World Tree MUSH

    The bad news after literally everything that went down the couple blocks down from the awful motel Shirou was staying at, is that the poor boy still hasn't waken up yet. And for that matter Anna probably hasn't had much of a chance to get proper medical attention either, on account of her ending up being the one to take the responsibility of carrying the unconscious Shirou out of there.

    The good news, at least, is that his wound already started healing while she was carrying him along in her arms-- ethereal, faintly glowing blades flashign in and out of existence within to pull and knit flesh back together obviously enough for Anna to notice, too.

    By the time they actually got to the motel room again and setting Shirou on the (hopefully clean) bed, he'd even already stopped bleeding well on his own.

    The fact that Shirou stopped bleeding and mostly stabilized on his own is heartening. Heartening, yes, but even Anna knows that doesn't mean he's out of the woods just yet. And as such, she does not leave Shirou's side for the world.
    Of course this means she hasn't had the chance to get much medical attention aside from bandaging herself up, but to her credit... She has a LOT of bandages and knows how to use them.
    When you run into battle headfirst and tank with your HP, bandages are worth their weight in gold.
    She's managed to bind her ribs and arm enough that she's... Functional, but the berserker princess is bruised, battered, and still a little bloody as she... Promptly passed out in her place of vigil beside the bed after setting Shirou down on it.
    "Ungh..."
    Slowly her lashes flutter as she starts to re-awaken and rub her face before wincing from the pain in her arm and chest after. You know. Being flung by Heracles.

    "Hey," a familiar boy's voice whispers out, then, while she's rubbing at her face. When Anna lowers her hands, she gets to see Shirou's head turned over there on the bed, eyes halfway open to let him look at the warrior princess with a faint smile.

    "Sorry," he lets out in a breath then, for the time being staying laid there without moving otherwise. "I dragged you there to get hurt. How... nnnh." Slowly, he pushes one elbow down against the bedding beneath him, to at least try and turn himself onto his side. "How do you feel...?" He just got skewered a while earlier and he's *immediately* worrying about her the instant he's conscious enough to speak, apparently. Very Shirou.

    How very Shirou.
    When Anna glances up and sees that the youth is awake, no sooner than he tries to push himself to his side Anna's good arm is pushing him back down gently.
    "You don't move." She says firmly albeit somewhat haggard.
    "You didn't drag me anywhere, I followed of my own free will." She does point out, slumping back into her seat. How does she feel though?
    "I think this is the worst beating I've ever taken, and that says something." She's sluggish and ginger with her every motion, wincing now and again, but she's mostly fine.
    Aside from battered and fractured bones.
    

    "But..." Shirou starts to complain as he's pushed back down to lying down, pouting quite openly at Anna -- and even more so with a good frown for measure when he notices her wincing with her own movements. "... I'm pretty sure you must be worse off than I am right now."

    Letting out a sigh, he does not try to fight the notion of being kept laying down any further, at least. For now. But he does reach one hand out towards her, to lay it onto her knee. "If... that thing was what I thought it was, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that. I'm not sure if it is anymore, honestly, but... it was very similiar, at least. What about Yumi? I saw she got hit by... *something*, too."

    "No buts." Anna is very adamant on this regardless of how much Shirou pouts at her.
    But then she shakes her head.
    "I'm pretty sure it's just a few cracked bones. It wasn't as bad as getting impaled." She points out. "Which is what happened to both you and Yumi." She says with a quiet sigh.
    "Yumi... We patched her up so she wouldn't bleed out and then she dragged herself back to Natsuto I think. She said she had someone there to take care of her." She says rubbing her temples. "What... What was that thing, Shirou?"

    "...*Just* a few cracked bones?" Shirou repeats with a deep frown, now apparently insisting on pushing himself up towards a sitting position again. "The way you got tossed, I'm surprised your bones didn't get *pulverized*. Shouldn't you be the one laid here? I mean..." He promptly pats one hand against his stomach where his shirt was torn up... even if he does wince subtly as a result of it all. "I feel... *better*." By some measure of better, at least.

    As for what the thing was, though?

    "I... don't know," he admits, in a sigh. "There were... familiar parts, but iit was just... *wrong*. Kind of like a shapeshifter caught in constant shifting loop or something, I dunno... I thought it acted a bit like the Berserker I faced before in my world, but..."

    Shirou insists on pushing himself up.
    Anna's eyes start to turn bloodshot at the corners.
    "Shirou. If you move again. I will hit you. Really hard. Regardless of how 'better' you feel." She threatens. It might not be an idle threat considering the way her bandaged fingers clench.
    "It's fine. I'm okay. I'll be okay. I just need some rest, too." She says as her eyes return to their normal greenish hue.
    "Berserker?" She does ask "It was like... That woman we faced...?" The one that Frost brutalized kind of needlessly.

