Danmachi: the Great Devourer

C234: Corrupted Ideals.

Alt Title teaser: ______ Ga Shinda.

Date published: 6/29/2025.

Back to your regularly scheduled program. Though im taking down the actual alt title at the end. I'll leave the teaser tho.

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BANG

"ARGHH" A bullet is fired from a gun but it is hard to tell who is the one who had fired as both sides have the weapon. Nevertheless, Hikari senses something is wrong and jumps in front of Bazett who was in front of him by a foot. Successfully pushing her out of the way as the bullet that was fired from Shirou's gun jams into his upper thigh where it meets his waist.

Takehiro falls to the floor with a thud while yelling out about being shot. For a man like Hikari, being shot was a long time primal fear of his even though he was just a regular homeless person. Sure there are a variety of things he feared back then as any one of them could have caused his demise yet he fell into a deluded state that now that he knew magic, regular guns could not affect him anymore. That was not the case.

He had awoken to a new reality that now overlapped with his former helpless state. Bazett attempts to calm while dragging him back out the room. Shirou does not give chase as he is stuck in the firing position, his mind stuck in a loop.

The grip of the gun, its texture, its weight, his fear of death which overlapped with the urge to live. The sensitivity of the trigger, the click of the hammer, the spiraling bullet in the barrel just moments before it was released. The loss of weight from the fired bullet, its explosive sound that causes a ringing in Shirou's ears. The face of terror on Bazett's face and the pain from Takehiro's face as he took the shot onto himself.

Shirou became absorbed into a world he had never experienced himself, one which someone like Kiritsugu knows very well, the apotheosis of death, being embraced by sensation of adrenaline coursing through his veins. 

Lost in this sensation, he holds the gun tight to himself as he curls up on the floor where he was hiding. His sadness about his adoptive fathers death is momentarily forgotten as he falls asleep. 

Bazett instead spends her time helping Hikari up and leaning over her shoulder to escape the house. Their plan had failed and now the true master of Lancer is injured with a potential life threatening injury. She has to extract the bullet and patch up the hole. Taking Hikari to the hospital is another possibility but it's a large open public space which could make it easy for any other master to sneak in and kill him. 

The only possibility is for her to constantly watch over him while in the hospital as simply leaving the injury alone is not viable in the slightest. Nevertheless, she uses her trinket to command Lancer to cover their retreat which Saber allows as she too rushes towards where Shirou is. She is relieved that he is fine but is worried about his mental state.

As such the situation ends for now with Shirou falling asleep and being carried back to bed while the trio retreat away from the home. Bazett orders lancer to bring Hikari away to a hospital while she would get in touch with her contacts to find out what information she can to help her win the war. 

As for Archer, he continues maintaining his distance but he does follow the lancer to see where they go so he could report it to his master later as it is unlikely for a bullet wound to get treated in one night.

The night passes relatively slowly as a handful have peaceful sleeps while others like the cooperating duo are busy with their own things. Yet the most eventful is actually the unconscious Shirou.

The accumulated sensations he had experienced from nearly killing someone with a gun sprouted something new, something that betrayed his original self. And that betrayal established a connection to something even darker. 

The unconscious mind of Shirou finds himself standing before an endless darkness. He can not see more than a step in front of him, yet the sensations below his feet is certainly not concrete, wood or anything he can typically experience in Fuyuki unless he goes to the beach in another city. 

It is sand, the darkness slowly recedes to reveal a desert like space, random swords lie around him, stuck in the endless sands. Yet even though the darkness receded, it did not disappear. Instead it had congregated around a floating cup in the air of this mystical space. Shirou talks to himself asking "what is going on? Where is this?"

Yet he finds no answer but instead the darkness surges, showing him the recent scenes of him using the gun, he is reminded of those sensations in greater clarity. The darkness reveals the greater grail that desires Shirou just as much as he desires it, if not even more than the mortal. While the grail can not speak, it can pass on sensations and desires. Portraying sentience, the grail believes that Shirou is the only one worthy of it in this current war.

It spends the entire night goading Shirou on, developing the dark emotions he had experienced. Part of Shirou's hair turns a shade of black but it is only around the roots right now and thus not too noticeable to most individuals that are not close to Shirou.

Shirou awakens refreshed and uncaring of the minor changes to his appearance as he begins to get ready for school until he remembers that during the meeting that school was canceled for the week of the war. Instead he finds a package from his school which holds a variety of homework assignments and notes from teachers. The state of them gives the impression that they were copied many times over as the few ink stains showing glitched words or another word that looks like it is about to fade away. He reads the schools note and how the school had prepared for this event a few weeks in advance as the building is undergoing short term renovations, or at least that is the excuse they gave for all the normal students. Only Shirou understands the real situation for now. 

For now, he stores the box away in his room as he returns to the kitchen to continue cooking in preparation for lunch when his guardian, Taiga Fujimura, comes inside and begins to complain about how the school barely even gave them a warning about the school closing down for the week and rushing them to prepare school materials for the whole week. As she eats lunch with Shirou, she notices the darkened hair and asks about it but Shirou gives a small bit of info about Kiritsugu having black hair. She does not make any more comments about it after that.

Instead she helps him sort out the materials from the school box and she helps him study for quite a bit before they meet up with the resting Saber.

Slightly further away from them, Rin wakes up around noon as she trusted her teachers words about not having school, so she slept in. Archer reveals the situation as well as the location of two different masters. 

"What? You know the location of one masters home and the location of another master who was hospitalized? Great, tell me the whole situation and anything else you noticed. Details about the servants as well as the masters."

