5 Chapter 5: Dream

Beta read by Shigiya, Fluffy Slayer and Paragon of Awesomeness

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-Kuoh Park-

Archer cocked a brow as he watched Issei collapse to his knees and slump forward, utterly dejected.

'Seems to me that the kid isn't too excited about the role you plan to have him fulfill in your peerage, Master.'

Rias found herself sighing at Issei's rather over-the-top reaction to the revelation that he was going to be her Pawn. 'I see that, Archer,' she mentally replied before speaking to the boy in front of her. "Are you… alright, Hyoudou-san?"

Issei raised his head to look at the pair before him, showing that he had tears streaming down his face in a manner that was, to put it bluntly, comical.

"Come on Senpai! Can't you make me something else? I'm never gonna get a harem if I have to spend my whole life stuck as a lame ass Pawn!"

"I'm sorry to hear that you're not thrilled about the position you'll be filling for my Master," Archer stated, his voice devoid of any real sympathy. "But frankly, we have more important concerns than whatever fantasies you have, and you don't exactly have the luxury of being a choosing beggar in this scenario."

"Besides," Rias said, "despite what you seem to think, Hyoudou-san, Pawns are an extremely valuable part of any Devil's peerage."

"Oh yeah?" Issei muttered, still on his knees with a cloud of depression hanging over his head. "How so, aren't pawns just the guys that you're supposed to use as a decoy or something?"

"Incorrect," the Servant answered in his Master's stead. "For Devils, Pawns have the ability to convert to different pieces using a method known as Promotion when inside the enemy's territory much like what a pawn in the game of chess can when it reaches the other end of the board. So basically you have the potential to become any piece aside from a King since that Piece doesn't exist when the situation demands it — even a Queen — so stop moping around."

Rias nodded as his explanation "That's a good summarization. The Pawn is arguably the most versatile and adaptable member of the team. And I will tell you right now Hyoudou-san, I will never, for as long as I live, throw away the lives of those in service to me or treat them callously. To become part of my peerage is to become part of my family. That is how I treat all of my other Devil servants, and that is how I will treat you, Hyoudou-san."

Issei felt a bit better after hearing his senpai say that. Maybe being a Pawn wouldn't be so bad after all.

'Hell, it's gotta be cooler than how I am right now,' he figured, finally getting to his feet.

"Okay then, so… how does this resurrection thing work?"

"Just stand still as I place my Pawn inside your body," Rias instructed, to which Issei nodded. As Rias moved to do what she had said though, Archer spoke up.

"Master, shouldn't you wait?" He asked, looking at his Master holding the Pawn in her hand, knowing that she didn't have the full set anymore — holding only six more Pawns in her pocket.

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(Several hours earlier)

Sitting in her office while the others were having a day off to relax given that it was a Saturday, Rias thought of something concerning her Servant.

"Neh, Archer, I have a question for you."

A figure appeared by her side with his arms crossed. Though having been given the task to keep an eye on his target, Hyoudou Issei, Archer knew he could afford to wait a few more hours before leaving for the boy's date.

"How may I be of assistance, Master?"

"You never truly explained what kind of magic you use." There hadn't been any opportunities to see him in action so far, and she was thankful for the peaceful environment around Kuoh lately, but still! She wanted to see what her awesome new Servant could actually do! "I know it may seem a bit personal and all, but I am curious about what you can do aside from firing arrows as your name suggests and having superhuman strength and speed." This also included the part of him telling her about Noble Phantasms and so on.

He pondered for a bit before deciding to show her something basic.

"Well, I can show you this small trick." Putting his hand next to her teacup, Rias marveled as she saw particles of light gather around and formed into the shape of a teacup similar to hers. The same color, designs, and even the same minor imperfections. "This is Projection or as others would call it, Gradation Air. It is a practice involving the materialization of objects, in accordance with the caster's imagination and understanding, through the use of shaped Magical Energy." He was about to mention the world's effect on it but then stopped. Would it disappear in the first place? Unlike his Tracing which differed greatly, he wondered how basic Projections acted in this world since it seemed to lack Gaia's influence.

"Woah, that's quite impressive, Archer. So you can recreate anything you want?" Stars appeared in the redhead's eyes as she began to imagine the possibilities!

Unfortunately for her, her excitement was quite visible.

