"The only thing that makes life unfair is the delusion that it should be fair." -Dr. Steven Maraboli

Later that day, they then venture
out into the open world. However, just like they said earlier, they then go to the higher level parts due to being ready perfectly. They then use their time to only grind for levels and materials, but Shirou also takes the liberty of training Raphtalia in sword combat.

Shirou, remembering yet another memory from his time as a child when Shinji was still nice, hums a song from a show he once showed him while training Raphtalia. "You do it for him and you'll do it again. You'll do it for her, that is to say, you'll do it for him."

He picks up a stick and assumes a stance similar to what saber did during their times practicing. He then hands her a smaller one and helps her do the stance. He then continues quietly singing "Keep your stance wide, keep your body lowered. As you're moving forward, balance is the key. Left foot, right foot. Now go even faster and as your moving backwards, keep your eyes on me."

As of late, all they had encountered were powered up variants of the orange balloon so they weren't really all that bad and Raphtalia was able to cleave straight through them without much problem. After a few hours of killing, something new pops out, a rabbit-like creature called a pill rabbit. Well, new for Raphtalia at least. Seeing as how they were merely training Raphtalia at this point just so she could catch up, Rin and Shirou were sitting nearby, preparing for dinner.

Naofumi then saw Raphtalia freeze up. He quickly intercepts it, as it lunges at her, just about keeping it from her. Raphtalia timidly holds up her dagger as Naofumi struggles to keep the squirming creature on himself. Shirou sees this, but as he moves in to kill it, Naofumi shakes his head and mutters out "Learning experience." Shirou  nods to Naofumi and goes back to cooking, albeit somewhat concerned, evident by him looking back at them every so often.

"Raphtalia, do it now. Before it can escape!"

"B-but it has blood... I-I can't!"

"Raphtalia, if you can't manage even this much then I have no choice but to send you back."

"B-but..."

"I can't send you to mr. Erhard, he is too busy and quite frankly, I have asked too many favors from him. So please! Not only that... but the waves are coming. All I'm good for is defending, but on the off chance I can't, you must defend yourself."

"Like... the waves of catastrophe..."

"Yes! As much as it'll hurt you, you'd be off safer with the slaver if you can't save yourself. And I'd rather not have a death bearing me down while defending!"

Raphtalia takes her knife, and steels her self before charging into the rabbit. Blood then spews everywhere as the rabbit monster dies screeching.

"S-sir! I-I will fight for you. Just, just don't send me back."

Naofumi pats Raphtalia in the head before saying "I'm sorry you can't have a normal childhood like most others. This is a reality I am sorry I have to make you face."

"N-no, I'm sorry. I'm sorry if I might slow you down."

"At the rate your going, you won't be."

After heading somewhat deeper into the forest, they then set up camp for the night. Shirou and Naofumi then handle the cooking with Naofumi taking note on Shirou's cooking style and skill in case he had to sub for him. They then sit down, catch and boil a couple of fishes into a broth. They then add spices and other things and suddenly, soup. They then eat with Naofumi commenting "Emiya-san, your cooking is probably the only thing that can get past my numbing taste buds."

Shirou rubs the back of his head, saying "Hey, I'm not taking all the credit. You helped too." Everyone happily munched on their servings until-

*cough*

*cough*

Raphtalia drops her wooden bowl before going into a coughing fit. Naofumi looks around and then says, "Emiya  Tohsaka, get Raphtalia some warm water. I will be making an herbal drink using my leaf shield."

He then empties his bowl, washes it in the nearby river, and grounds some of the medicinal herbs into a paste while Rin boils water for Raphtalia to drink, Shirou then says "Rin, what if you summon Artoria? I can bring out Avalon and we can heal her that way?" Rin nods and switches her card deck to the saber deck. She then pulls out Artoria's card and calls out "Come forth, saber!"

The card glows as she drops on the floor. It then forms the motes of light from back then and then draws itself a summoning circle on the floor. Once more, Artoria comes out, still wearing her dress.

"Greetings once more. Oh and who is this little one?" Shirou then replies"Her name's Raphtalia. She is an ally. We need your help with this. Could you please supply mana to Avalon as I give it to her?"

"O-of course Shirou, you are my master after all."

Shirou then focuses from deep within himself as the image of a sheath appears in front of him. He then says "Trace on..." as his mana circuits flares up. His weapon web appears in front pf him before glitching and turning a bright gold. Suddenly, within the middle of the weapon web, he sees it.

