didn't follow. With Shinji gone, Rider would be on her way back to her true Master already. The two didn't need him to babysit them. From the look of it, Shirou didn't need to be babysat at all.

The Servant was forced to reassess his original take on the red-head. All of his concerns about the young man had been, if anything, vastly understating how wrong this whole situation was. He had expected them to confront Rider sooner rather than later. He had also expected Rider to actually be a threat to the weakened Saber and her totally inexperienced Master. Apparently this new Saber was both not nearly as weak as he expected and her Master was far more experienced than he let on.

Archer crossed his arms as he mimed leaning against the wall of the building in his spirit form. He was starting to question if this boy was Shirou Emiya in any way that he would recognize him. He resembled stories of the Magus Killer rather than the naive, idealistic teenager that Archer had been expecting.

This was going to be a problem. Did his plan have any chance of working if this 'Shirou Emiya' was a completely different person? Or did the fact that they were still technically the same person make it close enough? They were actually more similar to him as a person than they were to his own past self, so maybe it would work out on some level. The metaphysics of erasing his own existence were purely his own desperate theories, not anything with some kind of existing research, so he could only throw shit at the wall and see what the results were.

He grimaced as he looked at the bloodstain marring the courtyard. Was Shinji getting himself killed this early going to affect his timeline? He still needed a way to gain access to Caster if he was going to be able to act without Rin's interference and there was no telling how she would react to someone proactively taking out one of the Masters almost immediately. Not to mention that he had no idea what a fight between her Master and Emiya would look like. He was going to need to come up with some kind of back-up plan on the off-chance that everything went completely to shit.

Not to mentioned dealing with this new Saber.

The invisible Servant let out a long sigh. It had been a very simple plan, really. But apparently the world wasn't going to give him any kind of a break here. And wasn't that just the story of his life? Fine. He could play ball for now. At least until the world stopped throwing him curve balls and he could come up with an actual plan. Just another day on the job for him.

--

Vergil felt far more tired than he had any right to be by the time he was making his way back to the Emiya house. Kirei had seemed almost too eager to help them provide an excuse for Shinji's untimely departure from the world of the living. He assured them that it was part of his role as overseer to make sure that no one asked the wrong kinds of questions about this sort of incident. Vergil was once again reminded of several unsavory sorts that he had dealt with in his previous life, but if he was unsavory to their benefit, he wasn't going to complain. At least the recent strange incidents around town made it fairly easy to excuse an accident finally turning out fatal.

Cleaning up the blood stain was the more annoying aspect of the evening. Breaking in to the janitor's closet and having to scrub the pavement clean had taken much longer than he would have liked and left them both walking home deep into the evening. He hadn't realized how convenient it was for most kinds of demons to dissolve into nothingness when they died until right now.

Saber, for all of her casual rudeness, at least was kind enough to leave him to his thoughts as they made their way through the dark streets. He still wasn't sure how he was going to handle the situation in the morning. He was more than good enough at lying to keep his own role in the situation hidden, but he would rather not talk about it at all if possible. Shinji kept bringing up memories from the part of his brain where Shirou's memories lived and it was both uncomfortable and distracting. Not to mention mildly guilt inducing. He was still getting used to actually feeling guilty about some of the things he'd done and it was no more pleasant in this world than in his own.

He rubbed his eyes as they finally reached the front gates to his home… Shirou's home… he should his head. He was too tired for this and he was just confusing himself. He pushed open the door with a bit more force than necessary and kicked off his shoes. He just wanted to sleep and forget this entire evening. Unfortunately, his plans to go directly to the bedroom were interrupted by the soft sound of movement in the living room. He clenched his hand and moved slowly, drawing in a deep breath to keep the sound of his breathing silent.

One of the lights in the kitchen was still on, though it only cast a half-light over its neighboring room. He could make out a figure slumped over the dining room table and he let his breath out with a sigh. "Sakura…" He hesitated as he looked at the peacefully sleeping young woman. She was going to wake up to find out that her brother was dead. And that was his fault. The half-demon clenched his jaw so hard that he could feel his teeth grinding together. This was hardly the first time he had killed someone who must have had a family. Why was it bothering him so much now?

The half-demon shook his head and walked over to the table. He was not going to make it worse for himself by overthinking the whole situation. He reached down to touch the girl's shoulder and shook her gently. "Sakura. Sakura, wake up."

The purple-haired girl made a soft sound and slowly raised her head, blinking sleepily. "Senpai? I'm sorry… I didn't mean to fall asleep…" She yawned and rubbed her eyes.

"Don't worry about that," Vergil said, placing his hand on her back gently. "What are you still doing here? It's so late."

Sakura shook her head. "I wanted to wait for you to get home. You sounded like you had something difficult going on… I wanted to make sure you had a relaxing dinner to come home to."

Vergil glanced at the lights still on in the kitchen. "There's no point in that if you stay up so long that you fall asleep," he said with a sigh. "Come on." Then he scooped her up in his arms with one quick motion.

Sakura made a high pitched squeak and grabbed on to his shoulders. "Senpai!"

"You can't just sleep at the table all night. And it's too late to walk home like this, especially with all of the incidents in the news. Come on, I'll get you settled in the guest room for the evening. Do you need to call anyone?"

Sakura was rapidly turning red as he carried her out of the dimly lit room. "N… no. Grandfather knows where I am."

"Good, then you can get some proper rest. I can heat up whatever you made for me once you're comfortable."

The teen was bright red by now. "If you insist, senpai…"

"I do," Vergil said firmly. "Don't worry about anything. Just let me take care of it and get some rest. You'll feel better in the morning." Really, it was the least he could do.