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I don't own anything related to Tsukihime; this is a work of parody

Act One: Into the West

Track One Remake (Music) /JsmQNckpwd0

I awake into a pitch-black room. I hang from my feet, sleeping backwards. My blood is pooling in my head, leaving me disoriented. This is my training, but also my torture. There is no good words for it, because I can't think at all.

The Father does this to 'fix my disease', he says. He says if I become a true student of the church, there is little space for a devil's ailment like fainting. He tells me to pray to Saint Valentine, the patron saint against fainting, and then enter this dark chamber.

Enter a room with no light, and be thrown around until all sense of direction dies. Condense the senses down to their weakest level, and then push them to the limit.

It starts with a single knife, and every day it grows into another. Without vision, smell, sense of direction, or even touch: a human is left with nothing but the mind.

My job is to dodge the knife with nothing more than a warning that it is coming at some point. He waits until I expect it least, then He throws one extra for every success.

In the dark, only Imagination remains: see not with eyes you were born with but with the ones you can create inside yourself. Develop that mind's eye and you will never be caught off guard. It doesn't matter how ugly it is, or how stupid you look training in it at first. Eventually, you should look cool doing it.

But right now... I imagine I look like an idiot. I can't dodge the blades in the dark, I just survive them. My body moves naturally dodging simply on feeling, it is the instinct that lives od my blood.

Nanaya. I am Nanaya Shiki. This is not something strange to him, for he was born to be a killer. Tohno Shiki is the one who doesn't know how to do all this.

He is the one who is hit by the knife, and he is the one who bleeds.

But... I'd rather bleed than become Nanaya. I don't want to become like that...

Always a glancing blow, leaving blood pouring out. I passed out only half the time after that point. The father figured that it was the sight of blood that triggered the attacks the most. So of course, rather than not making me bleed or push my heart faster, he simply removed all the lights.

My glasses were hit off multiple times. They fell to the ground hard. And yet... they never received even a scratch. These magical glasses were my only blessing. If they ever broke, then I would follow soon after.

That training held on for months as I grew up in that basement, and came to see Serena as I did Akiha… as a little sister of sorts.

I continued to have dreams of the past, and my new stressful life induced common recurring nightmares.

Ones where Akiha was crying, there was blood pooling on the ground. The adults yelled but I didn't understand them. Someone was hurt, yet someone was laughing, and someone was crying, and other

And other dreams of a red moon, and a woman reaching out for me only to fall out of my mind. The shadows whisper my name, and that old man who abandoned me comes and takes me away.

In the end, all my dreams taste of blood, and do no good for me.

"What do you think of her?" The Father asked suddenly, with an unusual expression. As if almost... embarrassed? It was all wrong.

"Serena…? I like her. She is important to me." I did not lie, as he could easily see through the lies of kids.

"And you see her as a sister?"

"Sure… Is there something the matter, Father?"

"..." He walked away.

I was used to it; he was not a talkative type, and his conversations consisted of pushing my training forwards and asking about Serena once in a while. I guess I never suspected because to me, this was how older men were. Secretive and obtuse.

I liked it when he was silent anyway since his tongue was barbed and he excelled at cutting you to search for weaknesses.

As for the girl I look after:

At that time was probably when the clock started ticking for me. I would have to leave no matter what unless I let my eyes gradually break free of Sensei's glasses. "Those glasses remind me of my Oba-san. She has red hair and was a bit of a weirdo, just like you, Nii-chan."

"That is... You know Sensei!? Her name was Aozoki Aoko."

"Aozoki, yes. Of course, I know Oba-san. You are just naming her right now, Nii-chan. And it's actually Touko who makes the glasses. I saw them both... they were always mad at each other, bad siblings." She answered unimpressed by me invoking Aoko's name.

"I had no idea you knew, err, Aoko! You never said anything."

"You never asked. Oba-san was nice. ...She took Mommy and Daddy away because they can't stay here anymore. Then she had to leave me too, and now I am alone."

