Day 5: Shirou — Encounter With The Girl In White

Tonight was going to be an important night for Shirou: he was going to have to convince Taiga to approve of Bazett and Rin living in the house for the remainder of the War. Shirou knew Taiga well enough to know that she was more likely to be amenable to the idea if he got her in a good mood with a large meal first. However, in his earlier eagerness to prepare an exceptional lunch for Saber, he'd gotten carried away and used a lot of the ingredients he'd been planning on making dinner with. Thus, he found himself needing to go out on a quick shopping trip to make sure he'd have everything he needed for that evening's meal.

It didn't occur to Shirou to inform Saber or Crow. It was a routine shopping trip, the kind he went on all the time; and with his mind preoccupied with anticipating the coming conversation with Taiga, he walked out of the house without giving it a second thought. He did not realize his error until his shopping was nearly done, when he heard a dreadfully familiar voice shout out from the crowd behind him.

"Hello, Shirou-onii-chan!"

Shirou's blood turned to ice. He slowly turned around, already knowing what he would see. There was no mistaking that cheerful yet menacing girlish voice. Through a gap in the crowd, he saw her, moving towards him at a fast walk that was almost like a skip. The small, white-haired, red-eyed Master of Berserker: Ilyasviel von Einzbern.

Shirou found himself instinctively reaching for the Command Spells on his hand. But what could he do with them? He wasn't skilled enough in magecraft to directly utilize their prana for battle, the way Bazett supposedly could — he'd probably just overload his magic circuits and harm himself if he tried. In any case, what with everything that had happened lately, he hadn't had a chance to try Projection again; given the difficulty he'd had even in his own workshop, he doubt he could do it on short notice in un unfamiliar surroundings. Alternatively, he could use the Command Spells to summon his Servants to his side — but calling them both would require using both Command Spells, meaning he would forfeit his rights as a Master and his position in the War. And it likely wouldn't even be enough to save him: Berserker had taken on not only his two Servants but both of Rin's Archers as well all at the same time without any difficulty in their previous encounter. If it was just him and his two Servants, they'd be flattened. And not just them — Shirou's imagination only just began to process the horror of Berserker running loose in a crowded marketplace. The mad giant, which cared about nothing except for destroying the enemy before it, would scythe down crowds of people with each swing of it's axe-sword. This whole city block would be reduced to a bloody massacre zone in the blink of an eye...

As Ilya approached, she saw Shirou clenching his hand with the Command Spell marks on it, and came to a halt and burst out laughing.

"Don't be silly." she said. "I didn't come here to fight. Masters aren't supposed to let people see them fight, so I only bring Berserker out of the mansion at night."

For some reason, Shirou believed her. She was radiating cheerful charm; nothing at all like the cold, bloodthirsty aura that had emanated from her during their first encounter. She seemed like a perfectly innocent young girl now, completely at odds with her persona when she was acting as a Master.

"Um... glad to hear it." Shirou said, relaxing the hand which bore his Command Spells. "Why did you come here, uh... Lady Ilyasviel of the Einzbern?"

"Oh, there's no need to address me so formally." Ilya said, giggling. "Just call me 'Ilya', okay? And I'll call you onii-chan!"

"Alright then, Ilya." Shirou said. "But my question stands. What were you doing here?

"Looking for you, onii-chan." Ilya said with wide, honest eyes. "I was concerned about you. This Holy Grail War has become more dangerous than I initially realized, and I wished to warn you."

"More dangerous than your Servant slicing me in half?" Shrou demanded.

"Berserker wasn't aiming at you, it was aiming at Saber." Ilya protested. "I don't want to kill you, onii-chan. I want to learn more about you — the heir to Kiritsugu Emiya."

"What do you know about Kiritsugu?" Shirou asked.

"He fought on behalf of the Einzberns in the previous Holy Grail War, ten years ago." Ilya said. "Einzbern magecraft focuses mostly on alchemy, and so our mages are ill-suited for direct combat. That's why, in the Fourth Heaven's Feel, an outsider magus with exceptional combat ability was allowed into the family and tasked with winning the Holy Grail on the Einzberns' behalf. That magus was, of course, Kiritsugu Emiya — the man who adopted you. And so, I'm very interested in hearing more about you, onii-chan. That's why I'm not going to kill you just yet — and why I don't want you to die at the hands of another, either. So I sought you ought in order to warn you about Avenger."

"Avenger?" Shirou asked.

"For some reason, it seems that more than the usual number of Servants are materializing for this War." Ilya said. "I had an encounter with one of the irregular Servants, and it was an Avenger."

She inclined her head solemnly, as though she had just said something of great importance. When she realized Shirou wasn't following, she hurriedly resumed speaking.

"Avenger is another potential class like Saber or Berserker, but it is forbidden to summon; the Grail ritual must be severely warped for it to even be possible. That's because the Avenger class doesn't call the spirit of a noble warrior of great renown like the others classes, but instead the spirit of a monstrous villain infamous for their sheer scale of their terrible malevolence. If an Avenger has appeared, without a Master capable of using Command Spells to reign it in, this entire city is in extreme danger."

