Almistyor
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Anomaly Ch. 19
🕑 Added 2023-10-06 12:00:07 +0000 UTCThe days passed by quickly. With permission from Yanagida, the elves - with Shirou helping them - began building some rudimentary shelters. They weren’t much, having been built with whatever they could scrounge up. It was also a downgrade from the barracks that they had temporarily stayed in within the JSDF base.
Regardless, not a single elf complained. Rather, it looked as if they were happy to be doing something other than sit around. Shirou could understand the feeling of just moving, but even he was mildly surprised at the bounce back that they did.
Soon enough, even Cato and his own people came by to help them, with the mage and his apprentice using spells that Shirou was sure would make the magi of the Clock Tower blanch at how casual they were with them.
The Enforcer, for his part, was impressed. From what he knew, it took a bit of power and finesse to successfully levitate an object bigger than one’s own body. Yet, here was Cato, an old man that barely reached Shirou’s chest, using his spells to lift boulders bigger than Heracles.
Appropriately, his apprentice seemed to be doing the same, albeit on a smaller scale.
Lelei La Lalena. A mouthful of a name that Shirou felt an odd sense of pity for. He’d heard of weird names, many times they were the names of other magi. Was there just something about using magecraft and magic that made people give their children weird names?
A thought he shelved for another day. For all he knew, there really was some grand mystery revolving around the mental faculties of magi. It would at least explain the oddness of literally every single one of them, including himself.
He had seen Lelei in the past, even before he’d stumbled across the elves. It was hard not to, as she had light-blue hair, and almost always held a staff in her hand. The apprentice of Cato, who had told him that Lelei was gifted when he’d asked about her.
The older man didn’t do her justice.
She was a veritable genius.
Where the rest of just about everyone relied on the spells that Cato used to translate their speech, the girl had managed to learn Japanese in record speed. There were some words she was still unfamiliar with, as was the case for speaking any new language.
A while back, he’d found that he could learn just about any language with the help of his Structural Analysis and Tracing. He could grasp concepts and ideas from whatever object he could see, and translate those ideas into actual words.
In other words, he cheated. It was why he had managed to get a decent grasp on several other languages so fast. He hadn’t been the best in English during his school days, but when he’d come to the United Kingdom, he’d learned it fairly quickly. Alongside it, German, French, a bit of Mandarin and Latin. HE should probably have taught himself more of the latter, the Enforcer mused.
Each one had taken him at least two months, even with his Tracing.
Lelei had done so in less than a week. In fact, she had done so to the point that, had Shirou not known of her beforehand, he’d have thought that she was a native Japanese speaker.
If Rin saw this, he’d hazard to say that even she would be impressed.
Even then, that wasn’t the main reason he thought of her as a genius. He hadn’t even noticed that she was speaking Japanese until he overheard a conversation from some JSDF and her. It was when she had that grasp of Japanese - from whom Shirou didn’t know - that she started to follow him around, asking questions of all kinds.
Arts, sciences, the political structure of Japan, even his own brand of magecraft. And it wasn’t just a simple question of ‘what does this do?’. No, the questions she asked were ones that Shirou sometimes had to actively think about.
“If the splitting of an atom causes a chain reaction to other nearby atoms and produces energy, wouldn’t the act of doing it once affect all atoms in the atmosphere?”
Case in point.
“Not necessarily. While the chain reaction does cause significant destruction, the fissile material, that is to say the isotope that expels nuclei, is still the main fuel source for the actual reaction. Without enough of it, the destruction is limited to the immediate area.”
He was basically spitballing in this case. He wasn’t an expert in the matter, not having studied nuclear physics in a large capacity. Still, he felt obligated to give an answer he was relatively confident in, especially as the girl would almost dutifully write down his words.
“I see. Then if nuclear fission produces energy, why is it that nuclear fusion also produces energy?”
“It’s all about the difference in mass. In both cases, mass is lost, and the difference is expelled as pure energy.”
He had to admit, for someone who hadn’t even known about atoms for the better part of her life, Lelei worked fast.
“Then-”
“Emiya-san?”
Shirou paused in his tracks as a green clad JSDF soldier came up to him. He set down the large log that he had been carrying while he answered Lelei’s questions.
“Kuribayashi-san.”
The woman was a lot more relaxed than many of the other personnel when it came to him. In fact, most of Itami’s squad was much the same. He figured the small rapport he and Adrianne built during the short ride had a lot to do with it. He hadn’t exactly endeared himself to anyone else, having been too busy with doing everything he could.
“Lieutenant General Hazama is calling for you. Says it’s important.”
Shirou frowned. After the man had gotten back, Hazama had immediately called him in. They had talked at length about the permission that Yanagida had provisionally provided them. While it had proven a tad difficult, he had eventually managed to convince the man to simply not report it.
After all, what the locals did was beyond the purview of the JSDF, especially if what they did was technically outside of their own base.
Or, at least, that was the excuse that Shirou put forth, and the one that Hazama had seemingly accepted.
