Chapter 44: Illya in Another World

Traversing through another's memory...

"I don't want to die...," was a man's voice I couldn't match to a face.

"...please save me...," was yet again a stranger's voice.

"...my daughter please..." was yet another.

"..it hurts...it hurts... please..." was yet another.

"...help..." and another.

"Someone save...," another.

"It's...not fair...," another.

"Why? Why?" another.

Another.

Another.

So many that my mind couldn't even process them properly anymore. I don't know where I am, but there was something warm trying to reassure me; a warm hand?

"I don't want to die...please save us...the shadows...my son...please god...spare my son...bring my parents back...it hurts...it hurts...it hurts...," were a thousand of screams that assault my head.

My head hurts, but my body doesn't react. I didn't know what was going on. The voices fade only to be replaced by more and more. These were the death cries of people I didn't know. The screams of people I couldn't see, but I could hear them. I could hear their desire to live; their wish to be saved.

"...shadows...begone!"

Then there was silence.

The light was harsh and I couldn't see a thing, but when it came to, I couldn't comprehend at all what I was looking at. There was the smell of smoke. What was this place? Eyes adjust. In front of me was a crater that stretched all the way to the horizon where the setting sun bathed the world in its glowing warmth. Was this really Fuyuki? Around me were the ruins of a house or maybe even a shrine, but it wasn't the Emiya residence I remembered even if the style was similar. In the corner of the eye, I could spy a forest of bamboo. Where was this? The boundary between outside and inside was collapsing. Move you idiot! Don't you understand you're going to die? The body does not respond.

"Don't fall just yet," was a foreign thought that pierced my head.

The trembling roof becomes static as if answering someone's command. My body is jolted and I was pressed against something warm. In the corner of my vision was red hair. Shirou?

"The journey has ended, Shirou. I will use this child and in this land of Fuyuki, humanity will be saved."

Awaking from a jolt...

When I open my eyes, I'm back at the Emiya manor and everything was fine. Everything was fine. Everything was fine. Behind the pillar was someone who was terrible at hiding. Shirou? He eventually reveals himself. He's certainly worse at hiding than Kiritsugu. Was this really him? He was a lot younger than the Shirou I knew of, but that was because...

"Um, Miyu is your name, right?"

No, my name is...that's right...this is her memory...did I really let myself be swept away? This girl has no mental defences. I'm looking through her memories through her eyes. It's fortunate that Rin can't hold this against me. I try to process my situation, but my thoughts are broken by an awkward voice.

"I-I'm Emiya Shirou. Pleased to meet you," was an awkward introduction befitting of the Shirou I have come to know.

"Emiya...Shirou," this body parrots.

"Right, that's my name."

"Emiya..Shirou," the body says like a broken record. How old was she supposed to be?

"Shirou's just fine," he insists.

"Shirou."

"Right, since we'll be living together now, were... like a family," he says as if he's second guessing himself.

"Like a family."

"That's right and that other person who locked himself inside is Emiya Kiritsugu. He's my benefactor, mentor and an Ally of Justice," as the boy explains the current situation.

"Benefactor...an Ally of Justice?"

"Yeah. I lost my parents due to an accident when I was small. And Kiritsugu saved me back then. You see, Kiritsugu is a weird person. He has an ideal to bring eternal peace to this pain and suffering filled world. So, my benefactor is an Ally of Justice. Ah, I guess what I'm saying doesn't make any sense to you. Hehe," as he awkwardly laughs it off.

This body doesn't understand a thing, but I knew there was something he was holding back.

"Oh, it's about time I made the food. Is there something you want to eat in particular?" he asks.

"Not really."

"Then, is there anything you hate?"

"No."

"Okay, sit tight and wait for me."

I wanted to call him back, but this was only a memory. The course of events was absolute.

"...nothing more than the means to save everything."

The days pass...

The days pass and it was so very boring, though I guess ball games are pretty fun. Learning to cook is pretty nice too. Cleaning the balcony was...get a hold of yourself, you're an Einzbern princess! My mind was certainly getting confused, but it wasn't being subsumed. I didn't know the reason. Was it the innate resonance of our souls? Installing a Heroic Spirit was something I learned from watching her by instinct. I assumed it was a simple application of my "wish craft", no stop thinking.

I had a cleaning rag in my ...her hands.

Enough of this nonsense I tell myself. I couldn't be swept away by this comfy humdrum life! I need to take control and take charge. I haven't learned anything new about Miyu or Shirou at all! Stuck in this tiny place for weeks on end...at least the Einzbern Castle back home was huge! Even if snow surrounded the place, there was plenty of room to run around.