Avalon: The ever distant utopia.
Rank: EX
Type: Barrier
Level: 1
Ability: It is the projection of an ever distant utopia formed by faeries which can outright isolate the user from harm at it's strongest yet provides a potent heal otherwise.

He then projects it and lets it dissolve into Raphtalia, making a small, Avalon-shaped icon appear above her. After a few more seconds, Raphtalia stopped coughing and peacefully sleeps.

Naofumi runs back to them and says "I saw the light are you all alri-". Rin, Shirou and Saber all shush him which he promptly did complied after seeing the sleeping Tanuki. In his hands was his cape filled with leaf wrapped herbal drinks, which he promptly laid on the stone he was sitting in earlier.

Rin looks at Artoria and says "Thank you, Saber. I know this seems like an unnecessary reason to summon you." "Think nothing of it. Aiding the common people is the pride and of a king after all."

After a few more seconds, Shirou then takes back Avalon, letting Raphtalia rest upon a Shirou's cloak turned sleeping bag.

Artoria then bids her adeu but not before saying "Rin, you should really use the install function instead. It's much more efficient that way." Rin gawks but was not able to retort back. Rin then goes to sleep inside one of the sleeping bag while Naofumi leans on a log next to Raphtalia. Shirou took first watch and used the time to do what he used to do with his father. Admire the night sky.

A few hours later, Raphtalia jumps from her bed and start wailing. This awakened Naofumi, who in turn went over to her. She was having a nightmare and so, Naofumi does the one thing he could do. He hugs her while caressing her head and humming a tune. While doing so, Naofumi took note of the things she was muttering out.

"Dead..."

"They're dead..."

"The do-"

These were terms all too familiar with him. He may not have faced a wave yet, but knowing their misfortune, they're gonna face one soon.  He had to ready her faster. Deeper into the forest tomorrow it is. But before that, he was going to try and sell the medicine.

Shirou meanwhile, ran back from the woods he was supposed to patrolling, saying "Is everything alright?" Naofumi nods before placing her back to bed. He then lays beside her and slept after his turn on watch duty.

By morning, the little tanuki girl awakens to the smell of delicious bacon and eggs, or in this case, fried usapil and egg. Her face reddens, seeing the shield hero of all people sleeping next to her. In her old village, this was a dream come true for any of the young maidens of her old home. "E-eh... S-sir hero... I..."

Rin then comes in and teases the already flustered Raphtalia saying "Good morning love birds." making Raphtalia redden even more before Rin bursts into laughter, at Raphtalia muttering denials like a certain green haired anime hero student.

Rin then says "Don't worry, he was just keeping you company since you apparently had a nightmare yesterday." "O-oh, I-I s-s-see..." "Come on, Shirou is cooking breakfast already. You don't want to eat food cold do you? Come on."
"But we need to wake up master as well."
"Yeah, you're right."

Raphtalia then shakes Naofumi but no avail, the dude had been awake the whole night last night, tending to her nightmares and is now too sleepy. Rin then grew a devilish smile, saying "You won't wake up eh?"

She then draws a card and, after seeing it have erst freeze on it, slips it into his butt. The next thirty minutes after involved Rin running for dear life as a raging Naofumi ran at her, holding two balloons. After Naofumi catches up to her, safe to say, she temporarily had a new hat. They then had breakfast and then went to town.

As they then go to town, they separate. Naofumi and Raphtalia goes ahead to the pharmacist to sell the surplus of medicines Naofumi compounded, Rin goes off to tell the king of their "new arrangements" of having Naofumi in their custody and Shirou goes alone to buy spices.

On Rin's side, she then goes to the castle to report it. However, the king was apparently busy on political matters and as such unavailable. Rin, finding no way of sneaking in at that moment, huffs and walks away. Besides, it wasn't all that important at the moment.

Rin's day so far was... Okay. Well until he came along... Rin's eye twitches, after hearing an infuriatingly familiar voice say "You are awesome Motoyasu-sama!" She shakes her head before continuing back. And then he finds her... "Ah, Tohsaka-chan!"

"Ooooh boy..."

Rin faces the certain spear wielding playboy with a fake smile, saying "Yes, Motoyasu-san?" while desperately stopping all and any attempts to slug the bastard in the face.

Motoyasu then slicks back his hair, saying "Oh, you're not with Shirou? So you DID leave him after all. Say, why don't you join my par-"

"Harem? I would like to politely decline. As "tempting" as it sounds, I'm very much still committed to my man." Motoyasu then advances anyways, holding her hand, saying "Come on, how can you say no to a face like this, cutie? Besides... with me around, you wouldn't have to fight a day in your life."

