ACT 2: SHADE WITHOUT COLOR

A brief content warning: This chapter has some real dark mental health shit. If you find discussion of a character dealing with feeling suicidal upsetting, I don't want it to take you by surprise.

Something was happening, and Sakura was fairly sure Grandfather was at the center of it. There was nothing else in the world. Could Senpai feel it? Could Rin? She didn't know.

It started with goosebumps.

A shiver.

Something was wrong, but when was that ever not true? She'd tried to ignore it, the way she might any bout of creeping anxiety. She was trying to sleep in the second strange house in two nights, after all; she was intimately familiar with the Emiya residence, but she'd never stayed the night before. Surely anyone would be nervous about that kind of thing. Senpai was a boy, after all, and such things were simply not done. Not by the kind of girl she was trying so hard to be, anyway. Especially when the boy in question was-

What was he to her?

It was getting harder and harder to avoid thinking about.

You're using him, she told herself. You just want him to care about you because he's someone who you know how to trick into it. It was something her own cruel voice had told her before, but it felt different tonight. Care took on different connotations. He's just who happens to be most convenient. You wormed your way into his life, and we all know what kind of a worm you are, don't we?

(His strong arms around her.)

What kind of things you'd do to make sure he loved you?

(His gentle fingers in her hair.)

You are not a good person, Sakura Matou. You would debase yourself out of a desperate fear of being alone, because you fear that which you deserve.

(The warmth of his breath.)

But then, haven't you already?

You're stained. You're filthy.

Filthy filthy filthy filthyfilthyfilthyfilthy-

She smiled sadly up at the ceiling. She hated sleeping, because she couldn't escape from the nightmares, but she hated this part more. The part where she was alone in the dark. The part where her own mind tried its best to tear itself to pieces more efficiently than Grandfather's worms had ever managed. Her heart was thick and calloused. She wouldn't break — she'd proven that to herself long ago — but that didn't stop the hatred from gnawing her hollow.

The chill morphed into a kind of buzzing in the back of her mind, and noticing the change broke her out of her spiral, for just a moment. That was a magic feeling. She was sensing something…

She didn't know what. Otherworldly. Magic wasn't easy to define, but you knew it when you saw—

Sakura felt somebody die.

She gasped.

Did I… was all the time she had to think before another person died. There was a life, somewhere, vibrant and alive, and then… there wasn't. A void where a human being had once been. And then, a loose pebble flowing into a landslide, those deaths echoed and reverberated and harmonized, and the feeling of it filled her until she was sure she would overflow and death itself would pour from her mouth and her eyes and her ears and drown everything.

There was nowhere for her to go. Nowhere for her to hide. The killing thing was already inside her.

But now, lying in bed, wrapped in her blankets as tight as she could cocoon herself, she could feel it. The fear. The panic and confusion. The sudden loss of self. People were being ripped to pieces by cruel magic, and she felt every single death in her mind and her heart and her throat.

Sakura was attuned to death, and people were dying. Badly.

She couldn't do anything about it.

Her body was hollow and filled with guilt.

But if she moved, they'd know.

Know what?

Know that she was connected to that dark magic. Know that she wasn't to be trusted. Know that she was a bad person.

Rin and Senpai could never know. They will, someday. Probably soon. But she would do everything she could to put that day off as long as possible.

So people died, distantly (but not distantly enough) and she drew the blankets around herself. Tighter. Trying to take some comfort in the pressure. She shivered. Sweat drenched her face and her sheets. Even if she wanted to stop it, how could she? She had no power. No direction. Danger screamed in her skull like cacophonous alarms, and she had nothing to mollify it with.

Dark thoughts swirled around her like gnats, and she swatted at them, desperate, as if they were something physical that she could scare away. Your fault. Your doing. Stop it. Stop the killing. Why won't you stop it why won't you stop it why-

People died.

She pressed her palms into her ears, painfully so, as if the death were something as simple as a sound she could just block out. It pounded within her, corrupting every cell, every nerve, every fiber of her very being. Would she still be Sakura after this? Had she ever been, or was Sakura (Tohsaka) Matou just the pretty little lie she told herself so that she could sleep?

Sakura whimpered.

Grandfather was doing something horrific, and in some way that she didn't understand, he was drawing upon her to do it. Drawing on her, or through her, ripping pieces out of her, draining her of she-didn't-even-know-what. Some secret part of her that even she didn't know existed, and-

The death stopped. Whatever Grandfather was doing, it was over. She gasped and heaved with the sudden release, goosebumps raising almost painfully over every inch of skin. Something moved under her skin, but of course nothing actually was.