"She did…? Where did she take them?" Did she steal her parents? What actually happened to these parents of hers.

"To a field of white lilacs, where Mommy and Daddy will come back to me and we will be happy. That is the only way. The more they loved each other, the worse the conclusion would become. Oba-san simply removed the conclusion until the perfect time came. Then we can all be happy without worry!"

That future sounded nice, and I would not dare take it away from her even if I don't quite believe in it.

A field of white lilacs… How is that super familiar? The way she says it makes me only envision it as one place.

...It is familiar because it is a place I have seen. A place where the moon intersects with the horizon and reflects on the water showing all the stars in the sky. It is the field where I met Sensei. But also not. For no white lilacs yet grow there. "I think I know where that is, Serena! I could show you!"

She just laughs into her hand like I am a big dummy.

"No, no. Nii-chan is really silly. It's not a place you can go to! Because it hasn't been created yet, so there is no point. Haha."

"..." It is true. I am an idiot for this insanity. ...Unnatural things are things I'd like to simply make go away, so I could have a normal life… But Serena is happy about it, and I wouldn't take it away from a little girl I'm looking after.

We respect each other I guess. Like how the moon respects the earth by not falling down on it.

One day when I was sneaking about outside, as I do, I was found out despite my attempts to seem innocuous.

A girl my age approached me as I was buying some food that Serena and I could actually enjoy, in contrast to what was given to us. "Hey you."

"Huh? Ah, crap..." I was done for. When the Father figured out I did this, he would punish me every time I'm caught. In a way... I think he just wants to see if I can dupe him successfully as part of my training.

"What are you doing here?"

"Me? I... don't know you sorry." But this girl didn't seem so bright. She kept following me.

"What do you mean? ...What are you doing here? Why are you out here?" Did I know her? ...I don't think so. I really don't think so.

"Sorry, I don't remember you... I was only at the school for... not so long."

"Well, I remember you. But the glasses are new... You fell off the side of the earth and everyone just said you died, so of course I think it's weird to find you here."

"I'm obviously not dead."

"Yes. I'm Satsuki, by the way. Yumizuka Satsuki, it is nice to meet yo." She bowed. I bowed back on instinct. I had been trained to be respectful, even if I wanted to get out of here. "...Well? What's your name?"

"I thought you knew me?" Suspicious...

"Well... only your face really. You have a very weird one." Jeez. Being called weird faced by a girl is not the greatest feeling.

"Hmph... I'm Shiki. Just Shiki... Or you can say Nanaya Shiki. Do you know me somehow?" I hope not. That would just make this worse.

"Nanaya Shiki? Yes... Shiki, that's about right. I saw you only once." And yet she knew me enough to come and prosecute me like this? At this point, I feel like she is some sort of anti-church agent in the disguise of a child. But I'm not quite that brainwashed just yet.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"..." It seemed she wasn't taking no for an answer.

I sigh. "Hah... I live here now."

"Oh. I see..."

"Well? Are we going to see each other from now on?

"Huh? W-what are you saying?" This has gone too far.

"Well, I've been looking for a friend... " She is a strange sort but was definitely honest. Is this what kids who don't have destroyed lives are like? Was I ever like this...? Maybe back before I knew that my life was messed up.

"No... I don't think that is possible."

"Oh... I don't even live out here anyway, hahaha. It's just that I am out here a lot because of my grandparents..."

Eventually, her Mother, Or perhaps Obaa-san, grew impatient and embarrassed by her insistent talking to me and coaxed her away to finally leave.

Surprisingly I wasn't caught that day. That was a 4/10 occurrence.

I saw her once in a while, but I didn't seek her out. I wasn't supposed to be known around here. I was just a church boy who helped with service.

I was never caught a single time I met her, and soon enough I almost felt she was a lucky sign. I spoke to her until we became a very odd set of friends that saw each other only in passing. I never did learn why she seemed to want to talk to me so much.

