Fire.
All around… there was only fire.
As great tidal waves of flame gushed over the cityscape of Fuyuki, a little boy wondered. How long had he been walking?
Pain was all he knew. How is it then that he could still move? His left arm had been nearly torn off by a falling wall of steel, hanging on only by thin strips of muscle and flesh, yet he kept walking, seemingly unable to register the loss.
'It hurts…'
It did.
His body was bruised and bloodied from falling over and over onto jutting steel and concrete debris alike. Yet there was no stopping the boy.
'It hurts…'
Oh, did it hurt.
Yet despite everything, the boy continued to move forward.
He did not understand, and he did not have the mind or energy to do so. Death was all that awaited him on the path he walked. There was no salvation at the end, yet he continued to walk. Why?
Looking forward with broken bronze eyes, he saw nothing but flames ahead of him in his path. There was no path in front of him. The great conflagration danced like a cruel mistress, blocking his path with what could only be the most sadistic of smiles. There was no mistake, this was the end. There was no way past the flames. In an attempt by the world to finally end one about to die, the darkness behind him, the arsons that caused this fire, had long since blocked the way back. It was a mercy at this point to stop him, to end him.
'It hurts…'
The boy did not stop.
Stepping right into the flames, the boy walked on.
The dancing mistress seemed to stiffen, the conflagration that engulfed Fuyuki apparently shocked silent at this action. There was no wish to die in this act, both the flames and the darkness could tell. There was no other want but to move forward.
The boy thought, if pain was already there, how could a little more change anything?
Pain is pain, he thought. There was no unit of measure for pain, as such, pain could not increase; that was the understanding brought forth by the shattered consciousness of the equally shattered boy.
Fragmented as he was, any understanding would become truth if it was to ensure survival.
And survive he did.
Though flames licked at his body, his clothes were singed but not ignited, his body in flames but not on fire. Skin burned in the unholy inferno he walked through, and if he were to look, the whiteness of his bones could be seen, uncovered by the incineration of flesh.
Yet he continued to walk, unaffected by the pain that his mind was convinced could not get any worse.
Pain was all he knew, yet what he could feel was anything but. Like the noise of crowds outside one's window, despite it being there, a person could still fall asleep. The noise was there, the noise was recognized by the senses, but the noise was not registered by the conscious mind; as was the pain that he knew was there, but could not bring himself to truly feel.
He left the ocean of flames. Anyone who saw him then, in the fever of their final moments, would have seen the majestic sight of an immortal, emerging from the hellfire unwavering and unvanquished.
…
That was not what Emiya Kiritsugu saw.
All that he saw was exactly what it was, a little boy beyond salvation. A little boy doomed to fall and die like the rest in the flames, a little boy that kept walking when he was destined to die.
Looking like death, surrounded by death, grasped in the cruel hands of his all but assured end. He would fall soon. It was physically impossible to have walked directly through the accursed flames with brutal wounds and a fragmented mind and not fall. Knowing that he caused this, despite seeing and knowing the same fate befalling hundreds of others before then, Kiritsugu could only weep as he saw a child younger than his own daughter meet such a brutal end.
And yet…
Despite what he continued to believe would happen, the boy…
…The boy did not fall.
Snapping out of his disbelief, the Emiya raced forward in desperation.
'He's alive...' he realized, 'He's alive!'
Coming upon the boy, he gently held him.
As Emiya Kiritsugu held him, the boy wondered. Was this man… crying?
Indeed, the man was crying. He was crying, yet he looked so happy. There was nothing but flames around them; nothing but the stench of ash and death. The boy knew he was not too far away from death himself, he was still alive, but barely. Was that why? Was the man happy he was alive?
Still in a daze, the boy did not know the answer. But regardless, as the man picked him up in his arms and ran away from the fire. The boy's thoughts became clear for just one moment as he looked upon the face of his saviour, just one moment. In that one moment, only one thought came to mind.
'It doesn't hurt anymore.'
…
- Parousia -
...
The two Emiyas sat, gazing at the stars from the grounds of the Emiya estate. This was not the first time they did this, and it would likely not be the last.
It had been nearly three years since what later became known as the Great Fuyuki Fire; nearly three years since the boy Shirou was rescued from the aftermath of the Fourth Holy Grail War and subsequently adopted by his saviour. Because of this, for the first time in years, Emiya Kiritsugu felt at peace. The tensions brought about by the preparations for the Fourth Fuyuki Grail War and the subsequent end of it had mostly left him by that point. However, while the tension had left him, the regrets had not.
"Is something wrong old-man?"
Seeing the troubled expression that settled on his adoptive father's face, Emiya Shirou decided to snap him out of whatever internal monologue was beginning to form inside the tired man's head; as he knew he tended to do when reminiscing.
The older Emiya looked at the boy in mild surprise at being read so easily by a 10-year-old before smiling. "I am going on a trip to Germany tomorrow, Shirou," he stated, "I think I've told you and Taiga about it before, but never why I was going."
It was true, Shirou had finally gotten old enough to be left alone with Taiga, and Kiritsugu was now free to fulfil his long-overdue responsibility. As important to him as Shirou may be, this was just as, if not more so.
"You're going to save her, aren't you old-man?"
Honestly, this boy was far too good at reading expressions for it to be natural.
"Yeah... Your sister is still waiting for me."
Illya... Kiritsugu mentally grit his teeth at the thought of just what the old bastard Jubstacheit could have done to her at this point. That was why he had spent the time until Shirou was old enough devising the ultimate plan to infiltrate the Einzbern Castle in Germany while he still retained some semblance of magical ability. He had called in every favour, made use of every resource, and utilized the most cunning of his tactics built from the experiences that caused the Moonlit World to dub him the Magus Killer, all to secure the success of this final mission.
