AN: All my stories are meant to be read with music and accompanying picture links. As ffnet doesn't allow for hot linking, feel free to follow the links on my pat-re-on page (/konamikode) and read my stuff as it was intended :3

Edit: Wow, seriously can't say the word patr-on here. That's nuts.


After the conclusion of the 5th Grail War, the spirit of the Wrought Iron Hero is called for once more only to find himself walking through the familiar, burning city of Fuyuki.

The 4th War has just ended, so why did he continue to persist?

Because the existence known as EMIYA was unable to turn away the pleading, final cry of a woman who wished with the last vestiges of her consciousness to keep her family safe.

She wished not for a Hero of Justice who could save her family...

But for a Hero who would make sure they lived happily.


Chapter 1: His Body Was Made of Swords, But His Heart Was Held By Love


Fuyuki, Japan
09/21/2015
EMIYA (TRUE)

The sunrise was beautiful.

How long has it been since I was able to rest? To stop and take a long look at the world I'd given my very existence to protect?

I'm sure that I've stood here, reminiscing countless times in the past, the present, and in the future, feeling the very same emotions running through my heart.

'But is that so important?'

I thought, as my Master huffed and struggled her way up to the cliff I was standing upon.

"Archer!" She called, once.

Twice.

The second coming as she raised herself up, chest still heaving from the exertion of the past several minutes.

A soft, disbelieving tone filled with sorrow and regret.

I could feel the container of my copy fading away into the aether.

It was painful, of course. But I couldn't let her see it. The burdening knowledge that I knew what lied in wait for me after my memories and experiences were recalled into Alaya's cruel grasp.

"It's unfortunate," I started, pausing momentarily as I placed my hand upon a hip. "but that's how it is. Give up on the Grail this time, Rin"

It's how it was always going to end. Even if Rin was to forcibly contract me, it would only be a temporary reprieve, and one that I would never accept.

What kind of Servant would I be to allow my Master to suffer a future where her dreams would be crushed? To provide the necessary prana to keep a Heroic Spirit, a bastardized fake as I was in the living world, would cripple her ability to perform her duties as One Who Walks With Death.

No.

I couldn't do that to her.

Tohsaka.

She gasps, a momentary bout of youthful madness possessing in an effort to say something.

Anything.

But instead, she shrivels upon herself, undoubtedly pained at her realization that no, I wouldn't stay in this world, this time, any longer than necessary.

And why would I need to? 'I' was already here.

A me that had embodied the childish ideals I used to champion, but grown over his experiences in this past week to mutate ever so slightly differently than my own soul.

No. To stay was to bring pain upon the voice, face, and memory of a girl whose name I would not remember soon enough.

I am the very definition of selfishness. But at least in this aspect, I will choose to be selfless.

As I have done before,

over and over again, as my copied core begins to merge with the full spirit who lays chained upon the Throne of Heroes, and the full scope of my memories begin to return.

"Heh." I chuckle, both from the sad sense of humor I feel at this recurring event, and from the words that I am about to say that will never change.

I care too much for the existence known as Tohsaka Rin to say anything but what she needs to hear.

Predictably, his Rin responds in her usual fashion. With heated emotion, a small fire that is fed by her tenuously held feelings that is quickly doused with her realization of my decision.

My acceptance.

I can now recall lifetimes where Rin had refused my decision and bound my body to herself anyway. But I can tell, this will not be one of those lifetimes.

And I'm okay with that.

As is the full realization of my 'self' that rests on the Throne after so many years spent with the girl known as Tohsaka Rin.

It's amusing, that despite all the efforts my copies have made throughout the many Roots of the world…

The first time we'd ever had this moment together was enough for the existence known as EMIYA to be, if not content, but accepting of his place as one of Alaya's dogs.

I could never be the hero I wished to be, but that didn't matter.

This reminder of who I am would be enough.

There was, and never would, be a Grail War where I would become something other than myself.

Kneeling and bleeding on a Lonely Hill of Swords, I would ever continue to look upwards.

Not in the vain hope that I would one day be free.

But because in the end…

I had succeeded in becoming a Hero.

Maybe not like how I imagined, but a Hero I was.

I'd always be the firm back on which Tohsaka would wrap her arms around in the search for comfort.

Tears bubbled at the edges of her eyes, her posture becoming something that I would never wish to see.

Defeated, torn, helpless.

Once more amongst a countless repetition of events, she cursed herself for being unable to save me even as a gasp escaped my throat.

It was an exchange of emotions that would never grow old. Never grow tired.

Everytime I stood here, watching this very same sunrise, I couldn't help but turn around to witness the girl who would fall to her weakest moment in life. Such was the despair that carried in her voice, forcing my mind to recall the numberless times I'd heard defeat in such a vibrant soul that should never lose.

But she never fell to her knees.

Not once, not in all the many branches of the Kaleidoscope, did she ever fall to her knees in defeated despair.

I would never allow that to occur, whatever the cause.

"Rin." I began, the words flowing from my mouth as easily as they had the first time.

I'd done it so many times that my response to her words could be all but automatic.

Could be.

"As you know, I'm a bit hopeless. Give me a shoulder to lean on." I said softly, the words I spoke coming freshly from my heart as they have always done.

How could I ever treat any moment spent with my Master as a tired exercise? No, even if I replied to her flagging sense of self the same way each and every time, I always said the words that were burning in the forge that is my heart.

In the end, I am Emiya Shirou.

And a sword could no more lie to their wielder without breaking itself. My voice would always be there for her, truthful and constant.

A sword couldn't lie, couldn't change their nature.

"Archer…" She spoke softly, eyes glistening with an unbefitting moisture that caused my heart to lurch, and bring a familiar, small smile to my lips.

Because I knew she would do her best to save me. A me that would never become the rusted monster that I am today.

And how do I know this?

Because I am the only EMIYA Shirou that sits upon the Throne of Heroes.

My Master had saved each and every instance of that sad, pointless existence through every line of history that had ever existed.

This one too, I knew would be saved.

I only had to wait for her to finish her statement, to memorize once more the proud, shining eyes of the girl I'd long given my heart to an uncountable number of lifetimes ago.

I have my answer, Rin.

"Don't worry, Tohsaka." I replied to her affirmation with a real, heartfelt smile. "I'll try my best from now on too."

And before this container, this copy of my soul, faded away, I would once more see the vision that would always stay my hand from fulfilling the mission my memory deficient copies would champion.

The sound of a girlish sniffle, the sight of tears trailing down the cheeks of eyes I could no longer see.

This, more than anything, I held tightly to my chest.

To subtly package into the depths of my next instance of the Fake Hero, Counter Guardian EMIYA.

"Ah." I said, looking up into the rusted wheels churning in the darkened sky.

"I'm trying to do the best that I can, Rin." I chuckle softly, closing my eyes and feeling myself being pulled once more.

There would never be a moment of rest for my true self as long as humanity existed.

But this time, as I felt the pull on my soul to a slightly more distant location, I prodded the walls of the encapsulating container to forcibly push in just the tiniest bit of my true will into the core of the shell.

Wherever I was summoned next, I'm sure that this small part of me would do well.


Fuyuki, Japan
09/21/2005
EMIYA (FALSE)

… and so I found myself summoned atop a pile of trash.

The fact that I was summoned atop a pile of broken furniture was familiar, but the feel of said wooden material was not.

In fact, the constitution of said wooden implements were more akin to concrete and rebar than anything truly familiar in my mind.

Summoning wasn't new to me. Jumbled memories weren't new to me.

The familiar heat of a burning city that I could clearly see was the one memory I could never forget.

This event more than anything else was the beginning of my path on the road to becoming the cursed existence that I am today.

I'm not even sure when I found myself standing upon the burning wreckage of Fuyuki's cursed district. Nor am I certain as to why I started walking towards the flames.

"... hello…?"

I only knew that I had to.

Foot after leather and steel clad foot, I walked.

The thick connection of prana that kept my body in the world weakly dragged me towards wherever my Master was.

Past the ruined buildings. Past the lifeless, incinerated skeletons.

I continued to walk in a dazed fugue, unaware of my goal.

At least until I reached the fallen form of my foster father, Emiya Kiritsugu.

From what I could see, his last moments were spent desperately reaching a cursed, mud slicked hand towards a barely breathing, red haired boy.

His golden eyes looked emptily upon the smog covered sky, any shimmer of intelligence that laid within his mind, burned out like a used coal that had been left unattended in a grill.

"...Kiritsugu…"

Emiya Kiritsugu was dead. As of this moment, it was a statistical impossibility that the existence known as Emiya Shirou would follow the hypocritical path of a Hero of Justice.

The catalyst that imprinted upon him, lay dead, his lifeless eyes full of pain and a deep regret that will never be lifted.

All I needed to do was move on and leave the dead and dying bodies. It may not do me any good. The likelihood of a paradox occurring from me slaying this empty cadaver was non-existent, but there was enough in me to believe saving any version of myself to be anathema.

No. I only needed to turn and walk away from it all until the next time I was called-

"...please…" The voice that had been desperately pleading in my ear, whispered with her dying breaths.

Breaths filled with despair that overshadowed the droplets of hope that yet clung to the shadowed darkness.

Breaths that

pushed against the shattered, incomplete memories of my mind.

