Erza had experienced many hardships in life, some of which would have broken an average person down to the mental level, but she'd always persisted. In doing so, she was able to withstand physical pains greater than any other, and also gained the ability to judge the character of others. Trust was never something easily given, and in the Tower of Heaven, sometimes you even had to be weary of other prisoners who'd tattle on talks of an escape just to lighten their burdens. Wardens had encouraged and endorsed such behaviour with larger meals and freedom to one day join their ranks as another Warden should they prove themselves worthy.

The point she was trying to make, and why she was so sure that Archer was the Shirou that she knew, was because deep down, the characters were the same. Archer may refuse to believe anything she said, or even flat out deny it, but she was confident in her judgement of character.

He could be cold, uncaring, or a flat-out asshole, but she never believed that he'd be one to ignore the plight of others. Instead, he'd gripe and grimace about more trouble, but he'd definitely help. If he was really the cynical bastard that he tried to make himself seem to be, then why did the Strauss siblings care so much about him?

Yet, had she been wrong?

For the first time, doubt clouded Erza's mind while she ran to help the people caught in the crossfire between two Dark Guilds. For the same reason she could infer the nature of a person's character, it was evidently clear that Archer had not been lying about forsaking people in need of help. Then why were her senses also telling her that he wasn't the sort to do such a thing?

It was all so confusing, but mostly because she didn't understand what Archer was thinking.

A man can only save what's in front of them, and if a choice was to be made between saving one person or the other, wasn't it only natural to choose the side that saved most lives? Of course, Erza knew of this mentality, but to her, there was only the people she could see in front of her.

Have to hurry.

Her legs were screaming at her to slow down, but it wasn't a demand that she could comply with after seeing the fear in the eyes of the people in front of her.

In all of Fiore, only a fraction of the population had the ability to become Mages. Ordinary people who get caught in the crossfire between Mages and can't properly defend themselves are often reportedly injured or killed.

Seeing the people cowering in the distance reminded her too much of how life had been in the Tower of Heaven. Seeing people reduced to such a state of helplessness and not doing anything was impossible.

"Over here! Run over here! I'll defend!" She yelled out once she got within hearing range.

The battle between Dark Guilds was occurring in the middle of the forest, the splintered trees and charred wood creating an open plaza. The only reason the people caught in between hadn't been killed yet was due to a few Mages casting protective magic and warding away stray attacks.

The battle between the Dark Guilds must have lasted for several days, as there were signs of fighting for as far as a mile away. The Mages protecting their people looked haggard and beaten. The only reason they were still standing was because the Dark Guilds viewed the opposing guild as a larger threat.

Yelling had probably not been the best idea, as it alerted the Dark Wizards of her location, but she had no other choice. She'd noticed that the Mages protecting the people had run out of magical power and would not be able to continue blocking stray attacks.

There were about twenty combating Dark Wizards in her vicinity, and all of them had turned to stare at her. It was then that she knew that she was too in over her head.

She looked up once, and her pupils dilated as a magic bullet nearly grazed the side of her neck. It missed though and cratered the ground, raising a small plume of dust and smoke behind her.

"Fuck, I missed," a dark mage holding a pistol and wearing a cowboy set grunted.

Erza swallowed nervously, watching as a strand of her shoulder-length hair fell towards the ground. A little more to the left and it could have been her head. Her pupils dilated, her breath growing shallow. Now that she thought about it, what exactly was she trying to do on her own?

She paled, her lips pursing. She had Requip Magic which relied on the summoning of various types of equipment. Just like Shirou, its greatest strength was versatility depending on the number of armour sets and weapons she'd stored in a separate sub-space which she could draw from at will. In this regard, it was also a weakness.

Erza hastily raised up her arms in defence when another magic blast came rocketing towards her and sent her tumbling over the ground. Her steel armour mitigated much of the damage, but it didn't stop cuts and bruises from forming over her skin from the impact.

She was a fool.

Gritting her teeth, she got back onto her feet, only to once again dive towards the ground in a roll to avoid another magic attack.