"Not exactly, there are of course limits and these items are a long way off from being anything close to true copies even for the most mundane objects. A single crack would make this cup disappear and they are a general downgrade from the original item. And I can already guess your next question; no, it can't replicate something like a Sacred Gear or one of your Evil Pieces. From my understanding, the former generally needs a host soul or spirit inside the Gear to make it function in the first place, and this Magecraft can't replicate anything like a soul or spirit — that is something else entirely. And as for anything along the lines of an Evil Piece, I did say that one of the limitations of this spell is the caster's own understanding of what they're trying to Project, and needless to say I have little to no understanding whatsoever of how your species' magic system in general works. Let alone something capable of any form of genuine reincarnation."

"I-I wasn't thinking of that!" Rias stuttered, embarrassed that she was caught so easily. "L-Let's move on, what else can you do?" Her excitement returned as she looked like a child who had just found out she was suddenly getting a second Christmas.

So to demonstrate the next spell, he grabbed Rias' now empty cup of tea, the real one. "What do you suppose would happen if I threw this cup at the wall?" He asked, having her look at him weirdly.

"Is this a trick question of sorts? If not then of course it'll break."

After she said that, Rias noticed a gentle glow come from the cup. With lines resembling a circuit spreading over the item's surface till all of it was covered. To her surprise, Archer then threw her favorite tea cup across the room!

"Archer!?" She exclaimed, wondering why he would do such a thing!

"Don't worry, Master, this is the second spell." He went over and grabbed the item, which Rias discovered was embedded inside the wall!

"How…" Touching it, she did not feel the slightest crack or break on its surface, which remained perfectly intact.

"This is called Reinforcement. It basically fills in gaps in a given molecular structure with shaped… Magical Energy. This reinforces the physical shell of the object until the energy dissipates over time. It can work similarly on muscles, allowing them to be more resistant to tears while contracting, and strengthens the bones, so this is a spell I often use on myself and my weapons. Applying this to my already enhanced strength as a Servant can yield quite an explosive albeit temporary boost in power."

To say that Rias was impressed would be an understatement. Just these two abilities made her marvel at the potential capabilities of Archer. "I'm glad I have a Servant who wields such an impressive form of magic, you must have been quite a powerful mage in your world on top of being a renowned warrior." Rias said confidently, her chest puffed with pride as she was excited to have someone with such an ability by her side.

For Archer himself, he didn't want to shatter her newfound confidence and inform her that Projection and Structural Reinforcement in general were quite basic forms of Magecraft to the point that they were universally considered beginner spells with little to no real use in the pursuit of Magecraft.

As Rias was fiddling with her cup, an idea came to her head. Opening the drawer of her table, she retrieved a single black ornate box with the symbol of her family etched on its lacquered wooden surface. Archer grew curious about what she was doing and raised an eyebrow when he saw a set of chess pieces with magic within them, and the Queen, one Knight, one Rook, and one Bishop missing. It didn't take much to guess what they were; she did give him a basic explanation of the Reincarnation Devils, the Evil Piece system, and the Sacred Gears.

He knew what these pieces correlated to each of her peerage members, but he didn't remember anyone having the Bishop piece…

"I take it that one of these will be the Evil Piece that you'll use on the boy." He said, wondering how these Evil Pieces worked in the first place. Stripping humans of their humanity while changing them biologically into Devils wasn't an easy task.

"Yes, I will be using my Pawns for him."

"Pawns?" Archer noted how she had worded her phrase in the plural sense. "You honestly believe the boy will be worth more than one? I distinctly remember you saying he possessed little to no Magical Energy. Surely even a single Pawn will be more than enough for the likes of him."

"I'm certain, Archer. A Sacred Gear is not a small thing one can ignore. They hold great potential and to top it off, Koneko smelled the scent of a dragon on him. Even if it's the weakest dragon-based Sacred Gear in existence, Twice Critical, which I just so happen to believe to be the case — it'll still take at least two pieces in my opinion. Dragons are powerful creatures, and it would be foolish to underestimate their strength." She explained, looking at the Pawns inside her chest before an idea popped into her mind. "But… I believe we can try to make it only a single Pawn for Issei."

To his surprise, Rias passed a Pawn to Archer, the latter hesitant but he accepted the item all the same. "Am I supposed to do something with this?" He asked.

"Yes, I want you to Reinforce it."

"..."

Silence occupied the room. The white-haired man just gave his Master an incredulous stare, checking if the girl wasn't making a joke — to his dismay, she was serious.

