AN: This is a one-shot that I originally posted in Beast Lair. I decided to share it here. Hope you guys like it. BTW this Shirou never had the Jewel Seed imbedded in him like Hero Slayer's original fic.
How did this happen?
Was it because they had left him behind?
They didn't have a choice!
His Magecraft to replicate bladed weapons were much too inferior to Mid-Childan and Belkan magic. They couldn't bring him with them because their missions were much too dangerous for someone who was classified as an E-Rank mage due to lack of talent and his Mana (or Od as Earth Magi called it) reserves was so small that it could be depleted in a matter of minutes in some of the battles they had fought.
Thus, it was inevitable that after the incident with the Book of Darkness, they became more distant as their work with the TSAB took up most of their time and they didn't have the time to visit him more regularly. It was made harder because he had decided to move to Fuyuki instead of staying at Uminari where most of their friends and family were at after Kiritsugu had passed away shortly after the incident.
They didn't even know that it was the Wolkenritter's actions that resulted in the death of Emiya Kiritsugu weeks before he was supposed to actually die until months later when they finally had time to pay a proper visit.
Vita was horrified once she knew since she was the one who attacked Kiritsugu to absorb his Linker Core into the Book. It was made worse because he never blamed her for his adoptive father's end. Kiritsugu had died a peaceful death after entrusting his dreams and ideals to his adopted son.
As atonement, Vita had searched frantically for anything that could make up for what she did. That's when they discovered the existence of Kiritsugu's biological daughter from one of his old journals.
Illyasviel von Einzbern.
They had stormed the Einzbern castle to free her once they learned of her imprisonment. Their raid was successful as Illya was rescued and she was brought to Mid-Childa to recuperate. The specialists there were confident that they could restore decades of the stolen time the Einzberns had taken from her due to the excessive Mana enhancing experiments on her body.
All of them had deemed that it was happy ending.
How wrong they were.
Even when they raided the castle, they never brought him with them. He would only just slow them down. Perhaps this kind of thinking was their first mistake.
Also, after Illya was healed, she had also joined the TSAB along with them. Even without the enhancements from the Einzbern experiments, she was still classified as an AAA-Rank mage if they looked at her Mana reserves alone. It even surpassed her's by a wide margin.
And so, he was left all alone again.
Their next paths crossed only years later when they were made to sortie after a sudden huge spike in Mana activity in Fuyuki was detected from sheer coincidence. The possibility of a Lost Logia going berserk had whipped them into shape to respond immediately.
However, they had arrived too late.
By the time they arrived at the top of the mountain where the concentration of Mana was reported to congregate, the only thing they found was the utter destruction of the temple residing on the mountain and its surroundings and the lonely back of a young man they once knew facing the sunrise. A sad smile was on his face as if he had to say farewell to someone he deeply cared about.
Some of them had sworn that they had seen the silhouette of a petite blond girl in a blue dress and armor with a sword in hand in front of him just before the transfer had finished.
The resulting interrogation lasted about a week and was supplemented with Illya's knowledge of the Holy Grail War.
To this day, none of them could believe how he could've survived such a brutal ritual almost completely unscathed.
Despite everything, they never elevated his status in their minds and decided to just classify his survival as pure dumb luck.
Another mistake that they would regret.
Afterwards, he joined the TSAB after he graduated from high school.
It was only after he moved to Mid-Childa did they start to bond again but the gap formed from years apart from each other was hard to fill. They never understood his desire to save people and laughed at his dream to be a hero.
After about half a year, he had decided to resign from the TSAB saying that he could save more people if he wasn't restricted by ranks or politics. Those who knew of his mage rank only laughed at him saying that he was just running away because he was too weak to even get promoted.
Even she and her friends had told him to give up his dreams and just live peacefully.
In the following years after he became a Freelancer, news of his exploits started appearing. He had been jumping from one conflict to another and fighting against various militias along the way to save as many people as he could.
Those who he had saved deemed him a hero.
The governments of various worlds and the TSAB itself however had designated him as a war criminal. The former for meddling in their military affairs while the latter couldn't condone his blatant disregard for world borders.
In the end, Riot Force 6 was tasked with subjugating him. The excuse given was that there were reports of him using unknown weaponry that might be Lost Logias. As such, Riot Force 6 that was specialized in dealing with Lost Logias was sent out.
The resulting conflict was brief as he never even tried to put up a fight against them in memory of his friendship with her and everyone else. He was imprisoned in a holding cell where the unit was based at.
Their achievement was short lived however as only a week later, their base was attacked by the Numbers.
The next few events were something that she heard later instead of seeing it with her own eyes.
At this time, he was able to break out of his holding cell by literally cutting it apart with an unidentified golden blade.
His captors had thought that he would try to escape but to their surprise, he had instead led the remaining members of the unit against the Numbers and thwarting their plans to recapture Vivio.
In retaliation, Jail Scaglietti sent an army of Combat Cyborgs to reclaim Vivio.
The members of Riot Force 6 despaired at the sheer number of enemies that they were going to battle against. Some were even convinced that they should just surrender Vivio to Scaglietti.
Those people were dealt with by a quick blunt force trauma to the head.
After giving a few orders to the unit to position themselves at a few key locations, he had then asked a favor to Ginga Nakajima, who was then tasked to see to his incarceration thus her presence at the base, to perform what he termed as a 'Tantric Prana Ritual'.
Ginga had agreed after a few yells and punches to the gut.
As the army of Combat Cyborgs approached, he alone went out to meet them. The remaining members of Riot Force 6 thought that he was going to commit suicide right up until the army itself disappeared right before their eyes.
They were awakened from their confusion at Ginga's orders, who had taken over command of the unit, to incapacitate the remaining stragglers.
After about half an hour had passed, they finally arrived to reinforce their unit. It was about that time that a spatial distortion could be witnessed as the army of Combat Cyborgs returned.
But no sense of alarm gripped them. It was instead filled with awe.
The army was decimated as various bladed weapons from small daggers to giant axes had impaled, cleaved, stabbed or dismembered them.
In the middle of the battlefield, on a hill of swords, he stood alone while several weapons had lodged themselves in his body.
"SHIROU!" She had yelled before she even knew it.
She immediately flew to his side, praying that she would still make it as she contacted Shamal. However, she was too late. By the time she arrived, life had already left his body.
"No... no, this can't be..." She could only watch in horror as the body of her childhood friend stood lifeless before her. She didn't even notice Fate landing beside her.
"Why? Why did you..." She couldn't understand it. Why had he sacrificed his life to protect them? They were enemies. The TSAB had branded him as a war criminal. He should be hating them for such a thing even after he tried his best to save as many people as he could.
Instead, he refused to fight them when they came for him even though he knew that he would be imprisoned for it. He never gave them any hostile looks or glares when they interrogated him. He never blamed them for looking down on him which what led to this in the first place.
As she thought all this, she finally laid her sight on his face and her mind abruptly stopped.
It wasn't the face of someone in pain, despair or even desperation when facing an army. Instead he had a very peaceful smile as if he was very happy. She remembered that smile that she was used to seeing in her childhood.
It was the smile that he always wore when he was helping someone.
"Ahhh... AHHHHH!" She cried.
It never mattered that they looked down on him. It never mattered that no one believed in him. It never mattered that no one understood him.
All that mattered to him was that he believed in his ideals and stood by it.
And all of them had laughed at his dream and ridiculed it.
"Listen up. From now on, you will be my friend."
A memory from their early days together.
A promise that she forced onto him due to her own selfishness.
In the end, the one who kept that promise wasn't her but the person she forced it on.