    Shirou *freezes* in place. "Um..." Slowly, he blinks at Anna while he stares at her, swallowing with a hint of nervousness. "You... wouldn't actually, would you? I mean, I think I could at least sit..." Notably, though, he does *not* try to test wether or not she is bluffing anyway.

    But even amidst all that, he does continue to insist, "I think you should be laying down..."

    Asked further on the possibly-Servant that they faced, he scratches a finger uncertainly at his cheek. "Like Rider and Lancer? I... maybe? I guess I never explained it proper... Did I at least tell you about the Holy Grail War I ended up in the middle of before I got booted into the Tree? They were Servants in that whole ritual. Old heroes of humanity summoned through the barriers of time to fight for the mages participating in the war. But... Lancer and Rider, when they showed up before, they at least had... a *shape* you know? Berserker did too, back in my world, so I'm still not sure if that thing actually *was* it. It looked like it had Berserker's weapon, and the whole massive size and constant roaring and everything seemed to fit otherwise..."

    "I would." Anna says very firmly. "Didn't even Yumi have to tell you to rein it in a bit?" She says with a soft sigh.
    The princess' lips quirk into a frown though. "I'll lay down later. On the couch." She says motioning for the hotel's ratty sofa. "Don't worry about me, really, you were the one that got *shot*." The girl points out before the topic changes.
    "The... Holy Grail War?" Anna shakes her head. "The Grail was always just a myth- a legend from offworld to me, I'd never think a war would be fought over something like that, but..." Then again she shouldn't be surprised, really.
    "So that was ah... Another 'Servant' like you had mentioned before, maybe?"

    "... I feel like I do not feel anywhere near as bad as I should if I was *shot*..." Shirou grumbles quietly with a sigh. "...Look I know I can definitely at least sit, so can I please do that much? I promise I won't try to stand up or anything, and then you can... at least sit on something a little more comfortable. Yeah...?"

    He very much does not doubt that she would smack him to next wednesday if he tried it without permission, though, so he'll at least wait to hear if she's going to agree to that much.

    "Mmm... We have a lot of myths and legends about the Holy Grail in my world, too," he offers. "Magic and other supernatural stuff is kept pretty much secret from most of the population in my world, so that's all it is for the average person, too. I don't know if the one the War was about is the one from Arthurian legends or anything either, but at the very least it's... *some* kind of wish-granting artifact with a lot of magical power. I don't really know a whole lot about it either if I'm honest, but it's... less a 'war' and more of a massive magic ritual in the form of a battle royale. A contest between seven mages and the Servants they summoned, where the last team was given the right to the Grail. I... ended up as a Master in the fifth one conducted so far by... accident, kind of? Aheh..." He looks and sounds almost *embarrassed* for that fact. And for good reason, too. He didn't even know anything about the Grail Wars or Servants before he accidentally summoned his.

    He frowns then, in confused thought, when prompted on the identity of the... Thing, they faced. "I... maybe? Like I said, I thought it might be Berserker... er, the names are just codenames to hide their real identities, but I know the Berserker in our war was Heracles. ... You, uh, didn't happen to read anything about greek legends from other worlds before, did you?" That'd save a *lot* of explaining if she did.

    "..." For a moment. For a beat, Anna looks like she's getting ready and gearing up to get mad again. But then the girl sighs, relenting quietly as she simply does not have the energy to battle Shirou on the matter.
    "Fine. You can sit up. But no sudden movements or doing anything more than that." Anna says before she quiets down to listen to the explanation. A magic ritual battle royale. It still sounds pretty terrible.
    "I've read a little about Greek myth. Heracles was the one with the twelve labors, right? Strongest son of Zeus... That would explain why it- he was almost unstoppable."

    "It's not like my guts are going to suddenly fall out or anything..." Shirou mutters just a *bit* indignantly, now shuffling himself carefully to sitting along the edge of the bed -- with just the subtlest of winces at the end. He even pats the... relatively soft bedding besides him in indication, now that the space has been cleared up.

    "Yeah, that's just about right," he confirms for her with a nod. "They way it was explained to me, too, when a Heroic Spirit is summoned as a Servant, their strength is at least somewhat dependant on how... 'well known' their legend is, I suppose. And Heracles is one of the most famous heroes in my world. Apparently being summoned as a Berserker just made him even stronger at the cost of... well..." He waves his hand. "His sanity. But that much is probably obvious from the class title and all... But either way, the Heracles that I saw in my world nor the Heracles in any legends I read was capable of shapeshifting like that. Not to mention the floating magical swords and spears that got summoned and launched by it..." He winces at the thought again, and the memory of Yumi getting skewered by one of them. But not, for some reason, the memory of him getting shot by an arrow shortly after. Priorities and all that. "I think they were all Noble Phantasms, too, which just..." Oh. Good. He's just gone and casually dropped another completely new term like it was perfectly natural.