What have I done?

The fact that she hadn't done anything was immaterial. That feeling… That horrible feeling…

Was there a part of her that had enjoyed it?

Had she relished the distant killing?

No. That was too horrible to contemplate.

And yet. And yet.

What if-

No.

But-

No.

Her hands grasped painfully at the sleeves of the pink shirt she'd borrowed from Rin. Squeezing. Squeezing. Her breath was shaky and panicked. She squeezed her eyes shut, tight. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

I can't breathe!

Her chest. There was something wrong with her chest. Somewhere deep in her ribcage, something was wrong. Something was wrong wrong wrong-

Her heart thudded. Thudded. Thudded.

Stopped.

Her eyes widened, and her mouth worked, and her nails clawed at her skin, as if she could dig to it and restart its beat with her bare hands, and she knew there was blood under her nails but it didn't matter because if it didn't start beating again-

Thud. Thud. Thud.

thudthudthudthudthud

THUDTHUDTHUDTHUD

There was fire in her chest and it was burning her from the inside out and she was blackening and cracking and coming apart burning burning BURNING

Her teeth clamped down hard over a building scream, and she tasted blood. Her body bucked and convulsed, electricity pouring through her, but what was worst was her chest was her chest was her HEART

ALL THERE IS

IS FIRE

am i dying

is this a heart attack

Everything began to fade.

is this

death

Blackness pulsed at the edges of her vision.

if it is

if it is death

Thinking was almost impossible, and she could feel some piece of her slipping away.

then maybe

its for the best

As if that thought had flipped a switch, the pain was gone, whatever had caused it burnt away. The feeling of death lingered, as though a part of her was now dead, burnt to ash along with all the other people somewhere so very far away. A cough escaped her as her throat convulsed, and she made a soft, pathetic sound as they trailed off.

Pathetic.

She stared up at the ceiling. There was no strength left in her for anything more than that. She was cold. She was so cold, so cold, so cold…. Her teeth chattered, her body shuddered, even wrapped as she still was in blankets. A trickle of blood from where she'd bitten her lip ran down her chin. There was wetness on her face that she didn't think was sweat. She'd been crying, but now she just felt…

Empty.

That wasn't a new feeling. She was empty, after all. Hollow, hollow, hollow. A ceramic doll with nothing inside. A single nesting doll without its family.

You deserve this.

She was so thirsty. Her throat felt as raw as if she'd screamed for an hour, but the pain hadn't lasted that long, and besides, if she'd screamed, Senpai would be breaking her door down right this moment. He would have been by her side in an instant, no matter what she did to keep him away.

She'd stayed quiet, and she thanked whoever would listen to a wretch like her for that.

She couldn't move. There was nothing left. At least she could sleep. At least she could fade into something resembling blissful unconsciousness, and enjoy a brief respite from her constant torments.

The air grew heavy around her. A presence, drawing closer. One thing, then another, then another. No time to rest. But then, when had she ever had time to rest, really? Without the nightmares and the paranoia and the pain? It was fitting, if it was anything.

Above her, two points of blue light flickered to life, and Assassin's massive frame followed a moment later, little more than shadow in the darkness. He held his massive sword in one dark hand. He hadn't had that when Senpai had brought him out for the first time.

Had he ever even acknowledged her presence before?

She looked up into those blue eyes, and with every bit of strength she could muster, calm, quiet, and without fear, asked the question she'd been wondering since Senpai had joined the war.

"Are you going to kill me?"

The swordsman had never held all the answers. To think such a thing would have been the highest arrogance; as he had said two days and an eternity ago at the church, Allah Himself was greater than man could ever comprehend, and that extended to all aspects of His creation. That was part of the beauty of the world. Whatever Magi and scholars and philosophers had argued for millennia untold, existence and perception were not things that could ever be fully understood.

Understanding, such as it was, came from experience, and no one existence could experience everything there was.

The swordsman had never experienced a feeling like this. He had seen things that should not be. He had killed those that should never have existed. He had witnessed events that were, plainly, impossible. He was an ambulatory contradiction, and he knew this.

But never had the world itself ever felt so polluted. Never had reality ever felt so much like a peaceful mountain stream, clogged with rotting corpses.

Not many things shook the swordsman.