And with all that, the next day marked the start of the operation.
However, despite all of this preparation, despite all of his efforts, there was no guarantee that any of it would ultimately lead to success. Kiritsugu was not so naive as to believe that the Einzberns would make it so easy for him. In the end, it was the Einzberns armed with an indefinite number of defences built up over decades of research and mastery over Alchemy versus a single magical assassin with less than a decade's worth of experience armed with resources and plans slapped together over the course of less than three years.
"Shirou."
The redhead looked up at his name being called.
"You have to understand that I might not come back from my trip," The older Emiya stated, "I might not be able to save your sister from Jubstacheit von Einzbern. I might not be able to even reach her once I break the boundary fields with what little Magecraft I have left in me.
"So I want you to promise me. If I don't come back, get stronger, okay? Get stronger, and take your sister back."
The younger Emiya looked at his father, clearly seeing the heavily-veiled desperation in his empty eyes.
...
He nodded.
In that moment, he saw the desperation melt away into relief.
The words having been said, the last of the Emiya family line sat and gazed at the stars in peace once more. The moon was unnaturally bright that night.
Kiritsugu was relieved. Regardless of how little a chance he may have against the might of the Einzberns, he couldn't help but feel relieved upon knowing that someone would continue to try to save his daughter should he fail. Perhaps it was because it was Shirou. Thinking about it, an old man's adopted son dedicating himself to a goal that his father could not achieve, by saving the old man's daughter? It resembled the setup for quite the dramatic story, now that he thought about it. He didn't know why, but he found himself chuckling...
A hero...
"Hey, old-man?"
'God damn it Shirou, stop interrupting my thoughts.' "Yes?"
"When you were still a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?"
The old man, despite the fact that he should normally be surprised by the sudden question, couldn't help but accept the seeming truth that Shirou could, in fact, read minds. Kiritsugu couldn't help it, he laughed at the absurdity. What was wrong with him? Was his potentially impending end settling into his mind in a more disturbing manner than what he had expected?
Regardless, he replied, still chuckling somewhat, "A hero. I wanted to be a saviour to everyone, Shirou. To create a world where nobody would cry from sadness, a world where nobody would die at the hands of another person."
Shirou looked at him, before speaking.
"Why did you stop? That sounds like the perfect dream to me."
"It is perfect," Kiritsugu replied, his tone sombre as if remembering a long-gone loved one, "But it's because it's perfect... that it is also impossible to fulfil."
Shirou tilted his head like a child (which he was), feeling curious as to what his father meant.
Kiritsugu continued.
"It was a dream destined for disaster. A hero by the world's standards is someone who saves people; an acceptable goal. A hero by my standards back then was someone who saved absolutely everyone; an impossible goal. To save one person means to abandon another. Sometimes, to save one person means to abandon a hundred, a thousand, a million..."
Shirou saw his father's knuckles whiten in stifled fury. To whom it was directed to, he didn't know.
"That's why a hero cannot save everyone. That's why a hero couldn't even save the majority. A hero, at his core, is a selfish being who hoards the lives of the people close to him and turns a blind eye to those that are left behind in the process, leaving them to the slaughterhouse.
The hero I wanted to become was an impossible existence far beyond even the powers of any god. There was no hope for me, I was fated to fail the moment I chose to walk down that path. Never become like me, Shirou. Don't make the same mistakes I did and doom yourself before your life has even started."
...
Shirou blinked.
"I don't care about all that."
It was Kiritsugu's turn to blink in surprise.
"You're already an old man, old-man, so you can't chase after your dreams anymore. But I'm still a kid. So since you can't become a hero anymore, I'll become one for you. Even if it means I'll be selfish by saving only the people around me, I'll become a hero my way; the way I learnt from you."
Kiritsugu didn't need to think about what Shirou meant. Saving the boy from a fire where everyone else perished and ending the pain that had engulfed the broken child's mind and soul, anyone who could do that to another person was bound to be this boy's definition of a hero.
Despite the obvious clash with what Kiritsugu believed in, what he still believed in, he couldn't help but be happy that there was at least one more person who wanted to become a real hero; as debatable as the definition of a "real hero" was.
"Don't you worry about me, old-man..." the younger Emiya continued, "Magi families pass on knowledge to the next generation, right? Since you can't pass on your Crest to me, instead, whatever mistakes you've made because of your dream... I won't repeat them. So you can be sure that, one day, somewhere down the line, an Emiya will find the answer. So you can leave here and save your daughter...
... and leave your dream to me."
...
-[ 7 4 8 ]-
...
Author's Note:
For those of you who followed my profile, and for some who didn't, you might find this story to be familiar. That's because of a recent "revamp" I've created for this series as a whole. I've decided to create a series of one-shots to introduce the major characters to look out for for when the actual story is finally uploaded.
When that might be is still way up in the air, as I've learned from some of my past mistakes and decided to just pre-write a bunch of the chapters. Mainly so that I can perform whatever quality control I have to, based on the feedback I receive from the chapters I've already put up. I have no beta, and while the offer is open, I don't really expect help to come any time soon.
This story has been running around in my head for so long (over a year now) that I really want to just put it out there already. Still, I cannot help but make it as good as I can, so don't expect regular consistent updates; as much as I want to, for the sake of whoever likes and supports this story.
Damn my sense of professionalism on a fanfiction site.
Regardless, that's all I have for this upload. Anyone who wants a bit more detail can take a look at my profile, where I post updates on story progress.
Follow this story to stay up-to-date on these introductory one-shots, favourite this story if you liked it, and I will try my best to keep you all entertained!
Solar, out.