Chapter One

The Day She Found Kindness Again

The last she saw of him was his hand, constricted in the shape of a claw, just before it sank below with the rest of him, to be devoured along with the rest of him by Grandfather's crest worms.

In the end, a foolish man for disobeying Grandfather.

No longer able to cry, or feel anything but a gaping acceptance of the dark and grim world around her, little Sakura abandoned the name of Tohsaka once and for all, and turned away from the corpse of her "uncle" Kariya below in the worm pit, carrying the name of Matou in her wrung out and wasted heart, even as it was still so small and fragile.

She shut the door behind her, only to be greeted by Grandfather Zouken. Even as he hobbled with a cane, somehow he commanded a frightening presence that only an idiot wouldn't fear.

"So, is that the end of him, Sakura?" croaked the old man, his lips curling over his yellowing teeth.

Sakura nodded emptily.

Zouken Matou gave a low, emphysemic chuckle. "At last, he has earned his reward. And you, you've learned a valuable lesson, have you not, Sakura?"

"I have, Grandfather," said Sakura obediently. "I will never disobey you."

"Very good, little lamb." Zouken chuckled again, only to be interrupted by the sound of Byakuya Matou crying out again.

"Ah, now. It seems the whines of your father have yet to be quelled." Zouken continued his hobble along the corridor, towards Byakuya's room, where he'd been laid up for a while now, days after an intruder had broken in and shot him in the hand and leg with a handgun.

"My father?" Sakura cocked her head sideways.

Zouken stopped and peered over his hunched, bony shoulder at her. "Yes, Sakura. Your father. Byakuya is your father. Remember?"

"Yes, Grandfather."

"And who are your siblings?"

"I only have one, Grandfather. My brother, Shinji."

The thought of sister…of Rin…didn't even come to mind this time. Nor did that of….

Father…and Mother….

"Think of them as if they'd never existed, little lamb," Zouken told her, patting her head with his clammy hand.

"As if they'd never existed?" Sakura asked, blinking up at him like a nervous fawn.

"That's the way…."

As Zouken hobbled off down the hall, Sakura fell into a dark emptiness, staring at the carpet, but not really seeing it. Instead she saw the worms below, and Uncle Kariya's disfigured face…that lost look in his eye…just the one, since the other had pretty much been eaten from within….

He had done something wrong. And now he was dead.

She should feel something, something outrageous perhaps. Sad, maybe? She wasn't sure. Really, she was too tired to feel much of anything. She'd felt that way after spending days on end in the worm pit, to the point that time lost all meaning.

She had this sense that she had been caught in a maelstrom of her own screaming, and then somehow switched something off inside her to make the screams stop.

And whatever switch she'd pulled, she couldn't remember what it was, or how to switch it on again. Or maybe she shouldn't even care.

Walking as the empty shell of a girl that she was, she willed her legs to move after they grew stiff and shuffled off to her little bedroom. There she would drift through another empty night's sleep, dreaming of nothing.

No. Not even the worms haunted her dreams anymore.

Five Years Later

"Nii-san?"

Shinji Matou glared at the girl who they both knew deep down wasn't really his little sister, a fact which both of them deep down resented. Moreover, it was no secret to both of them that Shinji resented that this girl had been named the Matou heir over him, when she wasn't even of Matou blood. Now, with his father Byakuya dead, it seemed that Shinji felt free to do as he wished as far as venting his frustrations out on her.

Sakura accepted that too, with a hardened stoicism she'd developed over years of resenting not only what Zouken Matou—her "grandfather"—had done to her, but what her true father, Tokiomi Tohsaka had done, abandoning her, and how her dear sister…Rin…had never come for her. She accepted all of it, feeling that it won her some kind of power that only she would be able to wield, the power of innocent patience, even in the face of all those dark nights when Shinji would slip into her room and take what he wanted from her, knowing she would offer no resistance. And though that would satisfy him for a while, somehow some part of Sakura would be grimly satisfied in return that her lack of resistance served to irritate him all the more.

And her insistent kindness, for that matter.

"What do you want, Sakura?" he demanded grouchily, his hand already on the polished wood of the heavy double doors that opened out of the creeper-covered, once-grand mansion of the Matous. "I'm late."

"You forgot this." Sakura Matou handed him the lovingly wrapped up bento box containing the meal she'd cooked for him last night and then stored in the freezer so it would thaw out in time for lunch. "I made it for you."

Shinji scoffed and shoved it away. "I told you, Sakura, I eat in the cafeteria." After a pause, he added with a contemptuous sniff, "Idiot."

Though Sakura's fingers tightened around the knot of the cloth wrapped around the bento box, she didn't cry. She hadn't cried for years now.

She did however experience a tight and painful constriction in her heart, and thinking about that pleasant dream she would sometimes have of a dark-haired man who smiled kindly at her and presented her with a gift of a lovely beaded bracelet he'd bought for her in a foreign country got her through it the way it always did, though she couldn't begin to figure out why. It was all a clouded haze, and sometimes that dream would turn into a nightmare where that man's hair turned white and his still body sank beneath a sea of crestworms.

Shaking her head, she turned away from the door to gather up her own things for school, with the intention of finding another means of getting Shinji's lunch to him. As she tried working on this problem, she put the final touch on her outfit…the ribbon that Rin had given to her all those years ago, to which she still clung, despite everything. At the very least, it kept the bangs of her purple hair out of her face.

"If you hide your face behind that fringe all the time, no one can see how cute you are!" Rin's voice echoed across her memory of her giving her the ribbon. "And then you'll just be sad all the time, and think no one likes you!" And then she'd hugged her, her own hair tied up in those little twin tails she still wore.

Sakura's fingers quaked only for a second as she tied off the ribbon now, but she quelled them with her usual efforts, and even managed a kind of smile as she flicked the rest of her hair out of her face and admired the effect in the mirror.

Walking on her own on such a fine spring morning, Sakura still managed to find solace in these brief moments she had to herself, free of anyone expressing their contempt for her, either in an insect-like look of empty greed, or in pinning her down and forcing himself on her. At school, of course it was no better, as the other girls tended to avoid her, and none of the boys seemed to want anything to do with her either, whispering things like, "Her eyes look so weak…so pathetic…."

At least when she was alone like this, she could imagine she lived someone else's life, and things didn't feel quite so bad. She could pretend she was a normal, happy girl, who had the love of a mother and father in her life, who hadn't a care in the world, beyond studying for tests and working up the courage to confess her feelings to a boy she really liked.

Actually, now that she thought about it, she didn't really feel that way about any of the boys at her school. She supposed that that was for the best, since they didn't seem to care for her, and loving one of them would only cause her more pain. And she'd had enough of that already. Even when she worked to endure such things, the pain was still there, regardless.

Now that she was getting closer to her school however, her mind went back to working out a way to get this lunch to Shinji. She'd slaved over it the night before, little as he deserved it…the least he could do was eat the damn thing.

Then she became aware of how much her hands hurt, and she realized she was clutching the cloth ties on the bento box so tightly that every muscle was strained, every bone and joint grinding painfully against each other. Any tighter and her fingernails might draw blood from her palms. And then she felt flustered and embarrassed, even though no one around her noticed, even though the countless other students passed her by, flowing around her like indifferent streams of water.

"Oh my," she whimpered under her breath, and, panicking, she ducked off of the sidewalk and hid behind a beautifully blossoming cherry tree, catching her breath as though she'd been running, her heart racing. Even so, she trembled all over, and she was actually on the edge of crying, of all things. She hadn't felt that in what felt like forever.

Not since….

Why was she having such dark thoughts like this? She knew that she was a good person, or at least, she had to be. What other choice did she have, if she wanted to survive? Somehow she felt that if she gave into dark impulses born of unhappiness, she might do something horrible, and she knew…knew…she would feel horrible about it.

Because she was good.

Wasn't she?

She curled her toes inside her school shoes, suddenly trying not to think about that myth about how every sakura tree had a dead body buried underneath….

And then everything inside her went limp, and the bento box and her schoolbag slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground.

Sakura's eyes flew open to see she'd lost hold of them, the lunch in particular, and clasped her hands to her face. "Oh no!" She dropped to the ground and reached for the bento box first, but someone else picked up her schoolbag.

"Here, let me help you."

It was a boy's voice. Sakura looked up and saw the figure of a boy who looked a year older than her, the sun shining behind him, his own schoolbag slung over his shoulder.

He smiled at her…kindly…warm like the sun behind him that outlined his red hair like the coronae she'd seen in old mage paintings…and if she squinted…she could make out his golden-brown eyes, so eager.

It was...the boy she'd seen the other day...doing high-jumps like an idiot until the sunset...so persistent...and admirably so...

"Um…thank you," she said, bowing her head, not only out of appreciation, but also out of a sudden flurry of nerves. Quickly she got to her feet and brushed dirt off of her school skirt, finally forcing herself to look this boy in the eye again when he handed her schoolbag to her.

"It's no problem," said the boy, holding up a hand. "Hey, you're Shinji's little sister, aren't you? Sakura, right?"

"I—how did you know?" Sakura asked, the flurry of nerves growing intense in the pit of her stomach.

The boy pointed to his temple. "Your hair. And the ribbon. They're just like Shinji said." He went on smiling, tucking his free hand back in the pocket of his school trousers, though Sakura couldn't help thinking that there was just a touch of sadness to his smile, and then she couldn't help her timid heart going out to him…just a little.

"Well, thank you, again, um…."

"Emiya. Emiya Shirou."

"Yeah. Um, thank you…Emiya-sempai."

"You're welcome." He pointed to the bento box. "Was that for Shinji?"

"Yeah, he um…forgot it," Sakura lied lamely. "What made you…?"

"Just a guess," said Emiya with a shrug. "If he forgot it, I can take it to him for you, if you want."

"Oh, no, you've done enough already!" Sakura insisted, shaking her head vigorously.

But Emiya wouldn't hear of it. "Nonsense. It's no trouble. After all, you have to get to your own class, right? Don't wanna be late!"

Before Sakura knew it, Emiya was already gently taking the bento box from her. Their hands brushed, just for a moment, but from that touch, Sakura felt a pleasant warmth she hadn't felt in so very long. Not since that time when she'd really had a family, and knew of a man who loved her quite as if she were his own daughter.

Uncle…Kariya….

When the contact ended, she felt something inside her still reaching out, but she kept it hidden. She was good at that by now.

"Thank you…sempai," she murmured, brushing back her hair behind her ear with the hand unburdened of the bento box.

"Not at all." Emiya smiled a little more brightly. "Well, see you around." And off he went, with Sakura watching his retreating back.

But then he stopped and looked over his shoulder at her, and she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, her face turning bright red, redder than the stop light at the railroad crossing.

He just smiled and waved though, looking genuinely glad of the encounter. Then he turned back towards the school and went on walking up the hill lined with cherry blossom trees.

And Sakura's heart beat to a brand new rhythm, as of something brought back to life…the sakura blossom opening up after so long spent locked away in the frozen depths of winter.