So we did meet quite a bit, and she became the only person of the outside world that I much conversed with. I had... a friend?

That is until the day came that I could no longer stay here. I had to leave, and I disappeared from Satsuki's life as if I had never been in it in the first place. She will just forget about me anyways, just like Akiha will.

I came to understand myself in the darkness, and I could even take my glasses off and if I really mediated I could barely tolerate it. I rarely did that though.

I knew it was playing with fire.

I only messed up once. Serena came into my room bored, and I... saw her.

I saw her lines, and I saw her soul. The world is bare too, everything has lines, but a person is different. Their lines make me feel sick. The thought of what would happen if I simply touched her, even a soft trace... What would occur?

Serena was full of lines, so many that her body seemed like it would just fall apart on its own. She was incredibly fragile. I looked away and put my glasses on, but the sight remained in my mind's eyes after that. Something inside me was drawn to her magic, and naturalness. It was like a desire, but I didn't quite understand it.

In my heart, there is a badness.

An old and cruel impulse to understand, and to destroy the unnatural. It is like a childish cruel cruisosity. 'Why not see what would happen?' It whispered, it pulled on my blood and made me want to discuss her.

Once I saw her like that, like some sort of the point of interest, I knew that our times would not last forever. These eyes cannot tolerate unnatural things, they are the death of that.

Because really, for normal stuff like a normal guy, or a glass of milk, these eyes of death are not even as strong as a gun. But to the unnatural...

As my life was so monotonous and bland, and holding such little change. I drew closer to that understanding of death. I began to feel familiar with it and I hated that.

I hated that it was becoming normal. And I knew that I needed to leave. Even as a kid, I knew that I couldn't possibly do that. I knew I would break my promise to Sensei at this rate. It would turn out that I wouldn't need to act at all in the end, as I waited so long that it collapsed all on its own.

For months I grew into the odd routine, and as my relationship with Serena improved slowly to the point that I think I became uncomfortably accustomed to her levitating around me, the Father began to diminish. He spoke less, and acted more robotically, treating me like an experiment more than a child. It seemed like the illusion was coming off.

The man I thought I knew turned into something entirely alien to my eyes.

Even to a kid like me, I knew it was wrong. A part of me no longer regarded him as human at some point. Down in that basement, there were only the two of us.

The training continued until it was no longer something possible to ignore. No human should be made out of something like this! Whatever he did in life to deserve it was probably fairly horrible. Or perhaps Magi are just that innocently cruel.

Father fell to the ground like a puppet with his strings cut. His puppeteer had used him up to his end. Underneath, he was no different from the sort of stuffed animals and toys Serena had covering the basement we dwelled in.

Wingless (Music) /VghsnPpVz3g

That was the day the illusion finally dissipated.

The body of Eiri Fumizuka, the man who trained me this past year fell apart.

I fell back in fear of the scene. "What the... hell…?" He really was so fragile. I touched his coat for a second, and I broke him.

"Oops, he broke." a little girl's voice came from behind me. Serena appeared, for it seemed she was not so far anyway. She appeared levitating in the air.

"That's too bad. He hasn't broken since he was made, so I guess I have to fix him.

"Made? You are keeping him... alive? I don't understand..." This was beyond the pale. Well, maybe not so. This was entirely expected for us. 'Unusual power attracts unusual powers.' I just wish it was more forgiving than this.

"No. He is dead. He is my puppet."

"What...?"

She pouted at my lack of knowledge, "He retains his memories and thinks of himself as alive, but he's just a doll. He has no soul anymore."

"You... did this?"

She looks hurt by that accusation. "No. Mommy prepared him before she left. She said he could protect me and would do as I said. He does, but he's boring. He can't talk to me, not like you can."

"What? I've seen him speak to you."

"Nii-chan, I was just playing with my doll. Are you a baby? Do you think dolls talk back? I have to speak for him." This was all-natural to her.

But what scared me more was how natural it was becoming for me. "...I don't understand, he found me... he trained me. He is an adult altogether and even talked to everyone like a priest would. He knew people..."