This shook him. This scared him.

He could not remember the last time that he had felt fear.

The aimlessness of his task frightened him most of all. His goals had been clear for so long that he almost didn't remember how to discover. A thought recurred, and always he dismissed it, but he could not entirely banish it. What if he was the rot? What if his death was what would fix what ailed the world?

He did not understand why he felt such a thing. Suicide had never been an option for him, and if he was here, he was here to fix the imbalance, not to cause it. To cause such a thing would be to deny every belief he held so dear.

A pervasive death hung over the city, and he could not sense its focus. Without a direction, he had no way to act. His one consolation was that whatever this was, it was not what he and Archer had taken to calling the cataclysm.

He would know when it was imminent.

The ripples were still distinct. They did not bleed together the way they would before the moment of catastrophe.

For a few seconds, there had been something. A clue, one that only an individual as attuned to the divine as he could have seen. A tether, or perhaps what the people of this time would perceive as a power line. A rope of divine judgement made manifest. Like a flame burning down a wick, this stream of white-hot holy fire followed some pre-existing path as it cleansed.

It had led him to the girl.

The girl looked up at him, and he looked down at her.

She lay in her twisted, sweat-soaked sheets, and her face was sickly grey, her purple eyes half-lidded with weakness. Her hair, normally so long and beautiful, was matted and soaked. Her breath was slow and heavy in a way that made an image spring unbidden from his past — someone wreathed in shadow, their face lost to time, preparing to die from some long-forgotten disease as he'd sat by their bedside one last time. The girl's breath sounded like that person's had. There was fresh blood on the front of her shirt; blood under her nails.

There was no fear in her eyes. Not many could meet his eyes and say the same. "Are you going to kill me?" she asked in a voice that broke on every vowel, that hissed out in a shattered whisper that held within it the promise of hope.

The hope for a quiet end.

He didn't answer at first. He was not a man who liked to rush the judgement of a life.

"That remains to be seen," he said to her. She gave him a polite smile out of what could only be a deep-seated reflex; she had no energy for such things.

"Senpai said that you show yourself to people before you kill them," she whispered, and there was no emotion to the words. "So I thought you might… be here for that." Her eyes fluttered as her consciousness seemed to waver, and beads of sweat sprang anew on her pale forehead.

He understood a great many things, but he did not understand what he sensed in Sakura Matou. Not since the moment he had first laid eyes on her, since he first sensed the darkness that dwelt deep within her. A part of her, but separate. Asleep, but awake. Hungry, yet almost content.

In the last few minutes, something had changed. Had the shadow been burnt away? Had it been awakened? Had it been cleansed? Whether it was for the better or the worse…

It remained to be seen.

"What art thou, Sakura Matou?"

A look of confusion passed like a shadow over her slack face. "What am I?" She looked away, and her eyes were the only part of her that moved. "A monster," she breathed. "But you know that already."

"And what manner of monster art thou?"

"The worst kind," she said. "The kind that tricks people into thinking she's a good person. You know, don't you? You can see. I couldn't fool you." Her words were leaden. "I don't know what just happened. I felt… death. And then pain," she said, and her voice broke again. "But I'm okay with pain. I'm pretty good at taking that."

He did not reply. Was this girl broken, or was she made strong by her suffering? The line between the two was fine, and sometimes nonexistent. Adversity could strengthen, but it could just as easily destroy. Stretch a rope too tight, and it will snap. That wasn't weakness. That was the limit of a mortal mind. There wasn't any beauty in the kind of pain that tore a person's heart to shreds.

Was this girl worth the risk of saving? Was there a soul left to save?

"If you want me to tell you whatever it was you felt…" She looked tired and frustrated. "I can't. I'm useless."

"I promised Shirou Emiya that I would not harm thee unless given cause," Assassin said frankly. "I wish to determine if what I have sensed constitutes such a cause."

Sakura remained silent.

He examined her. The swordsman possessed no third eye that could reveal one's secrets, but he had spent more time around the living than anyone alive. "I see scars on thy soul, Sakura Matou," he said. "Scars alone do not make a monster."

"Please don't," she said, and somehow managed to sound even more tired than she already did. "I know what I am. All those people died, and I enjoyed it. I wanted to see it. I wanted to be a part of it. For all I know…" She chewed her lip. "For all I know, I was part of it."

