A/N: Aiko's prize for the COM shortoneshot comp!
Blood-Stained Cherry Blossoms
The Sakura blossom in the fall.
She wonders how much blood they've had to drink, and how much ash. Ten years ago, it was an entire destroyed town and the still-dripping nectar of lives lost vying for that one forbidden chalice and a power they can only hope exists…
But it's a hope built of blood and ash, so much blood and ash, that they've won it and failed to claim it and lost it and won it again. Destroyed; it's destroyed now, but she wonders… How long will it all stay buried? The scars from ten years ago run deep and these scars, too, will show themselves with time.
Like the Sakura – the cherry blossoms – a stark pink instead of their usual pallor. Like the dead who won't return, and the hollow spaces they've left in the world. Like how the living have changed to continue on and maybe some of those changes are for the better too, but they've cost so much to gain…
She can still see the scars in the school, in her home, at Shirou's place, in that place that had been left for dead ten years back… She can see them in their eyes as well: hers, his – and some of those times, she remembers Archer with his blood red coat and wonders if they've managed to change his fate at all. And she wonders what the future has in store for her, who's chosen this blood and ash-stained path while the Sakura petals rain down –
Though, truthfully, she'd chosen this path with all its blood and ash well before the war.