Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction ❯ Fate: one half ❯ Chapter 6

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

By: kilich

Day 6

Dawn came, but neither of Emiya household residents had any sleep. In fact they still slowly walked home.

“I'm sorry to be such a burden Shiro.” whispered Saber to her Master, who supported her with his good hand and felt his embrace slightly tighten when he tiredly answered.

“You're not a burden Saber. It is I who should be sorry for being a bad Master.”

Ranma who was walking with Sakura felt a slight shiver as the girl glared at Saber after hearing her Sempai's words and shivered even more when she felt Sakura's feelings through their link.

The plum haired girl was obviously torn apart between helping Shiro and not helping Saber, something she would be surely asked to do by Shiro if she offered her help to the boy.

`Man, this sucks. If the damage I took carries over to my guy form, and with my luck it surely does, then I'll be dead as doornail because of my almost crushed ribs. So I can't even change now. I wonder what's next.' She thought unhappy thoughts as she inspected the state she was in, much deeper then a brief mid-combat scan could allow.

`Ahh, damn. I just had to ask!' she cursed mentally when her next step was less careful and her chest reminded her of damage done to it with a flash of pain.

“Finally! Took us long enough.” said Rin, eager to rest after she restored some of the Shiro's strength because Sakura was very convincing that he should be healed as fast as possible.

“I think we better skip the school today.” said Rin and continued when they walked inside.

“Shiro, you and Saber better get some sleep. I'll rest as well.”

Sakura nodded, glaring at Saber who was almost carried by Shiro to his room because it was closer then Saber's.

“I'll prepare the breakfast and something for Sempai to restore his strength.”

“Ahh. Food!” happily sighed Rider as she went with Sakura to the kitchen, not to help with cooking of course, but to get a heap of products from the fridge and eat them all.

Sakura glanced at her Servant's actions for several minutes before she put away the knife that she cut vegetables with and asked.

“Can you help with cooking?“

“Cooking? But I only know how to make a few things over a campfire.” said Rider, pausing and standing up.

“Well, you can help me chop the vegetables. It's not very… hard.”

Sakura trailed off, when Rider walked to her and, smirking, took the knife and briefly turned it into a transparent metal disk.

“Okay. I don't like to be a freeloader anyway.”

“Ah, Rider-san. I didn't wash all of them yet.” Sweatdropped Sakura, watching as her Servant threw all of the vegetables into the air and neatly sliced them as they fell through the flashing blur that Rider turned her knife into.

“Ehh…Sorry about this.” sheepishly answered the older girl, putting the knife down, next to small accurate heaps of cut vegetables.

Almost as soon as he closed his eyes, Shiro found himself in the dreamland.

He saw a green grass plain with a rock that had a familiar sword in it and two people.

One was a tall man in dark cloak and the other one, dressed in simple pants and shirt, was…

“Saber?”

“Arturia, you must think it over again very carefully. Once you touch the sword, you will become King of Britain and you'll be human no more.” said the cloaked man, when Saber's hand almost touched the sword's hilt.

“Yes, I know. I'm ready.” Answered the girl and pulled the weapon out of the rock.

Shiro slowly woke up.

“A dream? Or did I saw Saber's past?”

His thoughts were interrupted when he felt somebody stir near him.

“Good morning, onii-chan!” cheerfully cried out Illyasviel von Einzbern and hugged the boy.

“Ilya?! What are you doing here?” he asked, rather startled, when he saw someone he least expected to see today.

The girl slightly pouted and loosening her hug, said.

“I lost my Servant, so I decided to live here with you. You don't want me here?”

“Ahh…No, that's not it.”

“Thank you, onii-chan, you're so kind!” said Ilya and hugged him in joy again.

“Shiro, you're awake already? There's no rush, we already defeated the strongest Servant.” said Rin to the boy when walked into the living room, while she battled her sleepiness with a cup of hot tea and waited for breakfast to arrive.

“Breakfast is ready Sempai.” said Sakura and walked out the kitchen with a big tray, filled with dishes she put a lot of effort in, in her hands. Rider followed her with two trays that held the food for other people.

“Thank you Sakura.” said Shiro and wanted to taste what she brought him, but suddenly heard Ilya's voice.

“Oh, breakfast. Thank you for waiting for me onii-chan!”

“Ilya?!” asked surprised Rin.

“What is she doing here, Sempai? Her Servant almost killed you twice!” Sakura continued Rin's thoughts.

“Onii-chan said I can stay. He's the greatest.” Ilya joyfully answered and hugged Shiro, causing Sakura's brow to twitch in anger.