"Is thy wish for death so powerful?" In the swordsman's long career, he had seen people beg for his blade countless times. It never had any bearing on whether or not they received it. "I am not the judge, Sakura Matou. I am merely the executioner. Should thou list thy sins before me, it would not change thy fate. Thy judgement is not in my hands. Nor is it in thine."

The shaking girl just looked… defeated. Relief and fear and anger, all at the same time. She was too tired to even mask what she felt, and to this girl, masking came as naturally as breathing. She wanted to argue. She wanted him to kill her. He could see the struggle plain on her face.

She did not have the strength to say the words.

No, that was incorrect. The coward's path would have been to throw herself onto his sword. This girl, as deeply mired in self loathing as she was… A part of her wanted badly to live.

Interesting.

"My Contractor said something to me yesterday that I have thought much upon. Everyone that has lived or will ever live has a dark side. The mortal mind is weak, and prone to thoughts of sin and cruelty. Sakura Matou. Thy dark side is powerful, and I believe it may consume thee."

The girl flinched as much as she could, the last remaining dregs of life spilling from her empty eyes, curling in on herself like burning parchment. "What if it already has?"

"Shirou Emiya believes in thy will to overcome. Shirou Emiya believes that thou wilt be able to rise above the stain on thy spirit. Shirou Emiya believes in Sakura Matou."

Her eyes widened in a quiet gasp; a look of wonder that was quickly overtaken by one of self-hatred and doubt.

The swordsman lifted his sword, then placed it tip-down beside her bare neck. The razor-sharp edge, with the slightest touch, drew a trickle of blood.

The girl didn't react, even as a drop of her blood traced the black steel down to the sheets.

"Out of respect for my Contractor, I offer thee a choice. If thou believe that thy fate is already sealed, then cut thine own throat. Thou art weak, but it should not take much effort to open thy veins. Simply turn thy head, and thy life will be ended."

She shook, and her breath came fast and frightened.

"But if thou believe that hope yet remains, keep thy life. Prove that my Contractor's loyalty is not misplaced. Fight against that which thy soul strains to become unto thy final breath."

More blood ran down the blade. A small pool was forming on the floor under her, and still, she did not move. Not to remove the blade. Not to end her life. Her eyes were pleading.

Pleading for him to kill her, and pleading him not to leave the choice to her.

"I will not make this choice for thee."

She closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. A tear rolled down one cheek, and her violent shaking intensified, as though she could kill herself that way, without having to make the choice herself.

The swordsman waited.

Finally, the girl broke. "I won't," she gasped in a quiet sob. "I won't, I can't, I won't…" Her protestation dissolved into tears that were almost silent. "I can't do it…" The swordsman pulled the blade away, careful to allow no further harm to come to her in the process. One trembling hand reached up to press against the bloody cut as she continued to sob.

"Holding one's head high to fight a battle one does not think can be won is not cowardice," the swordsman said with finality, "if the cause is just and the heart is true. Thou shalt fight, Sakura Matou. I shall pray for thy peace, and I give my word that, should the worst come to pass, I will stand ready to ensure no harm shall come to either thy sister or the man thee love."

Without watching waiting for a reply, the swordsman allowed himself to dematerialize. There was nothing left to say. She had resolved to fight in her heart, even though she saw it as weakness. He left the room without another word. Her bell had not tolled. It had not been her time.

His question had been answered, and he had no interest in watching a young girl suffer.

There's no way to encapsulate the experience of being mortal for the first time. How do you describe the way flesh hangs heavy on your bones, when all you have ever been is light and stardust? How can you encapsulate the rush of joy, or the cold wash of fear, or the bubbling electricity of laughter, when all you have ever known is a cold and distant logic?

I stand on solid Earth for the first time, and I feel a part of it in a way I've never known before. The world is real and I am mortal. To a degree, anyway. It's strange; I remember everything Kirei did, as though I were always he. I also remember everything Azrael did, as though I were he as well.

I am both, and I am neither.

Still. The name Abaddon feels right.

I've never watched a sunrise that wasn't choked with blood. I'm sitting on a bridge, my feet dangling over the edge; the bridge is hard and cold and solid beneath me, and my breath mists the air like puffy wisps of cloud. It's never done that before.

An angel only breathes to put mortal minds at ease.

The two Servants who have joined me are with me. I did not want to be alone, for I have been alone for millennia. The girl — Medb — sits beside me, childlike wonder on her face, and Kirei tells me that she is cruel and conniving beneath the mask. The man — Cu Chulainn — leans against a beam behind me, keeping an eye out for anyone who might do us harm. He is not given pause by the beauty of the sight before us, but I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The old Kirei tells me he is not to be trusted either, but Azrael tells me that he trusts me more now than he ever did Kirei.

