11 - [Hero Of Ulster]

"What do you mean?" Rin asked calmly as she blissfully enjoyed the freshly cooked bacon and eggs that had apparently been prepared by future Shirou, who insisted on being called just 'Archer' to avoid needless confusion.

The past Shirou didn't know how to particularly feel about that...

Well, he at least hoped that his cooking skills hadn't degraded with age.

"Like I said, I got more Command Seals." Shirou reiterated as he pulled on his sleeves, showing the hand that held Saber's Comman Seals...

And then the other hand, 3 more Command Seals, depicting a three-pronged spear.

"..." Rin was audibly speechless, her eyes dilating, and her breathing slowing down. It was as if she was a computer computing troubles that even a matrix supercomputer couldn't properly compute...

What a sentence.

"You..." She began but paused, the eyebags on her face proofing that she had stayed up all night for some reason.

"YOU WHAT!?" She practically howled like a moaning banshee as the Tohsaka girl threw herself off of the chair and ran up to Shirou.

He raised his eyebrows as her fingers wrapped around his arm, the twintailed girl being completely absorbed by the sight of these new Command Seals as she inspected them closely.

"This...you actually did." She said with a baffled tone before looking up to stare at him with her sapphire eyes.

"Did you steal these from Kirei?" Rin asked, a somewhat...hopeful? Yes, hopeful voice in her tone.

"...You can steal Command Seals?" Shirou said with a genuinely surprised expression.

Rin just gave him a blank look before turning around and walking back to her chair, muttering some strange nonsense as she clutched her head in pure mental agony.

"I was just asking..." Shirou sighed before his attention was stolen by the other man in the room...himself, his future self who approached him with a curious twinkle in his eyes.

"Did you get these to?" Asked Shirou. Since Archer was from the future, he would have already experienced it, right?

"No." Came an immediate answer. "I never suddenly received 3 more Command Seals at once aside from the initial ones." Archer said.

"You didn't have them whilst you slept, I was watching you." Archer remarked as he glanced down at the tattoo-like Seals. "So you probably only recieved them just now, what the hell happened?"

"You were watching me...?" Shirou had a terrified expression.

"I'm you, dumb ass. No need to make it weird."

"Fair enough." Shriou shrugged. "But I did dream of something unusual..."

"A wet dream? I did have a couple back during my Grail War—"

"NO!" Shirou denied vehemently. "I...um, it was a dream where...I was inside of someone—no, no, that's not what I mean!" Shirou furrowed his eyebrows at the extremely amused Archer.

"Hm?" Rin perked up as she swallowed a mouthfull of bacon. "A dream? I think I know what you're talking about..."

"Sometimes, when a Master has a deep enough sleep without interruption, they dream about their Servant's life." She explained between bites.

"It's the same thing with Servants, if they want to sleep, then there's a chance they would experience their Master's memories in vivid detail." Huh...

"It doesn't always happen everytime you sleep, of course, just a large chance."

"Wait..." Shirou immediately followed her explanation. "Does this mean...?" His expression turned shocked, glancing at at the Archer as he did so.

"Were you dreaming about me—"

-WOOSH! -FLOP!

Did she just...!?

"Damn..." Archer muttered as he tried to surpress a howling laughter from crawling out of his mouth.

Shirou's mouth dropped as the sunny side up fried egg she threw at his face proceded to fall at a similliar pace, if not faster.

It fell to the ground.

"You just threw an egg at me." He said with an incredulous expression.

"So!? At least, I didn't throw a chair at you!" Rin said with a pout as she stood up from her chair again. "And I didn't dream of you, idiot! Look at me, do I look like I slept?"

Uh huh.

Well, looking at her evident tiredness and irritability this morning, did she actually not sleep at all?

"You were out cold and Saber refuses to show up. So Rin had to stay up all night watching you." Archer said with a shrug.

"Archer!" Rin shouted with an irritated look. "I know you two are the same people, but don't phrase your words like him..." What an unreasonable request.

