Chapter 45: Sakura is Sakura

Above me was a starlit sky too beautiful to be real.

My fingers were intertwined with the man I loved in a white world of treasures that had nothing but warmth. This may have been nothing but a dream, but the expression on his face was something I had never once seen before. Teary eyes filled with a happiness I couldn't hope to fathom, but if he was happy, I too had to be happy. I could not deny him. His hands were strong. His hands grip mine so tightly that it hurts, but I was used to pain as a Matou woman. This was a pain that I was proud to bear and all I had to do was accept his powerful suffocating embrace. He had honed himself daily in order to not lose anything when the time came and one of those things was me.

Steel is his body and fire was his blood.

It was only natural for me to bruise when pressed against such a thing as I melt away like snow. I could only fuel his fire as I drain away. I couldn't help but cry to know how much I meant to him. I couldn't help but cry knowing that I was able to do at least something for him. He couldn't hear my voice anymore, but I didn't have the strength to speak.

I must be dreaming because reality is never so kind.

When I reached too far and faced down my betters with power that wasn't mine, the world struck me down. Right then and there with the power of the oldest king slipping through my fingers I should have died instead of grasping something more precious. This moment right now might not be anything more than a final lie my brain was frantically making to put me at ease after doing something so foolish. For all I knew, I was hallucinating in the Matou basement. After losing all of the world's treasures in a street side scuffle, I shouldn't have been able to grasp this new height of happiness.

I will savour this dream, this warmth inside of me and I hope to never wake up from it, but my body was tired...

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. If I ran away with you back then, you would...I couldn't save you...but ... what I'm saying must not make any sense to you...but Sakura...I..."

An alarm goes off.

The alarm continues to ring telling me I wasn't dead, but I let it runs its course. My body was completely spent. Maybe it was all a dream. I was sore all over and all my joints were screaming, but above all else was the heat that covered me. In the corner of my glazed eyes was a burning fire, but as my vision sharpens, the hazy flame was actually hair.

"S-senpai?"

His eyes were closed and his cheeks were wet. The ceiling was unfamiliar and a part of me was glad it wasn't. I was at the peak of happiness right now, but I understood that peaks come with valleys. As I force my body to move the grip of his arms desperately tighten. When I looked at his face which was now in anguish, I could do nothing but stop.

I offered him my mana, but...

My head was hurting and I couldn't stop smiling, but I needed to get my thoughts in order. What was I doing right now? My eyes drift to the hem of her black nightgown before I stare at the mark on my hand that wasn't there anymore.

Saber?

Standing over us, watching over us was the blonde lady knight that was supposed to be by Miyu's side. Gone was her shining armour. The emeralds she had for eyes have given way to a dull yellow, but Saber was still Saber. Rider was gone and Miyu right now was alone, yet my heart was in peace. In place of her parents, we needed to get back to her and for that reason Shirou and I had...

I really am a bad girl.

In the moment I could spare no thoughts for anything else except for the warmth I knew I didn't deserve. After giving him what he needed, the correct thing to do was to push him away, and rush off to save his sister, but my body doesn't listen as I snuggle closer. I couldn't stop basking in this afterglow.

Something like this can't be forgiven.

"S-sakura?" he calls my name as I must have made an ugly expression.

Shirou and I had always kept secrets from one another, fearing that the truth would cut our tenuous relationship off. It doesn't need to be explained why I love him, but I still did not understand why he loved me. Even after all this time and all that has happened around us, he did not have any questions about me. My "brother" Shinji had dismissed him as a simpleton.

"The purer someone acts, the dirtier they really are."

Shirou levelled many questions at Saber who was consumed by my shadow, but he had none for me. He always looked away from my shadow because he didn't want to push me away and that was why I knew our feelings were mutual. I had always treasured him as one of the good things in my life, but for him I must have been something more. I didn't understand his intense feelings, but mine were just as intense.

Love didn't need an explanation, but that was a lie.

The reason he cherished me was a secret he kept to himself because he believed the truth would push me far away. Was it something shallow? Was it something merely carnal? The man who was just a year older than me shouldn't have had any issues with popularity. He was self reliant, dependable, strong and righteous to a fault. In terms of physique, he didn't lose to professional athletes. With a warm smile, he was someone who gave others peace of mind simply by existing, but he didn't smile in front of just anyone. Plenty of people in fact found him somewhat unapproachable or even scary which made it hard for Miyu to make friends close enough to visit. Over the years, I had always kept myself somewhat distant, but that distance now has been reduced to nothing overnight.