“Sempai!” Sakura said with anger carefully hidden in her voice and turned to Rider for support.

Ranma felt the girl's intense glare and raising her eyes from her plate, she said.

“Well, that giant is dead. So I guess she's harmless… Ehh.” she half-saw and half felt that what she said was definitely not what Sakura wanted and stopped half way through the sentence.

“She's still a Master, so it's possible for her to make a contract with a Servant that lost his Master.” said Rin, looking at their new guest.

“No, I will not make another contract. Berserker is the only Servant for me.” sighed Ilya as she took her place and started to eat.

“Well, then I think there might be no harm if we let her stay then, we did wreck her home after all.” said Rin , causing Sakura's brow to twitch again, undoubtedly from the amount of love she felt for her sister.

“Where's Saber? It's not like her to skip breakfast.” asked Rider, when the breakfast was finished and Taiga left for school.

“She put almost everything she had in that Noble Phantasm. And since Shiro can't supply her with Mana, she might disappear soon.” answered Rin, looking at Shiro who looked rather gloomy.

“Onii-chan, you can save Saber if you order her to attack humans. It's the best way to restore her power unless you give her one of your magic circuits. But that's stupid!”

Shiro jerked upright and looked at Rin. The girl sighed and answered with a dejected look since she already knew what he was thinking.

“Yes, I can transplant some of your circuits into Saber with a ritual and you'll be able to give her Mana. But it'll make you an even more useless mage, so I don't think it should be done.”

“No, I agree. I'll never order Saber to attack humans and don't want her to die.” said Shiro with determination in his eyes.

Soon they went to Shiro's room and saw that Saber was still sleeping. Rin walked to the blonde girl and briefly turning to Sakura, said.

“Sakura, Rider. I must ask you not to interfere with the ritual or it will hurt Shiro. And you don't want that, do you?”

“Yeah, sure.” answered Rider, but Sakura broke her silence only when Rin said a short incantation and kissed Shiro while unbuttoning his shirt.

“Rin?! Please stop!”

TÅsaka stepped away from the dazed boy and walking to Saber, she answered.

“It's a part of the ritual. They must be in very close contact as possible.”

Saber repeated Sakura's words when Rin half-unbuttoned her shirt as well and kissed the girl.

“Now, come here Shiro. You need to lie on top of her.”

“Come Rider. I can't stand to see this anymore.” said red-faced Sakura and quickly walked out of the room with waves of anger threatening to overcome her other feelings when she saw the boy lay on top of Saber and close his eyes.

When Rin said the last words of her incantation, Shiro found himself falling somewhere. He started to scream as the fall seemed never ending, but soon enough the descent ended.

Looking around he saw a huge cave with stone pillars sticking out of the boiling lava below.

“Where am I? Is this place Saber's heart?”

His idle talk was interrupted when a small island far away from him shook and a great dragon burst through the ground with a thunderous roar.

The dragon noticed Shiro and with a mighty flap of its wings, it flew high in the air before diving towards the boy.

Shiro dodged the dragon's first attack, but the second attack cost him his arm causing him to scream in excruciating pain.

Suddenly, everything around him changed and looking down he saw Saber standing in the middle of a complex pattern that looked like idle magic circuits that quickly, one by one, lit with power.

Saber looked up at him and the pain disappeared, allowing him to find refuge in unconsciousness.

Meanwhile, Ranma was walking to the shop along with Sakura.

“Cheer up. You are uncute when you are angry, you know that?” said the purple haired woman to the other girl.

Sakura heard her words, but instead of cheering up as Rider hoped, she thought.

`Maybe when I can't hide my feelings to other girls that are so close to Sempai, he thinks I `m uncute?'

“… Sempai likes me more then Saber or Rin, right? Why does he care for Saber so much, instead of me?”

The spirit link between them provided Ranma with enough clues to understand what went wrong and she tried to take back her words and find another way to cheer up the girl.

“Oh, come on. It's not that bad.”

`What should I say? Damn you, Pops. It's because of you I don't know what to say. Oh, I got it.'

“If I almost died protecting you, you would be very worried about me as well, right? So it's probably only until Saber gets better.”

But her words only made Sakura remember what Rin said about making a choice between her Servant and Shiro when the War will be at its end. The images of her either betraying Rider if she'll be critically injured or hurting Sempai run through her head, threatening to completely drown her in depression.

Seeing that her words had little effect, or even worked in reverse, Rider grinned, embraced the smaller girl and jumped high in the air, drawing a surprised yelp from her.

`Heh, I no master with words, but I sure know how to shake out depression from people.'