Legs were itching.

I drop the cleaning rag and make myself as quiet as possible. Shirou was cleaning another part of the house right now, so it was the perfect time to explore this place, but there wasn't anything out of the ordinary. This place is almost exactly like the one in the real world. There was nothing for me to see here. I tip toe across the hallway and I could make out some nasty scent; cigarettes.

The body was screaming for fresh air.

I make my way to the door and it was then I hear a chime. A bounded field went off. If this was the real world, then I wouldn't have let this slip by, but this was only a memory and it cannot be strayed from. My thoughts did not matter as I was only a passenger along for the ride. At least this body wasn't covered in bandages or bleeding from those grafting surgeries, so it has nothing to complain about.

There was the gate.

How did the air over there taste? Was it different from the air I have tasted up until now? I wanted to run and the body responds with vigour. Strength wells up and this body practically flies. So this was what a healthy body was like?

"Time Alter: Double Accel."

The body is jolted violently and my mind almost passes out.

"Ha?"

My feet don't touch the ground and something was constricting the neck. The body couldn't breathe...

"Kiritsugu! She can't breathe!" was Shirou's voice from the distance.

I'm dropped onto the ground and my back is smacked hard. The contents of my lungs rush outward.

*cough* *cough*

Oxygen enters my lungs once again, but I wasn't the only one having breathing problems as I hear the grunts of a fully grown man that expelled cigarette smoke.

*cough* *cough*

I turn my head to the source of the smell, but before I could make out his face, something grabs onto the wrist as the eyes shut tight by Miyu's instinct. Two rough fingers are pressed against the neck to check the pulse; cold to the touch. As I open my eyes, I'm met with the face of an absolute stranger. He was unshaven with stubble and sported crazed eyes. I remember that spiky hair and I remember the bags under those eyes, but the strong smell of cigarette smoke from his breath was something I didn't know of. Those scary eyes settle down, but this man wasn't my father, yet he was still Kiritsugu. A Kiritsugu I didn't know. The Kiritsugu I vowed to kill for betraying me. I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to look at him. I try to turn my head away, but he pays no heed to the distress he was putting his daughter through.

"Vitals...normal..," was a voice far colder than the papa I remember.

His expression relaxes as if relieved, but still tense. He retracts his fingers, but he doesn't let go of my wrist. It hurts. My face winces and his grip quickly relaxes as he processes what he had done. He rubs the bruise trying to calm me down. He didn't want to hurt me, but I could tell that it wasn't something out of fatherly instinct. After concluding that I was fine and that I won't run away, he produces a cigarette from his sleeves and lights it right in front of me. Familiar eyes produce a seething glare, but he hides it away as he understands how ugly he must have looked. He opens his mouth, but his voice wasn't directed at me.

"Listen carefully Shirou. This is a strict order. Do not bring Miyu outside. Do not let anyone notice her. If you do not do what I say, getting discovered will be inevitable. People like us who want to steal that miracle..."

Tainted the memories my heart still treasured despite everything that happened.

Stop. Stop. Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Despite everything grandfather had said. Despite everything I suspected. Despite everything Kiritsugu betrayed and all the oaths he had broken, my heart wasn't ready. The papa in my memories should have loved something even if that something wasn't me. I could accept being abandoned for someone else, but I couldn't accept being abandoned for nothing. If my father loved nothing, then he has betrayed nothing and thus all my feelings up until now are nothing. If this was true, then Miyu has stolen nothing, because I was given nothing from the start.

No.

Stop. Stop. Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop thinking, stop thinking, but the body doesn't understand and I'm forced to look. Shirou rushes towards me and tries to reassure me, but I had no control over the body. A Kiritsugu like this, a papa like this, a childhood like this, a lie like this, I don't want to know anything about it! Disappear. Disappear. Disappear. Disappear. Disappear. Disappear! Just Disappear!

"Have you ever regretted being born?"

Emiya Kiritsugu passes away.

He disappeared from this life just like that. Shirou had plenty of tears even if he hid it well, but this body had none. Kiritsugu only ever really talked to Shirou. If there was something to cry about, then it was nothing more than a reaction to Shirou's distress. I was born knowing my mother's fate and I prepared myself for her passing, but the Miyu in this moment in time didn't even have a concept of despair. Homunculi do not require an education as they are born knowing everything required fulfill their function, but Miyu wasn't like that. She knew nothing, had nothing and if it was up to Kiritsugu, she would have stayed that way. She was deprived of any sort of education that human children are supposed to receive and Shirou made no real attempts to address it.