"Shirou," as I call him by his name with courage that wasn't there before.

My body itches in a cold sweat and I scan the room for the Card? That's right; the card was no longer in my possession so they were acting up. They were simply monitoring devices I told myself as I feel my strength sapping away, but that was wishful thinking. If it weren't for them acting as redundant organs, Caster's Master would have succeeded in killing me that night. After Caster was gone, there should have been no more threats to me, but her annoying Noble Phantasm remained. Grandfather was surely punishing me for being so stupid. The nostalgic biting sensation underneath my skin intensifies until it was something I couldn't recognize.

It hurts...but it wasn't anything I wasn't used to...this pain confirms that this is reality...

The weak don't hesitate when shown the bellies of the strong. The power of the Card, the power of the King of Heroes was more than enough to keep the influence of grandfather's worms at bay and without it I was nothing. Without that Card, things would naturally go back to how they...

No, don't think about it.

There was nothing more in this world that grandfather feared more than death and nothing he sought more than youth. The Gate Babylon contained countless instruments of certain death as well as the potion of youth that the Babylonian King of legend had once sought.

"...hah..."

It was only natural that I would be punished at the first opportunity. Grandfather should have been nothing, but if that was really the case I should have squashed him years ago. It was only natural because I was nothing. It was only natural because I was cowardly. However weak I am, I needed to look strong because Shirou was with me. I was trembling, my breathing irregular and my nerves spasm uncontrollably as I try to hold in my scream.

He holds me tighter.

"Sakura?" my name breaks my trance, but my vision spasms as something brushes against the back of my eye socket.

My body was numb, but feeling was returning...

I was still in bed, but the bed was cold and sterile. My body hurt all over, but the spasms had subsided. There was someone sitting by the bedside watching over me.

"S-senpai?"

"I'm sorry to tell you this, but I'm not your lover," the seated figure responds and I remember this voice back at that restaurant that served food that was guaranteed to give indigestion.

This place was that godforsaken church wasn't it?

I stare down at my own body and the blanket that covered it. By the bedside table was a kidney dish filled with dead worms. My body had stabilized. My vision sharpens towards the source of that stranger's voice and I see the ardent fan of Mapo tofu; Kotomine Kirei.

"Do I need to explain to you your circumstances?" he tells me.

"No, it's my own body so I understand it perfectly."

He wasn't someone pleasant to talk to and he found pleasure in that fact.

"I wasn't asking about your body, but if you do not wish to listen to me you don't have to," he says.

Kotomine Kirei was Tohsaka Rin's legal guardian, Tohsaka Tokiomi's apprentice and the overseer of the Holy Grail War dispatched by the church. He was an eyesore, but I could not go against him because he had caught the eye of someone else I knew all too well. That person was the very reason why I deliberately avoided this part of the city.

That person wasn't here right now, but that was no reason to be relieved. This was the last place I wanted to be as I rush to get up.

"Pace yourself; it would be regrettable if you died from overexertion when I poured so much effort into the surgery," he says.

"Why do something so unnecessary?"

"It was the young Emiya's behest. Personally, I too would prefer for you to live to the very end. It's a shame Emiya Kiritsugu isn't alive right now. It's always delightful for those in agony to increase in number," was his admission to some sort of connection to the Emiya family.

Fuyuki was a small city after all; all the magi would naturally know each other though that may have been lost on Tohsaka Rin.

"Are you just some washed up villain who misses his hero?"

"Perhaps, but what I have learned is that there's nothing more infuriating than a woman dying satisfied right in front of you," as he mocks himself.

"Who was that woman?"

He ponders a bit.

"...You're going to have to be specific," he says bluntly.

I didn't have time for this. I look to the side and find my clothes. I quickly put them on.

"Where's Shirou?"

"He's waiting in the other room. I won't judge how the young conduct themselves, but as someone who practices magecraft he never learned how to not make a scene," he tells me, but it was not kindness.

The man in priest robes found joy in the same things as grandfather, but the difference was that this man was no coward. He was always strange. Even with the Card, I had no real power over him, but the fact I'm still breathing is only thanks to him. I couldn't avoid talking to him.

"Gilgamesh, he's out there too isn't he?"