Now that he was being called back in, he didn’t know what to think.
He gave a nod to Lelei, who’d already started to levitate the log he had put down, “If you have some more questions, I can answer them later.”
“Understood.” Lelei nodded and put her little notebook away. Kuribayashi hummed as she watched the young mage walk away, floating log behind her.
“Shall we?”
Shirou followed Kuribayashi through the makeshift camp, watching with more than a little satisfaction at the progress they had made. In a week, these people had gone from having a village, to having said village destroyed, to rebuilding what they had lost.
Regardless of the guilt he felt as being part of the reason they had lost so much in the first place, this was one of the few times that Shirou could say that he was proud. When it came to his job as an Enforcer, most of the time, he would always come in late.
That was no jab at Enforcers. By the nature of the job, and really, just about any law enforcement out there. When you call the police, chances are, a crime would’ve already been committed, in progress, or even suspected.
It was similar to an Enforcer, except much worse.
Magi were secretive enough that word of their crimes would usually not come out, not until they did something that not even magi could just ignore. More often than not, it would be magi with nothing to lose and everything to gain.
Those hunts would almost always result in death. For some of his allies, for the enemy, and innocents. No side would be spared from death.
This, what he was doing, was the complete opposite of that. Where as an Enforcer, he would be fighting for his life and the lives of those he was safeguarding, here, he was simply bettering the lives of a people.
It was nice. Calming.
Altogether, this had made him question his decision to ever be an Enforcer to begin with. If he could do good like this, with no more bloodshed, then why had he never gone and done this? Why had he never thought of doing things like this?
It wasn’t like he was short on money. Between the hefty inheritance that Kiritsugu had provided him, the bounties that he’d collected on Dead Apostles over the years, not once had he thought of something as simple as donating to charity.
It was something that he needed to rectify once he got back.
“Yo, Emiya-san? You there?”
He snapped out of his thoughts as Kuribayashi waved a hand in front of his face, “Ah.Apologies, I was lost in thought.”
“Well, can’t blame you.” She gave a grin towards him, “I could see how you looked at this place. You remind me of my dad when I told him I got into the JSDF.”
Shirou rubbed the back of his head, an action that he had never really grown out of, “Was it that obvious?”
“Even a blind man could tell, honest.”
“At any rate,” Instead of replying to the teasing smirk that the shorter woman now sported, he coughed out, “Did the Lieutenant General tell you why he needed me?”
Kuribayashi shrugged as they stopped to let a pair of elves carrying some more supplies pass, “He didn’t, but I can guess it has something to do with the group that just came through the Gate.”
The magus felt his eyebrows raise at the news, “Through the Gate?”
“Yeah, I didn't get a good look at them though, so I can’t exactly be sure. Timing’s a bit too coincidental for it to be anything else in my opinion.”
They waded through the partition that divided the JSDF base proper and the newer buildings, Shirou giving polite greetings whenever someone waved. It had felt strange at first, being recognized when magecraft was supposed to be a secret.
Now, it felt less like that, and more of an assurance that everything was alright.
The two made small talk as they continued, with Kuribayashi telling him that her sister, the reporter he had saved during the initial skirmish at Ginza, was vehemently trying to tell her to tell him that she was thankful.
He laughed alongside her as Kuribayashi recounted how she was already planning on doing so, but that her sister had still tried to bribe her with a bottle of her favorite sake.
“And we’re here.” A good ten minutes later, and they had stopped in front of the command center building, “Wish you luck in there.” He gave a nod of appreciation to the woman, before knocking on the door.
A muffled, “Come in.” Came through the closed door, and Shirou opened it as calmly as he could.
His composure was instantly broken as the acrid smell of a certain cigar brand filtered through his nose.
Hazama was sitting behind his desk, normal as ever, uncaring about the smell. It wasn’t him that was smoking, however. No, it came from the tall man seated in front of him, alongside two other figures. Wearing a form fitting black suit, with a pair of glasses and a red coat, it was hard not to recognize him.
“Lord Velvet.”
Waver Velvet sat almost casually, an air of quiet confidence around him as he read through some files. Shirou turned his attention to the two figures next to him. The first, a blonde woman sipping a cup of tea, a sly smirk gracing her features.
“Lady El-Melloi.”
Finally, another girl, one whose face almost instantly recognized. He crushed that thought immediately. He had called her by another name by mistake once, when they first met, and he refused to do so again. He respected her too much to do so again.
“Miss Gray.”
“Emiya.” Waver spoke up, while Gray gave a small wave with a smile. He returned the smile before he brought his attention back to the Clock Tower Lord, “Take a seat. If what I’ve heard is true, then we’re going to be here a while.”
Shirou took a mental breath as he did so. He had been expecting something from the Clock Tower for a while now, so he wasn’t surprised that they had sent Waver. In fact, it was likely the best option, Shirou having worked with the man several times over the years.
It didn’t change the fact that he could practically hear the sound of Waver’s cigarette being bitten with increasing force as he continued to read.
This was going to be a painful experience for all of them.
…