The rest of the day in Emiya household was peaceful, because Shiro and Saber where still sleeping and Rin stayed in her room doing who know what.

Rider idled around, rather bored, and was starting to think about helping Sakura with cooking or cleaning, when Ilya approached her and asked.

“What is your name, Rider?”

“Eh? Ranma Saotome. I'm not really a Servant.” She started to answer but Ilya interrupted her by raising a hand.

“Yes, I know that story.” she said, serious look in her eyes mixing with curiosity and a little mischief.

“But I want you True name. Like Saber's real name is Arturia. I asking because I thought that I know who you are, but I don't remember anyone who fits your description to be able to change forms like that. I promise I won't tell anyone, even onii-chan.”

“Ehh…”

Ranma wanted to answer that she doesn't know because she got this body less then a week ago, but several images from her last weird dream came up. The dream about two younger looking girls that looked a lot like his cursed form.

“Medusa, I think.” she answered recalling how she was called in that dream.

“I thought so. But I never knew you could change… hmm.” Ilya nodded to her thoughts and left.

“We're going to search for other Masters. You're sure you want to stay?” asked Shiro, when he, Rin and Saber were about to leave on the tonight's patrol.

“Yeah, Rin said that I might as well rest tonight and that Grail War judge wanted to visit us soon.” answered purple haired Servant as she yawned and involuntarily stretched, attracting Shiro's eyes to her well-developed figure and causing Saber to lightly elbow the boy to distract him.

A half an hour later, Rider was already asleep and another strange dream visited her.

She was walking in robe-like clothes near the entrance to the temple she usually saw in her dreams, with two girls in similar clothes, she felt were her sisters, walking near her.

“I greet you beauteous Medusa. “ Suddenly said a powerful and deep voice, somehow reminding her of sounds she heard at the seashore.

She looked in the direction from where the voice came from and saw a tall white bearded man, dressed in a robe that slowly walked to them.

In one hand he held a trident that he used as a staff and with another he led a snow-white winged horse.

“I greet you as well, Poseidon.” Ranma heard her voice say when she stopped to look at her

guest.

“I arrived to present you a gift worthy of maiden of your beauty. It's Pegasus, a horse that rivals even Helios's steeds.”

“Ohh, sister. Another gift? How in the world you get even immortals to notice you with those horrendous eyes of yours?” asked her eldest sister Stheno in a mocking tone, reserved for her youngest sister.

“… Amazing.” Medusa approached the horse and touching its neck she felt a silk smooth surface.

“It's one of the best presents I had. I thank you.” She said to Poseidon and even lustful light in his eyes that was stronger then usual, couldn't diminish her mood.

Suddenly, Rider woke up from the feeling that a Servant was not far away. Thinking that it was unusual for Saber to walk in silently, she stood up and carefully walked towards the entrance.

If she wasn't so careful then she surely would've missed a barely noticeable presence behind her. She started to turn around and a half a dozen of small blades that were aimed at her vital organs missed their targets by a hair's width when they shot through her body with streams of blood following them.

As soon as that happened, Rider rolled away, dodging another salvo of knives and leaped to the exit, spinning in the air so she could see who attacked her. She only caught a glimpse of a hunched man in a dark cloak before she flew through the door and embedding one of her spikes in the doorway, threw herself upwards.

Landing on the roof in her usual cat-like stance, she coughed out a short stream of blood and wiping her mouth, she thought what to do.

`Where's Sakura? She's not in the house anymore… And that Servant is moving with her. Was she captured? Man, I got to save… her. Damn!!'

She cursed her helplessness when she felt herself slightly dizzy, a sign that in several minutes she, most likely, will lose consciousness from the loss of blood.

`I must find others. Must warn Shiro.' she thought and roofhoped to find Saber and others, slightly surprised that she cared about the boy's well being a lot more then usual.

“Do you sense another Servant, Saber?” asked Shiro, when Saber suddenly stopped and entered her battle stance.

“Yes. It's closing rapidly.” answered Saber looking in the direction they came from.

Soon they saw a long-haired figure dressed in flickering purple light, land in front of them and fall to the ground.

“Rider?!” shouted all three when they saw Sakura's Servant lying on the ground with a puddle of blood starting to gather under her.

“What happened?!” Shiro ran to her, while Saber carefully scanned the surroundings.

Rider coughed up some blood and said, visibly straining herself.

“Some invisible Servant ambushed me. I think he captured Sakura and I don't know what happened to Ilya.”

“Rider!” yelled Shiro, when her body became limp in his hands.

Rin, who stood near, said in a cold voice she only used at the start of the War.

“She's still alive Shiro. We must return home now.”