"He's out on a walk with Saber doing some catching up after ten years," the strange man says.

Saber participated in the Holy Grail War ten years ago and Gilgamesh was her final opponent. Grandfather had told me that the 4th Holy Grail War ended in failure. The remains of that failed Holy Grail that Saber once sought was fused into my nerves.

"You've obtained such a thing once before haven't you? You know firsthand of its power. This world was something you wished for wasn't it? If this world did not turn out the way you wanted, your path should be obvious. Reclaim the Holy Grail and take back the past with me," were the words of Saber last night that ring.

Under this church was a secret.

It was in this very church that Saber discovered the truth Shirou risked his life to seal away and the truth that Miyu uncovered which drove her eyes red. Truths are cruel, but people are compelled to uncover them. People were naturally masochists. It was only natural to be a little curious, but I knew very well that it could destroy the world I have come to believe in up until now. It was nothing less than Pandora's Box. The man in priest robes must have been privy to that same truth, so why wasn't he shoving it in my face?

"Emiya isn't one to listen to me, but if next time he's the one that needs treatment, know that I'm still keeping those spare organs of his ready anytime."

Spare organs?

The door opens and there was Shirou who didn't look amused.

"Emiya, didn't I tell you no one can enter until the surgery is complete?" Kirei asks him.

He moves in between me and the holy man.

"You should think about sound proofing this church. Confessions are supposed to be confidential," Shirou points out.

"If I did, would you confess your sins, Emiya?"

"And would you confess yours, Kotomine?"

"Would you like to know about Sakura's, Emiya?"

My heart stops.

"Don't," were words that naturally left my lips.

The circumstances may not have been the same, but there were only sinners in this place and none of us believed salvation would ever come to us. Everyone in this room knew the others to be liars. Everyone in this room had something they had to hide. In our home there was an unspoken agreement to avoid mutual destruction, but this place was not home. We have been hiding for so long that truth eludes us, but it is still there.

"You kept things from your sister and you were met with the worst possible outcome. Even now, you're keeping things from your lover. You should know that every lie we make incurs a debt to the truth and that debt will have to be paid sooner or later, so why not confess now in the house of God?" he says with disappointment.

"Kotomine...," Shirou mutters.

"I'll start," he says with resignation.

"I killed Tohsaka Tokiomi," he says without fanfare.

"Tohsaka Tokiomi," was the name I repeat, but I felt nothing at all or it would be better if I felt nothing.

I cup my own mouth.

"The murder weapon I used was the Azoth dagger Rin still carries," the priest adds.

The priest in front of me was the murderer of the man who was once my father. I could not contain this feeling anymore as tears well up in my eyes.

"...Pfffff."

Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. My lips waver.

"Hehehehahahahahahahahahhaahhaha!"

The laughter bursts from my sealed lips. I could not contain the laughter.

Was this how I truly felt? The Gilgamesh card was no longer in my possession, so this feeling must have been mine and mine alone. I could not suppress my laughter, but Shirou's voice breaks my trance.

"Sakura?"

He had grabbed my shoulders with a worried expression. My laughter was quickly replaced with shame. The murder victim should have been nothing more than a stranger to him, but why did he make such a sad expression on his face? I was disgusting through and through. Did Tohsaka Rin tell him about her father and about me? The reason he knew did not matter. Emiya Shirou knew the truth.

A good girl shouldn't laugh at her own father's death and I felt ashamed, but for no other reason than that I was destroying his sacred image of me. Evidence of what I am was always in front of him, yet he always looked away in denial or he never cared for it. After everything that happened up until now, there was nothing left to hide anymore.

"I'm sorry; I'm not the person you believe me to be."

The Sakura he cherished must have been an amazing girl, but he was no longer looking at me. He was only glaring at Kotomine because deep down, Shirou had always known who I really was.

"It's the same for me," Shirou mutters.

"No, it's not you're... I killed people and thought nothing of it...I'm laughing at my father's death...one of the Masters was a school teacher...and I..."

"You're right, my sins are far heavier," he confesses to reassure me and I didn't understand a thing.

"I made my wish on the Holy Grail and condemned an entire world to death. I wasn't born in this world. Under this church's basement is the husk of this world's Shirou that I replaced. This is not my first Holy Grail War and you are not my first Sakura," Shirou confesses without looking at me.

"..."

He did not have the courage to look me in the eye.

"Condemned an entire world to death?" the priest says to himself as he tries his best to hide his envy.

