November 29th, 2002 AD – Emiya residence
"You are an idiot, Shirou. No, you are more than that : you are the king of idiots !"
"Sorry to make you take care of me like this, Fuji-nee" Shirou apologized. He was laying in his futon, a cold compress pressed on his forehead and a blindfold on his eyes, wearing a fresh set of pyjamas Taiga had helped him into, mercifully without making any comment.
"I swear, working yourself to the point that you collapse like that … How am I supposed to face Kiritsugu if you keep doing that kind of thing to yourself, Shirou ?"
"I will be fine, Fuji-nee. It's … not pleasant, I am not gonna lie, but nothing I won't recover from with some rest."
"Of course you would say that. If you aren't better by tomorrow I am calling a doctor."
After his catastrophic experiment last evening, he had barely managed to crawl out of his workshop, lock the gate behind him and make it to his futon before collapsing from the splitting headache, still fully clothed.
Contrary to what he had thought when the glowing in his eyes had dissipated, the effects of his mystery going awry weren't gone yet. He hadn't been able to sleep during the entire night, as every few moments his eyes had suddenly 're-activated', drawing prana from his Circuits by forcefully opening them. He had spent the night laid down, trying to ignore the splitting headache that diminished after every episode, only to get worse when his eyes blazed once more and more information was poured into his brain. These involuntary activations had becoming more spaced, until he had finally been able to sleep for a couple of hours … just in time for Taiga and Sakura to arrive. With his vision apparently permanently enhanced, he hadn't noticed the sun rising.
Taiga had panicked when she had found him laying down, pale and covered in sweat, his forehead burning. He had managed to reassure her, telling his guardian that he had come down with a fever last evening, and if she could please not shout so loudly, that would be very nice.
"You really should take more care of yourself, Senpai" said a gently chiding voice to his side.
"Great. Look at what you have done now, Shirou. You have made Sakura-chan worried !"
He groaned. Taiga knew exactly how to make him feel guilty. Sakura had arrived a bit after his big sister, and had been even more distraught by his sickness. An empty bowl laid next to him : she had cooked him some porridge and, despite his protests, fed it to him herself – with Taiga quietly laughing as she watched. Between the food, the clean clothes, the compress and the blindfold, Shirou felt much better, though he would not be going to school today, that much was clear.
"Sorry, Senpai," Sakura said as she leant over him. "Please bear with the light for a moment. I need to check that there is no problem with your eyes."
She removed the blindfold, and Shirou focused all his will on suppressing his eyes' new ability as she examined them for a few seconds, briefly shining a flashlight into them before nodding in visible relief. She turned toward Taiga to say something – and in that moment, Shirou's control slipped, though only for a fraction of a second. Prana flowed into his eyes, and he …
He saw her. Really saw her.
Until then, he had never performed Structural Grasping on another human. Never mind the risk of being discovered back when his only mean of doing so was through physical contact, it was an invasion of privacy, a violation of the basic principles of human interaction. But in that moment, he could not control his gaze, and he saw Sakura Matou. He saw what was inside her. Black, writhing things shaped like bloated worms that clung to her insides, burrowing into her flesh, attached to her heart and lungs and … Magic Circuits ?
The revelation that Sakura was a magus was already shocking enough, but that surprise was nothing compared to the horror Shirou felt as he saw what had been done to his friend. This … he could not even begin to imagine the agony this must have caused her – no, must still be causing her. The worms were attached to her flesh by their teeth, biting into her and draining her od to sustain their abominable existence. The prana resulting of this disgusting act was transmitted across the threads of Magecraft that linked all the worms together and expanded beyond Sakura, doubtlessly reaching toward more of their kin in an arcane parody of a true insect hive.
And … this wasn't all. His gaze lowered. As if it wasn't horrible enough already, he could also see the worms – familiars, he could tell now, somehow acting as implanted Circuits for the girl – in Sakura's … in her uterus, and all her reproductive organs. In fact, they were focused there, pulsating with energy as they fed off her body's fluids just as the rest fed off her od. The sight sickened him to his core, and it was all he could do not to throw up.
She turned back toward him, her expression showing nothing of what she was going through, and he forced himself to smile back as she put the blindfold back on, hating himself for the deception. He wanted nothing more than to shout, to ask her who had done this to her ... but he knew, with a cold certainty, that doing so would only doom them both. For among all the questions raised by what his new eyes had revealed to him, there was one more important than any other :
Who ?
Who had done this to her ?
Sakura wouldn't have done this to herself or let it be done willingly, of that much he was certain. Even the greatest magus wouldn't have been able to fake her personality after degenerating to the point where what she had suffered was acceptable. He absolutely refused to believe otherwise, which left one option.
Someone else had done this to her. And this wasn't recent, either. The worms were burrowed too deeply within her for them to have been implanted recently. For better or worse – very much for worse – Sakura had suffered from this abominable condition for years, long before he had met her.
And he had never found out. Some hero of justice, some friend he was … No. He crushed the guilt – he couldn't afford it right now. The wrath that replaced it was harder to suppress, and the sudden emotion caused his headache to intensify. But he managed to suppress it as well, though he didn't throw it away, merely stored it for later instead. He had learned some time ago, when fighting a particularly vicious gang, that anger had its uses.
Instead, he focused on what he knew, and what that implied.
Fact one : Sakura Matou was a magus. Fact two : she had been subjected to monstrous experiments on her body and Circuits. Conclusion one : the Matou family was a bloodline of magi. Fact three : since the death of Sakura's father Byakuya, the only other members of the Matou family were Shinji and Zouken. Somehow the thought that Shinji belonged to a Magus family seemed even more impossible than Sakura being the same.
Fact four : regardless of Shinji's moral fiber or lack thereof, there was no way he was the one responsible for Sakura's affliction. He would simply have been too young to perform the implantation at the time. Conclusion two : that left Zouken, the Matou patriarch and grandfather of his friends, as the most likely culprit.
Laying back down on his futon, Shirou made his decision. Part of him was aware that it was a rash one, but he couldn't help himself.
Fact five : now that he knew of Sakura's predicament, he could not ignore it. Final conclusion : he would spend the day in bed, focused on recovering from the backlash of his spell. Sakura would be in school, safe from further harm.
Then, once Taiga had left after checking up on him in the evening, he would go to the Matou household, and not leave until, one way or another, he had saved Sakura.
Miyama Town wasn't the most active of areas after sundown, especially in the late autumn. The streets were empty, every inhabitant having returned to their homes for the night. Those who were spending their Friday evening partying were still out, enjoying their free time in another district. Western-styled mansions were lined up, most of them having been built decades ago by foreign families as they claimed this particular side of Miyama as their own.
Dressed in the dark clothing he wore when on a job for the Fujimura Group, Shirou Emiya stood across the street from the Matou mansion, his eyes fully opened as he stared at the house's many-layered defenses. His new ability was serving him well there : though night had fallen, he could see perfectly well, and by channelling the tiniest amount of his od into his eyes, he could see the magical defenses surrounding the estate.
There were plenty of Bounded Fields surrounding the area, far more than a single magus could have applied over an entire lifetime. This was the work of generations of magi, each working to add to their family's defenses.
I wish Dad had told me more about the bloodlines of Fuyuki, he thought.