"Master please, I strongly advise you to reconsider." He immediately attempted to deny her request. "There are many unknown factors about the Evil Pieces, especially to someone like me. Devil magic of this world is practically alien to me in just about every possible sense of the word, and Magecraft is something that demands a thorough understanding of every possible detail."

"Come on Archer, it wouldn't hurt to try; we have more to gain in this scenario than lose. If this works then I'll have better pieces capable of reincarnating potentially stronger peerage members and save more pieces to increase the number of servants in my peerage." Rias insisted, almost begging her Servant to give it a try.

Unfortunately for her, Archer still had his doubts — well-founded doubts in his opinion. "If I Reinforce this Pawn Piece, it will at most make the Evil Piece harder to break whilst not affecting its ability to reincarnate people in the slightest as I lack the necessary understanding of that aspect. My inability to Reinforce this Evil Piece in the manner you desire boils down to the same reason why I cannot Project one; the concept it is founded on is too vague and complex for something like my Magecraft to affect its capabilities and again, I hardly know anything about it, let alone the inner workings. Worst case scenario is my meddling will cause the Pawn to accidentally break or even malfunction."

"We will never know unless we try," she countered. "If it doesn't work then we'll move on with the original plan for reincarnating Hyoudou-san, but if there is the slightest chance that it'll work then this advantage would be too big to ignore. I'm willing to take the risk, Archer."

The man sighed at his Master's stubbornness. He could understand her motive and see just how big of an advantage this could be for her. So he relented, deciding to just entertain her by just redoing the same thing with the cup and showing that the only outcome would be physically Reinforcing the item in question.

He concentrated on the piece in his hand, taking a moment of silence before sending a small but steady stream of his Od inside the Pawn piece. Archer raised an eyebrow upon noticing just how slowly it took for the energy to fill in every imperfection and crack into the Evil Piece, requiring far more energy than he had expected. But slowly, the circuit-like lines started to appear over the surface, slowly spreading until they began to cover half of the piece.

"It's working!" Rias exclaimed with jubilance while her Servant continued to concentrate.

"Hm?" A frown came to his face. Something felt wrong, the item started to grow… warm? Yes, it wasn't noticeable at first but became apparent as time passed on. He wanted to stop, fearing he might damage the item with too much of his Od, but that only seemed to accelerate the strange occurrence.

"What?" His Master noticed the unusual activity as well, watching the piece glow a dim red color within Archer's hand. "That… that doesn't seem right."

"—!"

Whatever was happening couldn't have been good, and a terrible premonition settled inside his gut. Moving quickly, Archer rushed to the window with the piece now shaking violently in his hand, the warmth from before having grown into a searing hotness that was beginning to burn his skin. With great force, he threw it outside high into the sky, both Master and Servant watching the Pawn piece sail through the air before…

Boom!

It exploded into thousands of tiny shards scattering across the sky, releasing a crimson-red energy that slowly dissipated in the wind.

Rias had her mouth agape, both shocked and unable to believe what just happened in front of her. She wanted to bang her head against the wall, but couldn't muster the will to do so.

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"Told you so," Archer spoke from behind her, waving the smoke from his hands away. "Now, let's hope nobody saw that."

"..."

{Break}

-Present-

"Are you sure about this, Master?" He repeated his question to Rias.

"Yes, at most two or three pieces should suffice. Though I am saddened about what happened earlier, it is not something that can't be fixed. I have sent a message to my brother and asked him to have Ajuka Beelzebub, the creator of the Evil Pieces, help me out by replacing the missing piece in my set. I'll probably get a replacement in a day or two." Honestly, she had been berating herself ever since that incident. Archer had repeatedly warned her about the danger of trying to combine two completely different systems of magic yet she remained stubborn until the results literally blew up in her face. The temptation of the possibilities had been too great and she couldn't control herself and remained stubborn — now she had to reap the consequences of her decisions.

"Uh, guys, I'm still here…" Issei spoke, sitting on his knees for the last few minutes waiting to be turned into a Devil.

"Right," Rias said, turning back to the reason she was here in the first place. "Alright, Hyoudou-san. Hold still…"

Rias held her breath as the magic circle for the reincarnation process appeared on top of Issei as he laid down on the ground. A single Pawn Piece on his chest as she began the spell.

One Pawn.

She watched the piece rest on his chest, waiting for it to sink inside the boy's body. Yet it remained still, a sight that made her excited, for it meant he held more potential than the piece could account for and that the Sacred Gear he had was indeed a dragon-based one.