"I'm sorry, but unlike the old man, I'm no hero of justice and it seems I'm a greater villain than you'll ever be. Gilgamesh must have had quite a time as you racked your brain for 10 years," Shirou bites back.

"..."

The priest doesn't say a thing and he even looked a bit annoyed. Shirou wasn't letting the priest enjoy his confession, but the priest was the same as him.

"And this Matou Sakura in your original Holy Grail War died in front of you? That must have been hard, but why is it that you let this Sakura suffer alone over 10 years? Couldn't you have saved her with your second chance?" the priest retaliates.

"That's...," Shirou falters a bit.

"It's because a Matou Sakura that hasn't suffered is not the Matou Sakura you love," the priest grins, but he could not win. I couldn't allow it.

"I don't need saving."

Butting in their stupid talk, I grab Shirou by the wrist.

"The crest worms have already been removed so let's leave this godforsaken place and save Miyu," I say.

I wasn't just reassuring him, but myself. I was already saved by the Emiya family so it was only natural that I save it. There was no point in dwelling on a painful past or my silly hormones. What I needed to do was never clearer. I lead Shirou away, but before we could leave the room, the priest has to open his mouth once again.

"Not all of them," were the priest's words that stop Shirou in his tracks and he wouldn't budge.

"Then why haven't you?" Shirou asks.

"The lowliest things always make the biggest impact. Regrettably I am not a miracle worker. After 11 years they have fused with her nerves and continue to eat them. Normally, these worms would be relatively harmless, but once activated they'll voraciously consume her magical energy. It's only natural that she doesn't have much mana to give to others, but that didn't matter to you in the spur of the moment did you, Emiya? Well, neither did Saber. Honestly, it's a miracle that she's still conscious. Even the one who implanted them would be unable to remove them. You would have to rely on something like a Holy Grail."

"That's all the more reason to save Miyu quickly," I say again as I tug on his arm and through the door.

There was no reason to speak with that fake priest any further and the less I have to deal with Tohsaka Rin's stupid problems, the better. I could laugh at father's death, but it seems I couldn't bring myself to laugh at my sister's situation. She's probably the only magus in this city besides Miyu who has yet to kill anyone.

The sun was still out...

We decided to take a rest under the shade of a nearby tree. We haven't walked that far from the church and I was already this exhausted? Senpai drapes his coat over me as I lean onto him. As we sit in the grass, he looks away ashamed.

"You're not angry?" he asks.

"Angry about what?"

"Everything?" he says.

"Honestly, I never really cared what you were hiding, but that was the same for you wasn't it? As long as you were by my side, it didn't matter."

"No, things can't stay like that forever. That's why things turned out like this," he says defeated.

"I..."

At first, he wasn't sure what to say, but he was someone who could do anything if he put his mind to it. The things he buried, the things he sealed away, he brings himself to tell me even if it was painful for him.

"The world I came from wasn't like this one. From shifting poles, famines and ecological disasters, it was slowly becoming uninhabitable. The world was slowly leaking mana and life was predicted disappear in the next few centuries. The world was ending, so Emiya Kiritsugu and I who was his apprentice at the time sought a miracle to save it. We came to Fuyuki city searching for a child of god that would grant that wish and we found her after her entire family had conveniently died. She would have died too, if she hadn't granted my wish to save her."

This child of god, this Holy Grail must have been Miyu. Was he responsible for the death of her family? I couldn't say anything if he makes a face like that.

"We took her in and lived in a house exactly like the one you know. Kiritsugu died without finding a way to use her when I was twelve. All we could do was seal her inside the house and shield her from residual thoughts she might have interpreted as wishes. The only thing we knew was that in order to save the world, Miyu had to be sacrificed. I promised to carry on his work, carry on his justice, but I was only a third rate magus who barely got the basics. Even if I wasn't, I..."

He turns his face away as he continues his story. The Emiya family home in this world was my sanctuary, but that same home in that world must have been a cage. Every day he would wake up to the smile of a small lamb he had promised to kill in order to save everything and he didn't have it in him.

"By day, I was nothing more than a regular high school student you could find anywhere, though that world's Fuyuki didn't have as many people. I had a best friend in Julian, a real Ally of Justice. Then there was Sakura with whom I could take a break from everything. With her, I didn't have to think about saving the dying world or about justice."