He knew why Kiritsugu hadn't : he hadn't wanted Shirou to get involved with the Moonlit World at all. He had told him about the Tohsaka, who were one of the three founding families of the Grail War, and the Second Owners for Fuyuki, but nothing more. Given what Shirou now knew about Sakura, it wasn't difficult to understand why his dad hadn't told him about the Matou. Kiritsugu had known his son well, and realized that Shirou wouldn't have been able to stop himself from trying to save Sakura, even if it was from her own family, even if he had very little chance of succeeding.
Shirou wasn't blind to the fact that the odds were against him. He may have spent training his physical abilities and limited Magecraft, but he was still nothing but a third-rate magus, if he even qualified as one given his focus on practical applications over pure research. Even if the Matou family had diminished from its former heights – and it must have, because neither Sakura nor Shinji had ever given out any magical aura that he had been able to detect before literally looking under their skin – the way magus families worked meant that their legacies were often far more dangerous than their individual members.
He took stock of what he had to work with. The backlash to his Circuits and body from the previous evening had mostly healed. His muscles were still a bit sore, but he could ignore it and operate at peak capacity. His od reserves had refilled over the day, thanks to a lot of meditation as he rested his body. A pair of tonfas were attached to his belt, along with a few other surprises, not all of which were strictly legal for a minor to carry on him in a Japanese city. He was so used to reinforcing his current clothes that he could do so in less than a tenth of a second.
On the other side, over a dozen Bounded Fields covered the Matou estate. Most of them were focused on the mansion itself, but several extended all the way to the garden walls. If he tried to force his way through these defenses, he would die. It was as simple as that.
Fortunately, he didn't need to. There were exceptions programmed into the wards so that outsiders could enter when they were invited, and the bulk of the others were intent-based : they would only trigger if the intruder harboured hostile intentions toward the mansion's inhabitants. And while Shirou wasn't foolish enough to believe that he could accomplish his goal without violence, his intent was entirely peaceful – indeed, it could be construed as benevolent. He spent several minutes repeating this to himself, hoping that the self-hypnosis would be enough to deceive the wards, fully prepared to die if it wasn't.
Schooling his features into his usual composed and friendly expression, he crossed the street, walked to the door, and rung the doorbell. Then he waited for several minutes, until the door of the house opened, revealing a frowning Shinji.
"Emiya ?" his friend called out. "What are you doing here ? Aren't you supposed to be sick ?"
"I am better," he answered. "Sakura forgot something at home and I came to return it."
"Of course you did, you bloody idiot," sighed Shinji. "Wait a second, I am coming."
The blue-haired teenager walked through the mansion's garden and unlocked the metal gate barring Shirou's passage, sliding it aside and holding out his hand.
"Give it to me and I will – eh, wait !"
The moment the door opened, Shirou moved. Before Shinji could react, he was inside, his right hand was slamming the gate closed behind the two of them, and his left one was around Shinji's throat, holding him aloft with barely any effort.
"Where is Sakura, Shinji ?" he growled.
"W-what the hell, Emiya ?! What are you -"
"I know what was done to her," he continued, and Shinji's sudden pallor instantly damned his former friend in Shirou's eyes. "And so do you, it seems." His left hand tightened around Shinji's throat, not enough to cut off his air supply, but more than enough to hurt. "Where is she ?"
"D-downstairs !" the blue-haired teen choked out, eyes wide in schock and terror. "In the basement ! That-that's where Grandfather has … has …"
"His workshop ?"
"W-what ? No, it's … it's her training roo-gah !"
Shirou threw Shinji out of the way and moved.
Usually, the red-haired teen was very careful with his strength. Even without using reinforcement, years of training had left him far stronger than any teenager his age he knew. He had read enough comic books to know that revealing just how naturally fit he was wasn't a good idea, as it may clue people into his other activities. He did well in gym classes, but not too well, always holding back the full measure of his strength and using the lessons to perfect his precision and control instead.
He wasn't holding back now, however, and Shinji was sent crashing into a bush. Shirou didn't stop to check his hadn't injured the other teen, for he was already moving by the time Shinji slid down to the floor. Sakura took priority over her brother – took priority over everything else.
The Matou mansion was vast, but finding his way wasn't difficult. All he needed to do was follow the stench of Magecraft that had saturated his senses since he crossed the threshold. Every magus worth their salt could perceive It led him to a rusted metallic door, which he forced open with a single kick, revealing a long set of stairs going down into darkness. The scent of rot stopped being metaphorical and became all too real.
I am coming, Sakura.
The young hero did not notice, as he rushed down the stairs, that the air behind him was rippling with invisible shock waves, and the walls covered in scorch marks where the Bounded Fields had tried, and failed, to target him. Nor did he realize that one of the reasons for Shinji's quick capitulation was that his eyes were blazing golden, while black and crimson lines were running across his face.
Far away, in a library that was sealed to all but a select few, a sigil that had laid dormant for a very long time briefly flickered to life.
In the Matou Workshop, the only source of light were the black candles scattered along the walls, casting a feeble illumination upon the horrors within. The darkness could be considered a mercy, hiding the full horror of the Workshop, but it did nothing to silence the fleshy, squirming noises. The so-called 'Workshop' was a pit, a hole in the earth filled with all manners of monstrosities birthed by the Matou craft. Enormous insects crawled and buzzed within it, nesting into the alcoves carved into the walls. The greatest part of them were the familiar worms : bloated, repugnant things that pulsated with stolen vitality and prana.
The other insects were subservient to the worms, placed there to help defend them and play their part in their feeding and reproduction cycles. Yet perhaps the most disturbing sound to emanate from that pit of nightmares was the regular breathing of the human girl who laid amidst these abominations. Even as the worms crawled on and in her body, subjecting her to every defilement imaginable in order to feed off her body's secretions, she did not show any outward sign of distress, merely laying down with her eyes closed and her face utterly expressionless.
Standing on the small platform around the Workshop's entrance, looking down at the writhing sea, was the only other human silhouette in the room. In truth, it was no more human than the insectoid monsters, yet it kept up the pretence of humanity for its own purposes. It resembled an old man, so old and thin that his dry skin was stretched across his bones, revealing the shape of his skull, at once disturbingly familiar and alien to other humans.
Colourless eyes looked down upon the girl. No emotion showed in them, only cold observation and calculation. The girl had grown strong since she had come under his influence, taking to the Matou craft like a natural ... which was to be expected, given what had been done to her so that she could become a natural. The changes in her hair and eye colour were but the least of her alterations. She no longer screamed when thrown into the worm pit so that the familiars could feed on her abnormally large prana reserves, or burrow into her flesh to replace those that had died inside her.
Zouken could have made it so that his familiars lived longer. The worm that was nested around Sakura's heart, the one that hosted Zouken's soul, had been inside her since the end of the last Grail War, and remained as strong as ever. He could not make the rest of his pets as long-lived as that particular one, but increasing their lifespan tenfold was still very much within his capabilities, and would only have required the smallest effort on his part. But why would he ? The torment the girl was suffering in the worm pit was part of her training. Like a precious jewel, she had to be carefully shaped so that she could shine with her full potential.
