AN : I've rewritten portions of the fight with Raynare and added a lot of new content in chapters 3+4, older readers can skip chapter 2 if they wish

Waning Stars

Shirou watched the girl unfurl raven wings and take flight, asking as she did, "Will you die for me?" of the boy in front of him in the park. To think, he had really only planned on going on a brief walk to acquaint himself with the city.

Shirou reacted immediately- there was someone in front of him to save. His thoughts narrowed in focus, shutting out any extraneous thoughts. All that existed in this moment was the terrain, the girl, the boy, and himself. His mind immediately began catologuing things of use in the environment, with each random signpost to each rock being evaluated in a moment. His prior experience in this sort of situation may explain his oddly advanced reaction. After evaluating his options briefly, he came to the conclusion that the best way to save the boy was to use himself as bait. If he could make himself into a more attractive, more immediate target for the girl then the boy would be able to get away from the point of danger and be saved. With this in mind, he set about making himself into an object of danger, Tracing On Kanshou and Bakuya, the twin chinese swords, and letting loose a fierce shout in hopes of gaining her attention.

Raynare initially gave an instinctive glance at the feel of mana being manipulated in the area, but the sight that greeted her and the shout directed at her was an immense surprise. Her mind honestly went blank when she realized a young Japanese human was charging directly at her with a pair of metal swords. She would have been far less surprised if he had been wielding exorcists weapons or perhaps even if he had wielded more mundane, modern weapons such as guns and merely been an ignorant bystander. In a way, it was a stroke of luck for Shirou, as Raynare's past experiences had taught her to be wary of those wielding swords. She immediately halted her dive towards ther pervert and altered course towards Shirou, aiming her spear towards his chest, intent on ending the perceived threat immediately. It was a puzzling thing to find an opening in his defences for her to go through, but she wasn't one to pass on the opportunity to take advantage of the ignorance of a human. Her displeasure at her strike being deflected easily and countered effectively was immense. Had he been faster or stronger she would have taken a mortal blow.

Shirou internally felt a measure of pleasure as his fighting style worked out effectively once again, but frowned when his riposte merely landed a glancing blow on her left arm. A trail of blood was running from her bicep to her forearm. Her eyebrows started twitching as she noticed, and as one who had known Rin well Shirou knew what that meant - there was an extremely pissed off woman speaking to him. The winged... thing, for it clearly wasn't human, began to speak in a low, halting voice to him. Shirou knew that tone, and realized that it while it couldn't mean anything good for him on the other hand there was very little he could do to further piss off the being, and ignoring grandiose angry speechs was rarely a mistake in his experience. He took the opportunity to motion at the boy still lying motionlessly in fear on the ground that he should run the hell away. The boy just stared at him in confusion. It seemed that his mind had shut down from all the impossibilities stirring together. Shirou sighed and projected a very dull knife over top of the youths head, dropping it on top of him hilt first. He jerked and immediately started to run away at this point. Shiro's mind began to focus on the being's speech for any signs that she was about to stop monologuing and chase the fleeing youth.

"-Your suffering will be legendary, you damned ape!" Nope. No sign at all. Raynare apparently noticed his expression had changed and came to a realization "Have you been ignoring me this whole time!?" Shirou decided that no response would be helpful to him here, so merely continued his impassive staredown of the feathered creature in front of him. Her face had become flushed with anger at this point, and he was glad. He was glad because the greater her anger at him, the lesser the likelihood was of her even remembering about the other human. And at this point it seemed as though hating him had consumed her whole being. She opened her mouth to continue haranguing him, but apparently decided better of it and descended once more into a steep, steady dive with a light spear leading the way. This time, when he left an obvious opening, she didn't attempt to take it.

Raynare was focused on this boy. She had to prove her superiority to him. In her mind, it was like falling in a way. It was as if she were being declared inferior to this being in front of her. He became a stand-in for her view of the entire situation between angels and humans, with the one being declared inferior for no obvious reason. This was somehow worse, though- a mere human had proven that he was equal to her on some level, capable of wounding her. He was a danger of proving himself superior for a very obvious reason, and mentally she could not handle it. If she could prove her superiority to this being in every way, maybe God would love her again. For this reason she choose a path that was almost a direct contradiction to the obvious - she directed her light spear directly against the crossed guard of Kanshou and Bakuya. She had known that this one had created those blades in some way, in a similar method to how she created her light spears. To her mind, it was honestly a perversion of nature. She was doubly enraged when the swords shattered her spear, and the rage altered her thinking even further. Another light spear appeared in her hand, and her wings furled into a shape suitable to allow her to go into a steeply angled dive. She had no thought except to break the weapons of the human boy in front of her.

Shirou saw her diving towards him, lance extended, and noted the contrast between the beauty of the individual and the grotesque parody anger had made of her face. He altered his stance, leaving a massive opening below his torso, his plan was to use her going for the opening to deflect the blow and use the energy to give himself some room between the two of them, as he doubted he was a match for her strength in close combat. His plan faltered when instead of going for the obvious opening, she drove her spear directly into the strongest part of his defense, where he had crossed Kanshou and Bakuya in front of his heart. It didn't break his guard, but the sheer force with which she hit him threw him directly backwards, and he felt a sharp pain in his chest. His concentration was broken by the sharp jolt of pain and he felt his focus waver, causing Kanshou and Bakuya to disappear. He looked down and saw a sharp tree branch jutting from his chest. He had been thrown into one of the many trees in the park and had his momentum stopped in a rather harsh manner, he thought.