His story was honestly unbelievable, but there was nothing but honesty exuding from him.

"Then one day Miyu wishes for me to be her real brother. I couldn't lock her inside the house anymore after that," were words that shouldn't have contained any shame.

A world that condemns a small child to suffer for the sake of everything else isn't worth continuing. It may have been nothing more than my own personal bias. It may have been nothing more than my own projection. However, even if everyone else in the world denies it. For me...

It couldn't have been a mistake.

"Kiritsugu had warned me about taking her outside and in the end he was right. There's always some fool who wishes to save the world, forcing others to do what they cannot do for themselves. The day I took Miyu outside was the day she was kidnapped by my best friend. It turned out he came from a long line of alchemists who also sought to save the dying world and that Miyu was the Holy Grail that he was searching for. He beats me down, but Julian didn't have the heart to kill me back then. My injuries were treated by that world's Kotomine and that was when I learned of the Holy Grail War, but it was pointless. I was just a third rate outsider. I couldn't break Julian's bounded field and I didn't even have the qualifications to participate in the Holy Grail War. All I could do was wallow in my own powerlessness, until Sakura..."

The Sakura who wasn't me; the Sakura he longed for all this time.

"She told me that she was a part of the Matou family, one of the three responsible for the Holy Grail War and at that time I thought she was going to finish me off as a loose end. I asked her if she was lying to me all this time. I yelled at her and screamed at her, but she didn't run away. She didn't give up on me even after I had given up on everything else."

For him, Sakura was a heaven sent saint that would never betray him even if he betrays himself.

"She told me that if I wanted to save Miyu, all I had to do was win the Holy Grail War or I could run away from everything with her instead. Whatever I decided, she would support my decision..."

Frustration forms on his lips.

"B-but Julian had always suspected her and had her killed in front of me. The murder weapon he used was an alchemically made doll in the image of Shinji who died years ago."

The desperation in his voice was painful, but that was how much he had cherished the Sakura he had lost.

"After her body hit the snow, the only thing I had left was the very Card she offered me and that was then I obtained the power of Counter Guardian EMIYA, an alternate future of me that managed to become a hero. After that, nothing else mattered because I had nothing else. The other contestants were just poorly made dolls just like Shinji. The Holy Grail War was just a sham to trick Heroic Spirits into answering the call. It didn't matter which doll won because they were all under Julian's control whether they knew it or not, except for me. I won the Holy Grail War and my wish."

There was no pride in what he did as if his victory and his survival was a sin. For him, there was no uncertainty that he would win because he couldn't lose after losing everything.

"I didn't care about the world. I didn't care about what would happen to me. I simply wished for Miyu to find a world where she could be happy...but maybe a part of me selfishly wished for a second chance to have done everything differently."

Was this world for Miyu's sake or was it for his? That was the question he had struggled with all this time. When he first laid eyes on me, a doppelganger of the girl he would never get back, what went through his mind? Regret? Despair? Elation? Relief? Happiness? Maybe all of those things at once. I couldn't comprehend his feelings and maybe I never would. His circumstances are too outlandish, but there is one thing that is true.

"Whatever you wished for, this world is the miracle you obtained, so I'll protect it with you."

I'm not the Sakura he lost and his feelings for me may have been meant for her, but I'll stay by his side. I lean on him as he leans on me. If we can't forgive ourselves, then we can forgive each other. Were we heroes fighting against an unfair world or villains who only cared for the world they saw? Good or evil? Pure or impure? Virtuous or loose?

None of that matters.

Matou Sakura will take Emiya Shirou's side and support him as she has always done just as he supports her. The world is indeed cold and harsh, filled with malice and suffering beyond all hope, but it isn't so desperate a place that one cannot find a small shred of warmth.

It was warm here. I'll rest here for just a bit.

I hear voices...

"The faker and his counterfeit you have brought here, I tolerate only because of you."

"Then what of the past 10 years?"

"Did I not extend the same courtesy to that thieving knight of yours ten years ago? The only reason anyone breathes is because I allow it, but death is hardly something to abhor. Instead of giving them sweet release, it's more fitting for them to stew in their own sins."

"The dead have nothing to agonize over and suffering is limited to the living. Is that why you think ill of my wish?"

"If you have to rely on these children, then you should already know the answer you foolish woman. You no longer shine as brightly as you used to, but no matter, I'll still show you my love until I grow tired of you, Saber."