Two Pawns.

The amount she initially guessed, the maximum one would need for the wielder of a Twice Critical if that was what Issei had.

"..."

Yet they still didn't sink inside, showing that the boy needed more than this.

Three Pawns.

Nothing.

Four Pawns.

Still nothing.

"Is it one of Vritra's Sacred Gears?" Rias asked herself, her heart beating loudly as she couldn't believe she had struck gold. Ha! Sona was going to fume with jealousy when she heard about this. First she got Archer and now she was going to get a powerful dragon Sacred Gear!

Five Pawns.

Alright, now she was beginning to get genuinely worried from the lack of reaction from the pieces. Even the strongest Vritra part would only need five pieces.

Six Pawns.

And finally, seven Pawns.

Even after Rias put everything she had into him, it still wasn't enough. The excitement that grew inside her body had crashed against a brick wall. Panic flooded inside her heart as she realized that this boy was somehow worth Eight Pawns! Even if she tried to use a Knight, Rook, or Bishop instead, it still wouldn't be enough without having two of each. Yet she obviously didn't have those pieces.

That was… beyond anything she could have predicted!

Not only was Issei completely ignorant of the supernatural prior to this night, but he was also incapable of even the most basic forms of magic. If he didn't have a Sacred Gear, Rias believed that she could have smashed a Pawn Piece and then used one of the fragments to turn him into a Devil. Though it was worth pointing out that something like that wasn't even possible to begin with.

And it didn't help that one of her pieces did in fact blow up into a bunch of tiny fragments just that morning!

For Issei to require so much meant… virtually all of the power needed for the resurrection had to be because of his Sacred Gear.

As for which Sacred Gear Issei had, Rias still didn't know for sure. But the number she knew of that could possibly have this kind of cost were so small a five-year-old could count that high.

And most of them were Longinus-class…

"I messed up…" she muttered listlessly, watching the seven Pawns stay on top of his chest and not budge an inch. The circle around the boy dissipated, showing that the process had failed and he hadn't turned into a Devil. Never in her life did Rias want to scream at the sky with so much frustration and smack her past self in the face for doing such a stupid thing!

"Don't take it too hard, Master. This is frustrating to be sure, but it is merely a small setback at the end of the day. You'll just have to wait for your brother to act, which hopefully he'll do quickly. As for his part, Hyoudou Issei can use this time to grow familiar with the rest of your group until the remaining piece arrives before being fully immersed into the world of Devils."

Right… yes, he wasn't wrong, she was reacting to things too quickly… But she had to. Her time was running out and if things didn't improve for her soon, then—

She felt her Servant's hands rest on her shoulders. "I can see you're panicking, Master. I don't know what it might be over but rest assured that you don't need to worry about it so long as you have me by your side. If you are in any trouble then I will take care of it. One of my purposes is to carry your burdens after all." Those words were like a hot spring washing over her body. The tension and panic that had crept up before had dissipated in a matter of seconds.

Archer was right; why was she being so stressed? Issei could wait a few more days until the missing piece arrived, and Sona wouldn't need to know what happened today and would probably think that Issei had already been turned into a Devil or took some days off to adjust. Besides, even if she did learn about him, Sona didn't have nearly enough of her own Evil Pieces remaining to make Issei part of her peerage.

Rias gave her Servant a warm smile, who had just once again proven to her how lucky she was to have summoned him, and she was very grateful for it.

"Eh, guys… am I a Devil yet?"

Archer loomed over the boy, looking him straight in the eyes. "Rejoice, young man, for you have not lost your humanity yet." He said with a trace of mirth in his voice.

"...What?"

Suffice to say, Issei was confused.

{Break}

-Next day-

As Rias and Archer both sat at the table to enjoy breakfast together, the Gremory heiress decided that now was as good a time as any to bring up a small matter she'd been meaning to address.

"Archer, we are going to go do some shopping today."

"Oh, any particular reason for this unforeseen trip?" The Servant said, glad to see she hadn't taken the events of yesterday to heart despite her disappointment with the current circumstances.

"Indeed. Now as I'm sure you know, as of last night my family finished putting together a backstory for you – or rather, for Toujou Shirou – and all the necessary documentation has arrived as well. You are the cousin of Koneko and have returned from abroad to pursue higher studies while also applying for a teaching position at Kuoh Academy. So now that your background has been taken care of, our main focus today is going to be buying clothes for you, my loyal Servant."