Whoever she was, the girl had jumped away from him, still enraged at first, but she had calmed once she had seen his weapons disappear. The girl turned away from Shirou, to face her initial target, and began to move rapidly again. She had judged him no longer a threat, and for anyone else that would likely have been true. Shirou, however, had been through this once before. He had been through multiple heavy wounds in the time since, his pain tolerance was approaching inhuman levels. Avalon inside of him could not heal him alone from this wound, but it could slow down the rate at which the damage killed him. Not much, but enough for a single breath's worth of action. Shirou, with the determination only seen in those who are prepared to face their deaths, summoned a fresh pair of Kanshou and Bakuya, and threw Bakuya in a direction that would take it behind her. He clutched Kanshou, he knew he was fresh on a devil's gambit. The fresh burst of mana behind her had warned Raynare that there was still a threat. She turned to face him, and was surprised when the blade went wide of her anyways. She saw the life fading from his eyes, and laughed triumphantly.

The last sound Shirou heard was a wet cracking sound, and a pained, absolutely inhuman shriek of agony, followed by the dull thump of something hitting the ground.

Issei Hyoudou was freaking out. He had seen far too much in too short of a time. He had been instinctively fleeing when he had heard the shriek and turned around to see Yuma falling from the sky, and decided to see if there was anything he could do for the one who had saved him. He walked into the park clearing - the boy who had saved him was impaled a short distance in front of him, behind him Yuma was writhing in agony, missing a wing and with a sword planted directly in her back. Yuma terrified him. She had outright tried to kill him after toying with his heart directly for her own amusement. But some part of him still felt an attachment to her. He shook his head, he knew that there was someone here who deserved whatever aid he could give them. He sighed when he realized the boy was long past saving. I wish he didn't have to die, he thought.

A red pentagram surrounded by a circle appeared near him, and he was flabbergasted when Rias Gremory from school stepped forward. "What is your wish?" She asked calmly, somehow ignoring the scene around her. It seemed oddly rehearsed, with her red hair flaring out behind her.

At this point, Raynare was little more than a creature of instinct. She felt the presence of a kind known as enemy and immediately attempted to flee into the air. When that proved ineffective due to her lack of a wing, she began to run on her legs, shedding ineffectual tears.

"Please, save him, Gremory" Issei begged, pointing to the young youth impaled on the light spear. Rias' eyes widened when she caught sight of him, then opened further upon seeing the scene around her, the motion of the fleeing fallen angel catching her sight. She itched to give pursuit but there really were more immediate concerns at the moment. Quickly, she calculated the price of the wish and was almost baffled. "The price is that you become a member of my peerage." She murmured to Issei. "Agreed, whatever that is" was Issei's extremely rapid reply. It was clear Issei had no idea what that was or of the implications of his agreement, but it could be sorted out later.

Rias leaned over Shirou, pausing to remove the spear. She stared at the wound in amazement. Devils were highly sensitive to the flow of magic. The wound appeared to be closing up, but too slowly to save him. His body was absorbing the mana in the air, but it clearly wasn't transferring rapidly enough to save him. Rias frowned, it was possible that he could be saved without utilizing her last piece. Either way, she did prefer for someone to have a say in the matter, but in the matter of Issei she wasn't permitted to bring in those without knowledge of the arcane and her others had all been without the possibility of her granting them one. Maybe he'll be different, she thought. She stilled her motions, moving her face close to the wound. Inwardly she focused, gathering her own energy. Loosely she exhaled it, saturating the air around the wound with mana. She stared in almost disbelief as the wound began to rapidly close. It paused about a third of the way closed before it had consumed the energy in the air around it. She repeated the process four times, and stared at the double scar that was now present. His previous wound had not been exactly identical, but it had been very close. He had somehow lived through this process before, was all she could think. His heart wasn't beating, but that wasn't honestly a huge surprise, and was easily fixed with a brief jolt of power directly over top of the organ.

The process of healing the wound had taken perhaps fifteen seconds and been far too easy for someone who had appeared to be no more than an ordinary human to her senses. That he had defeated (or almost defeated, her mind idly corrected, remembering the fleeing fallen) a fallen angel was a tremendous accomplishment no matter the magic or circumstances involved. She was going to have to keep a very close eye on him in the future, and her mind immediately began to ponder ways that she could do so.

A/N : So I altered the fight with Raynare and Shirou some, as some of the criticism was very valid and needed. Kanshou and Bakuya should not have broken to a light spear - when you try to combine two universes you get some problems with conflicting canon, but that one is pretty clear. For what it's worth, if dxd and fsn directly contradict then I'll follow fsn, but it shouldn't really be an issue. Also, I actually ran this through a spell check this time and edited it for minor grammar. Before was literally the roughest of drafts, I actually have an idea where this story is going now.

For new readers - This is fate Shirou.