Kirei was a bad man, but so was Azrael. Maybe the new one can be something better.

Would Kirei have made a better horseman? Would Azrael have made a better priest? The question is academic, but still, I wonder. Azrael did not feel guilt, but he did question the logic under which he was made to operate. Was the scale of his killing justified? Was he a monster, or did he do the job he was built for so that others could live?

He never figured out the answer to that question.

I feel guilt.

I feel guilt so strongly I can barely stand, and the lump of meat they call a stomach curdles and burns me from the inside out. If mortals feel such things so powerfully, how do any of them ever function? I must follow their example, and emulate their strength.

Azrael stood tall as the world burned, breathing in the smoke like a mortal breathed in oxygen. His hands were clasped behind his back, and he felt nothing. His Locust swept through a city not dissimilar from Fuyuki, and soon there would be nothing left. This was always the beginning of the end. The cleansing of a world. There was an order to things, and when events pushed a timeline too far, when the threat to existence or the Root or God became too great, he ate away the rot. A blighted tree would die if the disease was not cut out. This, he thinks dispassionately as he watches a young mother cut to shreds by snapping mandibles and chittering claws, is the tragedy of mortality. Her blood pools on the asphalt, and the Locust moves on to her children. No scrap of life could remain once certain lines were crossed.

Still, it seemed such a waste. Azrael felt nothing, but he saw the flaws in the logic. An end to the bloodshed was a distant hypothetical problem to solve, like a soldier doing multiplication tables in his head to keep himself sane.

The streets ran with blood, and Azrael watched another world burn.

The first fingers of light creep over the distant horizon. Rays of light caress the boats in the harbor below like old lovers. It's beautiful. The sky is a reddish pink, but it doesn't remind me of blood, because today, for me, nobody needs to die. It is the first sunrise that has ever been worth seeing. Cu Chulainn does not react to it. Medb gasps and grabs at my tattered sleeve, and I almost believe that she can see the same beauty I can. The sunrise is clean, but she smells of blood.

It's beautiful. It's wonderful.

I am moved to tears once again.

Behind me, the rush of cars continues unabated. I have seen cars before. I have watched my Locust rip them apart to get at the soft mortal center at their core. They are so fragile. Mortals are so fragile. How can they be blamed for looking for answers in the wrong places when their lives are so short? When their flesh is so weak?

Kirei stood over his wife's corpse, his fingers wrapped around her neck. And he squeezed, and squeezed, and squeezed, but no matter how cruel and unyielding his grip became, she wouldn't die. She was already dead. She had died before he had ever touched her. That was a shame. Disappointment flooded him as he released her corpse, letting it fall back to the hospital bed like a limp mannequin.

Too soon. She'd died too soon.

Her death had been supposed to tell him what he was, but he had waited too long, and the saint had not died a martyr.

She'd just died.

Why had he waited?

His answers would need to come elsewhere.

Kirei had been a broken man who was born broken. The only thing he had ever taken joy in was in the suffering of others. The loss of hope and the despair and the death. He was a monster.

But had he had any more of a choice than Azrael had? Both creatures had been created a certain way, and neither could escape that, no matter how they strained. Azrael had questioned his Lord, and tried to imagine another way. Kirei had tried to live a quiet, peaceful life. In the end, both had succumbed to their bonds. Neither could become something they weren't.

"We are the hollow men," I whisper, and do not know from what long-abandoned corner of my — their — mind the words come. "Shape without form." Something half remembered. Something that held meaning to someone, sometime.

And now, both are free.

I am free.

And with my freedom, I watch the sun rise on a new day.

The symbolism is hamfisted, but it symbolism that I have chosen for myself, and that makes it beautiful. It is the moment that will mark the beginning of the rest of my existence.

Behind me, Cu Chulainn speaks offhandedly. "So what now, boss man?" He is conflicted. That's obvious. He doesn't know what he wants the answer to be. He is curious, and he is struggling with a loss of purpose. If I do not participate in the Holy Grail War that he and Kirei were a part of, then his existence is meaningless. I understand this. My own existence doesn't seem to have much meaning at the moment. "Actually, scratch that. Whatever we do, can we kick that bitch over there to the curb first? She's only going to cause trouble."

