[Regular chapters]
I owe you guys 3 chapters from last offer but it's Wednesday time for a new deal...
400 powerstones for a chapter added to the three left.
Will rose to 450 after I reach 7 bonus chapters
Meaning 1.6k powerstones.
Probably the last week I'll be able to do these massive 14-15 chapter releases... who would've thought a social life is surprisingly time consuming to maintain.
---
The car rolled to a gentle stop outside the Emiya Estate.
The lights in the household were still on, casting rectangles patches of light against the front.
Illya stepped out before the car had fully parked.
She said nothing as she left others in the car.
Illya walked alone to the door, her footsteps light, almost reverent.
She stood there for a moment, hand hovering near the doorbell.
This was it.
The house where he lived.
Shirou Emiya.
The boy Kiritsugu had adopted.
The one he raised with warmth and protection.
While she, the true daughter, was left behind.
She rang the bell.
Footsteps came quickly.
Then, the door slid open.
Shirou Emiya stood there in a simple T-shirt, holding a dish towel.
He'd been washing dishes, probably after dinner.
He blinked. "...Hello?"
Illya stared.
There he was.
The boy who had everything she didn't.
She'd thought about this for so long.
How she would scream at him.
Hurt him.
Tell him what he'd taken from her.
Demand why she was discarded while he got to live.
But now… standing here, face to face for the first time…
She felt nothing.
All her rage was gone...
Only a dull, gnawing emptiness.
She realized it instantly—and it made her angrier than anything else.
This should've been her moment.
She had carried this pain, fed it like a fire, nursed it into malice.
But that fire was already dead.
Snuffed out ... by Leo.
She hadn't even realized it until now.
Leo... the devil.
The arrogant one who dragged her through a warpath, tore apart her mortality, and made her feel safe for the first time in her life—
He'd done the one thing no one else ever imagined him doing.
He made her forget to hate.
She didn't need to fixate on Shirou or Kiritsugu anymore.
And that was the cruelest, most ironic part of it all.
The Devil had healed her in a way no saint ever could.
"Do I… know you?" Shirou asked, awkward but polite.
Illya blinked.
Her lips moved, but no words came out.
She turned around.
Bazett, Saber, and Rider had just begun walking toward the porch when Illya passed them, silent as a ghost.
Illya didn't answer to Bazett's call.
---
Leo lay on his back just beyond the warped, dead zone that was ORT's resting place.
He was breathing heavily, arms splayed out, half-deformed.
And perched directly on his head, currently digging into his scalp with sharp, pissed-off precision, was Ronan.
"You absolute, deranged idiot," the raven said between furious pecks. "You're lucky you're you...."
Leo winced, reaching up lazily to swat at Ronan without much effort. "Stop pecking me. I'm already exhausted...."
"Good. Maybe next time you'll hesitate before walking face-first into an abomination's lair with nothing but a death wish."
Leo rolled over slightly, resting his cheek against the cracked earth. "I had a plan…"
"You always have a plan. You just never remember to not be suicidal when you make one... like the last time with the founder."
Ronan leapt off his head with a flutter of his wings, landing on a scorched edge.
He glared down at Leo with those intelligent, soul-linked eyes..
"You're not invincible. Just because you can see the path doesn't mean walking it won't harm you."
Leo turned his face upward again, blinking slowly as he studied the distorted sky.
"I wasn't going to die," he murmured. "I saw it.... I pulled every choice I had and only walked the version where I come out."
"Still..."
"doesn't "
" change"
"your stupidity."
Ronan said in between pecks to the head.
"I'm not completely wrong though, right?" he asked, eyes barely open now. "It was worth it."
Ronan was silent at that.
"…Yeah," the raven admitted. "You pulled it off...."
Leo smiled faintly. "You sound like my mother sometimes."
"I am connected to your soul," Ronan growled, fluttering back onto his chest, talons digging just a little into his burnt shirt. "So yes. And if you try something this stupid again, I will peck your eyes out in your sleep."
Leo stared up at the twisted, silent stars overhead. "…Noted."
Then Leo exhaled and said, "Alright. Let's go we still have work to do... ."
---
The interior of Shirou's home was quiet due to its inhabitants sleeping.
The ticking of the clock on the wall filled the living room with a mechanical rhythm.
Sakura had just woken ij the middle of the night, groggy and thirsty.
She padded toward the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water.
And then, a soft thud the air as space bent unnaturally behind her.
The glass tilted in her hand, sloshing water down her wrist. She spun around.
A teleportation sigil burned faintly in the air for a brief second—crimson and gold—and from it stepped a tall, lean figure with a loose coat flaring slightly behind him, calm as if he owned the place.
Sakura's breath caught. Her eyes widened.
"Who are you?" she asked, stepping back cautiously. Her hand reached behind the counter and pulled out a small knife. It glowed faintly, laced with her prana.
Leo blinked.
"Oh," he said, glancing around at the living room. "Right. You and I never actually met."
He raised both his hands lazily in a gesture of peace, tilting his head as he looked at her with a small smirk.
"No need to be aggressive, lady. I'm not here to take your boyfriend. Even if he might be able to cook something better than the slop I've had lately."
Sakura's eyes narrowed, her cheeks suddenly pink. "W-What are you talking about?"