Archer quirked a brow. "And why exactly would you feel the need to do that in the first place, Master?"

"Because if you're going to live in this world, then obviously you're going to need clothes to wear during the parts of the day when you're pretending to be an ordinary human." Rias replied.

"I can use my magic to create such clothes whenever the need arises," Archer shrugged, and as he spoke his current outfit vanished the same way his body did whenever he took spirit form. In its place was a black long-sleeved dress shirt with matching pants, proving his point. "So there's no reason for you to go spending money on my behalf, Master."

"Perhaps, but I want to," his Master replied. "And besides, if I let you do that you'd probably just create the same outfit every time you needed to go out in public. You need some variety in your wardrobe, Archer."

Sighing at what he personally saw as an unnecessary expense of time and money from his Master merely for the sake of what she thought was his own sense of comfort, Archer acquiesced to Rias' will. He figured it would be best to just get it over with, lest he desired to waste further time and energy arguing with her when she'd clearly made up her mind. His Master had proven to be rather stubborn when it came to caring for those in service to her. Apparently, it was a trait shared by all in her family.

"Fine then. When do you wish to leave?"

Brightening up, Rias smiled "Once we're done with breakfast and everything is cleaned up and put away, we'll head out."

It didn't take long for Rias to get ready before they left the house.

One thing Archer had learned about his Master was how she loved taking long walks around town for matters that did not concern her usual work as a Devil.

She insisted that he walk alongside her instead of in his astral form, something about how it looked better this way.

"Hey, Archer, you never told me about how you can use a sword given you're… you know, an archer." That memory of Archer fighting with a sword in hand had been playing inside her mind for a while now. It was clear that her Servant was an impressive swordsman, as even with what little he'd shown, it still was enough to easily disable a Fallen with a single black dao blade.

"Well, where exactly is it written that an archer can't use a sword?" He said jokingly, and the sheer nonchalance with which he said these words, along with the lack of any obvious retort left Rias stunned before he continued. "Before you ask, no, that sword isn't my Noble Phantasm or anything like that."

"Then… what is it?"

He shrugged, "Just a borrowed weapon I can create with my Magecraft."

"You mean Projection? But I thought you said that items created by that form of magic are weaker than the original. That sword seemed quite durable after the way it destroyed that Fallen's light spear with just a touch."

At the corner of her eyes, she saw her Servant's mouth twitch upwards for a split second. "You can say that I'm… quite adept with that form of Magecraft."

Again, she felt like he was dodging her question, something that made her pout. Just as she was about to ask him to clarify, Archer stopped.

"Would you look at that, it seems like we have arrived at our destination, Master."

She turned around to find the entrance to the clothing store in front of them, and stars appeared in Rias' eyes as she saw so many clothes that, in her mind, would look amazing on Archer. Unable to contain herself, she grabbed his hand and rushed for the store while all but dragging him behind her.

Archer meanwhile couldn't help but chuckle, 'At least she is quite easy to distract.'

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After a very successful shopping trip, Rias and Archer made their way back to her home together with the Servant carrying about two dozen bags of clothes. As it turned out, the redhead had been rather insistent about buying anything that she thought even remotely suited him.

"Was it necessary to get this much, Master? Just a couple pairs of shirts, pants, and socks and one set of shoes would have more than sufficed with how frequently the clothes are cleaned." He said dryly, knowing that half of these clothes would never get used, and didn't like the unnecessary spending.

"Oh cheer up you downer, I would never let you live with only two sets of clothes, that would be unacceptable. And besides, you looked so good in each of them that I couldn't resist buying them all!"

"At the very least, you can at least acknowledge that there was no need to spend so much…"

"We barely spent anything."

It was pointless to reason with her, he should have realized when just one of the pairs of shoes she bought cost more than most jewelry… and she bought several of them. He believed that if he hadn't stopped her when he did, then she would have easily purchased the entire men's section of the store by the end of the day.

"At least we didn't spend the entire day there…" Glancing at the clock on the wall, he saw that they had easily spent five hours on this shopping trip before finally returning home. Something told him that Rias would have wanted to stay there until nightfall or even drag him to another store, and that was too much for him to do in a single day.

"I wanted to have Akeno join us, but she has some of her personal duties to attend to today so I couldn't get her to come. Koneko likes to sleep all day when given the opportunity and Kiba has a date with one of his clients." Rias replied, taking one of the bags and taking out a few articles of clothing Archer didn't remember her buying. "Oh, I added this when you weren't looking! Come on, try it!"