After nine years of training, the girl was almost as much beyond physical pain as he was. But since suffering was part of Zouken's preparations, the old magus had simply adapted his methods. The girl could ignore physical discomfort, but psychological torture was another issue. When Byakuya – another worthless failure – had died, her complete lack of reaction had disturbed Zouken. If the girl had completely walled off her own emotions, then manipulating her would become all but impossible, and he couldn't have that. Thankfully, a solution had presented itself to him mere weeks after the "head" of the Matou family had drunk himself into an early grave.
He had let her befriend that Emiya boy, knowing that she would do anything to hide her true nature from him. The mere suggestion of removing her access to that small happiness she had found was enough to remove any thoughts of rebellion from her.
It was obvious, even to one as removed from humanity as Zouken, that the girl was completely smitten with the Emiya boy. This would be useful when the next Grail War started. There was little doubt in the old magus' mind that the Emiya boy would be chosen as a Master : even if he wasn't related to the Magus Killer by blood, he was still the heir of his legacy. And if he was even half as skilled as Kiritsugu Emiya had been, using his relationship with the girl against him may be Zouken's only chance at winning the Grail.
He had to get his hands on the Grail this time. After three hundred years, he was running out of time : his Magecraft would not be able to hold death at bay another ten years, let alone the fifty that would be required if the Grail's reserves of mana were exhausted. Once, every artificial body constructed from his worm familiars had lasted for years before falling apart, but now he could barely go for a single month before needing to devour someone else to replace it, and the duration continued to shorten with each new one.
Even if he managed to hold on, the Matou were a lost cause. His worthless grandson had no magic circuits, and while the girl could have made a suitable heir, what he had done to her made it impossible for her to continue the bloodline. With no descendant to manipulate into fighting the War for him, Zouken would be forced to either fight himself or deceive an unknown Master, and neither of these options appealed to him. He had witnessed every Grail War, and he knew full well how dangerous they were, even for someone like him.
No, the next Grail War was his best shot at getting the Grail and obtaining true immortality.
Shinji would get a chance to play at being a Master, and when he inevitably failed, all the other Masters would think the Matous had been eliminated from the competition. No one would pay attention to the girl, and it would be their downfall.
Zouken's alterations would allow her to act as a Lesser Grail, absorbing the energies of slain Servants. It would be easy to manipulate the Emiya boy into protecting her for the duration of the conflict – she could defend herself, but it would be better to hide her abilities until the end. Then, once enough of them had perished, he could use her conditioning to trigger the activation of the Greater Grail and bypass the rules of the Heaven's Feel ritual entirely.
The other Masters would be too caught up in the fighting to notice anything wrong until it would be too late, and with immortality at long last his, he would be able to leave Fuyuki and … well, he wasn't sure what he would do afterwards. He had spent so long pursuing eternal life that it was difficult to imagine living without such an all-consuming purpose. But he was sure he would think of something. He would have all eternity to do so, after all.
"Oh ?"
Zouken's glance turned away from Sakura, looking up the stairs beyond the archway that led into the grotesque Workshop. Something like a smile warped his face, the skin contorting with an almost audible noise.
"My, my," he said, in a warm and kind voice he had no right to speak in. "It appears we have a visitor. Were you expecting someone, Sakura ?"
In the worm pit, the girl blinked at the sound of her name. Her mind had been far away, as it always was when she entered this room, until the voice of her grandfather – her tormentor – dragged her back to her immediate surroundings. It was not a pleasant return, Zouken knew.
"N-no," she managed to whisper.
"Really ? Then it seems we have an intruder in our home. Well, don't worry, dear. I will take care of this. You just stay there and focus on your training."
Without waiting for a reply – what else could the girl do in her situation ? – Zouken walked through the archway and into the corridor leading upstairs. He could feel the unwanted visitor ripping through the house's Bounded Fields as if they weren't there. It wasn't that the wards weren't reacting to the intruder's presence : all manner of vicious defences were being triggered, from the benign ones sending away curious teens wanting to explore the spooky Western mansion to those meant to send would-be burglars to sleep so Zouken could feed them to his worms. He could sense the spells firing off … and completely failing to affect their target at all.
Interesting … and a little worrying. The intruder was at the gate leading to the Workshop. Would the greater defenses laid down there – no, never mind. They too had failed to even slow the intruder down. It seemed it would indeed fall to Zouken to deal with this uninvited guest.
The ancient magus was curious now. There weren't many magi left in Fuyuki : the Matou bloodline wasn't the only one to have diminished. Only one Tohsaka remained, and that girl was neither skilled nor violent enough to barge into his home like this … unless she had learned what was happening to her dear estranged sister ? No, she didn't have the strength to ignore his wards like this. The priest at the church, then ? Perhaps. That man certainly despised him enough, but why would he act now ?
Well, he would find out soon enough. Raising his cane, Zouken called upon his bond to the defenses of the house, drawing upon its reserves of prana to power his spell. It had been many, many years since the true head of the Matou family had last cast a spell using his own od reserves, for what he had made of himself did not have such reserves to speak of at all. But the knowledge of his Mysteries remained, cultivated and perfected throughout the decades.
Responding to his will, the skeletons that decorated the corridor's walls, remnants of those who had died so that Zouken may live, twitched, before beginning to move. They were weak familiars, but there were a great many of them, and the stairs soon echoed with the sound of dozens of bony feet rushing up to meet the intruder and drag them down before their master.
Maybe Zouken should have been a bit more cautious, but there was very little left in the world that could hurt him. Even if the intruder managed to fight their way past the skeletal horde, the old magus was still far, far from defenceless. To confront a magus in their Workshop was not just the very height of impoliteness : it was also almost certain suicide.
The further Shirou went down the stairs, the more powerful the stench grew. The very stones reeked of rotting flesh, dried blood, and other stuff he couldn't identify.
The darkness didn't bother him, and he ran at full speed, holding his tonfas in both hands, prana coursing through them and reinforcing the wooden weapons beyond the solidity of steel. The same reinforcement coursed through his limbs, propelling him forward faster and leaving footprints in the concrete stairs.
He saw movement ahead, and raised his weapons without slowing down. His eyes widened as he saw the nature of the obstacle : human skeletons, their bones completely smooth, their empty eye sockets glowing with pinpricks of light. They were clawing their way up the stairs, forming a wall of bones that completely blocked the passage.
How many of those are there ? How many people died in here ?
Shirou forced these thoughts away. He couldn't afford to become distracted. He could not save the dead, only the living. In the few seconds before impact, he poured prana into his eyes and measured the thickness of the skeleton wall, finding it to be around three meters. Focusing all of his Reinforcement on his forward side, he smashed into the wall of bones, holding his tonfas before his face, the skeletal claws and teeth smashing uselessly against his reinforced clothes.
More skeletons awaited him on the other side, dragging lumps of stone which they swung at him with clumsy strength. Twirling his tonfas, the young magus engaged the undead familiars. His weapons smashed into skulls, shattering them to pieces while he dodged the blows aimed his way. Those few attacks he took were barely felt, and Shirou barely slowed down as he annihilated the skeletons, every blow infused with enough prana to disturb the familiar bond and shatter the mystery animating the bones.
Finally, he reached the bottom of the stairs. He passed through the archway leading into the Workshop … and stopped dead in his tracks, the strength of his sudden stop sending cracks across the platform on which he stood.