"The Fuyuki serial killings..." Shirou began. "Could they be..."

"Those started before this Avenger appeared, so it isn't the one responsible." Ilya said. "But don't think for a moment that it isn't capable of the same, or worse. In all the previous Holy Grail Wars, the Einzbern Family summoned an Avenger only once; afterwards, it was decided that it had been a terrible mistake and the family vowed to never again summon that class of Servant."

"Then, if Avenger really is that dangerous, we should team up to defeat it." Shirou said. "Masters trying to kill each other is bad enough, but some monster running around free to kill anyone it pleases..."

"I refuse." Ilya said flatly. "I only came to warn you about Avenger, not because I believed I could trust you enough to work with you. No Einzbern would ever be foolish enough to trust Kiritsugu's heir; not after his betrayal."

"Betrayal?" Shirou asked.

"Don't you know, onii-chan?" Ilya asked in a mockingly sweet voice. "The Fourth Holy Grail War ended in Kiritsugu's victory. The Holy Grail presented itself before him. But rather than claim it and attain the victory for the Einzberns, he destroyed it. Do you understand, Shiro? He destroyed the Grail!"

Shirou was pushed back by the sheer intensity of Ilya's voice.

"Because of Kiritsugu, the Einzbern family vowed that we would never again rely on an outsider, never again put ourselves in a position to be betrayed. That is Kiritsugu's legacy — that, and you. The boy he chose to raise as his child, abandoning a..." Ilya seemed to wince as she spoke. "...anyone else who might have tied him to the Einzbern family."

Shirou wondered how the Kiritsugu he knew could have done anything as coldhearted as the betrayal Ilya had described. Of course, there was what Kotomine had told him, about Kiritsugu being a very different type of man during the time of the Fourth War. But, Kotomine had also said that Kiritsugu had failed to win the previous War. Hadn't he? Shirou thought back to that conversation, trying to recall the priest's exact words. All he had said was that Kiritsugu's wish, for world peace, hadn't been granted — not that Kiritsugu hadn't gotten his hands on the Grail. What else had he said... that Kiritsugu had been a different man at that time, cold and heartless, and that the great Fuyuki fire was the result of someone unworthy touching the Grail.

Then... it was Kiritsugu's fault that...

No.

Shirou'd mind rebelled against that line of thought. His only purpose for living was to fulfil the ideal that Kiritsugu had passed down to him. To deny the nobility of Kiritsugu and his ideal would be to deny the entire foundation of Shirou Emiya's existence. He wasn't going to go there — certainly not based on the words of Kirie Kotomine. Kotomine, he was beginning to realize, was one of those infuriating people who took a perverse delight in deceiving people without ever technically lying. He dangled tidbits of truth in front of people, and watched them leap to exactly the wrong conclusion. Come to think of it, had he actually said that the Fuyuki fire was caused by an unworthy Master touching the Grail; or had he just sort of smirked and implied it and let Shirou draw that conclusion on his own? The conversation was too long ago, and too much had happened since then; Shirou could no longer recall the exact words Kotomine had used.

Ilya, was looking up at him, her doll-like face wracked with pain from that long-ago betrayal.

"My father never told me about the War, so I can't speak on his behalf." Shirou said. "But I, personally, can promise you this: I will never betray you."

"I wish I could trust you." Ilya said, smiling sadly, then shook her head. "But you are an outsider, and the Einzbern family will never place its trust in outsiders again. This is the year we will finally win the Grail ourselves, with our own power. And anyone who tries to stand in our way will be crushed. But that doesn't have to include you, onii-chan. All you have to do is give up your Command Spells, surrender to me, and swear to be my servant. Do that, and I can make it so that you're safe from harm forever. Please?"

The little girl looked at him with pleading eyes.

"Sorry, Ilya, but I can't accept that." Shirou said.

"Then when night falls, we'll be enemies again." Ilya said. "Goodbye, onii-chan. I hope you live longer enough to change your mind."

She gave him one last sad look, then turned on her heel and walked quickly away from him, pointedly refraining from glancing back. Shirou hurriedly set about completing his shopping so that he could inform his allies and Servants of this encounter. They would no doubt chew him out over being reckless enough to go outside without a Servant accompanying him, but they needed to know what he had learned. Ilya and Berserker had seemed their most formidable opponent, but their was an enemy even she feared — Avenger.

Shirou's vision wavered, and for a moment he saw the city as it was ten years ago: engulfed in flame beneath a black sun. But in this vision, the dark sphere was less like a sun than a malevolent eye, looking into him even as he looked into it. Then the moment passed, and the vision ended; Shirou saw nothing around him but the usual crowd of shoppers bustling around between stores.

"Avenger"... for some reason, that name filled Shirou's mind with images of pain and destruction. He gritted his teeth and set about the remainder of his errand at twice his usual pace, determined to discuss matters with his allies at the first available opportunity.