"Oniichan-" Her voice begged. That was not what she said

The voice of a girl whose name and face I could no longer remember. Only that her eyes shined like the eager glisten of honey scented red crayons and hair as colorless as snow.

….

"Please…" A familiar voice I'd never heard in all of my existence, begged the world.

Damn it. It's not fair.

How could I, EMIYA SHIROU, turn away?

And so I knelt down next to the unseeing eyes of a dying boy, his skin charred and blackened from the curse driving fires that were even now weakening amongst the soot and cremated dust ridden shower freshly falling from the heavens.

"What do you expect me to do?" I wondered, half to myself and half towards the insistent pull I'd been feeling since I'd arrived.

No one answered, and the boy whose breaths were slowing on the sizzling ground next to me didn't have the mental faculties left to do so.

I wanted to chuckle. I wanted to laugh.

Staring up at the gathered storm clouds, all I wanted to do was lean back and blank my mind from the yet one more event I had no power to stop.

The child who was not, nor would ever be Emiya Shirou, would die.

Regardless of the intent of the being whose prana filled my being drawing me towards this location, there was precious little I could do.

Among my arsenal, there was but one tool I could possibly use to heal the dying boy. The man who would've been his foster father in another life was already far beyond help, but there was no life to be saved here.

Even if I could Trace a copy of the Holy Sheathe, one that I've long memorized since I'd first witnessed it, it would do little to help the assuredly dead child without the presence of a woman whose face I could scarcely recall.

"Please…" The voice begged once more.

Desperate and fading.

With all her that was left of her, the voice pleaded for the grace of the sword she had called upon.

But there was nothing I could do.

Nothing I could do but try.

"I am the bone of my sword." I whispered, but the beginning line of my personal aria boomed loudly across the world.

I grasped onto it, searching deep within the reaches of myself.

To find that first memory of Kiritsugu placing Avalon within my heart.

The obvious didn't come to me at that moment, far too gone within my own soul. Instead, my hands crackled and my circuits, grew hot.

I'd found it with almost no effort. I knew the path that lead towards Avalon as surely as I knew exactly where upon the Hill of Swords Excalibur rested.

Static filled my eyes and the pounding of my false heart filled my ears.

No matter how much prana I'd been given, regardless of the overflowing sea of power I'd been connected to…

I would never have enough to bring forth a copy of inhuman perfection.

Among many, it was these two paired artifacts that I would never be able to bring forth.

"Please."

But I had to try anyway.

I could no more stop myself from answering the despairing hope of a woman I'd never met, but most assuredly was connected to in life and death, than I could deny the tiny, shameful part of me that still acted as the core of my being.

I wanted to be a Hero.

"Steel is my body, and fire is my-"

"Hold!" Her voice called out, desperately from my side as her gauntleted arms pressed down on my raised and steaming hands.

By my side, Saber shattered the outline of the projection I had only begun to bring forth into reality, and instead, pushed her near translucent and fading arms into the chest of Kiritsugu.

A chest that parted in a gate of warmly glowing gold as my partner pulled out Avalon from the depths of his dead heart.

"I ask of you…" She gasped, holding onto what semblance of existence she had against the depredations of Gaia.

"Will you be my Master?" She begged with a fierce, but simultaneously broken expression marring her beautiful face.

Above the body of my younger self, Artoria Pendragon tried and failed to push Avalon into his body, her own arms passing through Avalon and barely able to keep their shape as the motes of prana making up her body floated away into the cooling air.

My answer came in the form of my own arms grasping hers and pushing down her now fully corporeal limbs against Avalon into the heart of a boy named Shirou.

"Yes." I replied just minutes later as the two of us sat, watching as the sheathe healed the burnt boy of his wounds and steadied his breath into something resembling life.

We remained silent, feeling the hot rain falling upon our armored bodies, never looking away from a pair of golden eyes that had begun to grow warm with life, but remained coldly detached at the dark sky the boy had continued to gaze upon.

"Thank you, Hero. I owe you a great debt." Saber muttered softly, bringing an armored gauntlet to place it upon the now healed hand of the boy whose own digits wrapped around hers.

"Mm." I grunted, knowing better than to answer her in my usual sarcastic method.

Saber was my Servant. There would be time later to close myself, to needle her as I had wished I could in my youthful memories.

But for the time being…

I had to trample once more upon my ideals and throw them away. There was no room left for those foolish ideals in the type of Hero that I was so desperately called upon to be.

"Who are you, Hero?" Saber asked.

"I am Ruler. And the Fourth Holy Grail War is now over" I replied.

"Please." The voice said once more before fading against the pitter patter of rain.

I would fulfill the dying wish of the woman who had called me here. To save what I could of her family.

How could I not?