In one second, his eyes took in the scene. The pit, the worms – Sakura, laying down amidst these horrors – and the one other magus in the room.
"Hoya ? … So it is you, Emiya-kun. I admit that I didn't expect you to be the one. These are interesting eyes that you have … very interesting indeed. And these markings … your father never showed them, but then again, he was a poor magus, for all his talent in dealing death."
Despite having been Sakura's friend for over a year, this was only the second time Shirou saw Zouken in person. The only previous time had been when he had made Sakura's acquaintance, and her grandfather had come to the Emiya residence to recover her in person. Shirou hadn't thought anything was strange about that : Zouken was a really old man, and it made sense that he would spend most of his time in his home.
Now, however, looking at Zouken with his new, enhanced vision, he could see what he ... no, what it really was. Whatever Zouken had begun as, there was nothing remotely human about him now. The clothes and skin that covered his body were fake, the product of Magecraft much less offensive than the one that animated his fake flesh.
Shirou had found where was going the prana that the worms embedded within Sakura extracted from her. He had known that it flowed into the hive of the worm familiars, and now he beheld the heart of that repugnant collective.
"Your father was much subtler than you," noted Zouken, his voice sounding exactly like a grandfather chastising a child for failing a school assignment. "His target would rarely even know he was on their trail until they were dead. He would be ashamed of you for rushing into unknown territory like this."
"My father would be ashamed," Shirou acknowledged, glaring at the monster masquerading as an old man. "Ashamed that it took me this long to realize what you had done. Release Sakura. Now. Do this, and I will leave. There will be no need for further violence."
"And then what ?" the ancient magus asked, his tone a mix of mockery and genuine curiosity. "What will you do then, Emiya ? She belongs to the Matou. Her body has been altered by our Magecraft far beyond the possibility of undoing the changes. Whatever you see with those fey eyes of yours will remain for her entire life."
"Even if that were true, I don't care." He knew he was being foolish. He knew that even if he took Sakura away from this horrible place, he didn't have the means to heal her. But he would not – could not – leave her here. Even if it was foolish, selfish even …
Shirou Emiya wanted to save Sakura. That was all there was to it.
"I am taking her out of here, and that's final," he said, in a voice as cold as the void between the stars and just as inevitable. "You will never hurt her again."
Zouken made a sound like the dried shells of dead bugs being crushed underfoot. It took Shirou several seconds to realize that he was laughing.
"Let us ask Sakura herself what she thinks, shall we ?"
The writhing of the worms outside and inside her stopped. Slowly, those that weren't already bound to her body withdrew. The pain and degradation ended, leaving her exposed to the Workshop's tepid, foetid air.
Like she did every time she entered the pit, she had shut down her consciousness, waiting for her torture to end. But even so, she knew that this was too soon. Her 'training' should still continue. Curiosity sparked inside her empty mind. What had happened ?
She opened her eyes. Slowly, her vision swam into focus.
She was still down into the worm pit, the stairs leading to the entrance only a few steps from where she laid – but in her state, they might as well have been on the other side of the planet.
Her grandfather was there – and he wasn't alone. Had Shinji come to the pit ? Her brother didn't like this place anymore than she did, and only ever came when their grandfather ordered him to so that he could assist in her 'training'.
But ... no, this wasn't Shinji. Red hair, not blue, and the face ...
That face ... She knew that face. But ...
No. No. No. It couldn't be. Surely God couldn't be so cruel. Sakura's eyes widened, and she cried out without sound as she recognized the one who had broken into her accursed family's Workshop.
Why ?!
Why was he here ?!
He had seen her. Oh god, he had seen her. Now he knew what she really was like. All of her worst fears had come true. Her Senpai, her one island of peace, her one shard of happiness in her accursed existence, had come to this wretched place, and seen her for what she really was – seen the disgusting truth that she hid behind her hollow smile every day …
She screwed her eyes shut. She couldn't bear to look at him, couldn't bear to see the look of disgust in his eyes. It hurt even to imagine it, to think of those kind golden eyes looking at her like that ...
"I told you : I am taking her with me, Zouken. This ... abomination ... ends now."
... What ?
What was her Senpai saying ?
Hope, that most bitter of poison, flickered in her heart, accompanied by renewed dread. Sakura opened her eyes and looked up to see her Senpai, the boy that, in her most secret heart, she allowed herself to admit she loved.
He stood in front of her grandfather, and his face, ordinarily so calm, was full of anger. His eyes were glowing, and there were strange markings of black and red running on his face, but the wrath he felt was on full display.
... Was he angry because of her ? Because of … of what had been done to her ?
He cares, she thought. Even if he knows … he cares. He -
He is going to die.
Grandfather will kill him.
He is going to die because of me.
The thought horrified her. She was disgusted with herself for the first rush of elation that had filled her when she had realized that, even after seeing her laying down among the worms, her Senpai still cared for her.
She didn't deserve his care, not when she was tainted, not when he was going to die because of it.
Senpai looked strong. She had always seen him as a kind and gentle boy, but now he looked like a man – like a warrior. Through her connection to the worm familiars, she could sense the prana that radiated from him. He was using some sort of mystery on his entire body – that must be how he had managed to get here in the first place. But against her grandfather … it wouldn't be enough.
Her uncle Kariya had been strong too. He had sacrificed everything to gain strength in the hope of saving her. And it had not been enough. He had died a miserable death, and Sakura had learned that defying Zouken was impossible. And now, her Senpai was doing the exact same thing as her uncle.
"R-run ..." she forced the words out, despite the flare of pain they caused as her body strained against the worms holding her down. "Run, Senpai !"
"Do you hear that, Emiya-kun ? Should you not respect her wishes ?"
"I am not leaving you here," he said, his gaze briefly flickering to her before returning to her grandfather – and her heart broke at the concern in his eyes and the soft tone of his voice.
"This is your last warning, Zouken," he continued, his golden eyes turning again upon her grandfather. "Get these things off her."
"As amusing as it would be to let you take her and watch what would happen ... I think not. You have trespassed into my home, boy, and that is not something that can go unpunished."
The old magus tapped his cane on the floor, and as one, the enormous insects flying in the room stopped in their tracks, turning toward Shirou. An particularly enormous mosquito-shaped creature hovered to Zouken's side, multifaceted eyes aimed at Senpai.
"If you leave now," offered Zouken, "I will let you live. We can talk later to discuss reparations for your lack of manners."
At her grandfather's words, Sakura felt something like despair mixed with hope. She didn't want Senpai to die …
"S-senpai," she called out, she begged. "... P-please leave me here. I ... I a-am not worth-"
"Sakura," Shirou said in a voice that was as kind as it was commanding, "don't ever say that. I told you : I am not leaving you here. Do your worst, Zouken."
"Fool," scoffed Zouken, before gesturing with one hand to the familiar at his side : "Kill him."
As if in slow motion, Shirou saw the familiar fly toward him. He could see the buzzing of its wings, the gleaming of its eyes in the basement's half-light. He saw how it contorted its body mid-flight to bring its stinger to bear. He saw the drops of venom flying off the stabbing appendage as glands contorted in preparation of the attack.