The man sighed, even as he stepped forward to indulge his Master. This truly wasn't his day.

{Break}

-???-

I am the bone of my sword.

Under a blue sky, with the sun's edge shining on the horizon, he strode toward the hill — the one thing that stood out within this barren landscape. As he began to make his way up its slope, a blade appeared in his hands, beautiful and ornate, and immediately he plunged it into the earth where laid a body, the familiar black dao blade plunging into its skull and killing whoever it was once and for all.

Steel is my body and fire is my blood.

It didn't take long before his hands held two more weapons of opposing color, the representation of Yin and Yang, married blades that were drenched with the blood of thousands.

I have created over a thousand blades.

—re dead, all of them. The men, women, and all the children. Struck down without mercy or hesitation, every last—

Unknown to death.

A burden that he carried for years, so long that the passage of time became as meaningless as the grains of sand beneath his feet.

Nor known to life.

—and continued on. Three steps later the blades left his grip before getting plunged into the body of another—

Have withstood pain to create many weapons.

At first, there was denial, fear, and anger. The acceptance of what he did was for the greater good. An act he repeated hundreds of times, thousands of times, going so far that even the initial reasons lost their meaning.

—hese men were killers and rapists, the lowest of scum. They would have committed countless atrocities with a smile on their faces given the chance. This premature end to their lives was no true loss, and in fact, prevented a far greater tragedy… So wh—

An ideal borrowed from another, an empty husk who wanted to find the answer, a meaning for its existence… a broken man who never truly understood the danger of the path he walked on.

—as he had with the last and left it there, not once looking back. Again and again this happened, where he would drive a sword into the earth—

And yet, those hands will never hold anything.

Was this really what he wanted? Everything he worked for without wanting to be thanked or recognized for his actions. An act of selflessness in the eyes of many, but actually turned out to be a pushing force that drove his only meaning in life. A hero… a hero who was supposed to save everyone, to sacrifice oneself just to have no one cry ever again.

—how many people would have to die this ti—

He stood at the peak of the hill, resting his eyes briefly, having finally reached the end of his journey, and opened them to see what his life had wrought.

So as I pray…

For no amount of denial or delusional thinking could hide the truth of the matter to the Faker. Betrayed not by those who turned their blades against him, not by the people he saved, not by those who granted him power. He was betrayed by his own ideals, the sea of never-ending blood and corpses lying in front of his eyes hammering the truth deep within his psyche.

He was now skewered with weapons of every variety. Swords, spears, daggers, arrows… the man was in unspeakable pain. But those wounds were not the cause of it, for it was the sight of the impossibly large gears now dominating his vision as he looked up, spinning within the now colorless sky that symbolized the truth which broke him.

—hero? What a jo—

He now came face to face with the truth.

This sight was what twisted his face into one of pure anguish.

The sky became clouded, the sun vanishing forever.

His heart shattered.

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Everything was consumed by a sea of fire. She saw even more deaths of the innocent. An ominous hangman's rope that exuded a sickening feeling inside her stomach. A black moon, hanged corpses, more death, more destruction, and at the very end — a lone man on his knees who lost everything.

The scream of despair that came from him became too overwhelming for her.

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"Ah!" Rias' eyes snapped open as she got up from bed screaming from fright, her whole body wrapped up in a cold sweat. The first thing she did was an attempt to get her ragged breathing back under control.

"Are you alright, Master?" Still shaken, Rias lifted her head to meet the concerned gaze of her Servant. He was standing beside the bed for some reason, clothed in a simple white shirt and pants she bought for him the previous morning. Her eyes glanced behind him where she saw a chair placed outside on the balcony. She quickly ignored it, focusing on her Servant in front of her. She reached out, and he offered his hand to her which she grasped onto as if he would disappear the moment she let go.

"A-Archer, I… I don't—" she couldn't speak, her mind was a jumbled mess as she could still feel the touch of the flames upon her skin. The image of the shadowed hunched figure looming over a hill with nothing but a legacy of death, destruction, and above all else failure around him.

"Calm down." He spoke gently, crouching down to bring his face closer to hers as he began using his other hand to caress her crimson hair. "You had a nightmare, nothing more and nothing less." the Servant assured her. He carried a tone of understanding, almost as if he knew what was going on and Rias did not like that — for she hoped it was nothing but her imagination gone astray. "You dreamt about me, didn't you?"

