Twisted Ideal, Broken Hero, by chaostrigger

Originally posted on September 5th, 2012

The Holy Grail War. The Heaven's Feel ritual.

It was once again occurring in Fuyuki city. Ten years after the Fourth War, the next would begin. Kirigitsu's efforts had been in vain, after all. His father had spent his last days explaining the war to him, trying to teach some lesson to him.

Emiya Shirou couldn't help but feel his father looked terribly haunted whenever he looked at him in his last days. Like he was looking at some terrible specter from beyond the grave come back to haunt the magus killer.

Shirou hadn't understood then. Back then, he'd been too bitter and fractured from the outcome of the events of the Tome of The Night Sky. Where he'd been kept on the sidelines, unable to help or save a single person. Not even one.

But Shirou understood now. His father had been trying to tell him of the terrible cursed grail as an analogy for his own cursed wish maker. The Jewel Shard lodged within his body. That the cost would outweigh any wish it could grant.

But it hadn't mattered then. That night, when Emiya Kirigitsu had died, Shirou had left Uminari city. He had nothing left there anymore. Not when his very existence was trampled over. No, if he had remained there, Emiya Shirou's existence would have come to an end by his own hand, unable to accept that he would never be allowed to save anyone.

He hadn't gone to Fuyuki, where his father still owned a home and connections, as they would have chased after him. He'd opted for traveling Japan with what money he was left by Kirigitsu. Traversing the country to try to save as many people as he could, then the world when he was old enough.

But wherever he went, he was mistrusted. Feared. But, even so, whenever he saved someone, he'd savored their smiles, known that what he'd done was right. That his ideal was indeed beautiful and true, even if he himself was flawed and fake and ugly. But every time he saved someone, he could not forget each and every one he could not.

He always had to keep moving to avoid being caught. Not from the Clock Tower, who ignored the boy like they had his father. Not from the Einzbern, who held a grudge with his father.

No, they would keep chasing him. Trying to drag him back to Uminari. He'd grown adept as surviving on his own and avoiding others. Every time he's avoided them meant he had been able to save dozens of other people. His heart would flare with anger, burning away the good memories they'd had, a little more every time they tried. He wasn't sure when he'd begun to hate them.

No, even he couldn't deny when that was. It had been when he'd laid there, unable to move, and unable to save Precia. They, no, she berated him for calling upon the jewel shard and it was then he might have hated her. Just a little bit. The moment he'd subconsciously realized the gap between them that he'd never cross.

The events involving the Tome of Darkness was just when he had become consciously aware of the difference between her ability and his. Kirigitsu's death had just been the final nail in their friendship's coffin.

But, one day, after having fought too hard and been too tired, he'd gone to Fuyuki on insistence of that man. Kotomine Kirei. His father's greatest enemy and Emiya Shirou's greatest friend. Thanks to an associate, the two has been teamed up on a hunt Shirou was doing thanks to a last minute change-up in plans. Afterwards, Shirou had pinned the man to the ground with swords and had asked him how he was still alive.

The man had easily admitted to everything. The cursed grail, the terrible deeds he'd done. And he had been unable to kill him when he explained how distorted he was, sickened by the fact that he actually somehow liked this similarly distorted man. And so Shirou and Kirei had sworn to one day fight each other to prove their ideals like he and his father did. In the next grail war.

And so he'd returned to Fuyuki to fight a war. He planned to ally with the servant of his father, Saber, King Arthur, while Kirei had opted to actually participate in the war. And as everything was about to go to hell, She showed up once more.

Takamachi Nanoha

And she and her associates had arrived to quickly, neatly, and quietly stop the war, once and for all. Once more she'd left him powerless to watch. Because compared to her growth, his own improvements over the past five years had been NOTHING.

He was once more that powerless, distorted boy watching helplessly. He was on the edge of oblivion.

The next morning, when they'd released him, she stood in front of him. She had grown, but so had he. She stared at his white hair and grey eyes and red coat while he stared deeply into her blue eyes that seemed to be full of hope.

It was likely she had hoped for a happy reunion or some sort of change in him at last. But he would never allow that. Not to this person who proved that Emiya Shirou's ideal and existence were meaningless so long as he could not surpass her. Pulling out Rule Breaker, he stabbed it into the gauntlet on his arm, making it fall apart like scrap in the face of the noble phantasm.

"Right now, I don't care about saving people. No, I care about being able to save people. So I'm going to defeat you to prove that Emiya Shirou being saved was not for nothing."

Her joyful face had quickly turned to confusion and horror as he held up his hand, one eye closed.

"I am the bone of my sword."

He focused on that place. The culmination of Emiya Shirou's distortion. The prana from the Jewel Shard was fuel to forge that place.

"Iron is my body and Glass is my Heart."

"Shirou Don't!" He smiles as his one eye facing outwards observes as how his old friends were finally forced to acknowledge him.

"I have created over a thousand blades."

He can feel it in his body, the swords forming to reinforce his body, but also served to further destroy it.