"But yes, the older you isn't wrong, Emiya-kun." Rin said with a nod. "Saber's been missing, so I had to be the one guarding you..."

"You...? Why not Archer...?" Shirou asked, glancing at his future self. "Servants don't need to sleep, right?"

"I was sent out to retrive all of Rin's important things." Archer commented. "Her home's been comprimised since Kirei knows the ins and outs of it."

"Yeah." Rin confirmed with a nod. "I've also spent the better part of the night making a workshop and setting up a...uh, you don't mind if I stay here for a bit, right?"

With both the Church and the Tohsaka residence being not very safe anymore, she figured it would be best to just take advantage of Shirou's relatively decent house.

"It's fine, there's a lot of unused rooms, anyway." Shirou said with little to no concern.

Then there was a short silence.

"You...you're not gonna ask for rent or something?" Rin asked with a head tilt.

"I guess that's true." Shirou immediately recognized a chance. "The rent is to teach me Magecraft, and..." He looked at EMIYA. "Whatever you can teach me."

"Hm..." She hummed and shook her head. "I was going to do that anyway, lucky me, I guess."

"Rin's broke as hell." Archer interjected like the specter of smugness that he was. "Kirei messed up her family funds when she was a little, she would have probably cried if you actually asked for money."

"S-Shut up!" As if she was digivolving into an Asian mother, she reached down, pulled a shoe from her left foot, and began threatning to throw it at the older EMIYA.

"I was just talking facts." Regardless of Archer's cruel words, Rin seemed like she wanted to cry.

"Thanks a lot, Rin." Shirou said with a bright smile. "I'd be lost without you and Archer."

"...Eh!?" She looked surprised. "Idiot! When did we get on a first name basis!?" Ah, how indecent of him, gasp!

"Uh, well..." Shirou glanced at Archer as he looked for guidance from the older Emiya, yet Archer only shrugged.

"I though it would be fine...I mean, Archer calls you by your first name, right? And, he is...well, me." A perfectly logical argument that would have convinced even a cynic.

Unfortunately, Shirou was arguing with a member of the mythical woman species.

"That's not the same!" She practically hissed whilst looking away.

"How is it not the same...!?"

"He's from the future!" She retorted back with a slight flush on her face.

"And...? He's literally me..."

"Yeah, but he's the future you, who is already on a first name basis with the future me!" That is so overly convoluted, Shirou almost spat violently blood and dishonered his ancestors.

"..." Archer just gave an amused grin at his younger self's troubles before he interjected.

"Forget about that, what I want to know is the dream you had about Saber." Archer said, looking really interested in the subject.

"...Actually, it wasn't Saber."

The pair of red-cloathed Japanese looked at him with wide eyes, waiting for an explanation.

"I was..." He began to explain everything he remembered about the dream, every last vivid detail, and what he thought it might represent.

"You were tortured...?" The twintailed girl asked in concern but quickly shifted her focus to a familliar fact.

"Ahriman..." Rin muttered the name. "I've heard of that name before, it's from...Persian mythology?" She glanced at Archer.

"It's another name for Angra Mainyu, the Zoroastrian God of Evil, but hearing the context of this dream..." Archer looked up in silent contemplation.

"Ahriman was clearly not Angra Mainyu." Shirou continued. "He was accused of being him, but he wasn't."

"That's obvious." Archer clicked his tongue as he said that. "You said that Ahriman had the same tattoos as Saber?"

"It...it wasn't quite the same, but it felt very similliar in a way." Shirou said as he thought of an explanation. "It's like reading two Chinese cook books by diferent authors, they're not the same, but their both about cooking and are in Chinese."

"Of course it's about cooking." Rin snorted with an amused smirk, one which quickly turned into a frown.

"But I don't see how this could relate to Saber in anyway, aside from those tattoos." She sighed. "Hm, could the hooded guy that tortured you actually be Saber in disguise?"

"That's very unlikely." Archer dismissed that theory without much thought. "From what I've heard, this torturer was emotionally unstable, Saber on the other hand is a high-functioning sociopath incapable of vivid emotions."