This wasn't "normal". This wasn't "ordinary". This wasn't making any sense which was saying something considering what I am.

The months pass by uneventfully as I experience life caged in her body, caged in this "house" and she makes no attempt to escape it. While Shirou was at school where naughty children go, Miyu stayed inside alone with no one to visit her. If there was one thing she had in common with an actual child, it was endless curiosity and Shirou wasn't too protective of his school books.

One day, Shirou catches her with his school books, but he doesn't scold her. He simply brings her more books, but not much else. Besides the basics of speech, Miyu learned everything she knew on her own without anyone else. This Shirou couldn't really be considered a brother, but at least this Emiya Shirou was getting closer to the one I know who was more like a mother.

This girl's world was simply this house, books, Emiya Shirou and nothing more.

No grandfather, no maids, no servants, no castle, no Einzbern forest, no Mercedes-Benz 300SL and I couldn't believe that I was actually missing those things. At the very least this place wasn't perpetually snowing, but even I knew that snow in August wasn't supposed to be a thing in Kiritsugu's home country, but he was a liar through and through.

These memories had to be a lie.

A small girl would stay at home as the good girl she is and stare at pictures of the ocean in her textbooks waiting for her family. To her, the world was a wondrous place, but it was a place she could never reach, but never questioned why. The world the books described was hardly doing well with shifting poles, mass extinction, irregular floods, irregular droughts, famine and wars. Even so, such a world never stopped being wondrous place to her. Books were one of those few luxuries of the outside world that were afforded to her. She tried to desperately imagine the expanse of the endless sea, while the country she lived in was situated on an island.

I remembered myself doing the same once upon a time.

She trusted Shirou or rather he was her only source of information besides the books he picked out for her. This body takes everything Shirou says to heart believing they are for her own sake. Benefactor...an Ally of Justice? Still something else was itching at the back of my mind. These memories completely contradicted the Emiya family photo albums I had pilfered in the real world. The overly energetic brunette that clung to Kiritsugu in the family photos was nowhere in sight. Where was Sakura in all this?

The years pass by.

Night descends in the memory world once more and I find myself on the veranda.

"Thanks for the hard work, Shirou."

"You're still up?" Shirou asks.

"Yup. I'm looking at constellations."

"Constellations? I didn't know you were into something this delicate and romantic," were Shirou's words that would have sounded awfully suspicious to anyone else if they were around.

It was only natural for her to love looking at the sky, because the sky was the only piece of the outside world that was afforded to her. There were birds that come and go, the only visitors to this place; a cage called home. At the very least, the girl knew that the night sky she saw was the same sky for everyone else. Some called "space" the final frontier and for ninety nine point nine nine nine nine nine nine...nine...percent of the world, everyone was subject to the same cage called Earth.

"The movement of constellations and stars should have no meaning beyond physics. That's why I want to know the reason why books like these use pictures to give special meaning to the arrangement of stars. "

This girl was never taught common sense because Shirou wasn't much of a teacher.

"Did I let you read too many books?"

"Hm?"

"The old man used to love to look at the stars from that very spot," Shirou had to say as if that man was ever a proper father to anyone.

"Kiritsugu? Why?"

"I wonder...maybe he was making a wish to the stars?" Shirou elaborates.

"Don't tell me, the arrangement of stars have magical effects?" Miyu says with genuine surprise.

Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her.

"Er..I don't think so. It's probably something like an aria. To direct our small wishes upon the stars," Shirou tries to explain, but his explanation was awful.

"Not towards the moon?"

"Nope, not the moon," he says.

The girl looks towards the sky and the stars. She lived in a narrow world, but there was nothing for her to wish for because she had everything she needed. No, that wasn't right. People from the moment they are born, continue to wish for something. Most of those wishes never come true, but this girl had the ability to grant them. Of all the wishes she could have come true; the only thing she wishes for in this moment was simply this:

"If I could fulfill just one wish...then I want Shirou and I to be true brother and sister."

That was all.

"Such a thing, could never happen right?"

She was completely ignorant of her power.

"No, how could it not happen?" her brother scolds her with glistening eyes.

Half her wish had already come true.

Morning comes again...

"I'm planning to take you outside," was the bomb Shirou drops.

"Out..side?"

"I know it may be hard to take that in right now, since your world has been confined to our home, but now I want to...," were his words that are naturally drowned out.

"If we're going out, I want to see the ocean!" was bottled up energy that couldn't be contained.

Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her.

"Haha, you got it. The ocean's not too far from here. We could even walk," he admits.

"We can?"