"Not even once retreating

Not even once being victorious "

Her barrier jacket forms. Nanoha is the only one to face him. As it should be, it began with them and so would it end the same.

"Yet these hands can never save her."

She flinches at the aria of his existence.

"Show that it wasn't a mistake…

"Unlimited Blade Works"

The bounded field forms in a circle of fire, revealing a world filled with infinite swords. It is a wasteland whose gear-filled sky is cracked, the twilight skies infected by pulsing red veins the color of rubies.

Their battle lasts five minutes. That's all his body could withstand as it breaks down under the lost logia in his body. Metal is poking through his flesh everywhere and his movements are of a grinding sound.

He is unable to touch her once, safe as she is in her domain of the sky.

As the materialization of his ideal shatters, he collapses.

On his back, he stretches his hand upwards like he did ten years ago. The fires of his resentment have died out, only leaving an hollow certainty. She's flying down towards him, out of his grasp like always…

"..Even now, I still cannot reach you…"

His arm falls as his body fails, lacking the strength to keep it up anymore. A resigned smile spreads across his face. The blade known as Emiya Shirou is not needed as long as she exists, after all…

By the time she reaches him, his gray eyes are empty, and his body has been consumed by blades, leaving only a few gray locks of hair. As she stares at the sight of this dead man, she remembers a boy with vibrant red hair and empty golden eyes.

"Listen carefully, because this is very important." Shirou gave the girl his full attention. His instincts were shouting at him that this situation was a bad one, but it was too late to do anything but accept it.

"From now on." The girl was absolutely serious about this. There would be no arguing with her no matter what she declared. "You will be my friend."

Shirou stared at the girl who was still pointing down at him for a moment before her words actually registered. "Eh?"

Nanoha stomped one of her feet in anger. "You're going to be my friend and I'm going to be your friend. You're always working so hard to make everyone happy. So why are you not happy yourself?"

Shirou just stared at the girl in front of him. He wanted to say something back, but the sheer shock of the situation hadn't completely faded just yet. "I-"

"No!" Nanoha interrupted him. "You don't get to argue. I've seen you whenever you think no one is around. You always make such a sad face. You aren't happy at all. So I'm going to make sure you are happy."

She collapses to her knees and clutches at the man and sobs. She cries for that boy and girl, for this man and herself. She cries because she knows that she has driven Emiya Shirou to this end, because she was incapable of leaving him alone.

She cries because she wanted to make him happy, but she couldn't keep away from him. Even though Takamachi Nanoha could only bring despair to that distorted boy, she had pursued him because she couldn't give up her selfish love and wanted to protect him.

And she cries for Emiya Shirou, who couldn't make Takamachi Nanoha happy because he could never surrender his distorted, selfless ideal to return her love, because he truly believed that Emiya Shirou did not deserve to be happy. Not when there more people he could save.

But, despite this pain and suffering, she had to continue on. Her life wasn't something that belonged to her anymore.

After all, Emiya Shirou had left Kirigitsu's dream in her hands now.

The boy is sitting on the porch with his first friend and his father. The man breaks the silence of the evening.

"When I was little, I wanted to be a hero."

The girl and boy watch him curiously. "Wanted to be a hero? Did you give up?"

The man nods. "Yeah.

"Its unfortunate, but being a hero is a limited time thing. When you grow up, it gets hard to call yourself one.

"I should have realized it earlier." The man gives a bitter chuckle.

Nanoha watches the two, an outsider to something deeper as the boy nods. "I see, that's too bad, right Nanoha?"

The brunette nods hesitantly. "..Yeah."

"You're exactly right."

The man sighs and stares up at the moon. "It looks like we'll have a really nice moon tonight."

"Yeah."

Shirou nods sagely. "Since you couldn't do it, I'll do it for you."

Kirigitsu and Nanoha turn to Shirou.

"You're an adult now, so you can't do it. But I still can. Leave it to me, your dream."

The man still looks uncertain. The boy points at his friend. "And if I can't do it, Nanoha will pick up where I left off, right?"

The girl points at herself hesitantly. "ME?" Looking at the boy's happy, hopeful eyes, she sighs in resignation before smiling. "Alright, yeah. If Shirou can't do it, I'll see it to the end for him."

Kirigitsu relaxes, and closes his eyes. "Right, I'll leave it to you two, then."

He then opens them again and smiles. "But only when you two are a bit older, alright?"

The two children each return his smile with a brilliant one of their own.

"Yeah, if its you two, you'll definitely manage it somehow."

The Red Knight and the White Devil chased each other endlessly, both unable to catch the other despite the fact that they kept running in the same circle.

An endless cycle until, at last, the Red Knight tried to fly like the White Devil, but found that he could only fall to his death.

The White Devil could only stare down as the broken Red Knight, uncertain, until she ran past the Red Knight, stumbling at first, before jumping. And, unlike her companion, she flew towards that ever distant utopia that the Knight has left for her, past the red horizon.