"Geez, I don't think he was that bad..." The younger of the two Shirou Emiyas defended his Servant, though even he wasn't quite sure of how valid his defense was.

"Oh, yeah..." Shirou began, as if he remembered something. "Where is Saber, anyway?"

"That's what I would like to ask." Rin said with a neutral face as Archer shook his head.

"Bastard just told me he'd 'join us later', seems like later might be days from now considering he still isn't here." EMIYA conveyed.

That's...concerning, what on earth could a primaeval man from ancient times be doing? Hitting strip clubs? Selling drugs? Probably burning down orphanages...

"Why don't you just teleport him here, Shirou?" Asked Rin.

Oh, so now we're in a first name basis?

"Y-You started it first..." Mumbled a flustered Rin as he saw Shirou's expression.

"Teleportation...?" He looked down at the only power he had over his Servant. "I can use these to teleport Servants?"

"To your immediate location, yes." Rin confirmed as she glanced at his now many Command Seals.

Huh, should he do that?

Saber might still—

"Oh, there's no need for that, lad." Said a familliar voice.

An Irish voice.

Immediately, Rin stepped to the side as Shirou ran and grabbed her chair to use as a makeshift barrier between himself and the enemy.

Magical Energy gathered in the Tohsaka's fingertips. A gemstone on the table was quickly grabbed by her hand as she made as much as distance as possible.

A flicker of greenish light appeared on EMIYA's silhouette as he charged forwards without hesitation, a sword quickly materializing in his hand.

"Woah, woah, woah!" Shouted a grinning Lancer as he was pinned against the wall, a sword on his neck and knee on his crotch, ready to kick anytime.

"I came here in peace, mate! Don't be so jumpy now..." Lancer said with an akward laugh as he held up a finger to lower the blade from his neck.

Archer didn't let him.

"You expect us to believe that!?" Rin spat out from the back, hiding behind a sofa.

"Of course, it's a warrior's honour on the line!" Lancer continued with a grin.

"Get to the point before I slice your neck open." Archer said to avoid wasting precious time.

"You know that's not gonna kill me—"

"Want me to try?" Archer threatened as he tighted his hold on the grip.

"No thanks, no need, my neck's already red on the inside." Is that some kind of Celtic saying? Probably, one that was completely irrelevant in this age.

"Here." To everyone's surprise, Lancer held out his signature blood-spear and promptly handed it to Archer.

After a few seconds of silent contemplation, followed by a snort, Archer backed off, one hand on Gae Bolg, the other on his blade.

"There we go..." Lancer said as he dusted off his...armour? Full-body suit? What is he even wearing, the Batman suit?

It certainly didn't look like whatever a legendary Celtic warrior would wear, wasn't the popylar belief that they just battled naked, or at least, in their undies?

"As I've said, peace I have come with, and talk shall we begin, yeah?" Lancer said with a smile as he crossed his arms, allowing the others to notice something about his appearance.

He was wearing Saber's cape.

Shirou looked at Rin, who was shaking his head, then at EMIYA, who at first did the same, then changed his mind and nodded.

Self-trust is the best method to success, right?

With a sigh, Shirou came out of hiding and made eye contact with the Irish hero.

Looking at this guy, Shirou couldn't help but grasph his chest tightly as he remembered that distinct phantom agony that pierced his heart yesterday.

Gae Bolg, that blood-red spear did not actually hit, but it sure felt like it, the pain and shit was still somewhat their, but there was no actual damage thanks to Saber's Noble Phantasm.

"There you are! I've been looking everywhere for your arse, boy!" Lancer cheered before suddenly kneeling down.

"I'm just an Ulster warrior, some call me hero, others call me villain, but to you Master, I am your Lancer Servant, Cu Chulainn!" He declared as Shirou widened his eyes.

"Yes, boy! Your ass is my Master now!" He repeated as he stood up. "Come on, don't make that face, aren't you excited?"

Excited is a weird way to describe wanting to choke on sperm whale diapers.