Archer sighs as he reveals his Shirou's identity, not fully but he described the reddish orange hair, similar age as his master along with the house location. Then he moves on to his servant that is Saber. But the strangest detail is certainly about how Lancer has two masters. He described both their appearances. 

While Archer continues describing the situation and people, Rin meditates to sync up with the tracking stain that is still on lancer. She confirms that the servant is still at the hospital and watching over one of the masters. 

"You should have trailed after the other master. We could have hunted down the woman first before going after the injured man."

"I apologize, I had forgotten about the marker as I was not certain if it got destroyed during the scuffle against Saber."

"Alright, ill forgive you this time since you did get so much information. If anything, we can just interrogate the injured one to find out about the female. Did you see which of them had the command seals" She points to her own hand which has the bow and arrow marker to signify archer.

"Alright, let's eat breakfast first before we go visit the hospital, ill rely on you to take down Lancer while I interrogate the injured man." She gives a plan of action and eats Archers delicious brunch (breakfast/lunch) before they head out. Rin notices the lights on her bracelet and as part of a side quest, commands Archer to collect the other nearby tokens while she makes her way to the hospital. 

As Rin arrives at the the medical center, she finds her bracelet increased from 3 out of 7 into 6 out of 7. She knows how her servant only mentioned sensing only 2 other tokens but still found a third on the way to her here. 

She is pleased by this as she takes a moment to organize herself and her body tone, rushing into the hospital and acting like a distressed niece to Hikari as she describes how panicked she was hearing her 'uncle' , from her mothers side, was shot last night. She eventually gets the details of his location and makes her way there while putting on a 'brave face' as she thanks the nurse who leads her to the enemy master. 

Once they arrive before the room, Rin uses some magic to make the nurse forget the past few seconds, a very delicate magic that she spent the last minute concentrating on using before unleashing it now. The nurse is confused about what is going on as she returns to her station. Rin instead waits as she wanders the halls a bit before returning outside the room.

The reason why she stalled like this is due to giving talismans to her servant to set up a barrier around the outside of the hospital to lock it down from anyone from entering. Her plan should ensure that the enemy Lancer will fight just outside this location and not endanger any civilians.

CLASH

Archer uses the tracking spell to strike out at Lancer first in his hiding spot, The red spear of Cu Chulainn clashes with the sword arrow as Archer retreats from Lancer, luring him away into where the barrier is set down while Rin enters the room of the patient.

Hikari Takehiro is still unconscious as a result of a subsequent surgery to help close the wound, last night the doctors had removed the bullets and sealed the wound but the seal was a temporary measure until a proper doctor could step in to completely seal the wound and allow it to heal. As such, when Rin stepped in, she could found the master as well as the command seals on his hand with one missing.

She quickly surmises that the woman must have been his partner and thus given temporary control of the servant. She feels that it's a waste but seeing how still took a bullet for his partner, he shouldn't be too bad. 

Rin manipulates his pain meds to be lower so she can wake him up with a spell. Holding out a wand with a gemstone on the tip, a birthday present from her teacher at her last birthday. The gemstone is a special one made by her teacher to help her cast her family's magic type without constantly spending so much money on disposable gems. Instead this gem can be recharged or even have spells preset in it for quick usage and a spell can be reapplied but it takes time to do so.

Hikari gradually wakes up, groaning in pain as he feels the pain in his waist from the gunshot wound. In his little struggle, he lays eyes on a woman next to him. Originally thinking it's bazett, he smiles at her until he gets a better look at the 'brat' beside him who has a wand pointed at his face.

"Relinquish your servants' contract and drop out of the war. I'd prefer not having to kill you. I'd prefer not having to kill you but you're just a nuisance as you are now" She states her command, raising her magical energy to ensure he understood the threat to his life.

"I am unable to." he simply responds with his head down, he knows that canceling the servant contract would be the same as betraying the contract he has with Bazett.

"You say unable, not that you don't want to." Rin is a smart girl in this universe, she takes out a scroll from her pocket, one that was given to her by her teacher to ensure she never got stuck in an unfavorable contract but realizing that this might be the case in this situation. She unfurls the contract and it shines with a holy light. It reveals the string of fate that binds Hikari to Bazett. A beam of light is released by the scroll which severs the red thread.

Hikari Takehiro is notably shocked that the contract was canceled just like that as he can feel that there is less pressure on his body now. He still has a solemn expression on his face as he didn't want the contract to be canceled like this. But he now has no choice as he raises his hand.

"Lancer, by the power of my command seals, kill yourself"

Even though the two servants are still some distance away, Lancer instinctively feels the pressure of the command seal. His body, like a puppet, begins to move by itself as he stabs himself in the heart. He coughs up blood as he also punctures his lungs.

Falling to his knees with blood flowing out of his mouth he curses, "Damn my bad luck."

Archer watches as Lancers body begins to turn into mana and flow into the grail. Archer gives a prayer to the fallen servant as he takes down the barrier and returns to the side of his master.

"Lancer ga shinda" (Lancer is dead) Rin states as a matter of fact while hikari has a look of terror on his face as he fears what may happen now that he doesnt have any sort of protection. 

"Kono hito de nashi" (You are a murderer) Archer states in response but it is unknown who he means but Rin shrugs as she begins to leave the room. 

"We got lucky this time as he was the real master, so we don't have to target the other but this also means that one of the 7 servants is now defeated. It is certainly helpful that they are one of the only ones that actually knows this. 

The two return home as they plan their move while other masters also begin to take action.

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Word count: 2580

Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. I'll try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything.