My internet was down for 2 weeks, so I couldn't upload this any sooner…

Chapter 8: A Calm Breeze

Her eyes snapped open, the small, tiny Einzbern homunculus had fallen asleep on a small bench in an odd park that seemed to be almost in the middle of nowhere. Her maids had carried her there after she passed out while flying on her gigantic servant. That shadow was unlike anything their minds knew; it sucked out prana merely by being stared at!

"Sella, where are we?" Illya rubbed her eyes several times to get rid of the dirt that had accumulated in them.

"I'm not sure milady, but I believe that we are in the Miyama part of Fuyuki city." Sella said in a flat, toneless voice with slight hints of negativity.

"I see, so that means we're near onii-chan's house!" Illya laughed gleefully, Sella's flat expression twisted into a frown while the other one who was called Leysritt just stayed still and didn't react.

"Milady, surely you can't be thinking of staying with that barbarian child, he's brought you nothing but pain and confusion, something like him can only bring harm to you!" Sella advised Illya, who crossed her arms and frowned.

"Listen Sella, the decisions I make are my own, I don't care about the Grail War or Snail War. The only reason I even participated was to kill Kiritsugu, and now that he's dead and onii-chan who hasn't done anything wrong is here, I'll see what kind of person he is." The master of the Einzberns reminded her slave of a homunculus that she was in control.

"Milady, I beg you to reconsider, he's-"

"He's what Sella? You haven't even met him, and you're talking rubbish about him Sella! I won't have your ignorant babbling!" Illya shouted at Sella

"He's below us, and he's nothing but a nuisance to you, you're a prized member of the Einzbern family while he's a commoner who is not fit to lick your boots." Sella stated, attempting to get her to understand the 'truth.'

Illya ignored her, she wasn't willing to listen to the pleas of her annoying homunculi, and she had to find a place of residence first. She didn't want to trouble her adopted brother so late at night.

She found a huge mansion that belonged to one of the richest men in the country and decided to start there. The entrance was a huge door made of the finest metals, but it was no match for Leysritt's strength; the door was flattened in no time and the group proceeded inwards while the dragon stayed outside.

Illya summoned her familiars, one by one, string familiars were animated and flew beside her. The guards by now had detected their presence, but were no match for the superior abilities of the homunculi. The string familiars transformed into tiny swords and flew right through the bodies of several guards, who could not harm them with their feeble bullets.

One such bullet flew into Illya's side, which regenerated within mere moments of being shot. She was completely impervious to anything a mere 'normal' human could do. To be more accurate, she let it fly into her side simply to make the remaining few guards give up as she laughed at the physical pain.

They froze in fear as their impending doom approached them. They awaited their deaths at this white haired monster's hand.

The killing blow never came, they were spared from death as they ran away from that hellish place as fast as they could.

"Illya, why did you not finish them?" Leysritt questioned in confusion.

"It's no fun killing people who will only make the same face, I want them to make many different faces and run away so I can catch them!" Illya explained

Leysritt suddenly heard a bullet approach Illya's head, she moved to deflect it but couldn't make it in time as it was exceeding the speed of sound. Illya smiled viciously again, one of her familiars walked into the area of contact with the bullet and dissipated.

She approached the owner of the house slowly as he stumbled backwards and landed on his bottom. There was fear, fear at the impending reality of death in his eyes. There was regret, he was regretting that he couldn't spend more time with the family that was with him through thick and thin. There was sadness, because his life would end here, by this unknown monster. But more than that, there was a will to keep fighting to the end.

He raised his gun and fired at Illya, it grazed her abdomen but that wound disappeared almost as quickly as he made it. A tiny sword cut his abdomen in response. He fired another bullet, it drilled a hole in her leg and caused a lot of blood to flow out, but that was also useless since it disappeared in the next five seconds and he felt both his legs being torn off.

The man fired bullets 4, 5, and 6 before he realized that there were no more bullets in his gun, he expired from existence the moment Illya stabbed his brain.

His family had already fled safely from the house, taking his belongings, so they were safe from Illya's grasp of suffering and death.

Illya walked along the halls of the mansion, and found a picture.

"So you had a family too? How nice!" Illya whispered unheard words, her anger at her father, and her family was clear. Her mind stopped wandering, she had to prepare this mansion to be suitable for her stay that night. She would've preferred to stay at her brother's place, but it was her fate to stay the night elsewhere, as she did not want to trouble her brother.

"This sucks…" Illya sighed

That night, Emiya Residence:

Shirou couldn't sleep, his body was rattling the entire night for no real reason. He used the time to reflect on the Holy Grail War. He wanted to cheer up Sakura, something was clearly wrong with her and he wanted to know what it was without making her freak out or push her further away from him. The servant Saber appeared before him, surprised to see him awake and not sleeping like he normally would be, she normally snuck into his bed and snuggled close to him while he was asleep.

"What's wrong Shirou?" She had finally broke out of starting to say Praetor and then switching and now simply called him Shirou.

"I was just have a gut feeling that something strange is happening in Fuyuki, and something is definitely wrong with this night in particular." Shirou answered her the best he could, his feeling was hard to describe.

"I see, there isn't any use worrying about it. We'll deal with it when it comes." Saber reassured her master

"But what if we can't?" Shirou responded shyly, he felt very vulnerable now that he knew servants existed, beings far more powerful that could cause his d****. He didn't want his d**** to happen, he wanted to save…

"Shirou, not once should you think like that! I will protect you at all costs, I will not allow anyone to harm you. Nothing, not that dragon, nor Archer, or whatever servants the others may be. I am the most powerful, the most elegant and graceful, and the best servant. That is a FACT, thus we will always triumph and we will always survive, understand?! I may have no reason to get the grail, as I died without regrets, but I will at least get you through this war, as I don't want you to die with regrets! As long as you have the will to survive, you will survive. And as long as I'm with you, I'll protect you till I die, and then I'll rise from the grave to protect you from danger!" Saber grabbed Shirou by the shoulders and made him stare her straight in the eye.

Shirou nodded weakly, Saber was right, now was not the time for negativity when thinking about possibilities of the future. After all, the possibilities for the future were endless.

Saber smiled gently and positioned herself besides him, pressing her own back against his. Shirou also had a smile present on his face as he began to dream at the time the moon was still high in the sky.

"The moon is beautiful today, I would paint it, had I my supplies." Saber remarked as she peered out of Shirou's only window. To her, the room was rather dull with the exception of the Emiya boy who filled it. It was simplicity itself, nothing useless was present in the room, and everything was neat and organized. It was a blank nothingness.

Shirou's eyes slowly began to close, his body was shutting as he looked at Saber, her emerald eyes sparkled as if shining a light in his dark world.

"Yeah, you're right Saber, it really is quite beautiful today." Emiya Shirou fell asleep with those words and began to dream, like he always did.

His dream consisted of her, he dreamt of her only.

It was a dream of her life, not one of those other strange dreams that he was having a lot recently that were about a strange void in his mind and a vicious black ooze that was violent and corrupted. This was about a girl, she was poisoned when she was just a child. Her father was a weak man, not respected and known for being nothing but a despicable man slut who was guilty of many crimes. Her mother was ruthless, and extremely strict, manipulative and abusive, always caring about social standing in the empire more than anything else. However, she didn't let others get her down, and tried her best to live her life to the fullest.

Her mother stole everything she could, so his servant was overcome with hatred, stress, and sadness. She had to deal with a corrupt senate along with a horrible mother, so she made the ultimate choice. Her mother held the antidote for the poison that was inflicted on her, but was given to her in moderation so she would continue being her horrible mother's slave. She would steal the antidote and kill her mother, to prevent her from destroying the empire with her selfishness.

She failed to steal the antidote, and the assassin she sent to kill her mother failed as well. She killed her mother herself, and thus the poison would continue to affect her for her entire life, as her mother had destroyed the cure.

All the people close to her died one by one, as she slowly edged into insanity. Then there was a fire…

Nero stared at the burning corpses of screaming romans, while bathing amongst flames that killed her people.

Emiya Shirou was born from flames, the picture of Nero was gone. Standing there was a collapsing boy desperately holding on to life, wandering aimlessly. He had come from the abyss of rage that had killed hundreds of people, as he stared into darkness the world broke.

The memories of the world shattered into pieces that numbered beyond what the human mind was capable of perceiving. He was certain he…had broken the truth countless times.

Sakura's room, Emiya Residence:

Blood, why is it everywhere? Sakura stared down at her horribly stained blanket as she felt more blood erupt out of her throat. It was those wretched worms that were eating away at her mana once again. She wouldn't be able to hide her secrets much longer, her brother was no longer in possession of Rider, meaning that they would once again tell her to fight.

So very soon she would be made to fight those she cared about once again, she would be made to fight Emiya Shirou. This very thought made her seethe with rage; why should she be forced to fight her loved one? Why was she the only one with disgusting slugs in her body that ate at her life and made sure she wouldn't live normally? Why was she the one suffering? Where is her chance for happiness?

More evil came into her mind as she thought of what had happened in the night, Emiya Shirou had brought home the one she looked up to, the one she strived to be like, her precious beloved sister who always got everything while she was left with nothing.

Still it was natural that her Senpai would prefer her sister to her. After all, she was a poison, a plague that would benefit everyone if dead, maybe something like the bubonic plague from Europe; her senpai wouldn't have to worry about lousy Sakura interfering with his plans, he wouldn't have to worry about stupid Sakura dragging him down, he wouldn't even have to worry about Sakura's presence at all. The nuisance named Matou Sakura would soon be eradicated from existence, she knew that she had to die as the world was so cruel to her.

Even then, she wanted her Senpai to be safe, she was worried his selfless tendency would eventually destroy and kill him. His delusions would overwhelm him, and there would be no one to tell him that what he was seeing wasn't real, and to reassure him that it was fine over and over again. There would be no one except Nee-san, yes she would replace her in even that role in the end. Matou Sakura would be forgotten and her name would float into obscurity.

Tears began to fill her bloodshot eyes despite her trying to hold them back, they streamed freely from her eyes as she forced her closing eyes open once again to prevent herself from falling from asleep. She didn't want to have that horrible dream again, but she somehow knew that if she went back asleep, she definitely would and the dream would be even worse than before.

Why was she even having these dreams? Was she scared? No, it couldn't be something like that, she would gladly accept her fate if Emiya Shirou did not exist. A world where Emiya Shirou did not exist was not worth living in, it was not worth fighting for, if her only light in the darkness extinguished, then she too would…

Rin's Room, Emiya Residence:

Rin couldn't sleep, she peered out the window and stared at the beautiful full moon for an entire hour, hoping she would fall asleep. There was something horrible about the night itself, she knew that something was wrong and just wanted the day to come quickly again. Something devilish, and purely evil was stepping on her land, she who was deeply connected to the land could feel it; such a horrible, heavy construct of prana existed in the world.

She knew that whatever it was, she couldn't kill it or do anything to it. Even if she had three servants at her command, she would definitely fail to kill that darkness; it was on a different level entirely. So she would be forced to wait, wait until she was better prepared for it.

As she couldn't sleep, she counted the weapons she had brought with her. The first weapon she had was clearly Archer, her servant was her greatest weapon but also possibly her greatest problem if he refused to obey orders.

Two, her ally Emiya Shirou was her next weapon, he had a Saber class servant, this was enough for her. She would make use of him as much as she could, as he was quite powerful with his current abilities.

Three, her gem necklace, she had years of prana stored in that thing, it would definitely be useful in the future, it was like her one-time use 'noble phantasm.'

Four, she had brought 124 combat gemstones: 10 A-rank, 18 B-rank, 25 C-rank, 32 D rank, and 39 E-rank spells were stored in them.

She had a combat knife, along with some other gemstones.

Her final weapons were her command seals, three of them which shined brilliantly on her hand.

"I'll need all of these later, there's no telling when that stupid, worthless servant will act up." Rin sighed as she lay down on her bed. She liked this household, it was soothing and friendly, so much unlike the Tohsaka residence that screamed stay away. Emiya Shirou was the master of this house, the one that Emiya Kiritsugu, the magus killer used to possess before he passed away a few years ago. Kiritsugu somehow raised Shirou and had a connection to the Einzberns in other words that's where Shirou's sister came from. Rin had suddenly taken an interest to the history of Emiya Shirou, who seemed to have rather strange origins. Where did a seemingly ordinary boy with magic circuits, and a strange origin fit into the magus killer and the Einzberns? Why did the magus killer stop and settle down after the fourth war? Why

She suddenly felt quite sleepy and started to fall asleep while thinking of Shirou, and what he could be hiding, as she knew that she hadn't solved Emiya Shirou.

Emiya Residence, 6:32AM:

"Senpai, help me with the soup!" Sakura grabbed Shirou's arm and dragged him into the kitchen; the day was slow and gentle at the Emiya household.

"You should've seen that bitch when I raped her!" A figure that clearly looked like Shinji started laughing and screaming, several disturbing images seeped into reality as he saw IT several times.

Shirou held his head as he started to chant to himself again and again.

"It's not real, it's fake! It's not real, it's fake! It's not real, it's fake! IT's Not ReAl! IT'S NOT REAL!"

"Senpai!" Sakura dropped whatever she was holding and rushed over to Shirou immediately who was pointing his knife at the wall.

The image of Shinji hit the image of Sakura again and again while he _ her over and over again.

Shirou rushed to an isolated part of the wall with his knife and began to stab it over and over again until he held his head, trying to stop his body from reacting to something that wasn't real.

"Shirou, listen to me!" Saber called out, she was grabbing his arm, preventing him from stabbing the wall again.

"Senpai! It's okay… What you're seeing, none of it is real." Sakura said, while grabbing his other arm, trying to pull him away from the wall.

Rin had rushed by then and was about to knock some sense into him, but by then he was already on the floor.

She's telling me that this isn't real, should I believe her? No, I won't believe her, but at least this delusion I'm having now is fake, but something like this definitely happened.

"I'm sorry…" Shirou left everyone else's presence immediately, he had to distance himself or he would cause more pain.

As Shirou left, Sakura was forced to explain what had transpired. Taiga was luckily away at the morning for some unknown cause, presumably because she was restricted from being allowed to go to the Emiya residence for some official meeting of Yakuza or something like that. No one really knew or cared.

As Sakura explained that Shirou would have strange delusions sometimes that would make him hysterical, none were typically violent besides the one that was seen just now.

"Will this be a real problem to Shirou's life?" Saber asked her

"This is a problem, and most people would be impaired, but Senpai has been managing so far and I hope that nothing bad will happen because of this in the future. These kind of hallucinations rarely ever happen and are like an abnormality to him, they happen maybe once every two months, but for some reason they've been happening more frequently." Sakura remarked worriedly

"Sakura, do you know what he sees when this happens to him?" Rin questioned her, she wanted to know if it was anything relevant to the mystery of Emiya Shirou.

"Mostly silly things, like purple dinosaurs and big yellow birds, but once in a while he starts screaming uncontrollably because he's seen something realistic, he never wants to talk about it, but he smiles to tell me that he's okay. Even though I know he's not, even though I know he's suffering inside." Sakura looked away as she said this, as she was ashamed that he was allowed to suffer so much while she took care of him.

Miyama Town, 4:00PM:

Shirou left the house after resting for several hours, he still had to do grocery shopping so that dinner could be made to feed hungry mouth. He walked to the shopping district as soon as he could, Saber was with him observing what kind of food was made during this unknown time.

"Shirou, what kind of food could this be?" She pointed to a nearby stall, Shirou looked back and looked at her curious face, it was kind of cute… He wished he could stare at her for a longer period of time, but he had to fish for supplies.

"What?! Is there something on my face?" She just now had noticed that Shirou was staring at her, all this time she was looking at the serving of takoyaki being served to someone else.

"No, I just noticed you staring at the takoyaki." Shirou replied

"This takoyaki, what is it?" Saber asked him inquisitively

"Oh, it's made of octopus, flower, eggs, soy sauce and a couple of other ingredients. Do you want to try some?" Shirou responded to her, his wallet was almost too empty to allow any other purchases by Saber, who had already gotten a lot of other stuff which he was carrying. She wasn't in spirit form, because she wanted the world to see her art and brilliance.

He had luckily managed to purchase all of the things he needed beforehand and was now just showing Saber around.

"I don't want to try it anymore." Saber stated flatly, her arms were crossed over her chest.

"Why? Octopi are actually tasty if you try them." Shirou tried to persuade her, even though his wallet didn't agree with him, he just got confused when she flat out refused to try it after staring at it for so long.

"Shirou, those things… They squirm around in your throat… After you eat them, they start moving around and…" Saber's face went pale, Shirou decided not to press on further, he didn't want to hear the full description.

They walked around for a while yet, observing how others had fun and laughed with no problems in the world. When they got tired of looking around, they sat in a lonely place, on one of those benches with not a single person gazing or looking at them from close or from afar.

"I heard what happened from Sakura…" She said awkwardly

"I see…" Shirou had no response, just a frozen face with no real expression.

"Don't look so down, you'll never have to worry about what's real and what isn't because Rin and I will always be there to tell you what's true, and what's false." Saber reassured him

"But, what if you become false as well, and Rin also becomes false? Then how will I know who to listen to?" Shirou pointed out an obvious flaw with her idea, there was no way to help him if everything around him became false, there would be no way to call out to him.

"Then you have to decide, you have to decide what is false and what is real. I know you can do something easy like that, you're my master after all." The servant of the sword told him

Their conversation is interrupted before Shirou could respond, they suddenly became alert and ready as Saber drew out her sword to fight again. Shirou's command spells twitched as he felt a searing pain in his hand, he did not want to fight at the moment, he does not want to return to a desperate situation where everything is risked again. However, he will save everyone, even if this is at the cost of himself; if others did evil deeds with the grail then something like that _ would happen again. Wait, what would happen again? Did something horrible happen in the past?

They see that the shopping district is empty, and the sun is setting at this time. It is impossible to call Rin for any type of reinforcements due to being too far away from her.

"We do not need Rin or Archer to seize victory, we will do it ourselves!" Saber looks at the approaching figure of the magus and the servant. Their body language indicated their confidence, leading Saber to believe that they must be extremely proud or just very confident in their abilities.

The man who was presumably the servant was around 6 feet tall, and wielded a long weapon resembling some kind of pole that was at least 2 meters tall.

The woman looked confident as she approached Shirou, she seemed almost arrogant as she was leaving herself open to attack from Saber, or perhaps she just trusted her servant to handle her.

"I am Bazett Fraga McRemitz of the Magus Association; as a master in the Holy Grail War, I shall now battle you, however, if you do not wish to battle me, I will spare your life on the condition that you give me your command seals. You must then hurry to the church for safety so that others do not kill you." Bazett stated, Shirou didn't look intimidated in the least and unveiled Rider's dagger, which he had kept with him all this time.

"I don't think I'll be giving you my command seals." Shirou answered, his mind began to lose itself as he tapped into the dagger's experience.

"Then we have no choice, Lancer!" She called out to the servant next to her, he held up his blood-red spear proudly as he prepared to attack Saber. Saber smirked and raised her sword once again

The fight was on…

END

Yes, this chapter was mainly about Shirou, Sakura, and Saber. I know it might have been really boring, believe me I had to write this 3 times before I was even slightly satisfied with it. Even then, there are still a lot of parts that feel disjointed and don't connect.

I have several things to say, with the completion of Unlimited Blade Works (2014-2015), I am actually very satisfied with the way that it ended. We got some anime original content that was done quite well, along with WAVER and Luvia showing up. I wouldn't mind at all if they did some kind of series that continued Shirou's life at the clocktower and becoming Archer. Shirou vs Gil, and Shirou vs Archer were great fights that didn't lose their meaning (DEEN UBW fights made no sense, especially when Shirou was involved, it was as if he got sudden powerups for no real reason.).

I'm hoping Heaven's Feel is the same if not better!

Tell me what you thought of the chapter, and I'll see you after I bother getting my next chapter done.

Extra:

"I am Bazett Fraga McRemitz of the Magus Association; as a master in the Holy Grail War, I shall now battle you, however, if you do not wish to battle me, I will spare your life on the condition that you give me your command seals. You must then hurry to the church for safety so that others do not kill you." Bazett stated, she readied her fists, and was itching to fight.

Surrender

Fight

"I surrender, I don't want to die…" Saber frowned, they had gotten so far, but if her master decided to surrender she would not disobey, but is this what he really wants?

"Shirou, remember, you can choose your future, if this is the future that you want then I won't stop you, but if you don't want to, then there's no point of kneeling to that ugly brutish hag!" Saber called out, but Shirou's hand was cut off right then as he scurried off to the church.

"I can survive six hours without a master; that should hopefully be enough to find another one." Saber took off into the darkness, not to be seen again.

In the next few days of the Holy Grail War, Tohsaka Rin, and every other master was quickly defeated by a servant of immeasurable power. His intention was to spill the cup of curses so that he could take his rightful place as king of the strong; that was the wish he had, as the king of all heroes, past, present and future.

As the cup spilled the war ended…

Emiya Shirou's life ended…

BAD END 6