At my side, Medb pouts. It's very convincing. If Kirei did not know her true nature, I might have been fooled. "Oh, be nice, darling Cu. If I was going to do something—"

"You wouldn't have a chance," Cu Chulainn says dryly, "because me and Abaddon would kick your ass."

"Like you did last time?" she says sweetly. "That was okay as a warm-up, but you still owe me a real fight. And besides! You said it yourself. I can't touch either of you at the moment, and I'm not stupid, so why not trust me?" She wraps herself around my arm like some kind of ornament, and her small body is warm and soft. There is a part of me that relishes the contact, targeted and conniving though it is. I have never known affection, after all. "I want to make sure Abaddon gets comfortable in this world."

I'm not sure what her goal is. Idle curiosity? Fear of my power? I don't think it's fear. Perhaps a desire of the flesh, although I have no interest in such things. Cu Chulainn believes that this is her motivation. He says that Medb is a hedonist of the most powerful variety. I am unconcerned. She has no power over me. If I find a goal of my own, that may change, but for now, I enjoy their presence.

They are not my friends, but they could be.

I have never had friends. I never had the capacity.

If Kirei could not form attachments, and Azrael could not form attachments, but I can, then what does that make me? I don't know. Maybe that aspect of me is a reflection of the man Azrael might have been had he been born mortal.

"Yeah, you're not going to make an angel your new boy toy," Cu Chulainn says, and I can hear the roll of his eyes in his voice. "So good luck with that."

Medb scoffs. "I want to do no such thing! Look at him. He's like a puppy. You do know how much I love dogs, Cu."

Even I can detect the insincerity. Power attracts power, like a moth to flame.

"Never get sick of that one," he grumbles.

"Then why are you here?" she asks, wide eyes gazing out at the sun sparkling over the river. The light is reflected in them, and I begin to suspect that some part of her wonder is not an act. This woman takes pleasure in the simple things as much as she does in the cruelty.

This woman cut off the arm that she is holding. The memory comes to me suddenly. I am not particularly bothered by this. Neither Kirei nor Azrael take such things personally, and so, neither do I.

Cu Chulainn does not seem to know how to answer. "He's my master, isn't he?" he said, but it sounded like a deflection. "I've gotta stick around and make sure he doesn't get killed."

"Because you've always been such a good little soldier boy, following orders and stuff." Medb sighs, and trails a gentle finger in circles down the numb white carapace of my arm. "Please, Cu. He could squash both of us like bugs and not even break a sweat. That's not the real reason."

(I do not know if this is true. Azrael could have, but I am constrained by flesh, now, and besides, I am also Kirei. What I am capable of remains to be seen, but I don't particularly care at this moment.)

"Then maybe—"

Medb cuts him off, her eyes narrowing as a smile spreads her across her lips. She looks like a child getting away with something she shouldn't. "You just want an excuse to spend time with me," she says with a happy sigh, "don't you, Cu? You know you're supposed to hate me, but you just can't stay away…"

I have told them that they are not to hurt each other in my presence, but I can see Cu Chulainn fight against the geas. I do not know why my words have the effect they do on him. Perhaps it is a quirk of the bond Kirei and he shared before my summoning. They are natural enemies. Perhaps it is cruel of me to keep them so close to hand, but I do not want to be alone, and they are all that I have.

I stand slowly, and the bickering ceases. Both of them look to me. I inhale slowly, exhale slower. I am still not used to the feeling of cool air in my lungs, though a mortal feels such things every moment of every day. "Apparently," I say. "A Pseudoservant still needs to eat." The weaknesses of the flesh. The transcendence. "Why don't we get breakfast?"

The reaction to the end of act one was so much more positive than I was expecting, so thank you all so much!

I do have one thing I kinda want to get out in front of though, regarding the interlude - I got a lot of comments assuming this, but I don't think it's actually explicit canon that Avalon is what made Shirou a sword boy. It's a thing I see a lot, but it's not really something I buy into. He's just a sword boy. I see it as a special interest and a mirror to his seeing himself as a weapon for justice more than anything. I just don't want to string anyone along that he won't do cool shit with swords.

The Sakura scene draws on a lot of very real shit I've experienced and been close to. If anyone's there right now, at least know that I've been there too, and that it isn't all that you'll ever be.

Thanks for reading and sticking around and commenting, everyone. Love y'all.

Next Chapter: Where Do We Go From Here?