He saw much more, his eyes burning bright as he poured prana into them non-stop. He saw the thickness of the creature's hide, the toxins in its venom. From this, he understood that the stinger would pierce through even his reinforced clothes and skin, and not even Avalon would save him from the poison. In addition, the size of the stinger meant that he would enter the familiar's range before it entered his. Which meant that he had to rely on his speed and reflexes to dodge the glow, and then counter-attack with all his strength – otherwise, he wouldn't be able to get through its hide.
At that moment, a voice came from behind Shirou. So focused had the young man been on the threat before him he had forgotten to pay attention to his back.
"Grandfather ! Emiya is -"
Shinji. The fool had followed him. He should have taken the time to knock him unconscious, but he had been too focused on getting Sakura out of here as soon as possible. Sloppy. Too sloppy.
In one flash, his mind processed that new information. He estimated the location of Shinji in regard to himself and to the attacker bearing down on him. He analysed everything he knew of Shinji, weighted it against what he had learned this day, and came to a conclusion. There was no sadness, no anger : only a cold, merciless calculation. And its results were thus :
Shinji Matou didn't deserve to be saved. Not if the cost was risking death, and leaving Sakura here, in the grasp of the monster that played at being her grandfather. And so, Shirou Emiya acted in accordance to that conclusion.
He dodged the blow, the stinger passing mere centimeters from his chest. The grotesque mosquito flew past him at full speed, and its dart plunged into Shinji's chest with a sickening crunch. The blue-haired teen's eyes widened in shock and agony, and blood poured from his wound and his mouth as the Magecraft-reinforced venom dissolved his blood vessels.
Less than a second later, Shirou's left tonfa smashed into the creature's head, bursting it apart. Its body slid down, the stinger pulled out of Shinji's chest by gravity.
For a few seconds, all was silent, save for the endless writhing of the worms in the pit and Shinji's failed attempts to breathe and close his wound with trembling hands. His mouth opened as he tried to speak, but only poisoned blood and bile came out. Then, after what Shirou's eyes told him was unspeakable agony, the boy Shirou had believed was his friend collapsed to the ground, dead.
Shirou heard a whimper from the pit, and his icy calmness broke as he realized that Sakura had just seen her brother die before her eyes.
Zouken didn't seem overly perturbed by the death of his grandson. He was looking at the corpse with the same level of annoyance one might direct at a dog that just dirtied the kitchen floor.
"Worthless to the end," the ancient magus muttered, before returning his colourless eyes to Shirou. "I am willing to reconsider my previous offer, Emiya. With my grandson dead, I find myself in need of a … replacement. For all his faults, I still had some use for Shinji yet."
"Explain," asked Shirou in a voice utterly devoid of emotion. He had no intention of accepting whatever deal the monster was about to offer, but he could always use additional knowledge of the Matou so-called family.
"I understand that your eyes see much more nowadays, Emiya. That is why you are here : because you saw some of the modifications that were performed upon Sakura. But you do not understand all the consequences of her condition."
Sakura whimpered in protest, but a single gesture from Zouken silenced her, as more worms crawled over her face and blocked her mouth. Shirou's grip on his tonfas tightened, but he did not move – not yet.
"The Matou Crest Worms implanted within Sakura's body act as makeshift Magic Circuits, not just as parasites feeding off her od. In exchange for granting access to Magecraft beyond one's natural capabilities, they sustain themselves by devouring the life-bearing fluids of their host. Long ago, when the method was first designed, that was the blood of the magus … but as you can imagine, the host did not survive for long before being drained dry. The worms within Sakura feed off something different altogether."
"I know," said Shirou, and there was a deep and cold anger in his tone. "They feed off her … sexual excretions."
"Indeed. The worms simulate the part of her brain responsible for feeling pleasure, as well as the corresponding organs, in order to accelerate the production of her nourishment. But the process also causes an unbalance in Sakura's od. In order for her to retain her sanity, she needs to receive prana from an external source so that the disturbance caused by the worms' feeding can be assuaged."
Zouken fixed his dead eyes upon Shirou's burning ones, and continued :
"It was Shinji who was responsible for that part of Sakura's training, by injecting his own od inside her. He may have lacked Magic Circuits of his own, but like every human, he still had od within him. Of course, since he couldn't use Magecraft and using Sakura's own magical talents would have been unviable as a long-term solution, I had to make him employ … alternate methods."
"What 'methods' ?" asked Shirou, feeling a pit of dread form in his stomach as he realized what this explanation was leading to.
"Sexual intercourse," told Zouken, his voice never wavering. "As soon as his body became capable of it, he took part in Sakura's training and stabilization.
"You ... you made Shinji do this to her ?"
"At first. I assure you, he soon became all too willing to assist me. But now, Sakura requires another source of prana to keep her condition from degenerating. You are a capable Magus, with potent Magic Circuits and a strong body. In addition, my granddaughter is fond of you. I believe having you replace Shinji is acceptable for both of us."
Shirou did not answer. Zouken continued :
"If not you, then it will be someone else. It can be anyone, really, so long as they are male and relatively healthy. I understand that her body is considered quite attractive by today's standards. Once the worms get hungry, she won't have a choice. Surely you don't want her to go through this ?"
"... I can't tell if you are trying to anger me, or actually monstrous enough to think I would even consider this," said Shirou at last. "No, Zouken. There will be no negotiation, and certainly no replacement. And I am no longer willing to let you live. I am going to kill you and save Sakura."
Zouken smiled. "Will you ?"
Before Shirou could react, the old man's body collapsed in on itself. Both his clothes and skin folded on the ground as a swarm of worms fled from them in all directions, joining with the others in the pit. Behind Sakura, the mass of worms grew, forming a shape that soon grew in definition, until Zouken stood behind his granddaughter, a hand cupping her throat. Sakura cried out at the old magus' touch, and Shirou slowly walked to the edge of the pit, his mind ablaze with possible plans.
"Be careful, boy," warned Zouken. "There is much more at stake here than you comprehend. I can tell you things that your father kept from you – I can tell you about the Einzbern, and the girl he left behind."
"I want nothing from you, monster. You won't kill Sakura," said Shirou, praying that he hadn't misread the situation even more badly than he thought. "You need her. She is your only heir."
Zouken scoffed. "Blind fool. I have no need of heirs. What use is bloodline to one such as I ? And in any case, she won't die by my hand … only you will, if you refuse."
Though his eyes were fixed on Zouken and Sakura, Shirou could see the insect familiars crawling around him, leaving on a small circle of bare concrete around his feet. More of the enormous mosquito creatures were buzzing at the circle's edge, wary of his weapons, but ready to attack at their master's command. He cursed himself for a fool. Zouken hadn't taken Sakura's hostage – he had made him focus his attention on the two of them, so that he wouldn't notice the encirclement until it was too late. Maybe, if he focused his Reinforcement to his utmost limits, he could break through and reach the stairs … but that option wasn't even worth considering.
He would not leave Sakura behind. He would not fail her.
Never again.
"Senpai …" the girl called out, struggling weakly against her grandfather's deceptively strong grip. "Don't worry about me."
"I promised to save you," whispered Shirou in reply, the sound somehow carrying over the scurrying and scuttling of the insects.
"Please …" She begged him, tears running down her face. How long had it been since she had last cried within that horrid pit, Shirou wondered ? How long since her tears had run dry ? "I don't want you to die because of me. Run, Senpai. Get away …"
Zouken chuckled. "Ah, love. How wonderfully naive. What will you do, Emiya ? Accept my offer and live ? Or refuse, and die for nothing ? Choose."