"You gotta earn it by studying though. How about we start with traffic laws...wait, maybe ethics?"

"I'll learn it all right away. You can count on it, Sh...no...Onii-chan!"

He doesn't deserve to be called that just yet.

The promised day...

She had prepared herself for this day. She stares into the mirror and makes sure that her outfit is perfect. A hat hid her hair and a scarf covered her neck. She stares into the eyes reflected in the mirror that were now just like her brother's instead of red with a stupid grin. A switch had flipped within me. So cute! Mama wouldn't approve though. Stop thinking. Stop thinking.

She runs to the front of the gate where her brother was waiting.

"It's finally time. Are you scared?" he asks of her.

"Scared? Why would I be? You're right here with me Onii-chan. So what in the world do I have to be afraid of?"

Everything.

Instead of the ocean or any other place a girl would like to visit, he takes her to this place instead where a crater hogged the horizon. I remember this place; a ruined shrine. This was the site of Miyu's earliest coherent memory. Staring up at her were small towers of stone and there was no ambiguity for what these were supposed to be.

"What are these?"

"They're you're real family's graves. Do you remember? This is where you and I first met. It's also the place you were born," her brother says without tact.

Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. Don't pity her. If you do...

"My home? My mother's...everyone's graves?"

"Kiritsugu and I buried them all...we couldn't save anyone besides you."

Save?

"It's strange...No matter how hard I try, I just can't seem to remember much of anything, but I can still recall the warmth of my mother's hand. I was alone, but then you and Kiritsugu came and rescued me."

"No, Miyu. At the time, Kiritsugu and I didn't really save you. "

"Eh?"

She doesn't understand. She doesn't understand. If she was lucky, she would never need to understand, so why did you take her to this place? She's your little sister! That was the only "truth" this body knew, the "truth" that was enough to move her to tears, but it was all a lie.

Don't pity her. Don't pity her.

"Why we came to this place and why we later took you in wasn't for your sake," he admits right in front of her family's graves.

My mind had already produced the most logical and heinous explanation.

"Onii-chan...what are you saying?"

He doesn't deserve to be called such thing...

"It was because we wanted to...use you as a tool to invoke a miracle."

"To invoke a miracle...a tool..?"

I didn't know if it was the body I was inhabiting or me that wanted to scream, but couldn't. She doesn't understand. I didn't want to understand. She doesn't understand anything her brother was saying, but how could she? Everything she knows is from him and he has been lying all this time. She was just... No, this truth may be far worse. Einzbern women are born knowing what they are and their ultimate fate, but my little sister had nothing of the sort. Despite this, she was still a Holy Grail capable of granting wishes, but her only wish only half came true.

A Holy Grail.

The Magus Killer simply stumbles upon a Holy Grail within the hour of the deaths of her parents? No, Shirou wasn't telling her the whole story. How could he if she was making such a face with broken tear ducts? What was he going to say? That her "father" killed her family in order to abduct and groom her?

"But Miyu, now I just..," as Shirou tries desperately to figure out a way to sugar coat what had happened 5 years ago? The dates weren't matching. The dates weren't matching at all. Were these memories I was surfing through fake? I remember the smiles they shared; it would be too cruel if they were.

"That's boring. That's the most boring development ever...," was a voice I have never heard before.

I turn around to see a complete stranger in glasses even if his clothes were familiar. Shirou's school uniform? He must have been Shirou's classmate. He takes off his glasses and crushes them because he doesn't need them. Clinging to his ankle was a little blonde doll that was too "perfect" to be human. Was she a homunculus?

"So you were the one, Emiya Shirou!"

A sense of familiarity?

"Julian? Why are you.."

First name basis? Friends?

"That's the one without a doubt, Erica?" the new face says without emotion.

"Yup. Most of the characteristics are probably gone, but the container is intact," the small blonde girl says.

"I've always monitored the area. If someone intentionally enters...they either must be from the Sakatsuki family or a thief!" was the accusation this "Julian" makes.

"What are you...," as Shirou tries to rationalize his own uncomfortable revelations.

"Five years ago...the attack that swallowed the town...the pillar of light that removed it was activated from this very place. I've been searching for it for so long, for the miracle of this world and the thief who stole it," he spits out.

Instead of producing Noble Phantasms from thin air like I have come to expect of him, Shirou simply takes out a tape measure to measure up to his enemy. He is all that stands between the juvenile alchemist and the grail.

"Run, Miyu," was the order he gives, but this body's world up until now was simply the house, books and Shirou.

"Run? Where?"