Requip Magic offered the most versatility out of all magics in Fiore, however, it meant nothing if she had no armours or weapons in her subspace. She'd just gotten to Fairy Tail a few weeks back and had learned of the nature of her magic. Using the money, she would earn from guild requests, she'd planned to purchase various armours and weapons to store away; however, she'd used her money instead to pool together with Jellal in order to create a guild request to search for Shirou.

Presently, the only item in her subspace were her sleeping clothes, ordinary clothes, and Shirou's swords. She was already wearing the first armour set she'd purchased, but it wasn't going to be enough to solve her current predicament.

What good was versatility if her subspace was hardly filled?

Regardless, Erza sucked in a breath and called upon Shirou's swords. The black and white blades appeared in her hands from ripples formed in the air. Recalling the way Shirou had used them in the Tower of Heaven, she got into a loose stance and hurled one blade, Kanshou, as hard as she could at a dark mage while holding tightly onto the other.

"As if that would work," the dark mage in question scoffed and formed a magic barrier in front of him.

Now here's the thing, magic weapons existed in Fiore, but the sword Erza had just hurled was of a different make and potency. It was a Noble Phantasm.

Upon nearing the dark mage's barrier, Kanshou directly cut through the magic itself and stabbed deep into the mage's shoulder. A spray of blood and the sick snapping sound of bone drew all attention towards the dark mage who stared in disbelief at the sword before passing out from the pain overwhelming his brain.

In a single motion, Kanshou vibrated before pulling itself out of the man's body and gravitating back towards Erza like a boomerang. She caught it with a shaky grip, but couldn't stop staring at how much blood the man was losing.

She'd known that Shirou's weapons were strong, but to cut through both casted magic and a wizard's natural magical defences meant that if she'd aimed for any vitals, it would kill.

You'd be a murderer.

The thought caused her body to momentarily freeze, but she couldn't allow herself to dwell on the issue. J-Just aim for the legs, she cautioned herself.

With Kanshou back in hand, she threw it again, but this time, her opponents had learned not to try to block the sword and instead dodged around it.

Erza was constantly running. No matter where she ran, Kanshou would never fail to return to Bakuya's side.

"Hurry and go!" She yelled while panting. She was drawing the enemy's attention which should have given plenty of time for the people she was trying to rescue to leave, but they just stood their gawking at her. Snapped out of their daze, they nodded their heads and began running much to Erza's relief.

Now came the hard part: keeping the attention on her and making sure she survived. She only had one sword that she could throw out as she had to hold onto the other for the magnetic effect between the swords to work.

She bit down on her lower lip. There were over a dozen mages on her. She couldn't see any way to succeed in her task, and yet, help arrived.

The sky shuddered with the sound of thunder. From up above, twisted swords began to pelt the earth, drilling the ground directly in front of the dark mages as if in warning.

A single step. Just take a single step more and see what happens.

Look up and behold.

A sky of steel.

Archer held onto his black bow, his gaze sharp, and features narrowed. Time was something that he didn't have, and he already felt as if he was wasting it. However, was it really a waste?

A voice within him was screaming out at him that to save others was never the wrong choice, but at the cost of other lives?

Archer had long ago believed that he'd gotten rid of his naivety, but here it was rearing its face at him once again. In the end, he was still human, and could be a hypocrite at times. So just this once, he'd put aside his personal opinions and play the roll of a goddamned hero.

"Trace. On."

He formed projectiles, twisted swords of holy or demonic make that would pierce through magic like butter, and nocked them onto the string of his bow. His muscles bulged, veins popping over his skin as he aimed.

One shot. One kill.

The lethality of his previous sniping style had always remained with him in his days working as a Counter Guardian. It would be a simple affair to aim an arrow right between the eyes, but Fiore was not the same as his old world. There were specific rules and laws to handle dark mages, and killing, though acceptable had always been frowned upon.

So be it. Warning shots first.

He let loose the grip he had on the string of his bow and watched as a rain of arrows stopped the dark mages in place long enough for Erza to catch her breath, and the trapped innocents to flee the area.