When Rias gave a shaky nod in response, the Heroic Spirit took her into his arms and embraced her tightly, with one of his hands rubbing her naked back soothingly.

"I don't know what exactly you dreamed of, Master, but I'm sure it… wasn't pleasant," he murmured softly into her ear. "Try not to dwell on it too much. Whatever you saw was but an image of the past that has no impact on the present, nor does it matter in the first place. Just put it out of your mind as best you can, and if possible forget about it entirely, just like any other bad dream."

Forget about it? Forget about it!? She couldn't, it was impossible! The very thought of doing that sent shivers down her spine, the way he disregarded what she saw when it was his own past further made her heart quake with sadness.

"Please… don't say that." the young Devil whispered into the crook of her Servant's neck as she tried to hold back her tears, wrapping her own arms around him and holding on as though he were her last lifeline. "Just… never say something like that…."

"Ah, this feels familiar… I feel we had this conversation in the past." He said, referencing the night after she gave him his name. "What you saw must have shaken you more than I expected. Going through the Dream Cycle is never an easy thing for one to experience — especially when I am their Servant. This is why I'm asking you to close your heart to it though; not because I don't care, but quite the opposite. Yours is an exceptionally kind soul, Master, and I don't want you of all people to feel guilty or saddened over events that were beyond your control. Just remember, my story is one of many billions. Do not seek to gain anything from it."

Her heart had mostly calmed down. The gentle warmth of his body proved a wonderful contrast to his strong arms wrapped around her, and his calm, steady voice soothed the heiress and kept her from pushing for any more answers. She was not satisfied with his answer of course, but as long as he remained by her side, then she would do her best to slowly change his outlook on his past.

"Stay here with me," she said quietly, tightening her hold around Archer, unbothered by how her naked body pressed against his own. Archer wouldn't lie, and thought to himself that it was a bit awkward given how her sweat made her bare skin cling to his clothes, coupled with the heat he felt from her entire being.

She certainly was a clingy girl.

"For as long as you need me to, Master," he promised.

{Break}

-Occult Research Club-

When Rias entered the clubroom in the old school building, Akeno sensed a sudden shift in the room's mood. Her Buchou's eyes seemed… haunted by something. And she noticed how when Rias looked at Archer, the heiress' eyes were filled to the brim with sorrow.

That made the Queen worry. "Buchou, what's wrong?"

Rias shifted her eyes from Archer to the raven-haired girl beside her, yet her gaze would drift back toward the Servant every few seconds with a worried look. "Last night I… think I dreamt about Archer's past."

Akeno blinked in curiosity, her eyes glancing over at Archer briefly before returning her attention to Rias. "What did you say? Dreamt of his past? How?"

"I…" Rias shook her head and clenched her jaw as the memory of that dream swept through her again. She still couldn't comprehend what she exactly saw, and the words of her Servant last night frustrated her even more. "Archer, please help me understand what happened in that dream. I don't know how to make sense of it."

Archer was close to the window overlooking the grounds outside, and just stood there with his arms crossed before turning to face his Master. "I'll do what I can, but first you'll have to tell me what you saw, Master. Your condition last night was too… shaken for me to even think of asking any questions. If you'll recall, I did mention this would be happening the day after I was summoned, when I told you about the Dream Cycle that occurs between Servant and Master."

With a shaky breath, Rias spoke of what she had seen in her sleep, while Archer and Akeno silently listened to what she had to say. The former with grim acceptance, the latter with worry as well as confusion in equal measure.

Once the heiress finished telling of her nightmare, Archer let out a long-held sigh. "What you saw each time I plunged a sword into the earth, Master, was the deeds I committed while wielding that particular sword — or swords if you saw different versions."

Rias found herself unable to do anything other than stare at her Servant in horrified bewilderment. "But, Archer I… you told me you were a hero. One who saved countless people over the course of your life… How could you call yourself that after killing all of those people?!" she screamed at him.

By the time the dream had concluded, the swords had been beyond counting! She'd already suspected what those flashes were supposed to represent, but to hear it from Archer's own mouth that they were all battles or massacres he had taken part in? Rias couldn't make sense of it.

He chuckled grimly, his familiar smirk now looking hollow. "So you finally realize why I don't consider myself as one in the first place." Archer slowly answered, speaking softly to ensure that every word that came from him would be clearly heard. "I had a single wish that drove me throughout the course of my entire life. A wish that gave a clearly defined purpose to my existence yet also doomed me to a path of nothing but misery. To be a hero. That was my goal and sole wish…" As he spoke, the Heroic Spirit stared at his hands, seeing something that only he could see.

"Then why—" Rias began, but stopped as soon as the Servant opened his mouth again.

"Because I wanted to forge a world in which no one had cause to cry, I spent my life doing everything in my power to save everyone. But no matter what I did, every time I attempted to help someone in peril, there were those I had to kill in order to save them. This is because the simple truth of the matter is, saving one person means choosing not to save someone else. And if your goal is to save as many people as possible, then naturally there are always the few who must be tossed to the side in order for all those other people to have been saved in the first place. And so, throughout my existence… I killed, in order to save countless more. Over and over again. It's as simple as that."

Both women were taken aback by the intensity of his voice. All of it was directed at himself.

"In other words, it's utterly impossible to save everyone, no matter how hard one might wish otherwise. As much as I tried to deny this simple fact, the truth of the matter was demonstrated to me again… and again… and again. Until eventually I had no choice other than to finally realize that my lifelong dream of being a hero who would save everyone before him was nothing more than shallow idealism; a foolish aspiration that does nothing to actually make the world a better place. And so it was that in becoming the hero of justice I had always desired to be with all my heart, I finally came to understand a second truth: there's no such thing as a hero of justice."

"Archer…" Rias was speechless, she wanted to say something… but no words came to her mind. The same could be said for Akeno, she could sense the self-hatred within the Servant, the disgust that slipped through the cracks — things she recognized all too easily.

"That is what you saw, Master: the result of a lifetime of efforts to help as many people as was possible, and all the lives that were tossed to the side and trampled over to make that happen."

His piece said, the Servant frowned as he realized that he might have spoken too much. Despite always having tight control over his emotions, whenever that part of his past got involved it always pushed the wrong buttons inside him.

Eventually, he muttered, "If that's all for now, Master, I believe I need to make some bentos for you and your peerage members." Without saying anything more, he vanished, leaving both girls in the middle of the room looking at each other.

Akeno was the first one to say something, "…It would seem that our dear Servant also has a complicated past."

Rias sighed.

"You can say that again…" she said before going still and giving Akeno a suspicious side glance. "Our?"

"Ara~ Just a slip of the tongue there, Buchou, nothing more." Rias didn't believe that for one second. "Hm, by the way, what exactly happened with Hyoudou Issei… did you change him into a Devil?"

Oh right, she had nearly forgotten about that part. Her cheeks flushed as she was already getting embarrassed just from remembering that incident.

"Well… it's a bit complicated. Let me explain."

A few minutes later Koneko entered the room, confused to find her King blushing whilst hiding her face as best she could behind her hands with Akeno holding her stomach while laughing uncontrollably.

What… happened here?

That concern immediately left her head when she picked up the scent of food being cooked as well as the noise coming from behind a black door. And Akeno clearly wasn't the one cooking since she was here, which meant… "Good morning, I'm going to the kitchen."

That statement made the raven-haired girl smile, "Mah, quite eager of you, Koneko-chan. I'll be joining you as well I think; it is MY kitchen after all." Her tone lowered significantly at the last part while her eyes sharpened with a fire burning inside of them. Without saying anything else, both girls left the main room and went inside the kitchen where Archer was in the midst of preparing numerous meals, leaving Rias to her thoughts.

Something felt fishy about this in the redhead's opinion…

"I need a shower," Rias said, ignoring the sounds and smells coming from the kitchen and wanting to cool off in the shower inside her clubroom.

Odd as some people may find her frequent showers, having the water stream down her body was something she'd always found to be therapeutic. As she did so, her mind drifted back to the conversation with Archer that had taken place just a few minutes ago. She hoped she would be able to find a way to help him…

Because there was not a doubt in her mind that she would need him by her side in order to deal with whatever was going to come next.

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The next 5 chapters of Snafu, Harry Potter and my 3 other Fate fics (Fate Coiling Sword with 3 chapters, A Fake Familiar Reborn with 3 chapters and To love a sword having 4 chapters) are already available on my P@treon. With 4 more Broly chapters at /NimtheWriter. Also, I post monthly commissioned arts on each story, already posted a few on an Archer's Promise, Broly and Snafu.