Oath To The Other Side

IV - Rock and a Hard Place

The past month had flown by for the makeshift Emiya family. While things were certainly tense between Miyu and Angelica, both knew they were better together than apart. With Shirou in the hospital still, if Angelica left Miyu would have no-one to look after her. Zelretch occasionally showed up to check up on them while they were integrating into this new world, but he couldn't be called a guardian. And although she remained cool on the exterior, something deep inside Angelica ached at the thought of abandoning the young girl.

Although it had been rocky off the start, they'd managed to develop a routine. They'd both wake early in the morning, Angelica cooking breakfast while Miyu showered, and then Angelica showering while Miyu ate. Angelica would walk Miyu to school, before heading to the nearby train station and going to her job.

Miyu would walk home by herself, and have a few hours to herself before Angelica got home and they had a late dinner, and then they would both leave each other alone so as to not destroy the fragile peace they had developed.

Today was just another day, and just like every school day, Miyu sat in class bored. She had taught herself most of this back home, and it was nothing compared to researching magecraft. The only thing of interest was Quirks and history. Zelretch had compared Quirks to Noble Phantasms, but it didn't seem right to her. While peoples Quirks were unique like a Noble Phantasm, they also lacked the power and history behind him. They were similar to magecraft she was familiar with, with certain types being far more powerful than others, whereas even the weakest Noble Phantasm topped nearly all magecraft.

But she still lacked all the information she needed. Whereas magecraft was thoroughly documented, there was annoyingly little information on Quirks, and that posed quite the problem in Miyu's late night research sessions. How was she supposed to learn about these people when the most they knew about their own abilities was just guesswork and theories! Where was the testing, the evaluations?! In the hundreds of years since their emergence, there should be more than this!

All she knew was that like magecraft, although one type may be considered the strongest, even the weakest could be brought up to the level of the greats. Her own brother was an example of that, using the basic branches of Projection, Reinforcement and Alteration to stand against more talented Magi with the power of Heroic Spirits. Of course, he also had a reality marble, but he didn't need that to be the most badass brother around to her.

Unlike the infuriatingly interesting subject of Quirks, history was a lot easier to research. Seeing the differences in history, and how the world changed since the time of her original world, was fascinating. She was annoyed at how slowly they covered it in class, but at least she could go to the library and pick out books to read at home and when she visited Shirou.

She didn't like to think about her brother, not because she hated him but because it made her miserable. Seeing him hooked up to the machines as he lay there deathly still made her want to cry. Physically he was fine, his wounds had recovered and healed, but he still wouldn't wake up much to the doctor's confusion. To Miyu and Angelica though, the answer had taken a few visits and some theorising to confirm.

To put it simply, human beings had a limit to the magecraft they could use. Even those capable of wielding Magic had their limits. While fighting in the Holy Grail War, Shirou had used the Fake Archer card which was meant to do nothing, and had managed to use it to call out and form a pact with another version of himself that had ascended to the level of a Heroic Spirit.

Because of this special bond, every time Shirou fought, instead of temporarily gaining the powers of the Heroic Spirit while the card was used, like Angelica being able to use Gilgamesh's Gate of Babylon, Shirou was instead copying the information into himself. Every time he fought, he was gaining the experience of his future self, every time he fought, his abilities would increase to match the ones he was borrowing. Every time he fought, the Heroic Spirit EMIYA was invading his body.