Now came their choice. Surrender or die.

Archer wasn't like a certain fool. He would never prioritize the safety of an enemy and risk future trouble.

Low and behold, one of the dark mages tried to fire magic in his direction. They had still yet to understand just who it was that they were dealing with or the difference between them. Dark guilds and mages operated illegally, resorting to violence, brutality, and plundering to make their ends meet. Archer in comparison was a force of nature. A natural disaster that had once been an agent of the planet sent to eliminate those deemed a threat. This right here was the difference. Dark mages plundered and underwent illegal activity for a living, Archer was an exterminator who more often then not dealt with humans as Alaya's behest.

And mages…mages were humans.

He shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, a sword had already formed in his left hand.

The red hunter of the plains.

Crimson light exuded from the sword before it visibly bent and morphed into the dynamics of an arrow. Bloodlust erupted around him with the ferocity of a starved hound howling in the fields. Makrov and Gildarts who were observing him could instantly feel a sense of danger, let alone the target of his attack who visibly stiffened along with his allies.

Archer wasn't playing around. Death was coming. No. It was a certainty. Once fired, there would be no getting away from this shot. Like a vicious dog hunting in the plains and biting at one's heels, the chase would never end until the fang had bit its mark.

"Master," Gildarts who was watching in the distance called out unsurely.

"That weapon is dangerous," Makarov's expression shifted to become uncharacteristically solemn. He and Gildarts had long since arrived near the area in order to help if necessary, only to see Archer wield what was clearly a cursed magic weapon.

"The bloodlust is taking over him," Makarov observed. The bloodlust around Archer had taken on a crimson hue and a torch-like aura that fully enveloped Archer. Any warmth in Archer's eyes was replaced with a cold analytical precision. "That shot won't be to debilitate. It will kill."

This was a certainty, and killing was a means that all legal Guilds never opted for unless in the worst-case scenario. Both Gildarts and Makarov were around, meaning that there was no need to needlessly kill despite how bad the situation may look. The thing was, Archer was not aware of their presence.

Before either of the two could try to break Archer from the weapon's perceived influence, the arrow was let loose with the resounding sound of a name.

"Hrunting."

"Gildarts."

"I'm on it."

The red fang soared across the horizon faster than any mage could possibly react to. It was gone faster than one could take to blink an eye. The only one fast enough to intervene was Gildarts who was already in the process of intercepting before the arrow was shot.

Gildart's punched out and used his Crush Magic in an attempt to nullify the weapon by shifting its trajectory.

It was futile.

Like a marionette on strings, Hrunting shone in a red hue and swerved back on course, flying around all obstacles at mach-speed to reach its target. The dark mage couldn't even resist and chose to defend by raising up his arms, but Hrunting's power and speed were too much to bear.

For a split second, the sight of Hrunting piercing through the man's chest was seen by all, and in the next, the man was carried off by the momentum and flung far off into the distance.

No one moved, but the fact that Gildarts had shown his presence made the entire matter far simpler for Archer.

He put his bow away and decided to allow Gildarts to deal with the remaining mages, ignoring the fact that Erza's gaze had been trained on him the entire time.

With a thought, he leapt off of his perch and quickly made his way towards the location he'd sensed the presence of a Shadow Servant.

His muscles tensed in preparation for combat, his gaze searching for any signs of movement, yet finding none. With the time he'd used to save the people caught up between the battle of dark mages, the Shadow Servant had likely gotten away already. Yet, was this truly the case?

Archer's intuition warned him of a coming headache, and it wasn't because he suddenly noticed traces of a battle ahead of him. It was more than that. It was a gut feeling, that was only proven correct when he scrutinized the battleground in front of him.

Trees were toppled, the ground littered with deep puncture marks, clearly made by something like a drill. It was all eerily familiar to Archer in that it reminded him off the damage he often did to his surroundings in the midst of combat.

No way. It couldn't be.

His first instinct was to deny it; however, when he thought about it, there could only be one other person who could sense the presence of a Shadow Servant and know it for what it was.