    "I... I suppose your right."
    Considering Shirou's strange and completely inexplicable regeneration means he won't be bleeding out now that he's recovered... Mostly.
    So as Shirou sits up, Anna shifts off the chair she had plonked down by the bed and sighs as she nearly slumps onto the now open seat on the bed but keeps herself upright as she sets her hands on her lap and...
    "Um."
    Hah hah hah. Awkward. Berserkers have no sanity. It's something that quiets Anna for a beat as she nibbles on her lower lip but then sort of stares at Shirou.
    "... What's a Noble Phantasm?" This is an important question.

    "...?"

    The akward reaction from Anna draws a very bemused look from Shirou. He even tilts his head sideways in that way dogs too when they stare curiously at something. "Is... everything okay? Did I say something weird...?" Of course *he* wouldn't catch on to that.

    What's a Noble Phantasm? "Oh! Uh... Right, I didn't explain that before huh..." The redhead laughs akwardly with that reminder. "Let's see, uh... Noble Phantasm is like... how would I explain it? I guess the manifestation of their personalized legend, usually ending up being like... a legendary weapon they carried during their time with a big, powerful special attack. Think like Excalibur or something."

    He pauses at that point, and... just kind of slumps a little, rubbing one hand over his face with a defeated sigh. "I'm starting to sound like Tohsaka......."

    "ANYWAY." Straightening up again, he continues: "Every Servant is *supposed* to only have one. But that thing back there? It at least looked like it summoned a whole bunch of them instead."

    No. No of course Shirou wouldn't catch on that, even though Anna is left staring at him somewhere between crestfallen and gobsmacked. M-maybe moving on really is the best idea. So Anna gets a rundown on what Noble Phantasms are.
    "I... I see. I think I understand." She says after a beat. So it could be a physical weapon or a super trait Servants have. That makes sense.
    "Ah, who is Tohsaka?"
    But then she shakes her head. "Those weapons... I don't think..." she starts to say before struggling on her thoughts. "I don't... Think they were connected with the big one?" She muses after a beat. "I don't remember accounts of Heracles being able to launch things like that without touching them in the myths."

    Well, they might have moved on from that subject, but Shirou still looks very much confused at his friend. Not enough to actually ask her about it again, but... well, moving on...

    "--Ah, Tohsaka? Well, uh... She's a girl who went to the same school as me, and she turned out to be inheritor of a very successful family of magi. She more or less explained most of the practicalities of the Holy Grail War to me, and she was also one of the Masters, but we did end up teaming up for a while and she--" Suddenly, he shakes his head, and rather pointedly glances *away* for a second or so. "A-anyway, it's not important right now..." Oh *really* Shirou.

    "Mmmmhh... I definitely agree, Heracles shouldn't be able to do anything like that, but..." SHirou's eyes narrow, and one of his hands instinctively squeezes dow nat one of his knees. "There was a lot of weird about that thing to begin with, so I'm not even sure if that even *was* Berserker anymore. Or if it was, if it... changed somehow...?

    Slowly... Slowwwwly, an exhausted Anna begins to lilt to one side. Soon enough her weight is resting slightly against Shirou's side as she hangs her head, eyes starting to drift closed until...
    'She's a girl'
    'Who went to the same school as me'
    'We did end up teaming up for a while'
    'It's not important right now'.
    In an INSTANT, Anna is sitting back upright, bolt straight and scooting away.
    "I-I--- I see! I see so- that's who Tohsaka is." A-ahem.
    AHEM HEM...
    "I- um. I'm. I'm going to go take a nap now." Anna decides, Berserker forgotten for the time being as she stands herself up and shambles off.
    "On the couch."

    Shirou didn't even get a chance to properly *register* that there was a girl leaning against him. The only thing he manages to really even recognize is Anna suddenly bolting upright and moving away from him.

    "...?"

    Confused, he stares at her with several long, uncertain blinks while she mumbles there. "Yeah...?"

    And guess she's napping now? "O-oh, okay...?" And getting off the bed to move towards the couch. Shirou himself frowns subtly at all this, growing seemingly more confused by the second. "...Well, you did go through a lot, too..." He allows, while somehow *completely* missing the point.

    Again.

    To be fair though, it probably won't take very long after Anna has fallen asleep for Shirou's own nervousness over the prospect of sleeping in the same room as a girl to sneak out and go for a walk to clear his head.

    He's probably going to get lectured for *that* too.