"His muscles remember how to move even if they don't have to think about it. But underneath it's just stuffing. I wanted something nice to play with, so I told him to find someone like me. He found you and now you're here with me Nii-chan. I thought you would like something to do, so I made him train you. Is it wrong that I wanted to play with you?"

"Serena…" This is the end for us. Just as I can only see endings, she can only see beginnings. So she has no idea that this is the end of us.

"This is a boring topic, let's play! We don't even have to fix him really now, I just thought you were more comfortable that way since you came from the Church. I think it's fine for us to live in the mansion now! I just wanted to make you strong so you could be like Dad, but I think it's enough now."

She... was the only one? From the moment I met the man, he was simply going by her will to find someone that could be there for her. And so he found me — her polar opposite.

And it is completely true — I took to the training naturally. That was something my entire being felt chained to, and the self-improvement and exercise was something I clung to despite the pain in it.

She was right… I was born to do this.

But still...

It was a lie. I had a choice taken from me. She pushed me to these limits without permission because she doesn't know how to treat other people like they are human beings.

I understand now, like Sensei, this girl is a magus without any effort. She holds no reservations to it and can only ever live as one. No one can stay with her for long that cares for her… And I do care for her…

She is my little sister. And it is both of our curses to lose family.

"Serena... I can not stay here." If I stay here, then I will certainly die. This puppet of hers will kill me with his training. She doesn't even realize that to fulfil who I am is to walk into death.

I just want to live a normal life...

"...What? But I said you don't need to train anymore. Nii-chan, we are going to be in the mansion from now on so it's going to be lots of fun. Just you and me!"

I shake my head at her vision of this fun future. What she offers is childhood, but it is exactly that I have now been fully trained to grow up that I can not take her hand.

"It's... more than that, Serena. We can not live with one another for long. People with special powers like us... we can not stay like this."

"Are you sure, Nii-chan?" A bluebird flies and lands on her finger, as her illusions fully shed and collapse.

"...Yes."

Her eyes turn black. "...So be it." The dark basement turned bright, and the entire home changed and transformed. What was a church was now a mansion, as equally dark and gothic, She moved us as if it was nothing. In her hand, a shard of a mirror shattered as if in payment.

Whether we teleported, or the church actually changed I don't know. Either is pretty incredible.

"Wow..." Teleportation must be common in magic, for both Sensei and Serena could do it. In an instant, Serena changed as well, losing her church garb and gaining a black dress that fit the sort of witch of a European forest. She was younger than me and was like a little sister, but her existence itself was beyond me.

I couldn't stay here, and then ever expect to see Akiha again. I had a life to live.

"Where will you go, then?" Her emotions were there but occupied with the past. She probably felt the feeling of loss and sadness at my departure days ago, or maybe in a few hours… Time did not apply the same to her and me.

Indeed, only at the end could we really catch up.

"I won't be gone forever... I will return. I would not just leave you." I won't burden her with my cursed presence. I will find some normal life for myself... hopefully, and return to the point we have matured enough to know how to go on with her without being swept away. "One day."

I will be strong enough to retake everything lost.

A fleeting emotion rose and fell in seconds. The concept of leaving and returning was not one she understood. To her, I would be gone forever, but also for only a second.

"...Then leave. But know that we shall not be the same as we were when we meet once again. You may leave Eden, but you won't ever find it again. Nii-chan, you could still change your mind."

The girl who was cursed to be alone just wanted someone to be there with her. But… to stay is to die.

To a little girl like her, maybe it really was so simple. "I am not Adam, and you are not Eve. There is a whole wide world out there. I'm sorry, Serena. I am not strong like you." A weak frown was found on her face. I hurt her. So I said what I felt deep down, "Thank you. I was glad to have you as my sister. I would have become lost without you."

I could not live separate from life: even if that meant I would face the death that followed me. I would rather live in reality, than cower here in this imaginary world hoping that death would not find me.