Shirou looked at Zouken with his ensorcelled eyes, seeing past the thin disguise and into the abomination beneath. For the first time he could remember, the first time since he had lost his emotions in the fire that had destroyed the child he had once been, as he saw the monster the old magus really was, Shirou felt hatred. The emotion flowed through him, at once ice-cold and burning hot. It felt right. It felt … familiar.
He could see how Zouken's withered soul was stretched across his worm familiars, animating the fake human body and controlling the seething mass beneath them all. He could see the worm in Sakura's chest, coiled around her heart like the grotesque parasite that it was, and the link between it and its master. He could see the other foreign elements implanted within the body of his friend, glowing with tainted and unstable prana. Even without the worms, they would kill Sakura eventually, burning her from the inside until nothing but them was left.
"Please, Senpai. Let me die …"
Shirou had never felt so powerless before. Was this it ? All his training, all his preparation, all his efforts to be a hero, and he couldn't even save his friend ? Some champion of justice he was …
I refuse this.
The thought came unbidden, rising from the depths of his distorted mind. Like a bubble of volatile gas, it rose and rose, until it touched the fires of his hate, and ignited.
"You know nothing of love, Zolgen Makiri," he said, his voice deep and charged with power. He looked upon the thing that pretended to be an old man with eyes that blazed with a fire that was suddenly dark, and he knew that this was the creature's true name.
He could also see how to kill it.
Zouken flinched back from Shirou, his empty eyes widening. "What … what is this ?"
"And I will choose my own path," continued Shirou, ignoring the ancient magus. He opened his hands, letting his tonfas fall on the ground.
Trace, On.
Every circuit in his body suddenly flared to life, fully opened. Twenty-seven of them, channelling his od through his flesh and soul. It hurt. Oh, how it hurt. It felt as if his muscles were being cut apart by rusted knives, as if his nerve endings were plunged into acid. But that pain was nothing compared to the memory of the fire, and less than nothing next to the idea of failing Sakura again.
Judging the concept of creation.
From the memories of dreams, he pulled the image of a sword. In his nightmares, he had used that weapon against monsters hundreds of times – and before him stood a monster worse than any of these. A monster deserving of hate, deserving of the blade's judgment.
Hypothesizing the basic structure.
Blade, hilt, pommel. A standard, deceptively simple shape, shared by countless millions of swords that had been forged during Mankind's brutal history. Except that there were other mechanisms hidden within the sword, devices that he did not understand but could remember with crystal-clear precision.
Duplicating the composition material.
Chemical structures flashed in his mind's eye, showing the arrangement of atoms forming the elements that had gone into the sword's creation. Minute nerve impulses commanded the power flowing through his circuits, shaping it into replicas of these molecules, forming elements that had never been recorded in any chemistry book.
Imitating the skill of its making.
Knowledge flowed through his skull, unbidden, its origin beyond him. He saw the forge in which the sword of his dreams had been forged. He felt his hands on the hammer that shaped the metal. He felt the heat of the furnace on the exposed skin of his arms, felt the rush of pride as the weapon was presented to the one to wield it – a knight in plated armor on his knees, receiving it from his liege's hands …
Sympathizing with the experience of its growth.
He saw the first battle, the first time the sword had spilled blood. He saw every battle it had ever been wielded in, all at once. It was too much, too much for him to understand, too much for him to process except in flashes and snapshots. A fortress falling, its defenders unleashing monsters upon the attackers – a labyrinth haunted by spectres of blue and pink – black sands, red blood – crumbling walls and the howl of titans battling above him …
Reproducing the accumulated years.
Every change, every alteration was reproduced. What the sword had begun as was not what it had stayed. It had changed, just as the one who had wielded it – who ? – had changed. The sword was no mere instrument of murder, but a weapon worthy of legend, its deeds echoing through time – then why had he never found any trace of it in history books ? – and from that legend, it had gained great power.
Excelling every manufacturing process.
In his mind's eye, Shirou held the image of the sword. It was a perfect replica of the weapon of his dreams. Now all that was left to do was to pull it from his mental world into the real one.
I name thee, ███████ ████.
His circuits were burning, prana pouring through them in greater quantity than it ever had before, going far beyond what he had previously thought were his limits. Like his body, they burned, but would not break, and power continued to flow, far more than he should have been able to draw from his surroundings. No, this power was coming from inside him – his own od, rather than the mana of the world around him. But this … this was too much. Even as his mind was consumed by anger, the need to save Sakura, and the incredibly complicated process of Tracing, part of Shirou still realized that what he was doing should not be possible. Like Zouken had said, he had a healthy body with great od reserves, but not nearly enough for this. But he did not care, as long as it worked.
And work it did, as suddenly the sword that he had carried in his dreams of that mist-filled forest was in his hands.
It was huge. Too big for human hands, and it looked ridiculously out of place in the teenager's grip. He should barely have been able to lift it, if at all. And yet, not only did it feel incredibly familiar, it was also light as a feather. Prana coursed through his limbs, reinforcing them way beyond anything he had ever attempted before, yet he could not feel any strain on his circuits.
For just as he had recreated the changes the weapon had gone through during its history upon the Projected copy, so too had he, without realizing it, recreated some of the changes its wielder had gone through upon his own body. The black lines that had marked his face now spread all over his body, and the shadows behind him were warped to form the impression of great wings.
The sword swirled around him, cutting through the nearest insects with ease and sending a shockwave that pushed the swarm back with a cacophony of monstrous shrieks. Then, without hesitation, Shirou stepped forward, and landed into the pit. The worms beneath his feet screeched as they burned, unable to withstand his proximity. They fled from him, leaving him standing above a hole in the seething mass of familiars. He did not fall down, however, held aloft by wings he could not see but somehow knew were there.
"Zolgen," he said again, raising the sword with both hands. "You are unforgiven."
Zouken was angry. His worthless grandson was dead, his home had been invaded, and his artificial Lesser Grail was displaying a willingness to die far too early for his plans. But his anger paled in comparison to the shock – and yes, the fear – he felt as Shirou Emiya descended into the pit like a vengeful angel of darkness come to deliver retribution in the name of a God that Zouken had stopped believing into more than half a millennia ago.
Where had the Magus Killer found this boy ?! Inhuman bloodlines weren't unheard of in Japan, but he had never heard of any with such an aspect when invoked. Beyond the physical alterations of Emiya, the boy was radiating prana in such quantity his circuits should have been turned to ash, along with his entire body.
He could feel the pain of the worms that were closest to the boy, and even his control over them wasn't enough to keep them from instinctively fleeing from him in abject panic. Whatever Emiya had become was something anathema to his Magecraft, and seeing that his mysteries were the only thing anchoring him to the world of the living, this made Zouken very nervous indeed.
And that sword … what the hell was that sword ?! Zouken was no stranger to weapons. He had witnessed every Grail War, seen the weapons used by Servants from all eras of Humanity. That sword superficially resembled many of those, but he could tell it was something different altogether, and not just because of its absurd size. He had sensed anything like what he sensed emanating from that blade – and come to think of it, where the hell had it come from too ?!
