Fate Coiling Sword

Chapter 13: A what?

Beta read by Shigiya and Darklord331

.

.

.

-???-

He didn't know how long it had been since he came here. 

Everything just looked so blurry, he could barely discern the expanding landscape around him, a realm that felt vast yet so far away from him. He gazed at the white clouds above, dense enough to blanket the sky yet scarce enough to let some rays of sunlight pass through. 

There was no sound aside from his own heartbeat, no other sensation than the hot wind passing over his skin. The acrid smell of cold steel filled his nostrils. A peaceful space that brought nothing calmness and a sense of comfort along with safety to the boy. Yet many would doubt his words, unable to understand as covering the land was what looked like an endless wave of swords. Stretching as far as his eyes could see, even the blurry vision couldn't hide that fact.

One could believe this to be a battlefield but there were no corpses, not a smidge of blood on the ground that would stain his shoes. 

Soot and ash covered the land.

Shirou watched everything presented in front of him in a dazed state. A sense of wonder yet familiarity flashed before his eyes.

Everything around him gave the boy a sense of deja vu, he had seen this scene in the past — but couldn't remember where or when. 

Maybe with a similar dream.

Nevertheless, his eyes now focused on a single item in this terrain. In the sea of swords, spears, halberds and so much more — a single blade stood tall before him. Unlike the others, this was clear and unobstructed by any blurring or smoke. A simple katana without any special trait aside from its history. Everything there was about this sword before him, without even casting his Structural Analysis information poured inside his mind in waves. From the date it was forged, the material used, and every single damage it suffered, his body felt like he could wield the weapon expertly like those in the past. 

Shirou remembered that he got his hands on this weapon when facing the foul chimera monster. The desperation, the need to win, the anger and so many different feelings converged in his mind back then when he was at death's door. Having projected the sword with a different concept from his regular projection. 

Shirou added more steps when the sword didn't feel strong enough, when he needed it to surpass the strength of a regular projection, pushing it beyond every barrier he could think of to bring it as close to the original as possible. He never touched the real sword back then, leaving it on the floor after killing the beast… yet still knowing that this katana was inferior to the original. The redhead used reinforcement to temporarily bridge the gap and even surpass it, long enough to defeat the chimera. 

Yet as he grasped it, his surroundings turned dark.

.

.

.

Gasp!

His eyes snapped open, Shirou tried to get up quickly but soon found his senses bombarded by a wave of pain and soreness coming from every inch of his body. 

"Gah!" He grunted, his body falling back on the mattress while an unfamiliar ceiling came into view. 

Wait, mattress? 

"What?" Shirou exclaimed in surprise at this new environment he found himself in. A room he did not recognise, filled with… girl clothes. "What happened last night?"