"We're all allies here," Leo said, taking a slow step forward.
"I don't believe you." The knife flared brighter with her magic.
Leo exhaled softly. His tone shifted, a touch more serious.
"I killed Shinji..."
The knife clattered to the floor.
Sakura stared at him, frozen, her mouth slightly open. "Oh... I—I didn't know that. I thought it was..."
"An accident?" Leo finished for her.
She gave the faintest nod.
"No," he said plainly. "It wasn't. It was me."
The silence returned for a few seconds.
Then Leo added:
"I'm connected to Bazett, by the way."
Sakura blinked. "Oh. You should've said so sooner."
She looked calmed slightly , her earlier tension slowly draining.
Leo walked forward casually and extended a hand.
"Nice to meet you, Sakura Matou."
She hesitated for half a second, then reached out and shook his hand lightly.
"It's nice to meet you too,...?" she said, softly.
Leo smiled.
"Oh—and I'm Satan, by the way. But you can just call me Leo."
---
A loud, high-pitched scream shattered the peace of the Emiya household.
It wasn't the kind of scream that came from a stubbed toe or a burnt tongue—no, this was the kind. The soul-shaking, heart-leaping, "something-is-deeply-wrong-in-the-living-room" kind.
Within seconds, the house became a scramble of noise and movement.
Artoria grabbed her invisible sword.
Medusa blinked herself upright.
Shirou nearly tripped over his futon.
Even Bazett, hair a mess, came stumbling out in her pajama pants, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
They all rushed into the living room, battle-ready.
And then… they stopped.
Deadpan stares all around.
Sakura was standing in the middle of the room, frozen like a statue, her eyes wide as saucers, her hand still half-pointing at Leo.
Leo, meanwhile, sat comfortably on the couch, legs crossed, a smug little grin on his face like he'd just said something very funny.
"Oh my god," Shirou mumbled.
"Let me guess…" Artoria sighed. "He said it."
"He always says it," Bazett grunted, too tired to react properly. "Usually within the first three sentences of meeting someone."
Sakura, still breathing heavily, pointed a trembling finger. "He—he shook my hand. And then said he's Satan."
"Yep, that tracks," Shirou muttered.
Everyone groaned.
Bazett blinked slowly, still trying to wake up. "Oh… you're back," she said, yawning. "Cool."
She stretched and scratched her head.
"So like… are we going back to my place now?" she asked, still half-asleep.
Leo threw her a casual thumbs-up and gave her a wink.
"Yeah, let's go. I made someone cry, so my job's done here."
"Alright, minions....Time for me to go with her."
Sakura twitched.
"Allies," Shirou corrected.
"Right, right," Leo said.
"Allies. That scream was a nine out of ten by the way. Very dramatic. Love it.", leo said pointing at Sakura.
"He's a very enigmatic person ....", Shirou said to Sakura
"You get used to it rather quickly", commented the well fed Artoria.
She sounded displeased with herself.
---
Bazett was barely awake, her body swaying with each sluggish step as Leo guided her down the hall.
Her hair was a mess, her runic arm bracers halfway unclasped, and her boots were thudding heavily against the wooden floor like someone dragging a training dummy.
"You are ridiculously heavy sleeper for someone who does combat," Leo muttered as he shouldered her weight.
They finally reached her room.
Leo opened the door, helped her sit on the edge of the bed, then gently nudged her backwards. She slumped back with a tired grunt, already halfway into unconsciousness.
He reached to take off one of her boots—
"When're you gonna fuck me?" she mumbled.
Leo froze mid-crouch.
"…What?"
Bazett didn't answer. Her eyes were shut tight, breath already slowing into the deep rhythm of a heavy sleeper.
"I mean, 'm not that pretty, I know, but y'could help a woman out…" she slurred, half into her pillow now.
Leo stood there, boots still in hand, brain slowly rebooting.
"Did she just—?"
She let out a light snore.
"Oh.... she's dead asleep."
Leo slowly placed her leg back down, then backed away from the bed like he'd just heard a cursed incantation.
He turned off the light and slipped out of the room, shutting the door with a click.
He delegated Bazett's mumbling to a wet dream not thinking much about it.
Instead he began to focus on something else.
You see, the reason Leo shook hands with Sakura wasn't just for manners or to scare her perfectly.
Far from it. Believe it.
There were two very specific reasons.
The first? He wanted a sample of her DNA.
More specifically, the affinity of Imaginary Number Space within her.
That affinity was rare, and Leo wanted it.
No, needed it.
With a simple handshake, he absorbed enough to simulate it, trace it, and replicate it within himself.
The second? Was a little nicer, depending on how you looked at it.
He healed her.
Not just the physical though the damage from years of inner corrosion was erased in an instant but the metaphysical chains tied to her existence.
The trauma. The shadow. The worms.
Gone.
Sakura wouldn't realize it right away, but her body would feel… lighter.
Her dreams quieter.
The old nightmare no longer clinging to her skin like a second soul.
Leo had no real reason to do it beyond convenience—and mayb, a pinch of compassion that lived inside him.
But now, that was done.
It was time to look for someone.
More specifically—
Himself.
Or rather, a version of himself. The one branded by the world as Beast VI.
Leo looked up at the dark sky above Fuyuki, eyes narrowing.
Time to hunt himself.
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