"So, you were here too?" A voice gave Archer pause, and low and behold, there in front of him was his younger counterpart, Shirou Emiya.

Shirou was wielding Kanshou and Bakuya in his hands while standing over the fading body of a Shadow Servant. He wore a worn cloak with tears and holes everywhere from a life of travelling. Beneath was a simple shirt, pants, and a bag over his back. Aside from a difference in clothing, he looked and felt no different to the Shirou Archer remembered his younger self to be.

Archer had no idea what Shirou had gotten up to in his time in Fiore, however, Archer couldn't care less, as he could picture just what it was Shirou had been doing as of late. Erza and the others were just proof of his actions.

In this life, he had no reason to oppose Shirou which meant that he could his grievances aside, and yet there was one thing he could not tolerate.

With a glower, Archer sneered at Shirou with a low growl. "Own up to your own goddamned heroics," he all but snarled out.

Shirou blinked, but he soon glared right back. "That's what I'm doing," he glowered. "I made a promise, and I'm keeping it."

The relationship between Shirou and Archer was like ice and fire. They could only ever be able to tolerate each other as Archer represented everything Shirou never wanted to be, and Archer saw Shirou as a constant reminder of the mistakes he'd made in his past.

"Promise?" Archer grunted.

"Yeah, a promise. One thing led to another and I've been getting caught up in incident after incident. This Shadow Servant's the latest." Shirou untraced his swords and crossed his arms. "So, do you know any reason why Shadow Servants are around?"

Archer's silence was enough of an answer, which meant both he and Shirou were starting at square one. Both Archer and Shirou knew that there was no use dwelling over the issue with nothing to work with. They sighed and Archer seemed conflicted with himself before speaking once more.

"I will admit that you have my thanks for taking care of this Shadow Servant. I was a bit preoocpied and it may have gotten away."

To his credit, Shirou merely gawked at Archer's thanks. To Archer's own credit, he didn't lose his temper.

"Preoccupied?" Shirou asked for clarification. Well, Archer wouldn't exactly need to.

A rustle in the bushes had Erza stumbling out with Gildarts and Makarov standing behind her. Gildarts and Makarov gave Archer a solemn look, but Archer didn't pay it any mind as his attention was on Erza much like Shirou.

Her gaze kept shifting back and forth between Archer and Shirou, her lips quivering as if trying to ascertain if she was dreaming or not. It couldn't be helped, the two looked identical down to the way their hair had whitened as a direct result of their magic. Moreover, Erza did not miss the clear recognition in Shirou's eyes and she abruptly began to tremble.

She wanted to punch him, throttle him, and lecture him for making her and everyone else worry constantly on his behalf, but everything just came crashing apart.

"Erza."

The moment Shirou called her name was the moment Erza's emotions could no longer be held back. She fell on her knees and began sobbing in relief, her hands desperately trying to wipe away her tears but to no avail.

Gildarts and Makarov could tell that there was a story that they were missing here, as Archer and Shirou seemed to know each other, but this clearly wasn't the time. Makarov's features softened as he moved towards Erza and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. Gildarts simply chose to spectate while Shirou stood looking awkward.

Archer only added to Shirou's plight.

"Great. You've made her cry you bastard."

A glare was all he got in response, not that Archer gave a shit.

Thanks for reading! And Thanks to my newest Patrons: Mongostomp, , and Aroe!

I didn't manage to get this out in time from Sword Order's update, so I'll apologize for that now. Sorry all

Next update: Fate: Fate-In Time

P a treon. com (slash) Parcasious

Book link: Fatedlegacydark. ca

Summary of book:

Death. Grief. Ruin. Nothing was left unchanged after an unexplained tragedy led to the loss of millions across the world in key locations. Cities were reduced to wastelands of steel and concrete, and many were forced into migration. When events leading to the prior tragedy occur once more, Kevin Black was going to have to learn that sometimes mysteries were better left unsolved. Trapped with his friends in the world of a ruined city filled with monsters, the journey out would be far more perilous than the journey in.