Rin then briefly smirks before saying "W-well, i-if t-that's w-what you want..." in a cutsie voice, getting physically closer to Motoyasu. She then hugs him as he sliently says "Yes!" to himself.

However, the hug then hardens as Motoyasu is lifted off the floor by Rin who, by using reinforcement on both arms-

*CRASH*

She then suplexes him, saying "SCUMBAG!", cracking the pavement which impacted into his face, cratering it. Rin then pats her hands before smigly walking, leaving everyone in a daze and unable to react.

Ren then arrives just as Rin left, exclaiming "Lancer is dead!" Myne then sees Rin's smug face one last time as she herself exclaims "Y-you're not human!"

Meanwhile, as Shirou walked to his destination, carrying a bag of ingredients, he then saw a woman get robbed before said robber ran. She shouts "Robber!" as Shirou dropsq his supplies near her, saying "Watch my stuff, I'll get him."

He then chases the robber, easily surpassing the thief's speed with his reinforcement. Unknown to both of them, they were being tailed by a hooded figure wielding a bow. After a good five minute chase filled with parkouring and platform jumping, Shirou finally tackles the robber.

"Give it up, give back what you stole and we can end this peacefully." Shirou's piercing amber eyes boring a psychological hole into the robber.

The thief then says "Please good sir, please don't send me to jail. I-I still have to feed my family back at Lute."

Shirou's gaze remains steady, before he closes his eyes and then takes a deep inhale. He then says "Alright, here's what we're gonna do. If you surrender peacefully, I'll make sure to provide your family with food and water. Just tell me where and I will help."

The thief then looks at him and says "H-how can I be sure you won't just throw them in along with me?"

Shirou then ponders the question before quickly saying "I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. I don't know how to convince you otherwise."

The thief then manages to look up at Shirou and tears up while looking at him saying "K-kuro, is that you my boy?"

Shirou then shakes his head and says "No, I'm Shirou Emiya." The thief then looks down and says "Shirou... Emiya... Like the new False hero?"

Shirou nods, making the thief try harder to escape only for him to knock the man out. He then projects a pair hand cuffs.

Suddenly, a familiar voice then says "Let him go!"

Shirou then looks up to see the bow wielding, cardinal hero, Itsuki Kawasumi, glaring at him with his bow drawn. The boy then says "Get off of him!"

Shirou replies with "Why? It's our jobs as allies of justice to see to it that we help everyone. And leaving him to fend for himself on the streets is not helping."

Itsuki glares at him harder and says "Just because you're correct doesn't mean you're right! Just because he won't cause any trouble in prison, doesn't mean he won't be in miserable in prison. Don't you know that medieval prisons are much worse than modern ones?!"

Shirou clicks his tongue in annoyance as he thinks to himself "Damn, my own words against me." He then looks at Itsuki and saw the same eyes he had during the grail war. The same eyes he had before Rin helped him fix his misguided dream. Archer helped, but he wouldn't admit that... Nope!

Shirou then stands up and says "Just because you're right, doesn't mean your correct nor does it mean I am wrong. If he was left out here then worse could happen to him. Worse becomes into worst then he's going to die out here. It's better this way."

Itsuki then grits his teeth while muttering out "No it's not" repeatedly gradually growing louder. He then explodes emotionally, shouting it out. However, he forgot he was holding a drawn arrow and subsequently releases it, still pointed at Shirou. The next thing both of them knew, Shirou was already slammed into a brick wall and slowly slipping out of consciousness.

The last thing he hears was Itsuki running away muttering to himself that "Shirou will be fine, he'll respawn" repeatedly to himself and the sound of nearby guards drawn to the commotion. He then looks at his side which was pierced by the arrow.

His vision darkens as he slumps down in the alleyway. He then awakens within a familiar, smog filled wasteland where thousands of swords laid like grave markers. Since this place seemed to invoke a feeling of helplessness, then it isn't his... It could only mean-

"Oh, it's you." a voice said with an annoyed tone. When Shirou turned his head he then grimaces in shared frustration at the figure.

Attention:
If I may, I will not ask for a follow or a vote, but if you find a grammatical error or OOCness within a character, please tell me. I don't want to write this just for the sake of garnering attention but rather, I wish to create a good crossover with good character portrayal and such. That was all for now, and see you next week.