In the approaching enemy's eyes, Shirou was nothing. With a casual gait, with his bare hand he grabs onto Shirou's makeshift weapon.

"What is that? Reinforcement? Pathetic. Are you going to kill me with something like that?"

Red blood drips from the reinforced tape. Shirou had drawn blood from his enemy, but it was Shirou who was distraught.

"Julian your hand!"

But his enemy does not listen. I myself wouldn't.

"Fall," was his enemy's order.

The ground beneath Shirou shifts and he finds himself in the sky, freefalling. Was this displacement? He lands with a nasty crunch.

"Gah."

This body may not be able to tell, but I knew Shirou wouldn't be killed by something like that. The enemy was only toying with him or more likely didn't want to kill. If he adjusted the y-coordinates of that spatial displacement just a tad higher and Shirou would have certainly fell to his death. Was this mercy? That mattered little, because his eyes were always trained on the grail as he approaches me. I should have the ability to defend myself, but my little sister wasn't me. This body can only do what she could do back then, which wasn't much of anything. A memory was a memory and nothing more. There was no reason for me to care about what has already transpired and yet the heart of this false body aches. Shirou was taken out so easily, so this body's chances were zero and the alchemist boy makes that clear. He isn't real. He isn't real. He isn't real.

"Sakatsuki Miyu. From now on, you are something that belongs to me."

My vision is enveloped by a bloodied hand and the world blacks out.

"The very rules of the world are being rewritten. The exact cause is unknown. It's likely to be something unknown to humans, but it's undeniable that the planet's mana has begun withering away. Plant life has declined; the animals that feed on them have died off in large numbers. Humans are of no exception. This world's end is near, but humanity is something you can save."

I open my eyes and realize I had no control of the body...

It's a large circuit. Multi-layered crests carved onto bare rock over 50 meters in radius. Grand circuits covered the area in many layers arranged in elegant shapes, but they differed from the ones I knew of. This had to be the cavern where the Greater Grail sits, but there was no Greater Grail because at the center of it all was me? The specifics don't matter. I already knew the purpose of this place and none of it made any sense. The dates and events did not match the ones I knew, but there was no point in fabricating such elaborate memories. I could escape this world at any point I wanted to and yet my heart clung to this place.

Even if this world sprouted from dubious memories, I wanted to see it to the end.

The false body I inhabited had already given up hope. If anything else, even if these memories were fabricated, the despair this body feels is real. This heartache, this despair of knowing that one's family was something fake all along. I knew the feeling all too well. This isn't something that can be so easily fabricated without drawing from a genuine source.

I was alone in this place on top of the altar.

This was the fate I had prepared for as the Lesser Grail Vessel. This was the fate I was bestowed by being born into the Einzbern family. This was supposed to be an honour, so why was this body holding back the tears? The only person she had in this world wasn't here. He was probably dead if he didn't have the sense to run far away. There was no reason why he had to involve himself in something so troublesome. There was no reason why he should appear right now.

But he does.

He stands victorious over the Holy Grail. He has cuts all over his body and he had no one to mend them. He was tired, hungry and hurting, but he forces himself onto the stage. It looked like he could collapse at any moment, but he stands. His face was sunken and his eyes were weary, but he forces out a smile.

Miyu doesn't understand, but I did.

"Why did you come? Back then, you said it yourself...that the reason you and Kiritsugu took me in was to use my power...that I am just a tool...So then why...did you come here..." as the body asks stupid questions.

"I'll continue tell you what I really wanted you to know, but couldn't," his voice pleading for someone else to live.

In his hands were the Seven Class Cards. With just his self, he had staked his life and his body and won the Holy Grail War. That's what it meant to stand here on the altar. There were surely things he had lost and things he had to cut away himself. He had cut down at least six others to get here. His body was a wreck and he looked absolutely miserable, but he was smiling nonetheless. Not even death could steal way his smile at this moment because he had fulfilled his duty. Was he going to fulfill Kiritsugu's wish? Was he going to save the world? No...

"It goes without saying...I'm your older brother. So I have to protect my little sister, don't I?"

He was merely fulfilling his half of the wish a certain girl had made to the stars.

That was all.

"It's been one mistake after another with me, so this might be one too," he says with genuine care.

There was no reason for this body to be crying at this moment, but people don't just cry when they are upset.

"But, for this alone is true...I wish upon the Holy Grail...I pray you find a world where you won't have to suffer any longer. I pray that you meet kind people. I pray that you find friends you can laugh with. I pray you find… a second chance….a warm, small…share of happiness….," was his real wish.

People can cry out of happiness too and I could not tell if my tears were hers or mine.