"Do you think this change anything, Emiya !?" he shouted – raising his voice for the first time in decades. "No matter how freakish you turn yourself, I am beyond your power to kill, and I hold Sakura's life in my hand ! Maybe I can't kill you, but you will submit, or Sakura will suffer !"
The teenager cocked his head to the side, seemingly considering Zouken's words. Then his attention focused completely on Sakura.
"Sakura. Do you trust me ?"
The girl nodded. Tears ran across her face, and yet she looked upon the creature that the boy she loved had become without fear. Foolishness, but Zouken supposed that after all she had been through, even such a sight could hardly faze her.
"Then close your eyes … and hold still."
Zouken felt his last living descendant stop struggling against his grip. Then, faster than he could see through the hundreds of eyes with which he was watching the scene, the Emiya boy moved.
Suddenly he was in front of him, towering over Zouken and Sakura both. Zouken opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to say – and then Shirou rammed his sword through Sakura's chest. The blade erupted from her back and kept going, impaling Zouken's false body as well.
There was a flash of searing light, and Zouken's perception was filled with agony the likes of which he had never experienced. He sensed the worms implanted within Sakura's flesh cry out as they were obliterated, and barely managed to draw his soul away from the familiar curling next to the girl's heart before it too vanished.
In shock, Zouken relaxed his grip on Sakura. Like a puppet with its strings cut, the girl fell forward, somehow sliding through the sword that had skewered her and falling into Shirou's extended left arm. Her naked body showed no wounds, no damage whatsoever.
The same could not be said of Zouken himself. Since he had abandoned his original body for the fake ones constructed by his familiars, the ancient magus had never felt so much pain. Even the slow, constant agony of feeling his current incarnation rot and fall apart was nothing compared to the blazing inferno that emanated from the weapon impaling him. He tried to abandon that body, to flee through his connection to the rest of his familiars' swarm, only to find that his awareness was held in place by whatever Magecraft the blade was imbued with.
"How ?" he gasped, black liquid flowing from his mouth as he spoke.
"This blade was meant to kill monsters," replied the thing that had invaded his home. "And despite all that you did to her, Sakura never gave in into your darkness."
"What … are you ?"
"Her friend."
"Her friend ? Is that it ?! Is that the only reason why a creature such as you would do such a thing ?!"
"Yes. What other reason could I need ?" answered Shirou, before setting Zouken's soul ablaze.
Zouken screamed through ten thousand mouths as he died. The Matou Workshop was filled with the discordant sound of countless insects screeching as they burned from the inside, the Magic Circuits within them igniting as the wrath of Shirou Emiya circulated through the very links that had kept the abominations alive. Outside the Matou household, the familiars Zouken had scattered across Fuyuki as spies and backups also screeched, but the sound was much lesser, picked up only by cats and dogs – who in turn suddenly began to cry out, filling the night with panicked howls and distressed meows.
Zouken burned, feeling every part of his ancient, rotting soul being consumed. Centuries of memories turned to ash and less than ash. Such was the pain of this most total of annihilation, he did not have any last thoughts, any final moment of realization – only torment, and then the void.
And so it was that Zolgen Makiri, one of the three Magi who had helped build the mechanism of the Holy Grail War in centuries past, died after clinging to life for far too long. Alone, despised by all who knew of his ongoing existence, with his bloodline extinct and the last heir of his Magecraft purified of all that he had done to her.
Still holding Sakura close to him, Shirou fell on the mass of dried-up insect corpses, trying not to hurl at the feel and stench of them.
He had no idea what had just happened. His brain had felt – still felt – like it was on fire, and everything he had done was clear in his memory. But he could remember neither how or why he had done it. It had felt as if he suddenly knew what to do, but that knowledge had vanished along with the transformation. Third-rate magus as he was, Shirou still knew that this was a very bad sign.
Possible explanations flashed in his mind, but he was simply too ignorant to know whether any of them were plausible. Inhuman ancestry somewhere in his blood family tree, a curse leftover from the Grail Fire, an enemy of Zouken using him as a puppet without his knowledge … There was no way to know. But that was not to say that the experience, whatever it had been, had left him completely in the dark.
He understood now. He wasn't a hero. Not just because it had taken him so long to find out what had happened to Sakura – that just meant he was a poor hero.
But no hero would have risked Sakura's life like this. A hero would have found an other way to save her, without stabbing her and relying on an unknown weapon's properties to leave her unharmed. A hero would have saved his friend without Shinji dying, maybe even without Zouken dying. At the very least, a hero would regret their deaths, would have hesitated to let his friend die.
But … he didn't. His friendship with Shinji had turned to dust the moment he had learned that the boy had taken part in Sakura's torture, and try as he might, he could find no possible justification for letting a monster like Zouken live. He would do it all again to save Sakura, and he knew that this wasn't what a hero would do. A hero was supposed to save everyone, not kill those who stood against him to save only those who were precious to him.
Most of all, though, a hero wouldn't call upon unknown and dark powers to annihilate his foe.
And yet, again, Shirou did not regret what he had done. He had chosen to come to the Matou estate, and would bear the consequences of that choice – whatever they might be.
He looked at Sakura as she stirred in his arms, and her face reminded him of why he had chosen as he had.
"Senpai ?" she whispered, her eyes half-opened.
"I am here, Sakura," he replied, cupping her face in his free hand to keep her looking straight at him. She didn't need to see what had happened in the room. "Don't worry. It's safe now. Everything is going to be okay."
"The worms …" she spaced out, as if trying to make sense of something she couldn't comprehend. "… they don't hurt anymore ..."
He felt his heart break all over again. Of course the parasites had hurt her. She had been hurting the entire time he had known her, and he had never noticed.
"They are gone. I … removed them. You will never go through something like that again."
"But … Grandfather ..."
"I removed him too. Rest, Sakura. I am bringing you home."
"H-home … ?"
"Yes. You are safe now. I promise."
She smiled, and though it was different, the smile reminded Shirou of Kiritsugu's, when he had first seen the man amidst the ruins and ashes. It was so … relieved. So … happy.
He knew he was smiling too, seeing his reflection in Sakura's eyes before they closed, and she fell back into exhausted unconsciousness. He checked her pulse, finding it slow but regular. Picking her up, he slowly made his way out of the pit, climbing up the steps Sakura had walked down countless times before as she descended into her personal Hell. He passed by Shinji's corpse, laying where it had fallen. The blue-haired teenager's eyes were wide open, his face contorted into an expression of agony reflecting his last moments.
For several seconds, Shirou looked at the body of his former friend, trying to process how he was supposed to feel. It wasn't difficult to imagine Shinji's story. Born without Magic Circuits to a magus bloodline, he must have always resented Sakura for being chosen as the heir over him. Such insecurities would have made him easy prey for Zouken's manipulations.
He didn't hate Shinji, not like he had hated Zouken in the final moments of their confrontation. He … pitied the boy. He mourned the death of who he could have been.
But he still did not regret that he had died, not if his death had earned Sakura's salvation. Perhaps that was another sign that he wasn't a hero.
At the archway, Shirou looked back at the mass of dried-up insects corpses. Simply leaving them here felt wrong, and dangerous. He took a canister from his belt, turned the dial on it all the way and poured some prana into it. Then, as he carried Sakura past the archway and up the stairs, he tossed the delayed, Reinforced incendiary grenade into the pit.