I would rather be given control over my own future. Her face was red, "..." Her nervousness came out. She still said nothing then, and maybe for the first time since the start, I saw the little girl that was there underneath all the magic.

She couldn't say it in the end. So I did: "...I'll miss you."

I left her. I knew that it would be a long time until I saw her again. I stayed away in some guest room lost in thought, lost in soul, lost in everything. I was leaving my last chance at maybe a family.

I left and was taken away by car by the repaired Father three days later. He was repaired and as good as new, but had lost a certain illusion of humanity. That was the reflection of his controller more than him.

Knowing what he was... I don't know what to think. The world is far more complex and strange than the people who walk during the daytime think. My eyes are enough proof of that.

I guess I made the mistake of not thinking of where I was going. I doubt that Serena thought of something modern like that either, leaving the decision to the muscle memory of Eiri.

A flight and a ticket were prepared for me. The Father must have made this act before in life, sending a child across the world. A ticket west past the horizon. From Tokyo to Paris with a single stop in Moscow.

His last words left me confused, "When you are taken across the river, you will find yourself in a field of white lilacs and meet the harbinger of your end."

With the ominous comment, he left. Whose voice it was not lost on me, but it was something I didn't need to hear: my end was always there, waiting for me with my waking eyes.

A plane took me far away. To a place where those who wore the mark of God resided — a place called Cîteaux Abbey. The Church had beat just enough French, English and Latin into me that I was accepted in with the recommendation of the Father.

The Church never had enough children to indoctrinate. ...This is my career path given to me. I would continue down this path of the executor…

The boy who doesn't want to kill no matter what is being trained to be a professional killer… go figure. I can only hope I can find some alternative.

I would live on as Shiki, and my only wish was to live a normal life…

...

Alone in her empty mansion, Serena would have to wait until the destined future came. A single tear left her eyes, and fell to the ground forgotten into the past. There was now nothing left to cry over, for she had nothing left to lose.

"Baka Nii-chan. I'm weak, not strong..."

She would watch him in the form of the blue Robin, blessing his path as much as she could from where she must stay.

It was a natural split, she was the beginning and he was the end. They could only meet at the start of this tale, and at the end. Creation and death were destined to intersect only at the beginning and the end. Under the same spectral full moon, in the distant tale, they would reunite in the awaited time.

Author's notes:

The Kuonji Mansion is actually where the O.G Tohno mansion is in the original Tsukihime. But with the remake, it seems that the mansion is in Souya, which is more in Tokyo itself.

Now I'm moving Shiki to Europe for this part of his life. I don't think every chapter needs to be drawn out and slow-paced tbh, especially since I do that already with the other story. These updates take a little longer than Cursed sword, but that's because I'm moving at like 10x speed here compared to there.

So Shiki will meet Caren, but maybe not directly Ciel, since she is doing more important things.

Since I am trying to keep the two on a fairly aligned timeline, I don't want to push one story too far ahead in time of the other.

Comment: 'Ok So what's going? This fic hasn't made any sense since chap1. Why is he a Church agent? Who is Serena supposed to be? What does this have to do with your other GrimDark everyone is dead or evil Fate Fic?'

Response:

1. Shiki got adopted by the Church, is that so crazy? He's a kid taken in to become a killer. That is a canon thing that the church does.

2. Serena is Serena Shizuki, The daughter of Shizuki Soujuurou and Alice Kuonji. She is similar to Ilya in that she is a disciple of the first magic, just like Ilya is of the third. Although neither are full magicians and have not unlocked the power to the same extent that Aoko and Zelrech have. These are Mahoyo characters. Serena is my idea.

3. This is happening in the same world. It is a world with both fate and Tsukihime characters in it. One that is right in the middle between Prisma Ilya, Tsukihime, and FSN, and Fgo. There are 27 ancestors, who are slightly weaker than a pure Tsukihime world and thus somehow coexist with the possibility of human servants being summoned.

Favorite and review is helpful.