Two minutes later, the incendiary activated, and Shirou sped up his climb to avoid subjecting Sakura to the fumes rising from the 'Workshop'.
On his way out, Shirou tore a curtain and wrapped it around Sakura's naked body, Reinforcing the fabric so that it would keep her from freezing. He didn't know where her room was, and didn't want to risk exploring the mansion, even with its monsters dead. The curtain would do for now. There were clothes at his home that she could use, leftover from when Fuji-nee had slept over, and they could see about procuring more later.
Shirou wasn't sure when he had decided that Sakura would live with him after this. Truth be told, he hadn't had much of a plan when coming to the Matou residence beyond "save Sakura". But he had just caused the death of her entire direct family … so he had to take care of her. She was his responsibility now.
And he would keep his promise to her. He would keep her safe.
Carrying Sakura through the streets was easy at first. It was late enough that there were almost no people out, and eluding those who were there wasn't difficult, even while carrying the young girl on his back. Thanks to his training, her weight barely registered, even when he let go of his Reinforcement spell and relied purely on physical strength.
He was halfway to his home, near the undefined border when the Western-styled houses were replaced by the more Japanese-styled ones, when he heard the sirens. Turning back, he blinked as he saw the smoke rising from whence he had come. With his enhanced vision, he could see that it was coming from the Matou household.
Had he reinforced the incendiary too much ? No, even if he had, the fire it started wouldn't have been able to spread up the concrete stairs without anything to burn on the way.
Maybe ... the web of Zouken's abominable existence had spread across all the insects on the property and beyond. The Bounded Fields that surrounded the estate had drawn upon the pit for energy. Maybe, when he had destroyed Zouken, he had also broken the Bounded Fields, triggering some sort of last-ditch defense to keep the secrets of the Matou bloodline from falling into the hands of their attackers ? Given what Kiritsugu had told him of Magus mentality, it made sense that would be the case.
Well, there was nothing he could do about it. He had hoped that he would have a bit of time to cover his tracks before his actions of the night were revealed, but it looked like he would have to move quickly.
For now, though, getting Sakura to safety was the top priority. And with the firemen – and no doubt the police – on their way, he had to be even more careful and fast. Despite the overtaxing of his Circuits, he forced them open once again, ignoring the pain and Reinforcing his legs to move quicker. Miyama Town wasn't the area of Fuyuki he was the most familiar with – there had never been any operation that had required the Fujimura Clan to ask for his help – but he had still taken the time to memorize its layout. Running in the side-streets between houses, it took him less than half an hour to make it back to his home.
The meagre Bounded Field that surrounded the Emiya residence was nothing compared to those that had protected the Matou estate. Shirou was aware that his training in that subject was simply pathetic : it was all he could do to maintain the field Kiritsugu had set up before the Fourth War and the crippling of his Circuits. And the Magus Killer had been much more focused on how to subvert Bounded Fields than on how to use them himself. This one kept loud noises inside, subtly influenced unwanted people from trying to force their way in, and – most importantly, where Kiritsugu had been concerned – it warned the magus it was attuned to whenever an active prana source entered it. Only active ones, unfortunately – it might have alerted Shirou to Sakura's predicament soon otherwise.
Maybe Sakura knows how to build a better one, idly thought Shirou as he carried Sakura inside.
There were plenty of spare rooms in the Emiya household, all of which Shirou kept clean. It had been a challenge in the first years – even before Kiritsugu had died, the old man hadn't exactly been adept at housework, though he had somehow still managed to be better than Fuji-nee. Lately, Sakura had started to help him … and now he felt horrible for trying to convince her that she shouldn't waste her week-ends helping him, when it was obvious in hindsight that she had been trying to get as much time away from Zouken as possible.
He would make it up to her. For now, that meant getting her to a comfortable bed in one of the Western-styled bedrooms. Gently, he laid her down on the bed, removing the curtain he had wrapped around her and replacing it with a spare bathrobe – not the best sleepwear, but still better than the piece of fabric. He drew the covers over her sleeping form, careful not to disturb her.
Once done, Shirou looked at Sakura again, flashing his eyes to Grasp her entire body. Somehow, he felt that they were way past the point of him bothering with respecting her privacy. All the worms were gone, but the marks of their teeth on her muscles and organs were still there. Thankfully, whatever had destroyed the familiars had done so in a manner that had sealed the puncture wounds and prevented Sakura from bleeding internally to death.
Maybe modern medicine could help. As disgusting as it was, maybe there existed some natural parasites similar enough to the worm familiars that a treatment existed that could be adapted. The natural world was full of as many horrors as it was wonders, after all. But how could he explain the disappearance of the "parasites" without any trace of what should have been a very extensive surgical operation ? No, he couldn't go to the hospital for this.
Wait … Didn't he have something that could heal injuries, no matter how deep or extensive ?
If Shirou had been in his normal state of mind, he would never have attempted something like this without extensive preparations, especially with how exhausted he already was. But in his half-delirium, and with the guilt of having let Sakura suffer alone for so long weighing on him, he didn't pause to consider the dangers.
He held up a hand and, with one last push of his Magic Circuits, summoned the object which had healed his wounds nine years ago, the holy relic which dwelled within him.
Avalon, the scabbard of King Arthur, appeared in his palm, shining faintly in the moonlight seeping in from the window. It was the first time Shirou saw it clearly, and it was as beautiful in physical form as the light he remembered from when Kiritsugu had put it inside him.
It wasn't the true scabbard, but a Traced copy, and had Shirou been more awake he would have realized how incredible a Magecraft feat Tracing a Noble Phantasm was. Especially one like Avalon, forged not by human hands but by the mysterious Fae, of which the only thing Shirou knew was that they were almost entirely alien to Humanity, both in their mentality and their approach to Magecraft.
But instead, he simply focused on the replica in his hand. With the insight granted to him by Tracing it, he now understood how his father had been able to implant it within him. And so, it was the easiest thing in the world to dissolve the Traced Avalon into golden motes and direct them down into Sakura's body.
A quick scan of her body revealed that her od was already reacting to the foreign object. Even in her exhausted state, Sakura's prana reserves were massive, and the Noble Phantasm was drawing upon them as it began to repair her body. Shirou doubted the Traced artefact would last long enough to undo all the accumulated damage Sakura had suffered, but it was better than nothing.
A wave of relief and exhaustion struck him, and he sat next to Sakura's bed. Within seconds, he had fallen asleep, his head resting on the bed, still holding Sakura's hand.
AN : And so Shinji and Zouken die, to the mournful cries of ... absolutely no one, I would wager. Can you tell that I wrote this after watching the Heaven's Feel movies ? Yeah, I wasn't feeling particularly charitable to either of the Matou males. If any of you are concerned that I am removing one of FSN's main villains so early, don't worry - if there is one area in which I am confident as a writer, it's creating terrifying villains. There will be plenty of adversity for our heroes to face later on in the story.
By that point, I expect most of you will have caught up to the hints of Shirou's condition, especially if you have read the Roboutian Heresy. That's fine - I am planning this story so that that knowledge doesn't detract from enjoying it. Of course, I may very well mess things up ... We shall see.
One more chapter before we reach the end of what's currently written.
Zahariel out.