Chapter 6: Wake Up
The night was eventful to say the least.
For one thing, the moment Kiritsugu greeted the boys at the entrance, his attention towards Sakura's arrival had... let's just call it an indecipherable reaction.
On the surface it appeared as a long distant stare when being introduced to the little girl, notably when the name Matou was brought up, but any further elaboration remained buried underneath the man cordial welcome.
Taiga welcomed the young girl with open arms while a couple of men from the Fujimura group accompanied her. While inadvertently, Sakura was made into a dress up doll by the teenager. It came as a surprise to the young girl when one of Taiga's men, who definitely looked like a scarred faced stereotype of a yakuza, did some fancy braids for her. In actuality, the guy had a soft spot for children and often came over to give the boys some gifts.
Nothing out of the ordinary happened that night. They had their dinner, hang around for a time until Taiga accompanied by her bodyguards escorted Sakura back home with a new dress and a package to what Hisashi would call a goodie bag filled with treats.
Much to everyone's delight, Sakura made regular visits on the weekends, and good old Fuji-nee made it her personal duty to pick her up and crash at the Emiya residence.
Aside from Hisashi being Sakura's playmate, she had also shown signs of interest in the housework that Shirou takes upon himself. With a little probing from the youngest boy and light suggestion from the oldest, cleaning and cooking was slowly being introduced to her.
But then at one point in time, when everyone was having lunch together, Sakura displayed hesitance to eat anything which naturally brought on everyone's concern.
She told them how she wasn't hungry and apparently snacked before arriving, but in there perspective it was like she was afraid of eating food.
They didn't know what was going on, with no clue as to what to do when she remained silent for what had happened to her. She even refused Hisashi's offering of candy much to his silent dejection.
So the trio of surrogate siblings had to brainstorm how to go about this problem, until the Tiger of Fuyuki had the bright idea of making strawberry smoothie for her under the pretext that it was a drink rather than a food.
Honestly, it was a very long shot attempt, but it was the only thing they could come up with currently so it was better than nothing.
They made the drink and decorated it with whip cream, cocoa powder, and sliced strawberries the best they could before presenting it to Sakura. It truly surprised her that they placed so much effort for her. They added how it would be easy on her stomach and was a perfect beverage for the sunny day, though they were still met with indecision.
As much as she vacillated at first, at least she didn't have the heart to outright reject it. They took the time to craft this, they thought about her favorite fruit to use in this drink, and most of all, they wanted to help her in any conceivable way possible.
In her fears, they came with gentle encouragement, one that regarded her as a cherished individual to them. Potently, She didn't want to waste their hard work because their effort is meaningful.
So, she finally took a sip. Her tongue met a delightfully smooth flavor. It brought a smile to their lips when she finally had something in her mouth to enjoy.
Afterwards, she apparently informed them that she had a stomachache earlier, but still, the fact she kept it to herself initially was odd to everyone, though it gave them relief that the yogurt might have helped with the indigestion. Eventually she was back to eating regularly as if nothing happened.
Days became months, the seasons changed from the temperate bloom of spring into the hot sun of summer. Times in viewing cherry blossoms to times of firework festivals for the memories of childhood. Then the chilly winds payed a visit, greenery shifted into a red or orange colouration providing the optimal period to harvest a seasonal bounty.
The days became cool and the nights grew colder. On one of these cold nights, the boys peacefully slept in their futon as moonlight seeped through their window provided by the half moon. While one had a dreamless sleep with only a faded vision of a blade, another dreamt of a world of azure once more.
O.O.O
A mirror like surface ripples in a presence, as if playing a welcoming song by reverberating the chiming melody of water drops.
"Ah~ I remember now~" He replied in recognition.
It's strange how memories function. Sometimes you can recall a simple trivia on an irrelevant passing, and other times the imageries of significant events can wither away, remaining as a sensation of profoundness.
Perhaps this time, he will remember.
"Wasn't there... someone else too?"
Blue eyes wandered the endless blue horizon. A voice that called out previously, but being reminiscent like a phantom unable to exist.
"Hello!" The boy attempted to announce himself, though his voice traveled far with the following ripples.
No reply, no other soul in the vicinity, it was to be expected. Disappointed to say the least, though perhaps he was being too hopeful, it was worth the shot.
Shaking off from the momentary sidetrack, his view took a full turn of his being and noticed a peculiarity in the location.
The overshadow of a large clouded body, and the reddish hue on the watery yet solid floor is closer than ever before. It appeared distorted, like heatwaves causing the orange horizon to become jagged waves.
Before he knew it, he took a step forward. A compulsion in moving ahead reached deeper into the red... but why was there a premonition of trepidation?
The farther he walk towards the vermilion colour, the hotter it became, like... walking into a fire.
O.O.O
"Huh?"
Hisashi suddenly found himself in a different place. The azure sky and reflective ground was replace by white.
A room to be exact. Four blank walls and an equally blank floor and ceiling surrounded him. Simply put, he was inside of a boxed room.
"Where... am I?"
Though it felt isolated, it wasn't empty.
To his right side is set with a metal framed bed in a similar design to that of hospital beds, and to his left against the white wall was a desk with complex books resting on the oak wood furniture. Other miscellaneous possessions such as toys, drawings utensils and children books littered all over the floor which held familiarity to him.
The most unusual aspect of the room is the lack of any doors in this small space, as if it was meant to completely isolate him.
He looked at the drawing that he picked up from the floor, discovering the style of art was his own, yet they depicted a lonely aspects within it's dimly coloured features.
Portrayals such as a small hand reaching to the stars, a lone figure conversing with it's own shadow, and another small figure sitting inside a box. The children books he skimmed told of either nursery rhymes with their grim endings or tales about fantasy and magic, but ending with sad or tragic conclusions. It all has a personal attribution to this room and the one who would reside here.
He had no memories of these artworks or stories, but feelings recognition pass through his heart in waves.
It gave him a forlorn sense of nostalgia. What was this room? Why was he here? But most of all... was this where he came from?
Along his contemplating, the eerie silence was disturbed when the room shook from its foundation.
The quake made everything jump, the desk fell over with a thunk and objects on the ground scrambles. Hisashi could hardly remain standing as he grabbed onto the bed's bar which is apparently bolted into floor.
A rise of panic started to invade him. "What's happening!?"
Fissures and cracks began to grow within the once pristine ceiling and walls. Continuing to grow like roots, the sound of stone or concrete grinding under whatever strain was pelted against the white barrier. A red light seeped through the expanding gaps.
In fear, he closed his eyes.
A consequence of change.
Next came an explosion.
The noise of a building crumbling and the crackling of flames followed, it all happened while the boy remained untouched by the presiding disaster.
His eyelids opened which caused an unreadable expression of shock.
The room, the possessions, everything. They all burned away in what could really be described as a nightmare.
"What... is this..."
Before his eyes was a devastated city. Torn down buildings turned a cinder, the night sky smothered in a black ashen clouds, an unbreathable atmosphere of soot and fire, but worst of all, the surrounding death surrounded by flames.
"Ow!" Hisashi jerked his hands away from the bars of the bed that started to melt.
What was going on?
If this is a nightmare, why could he feel pain?
His heart raced from these sudden turn of events, but he knew he couldn't stay in one place unless he wanted to get out of here.
He had to ran.
He didn't know where he was heading, but he had to move if he wanted to survive.
Weaving through the fiery path laid before him with grueling effort, showing the full view of the burning hell surrounding him.
Groans, screams, cries of pain pierced his ears, people were dying, they were suffering. All he could do was stride passed them, and it crushed his heart. The young, the elderly, families, people who had dreams and futures, their state was beyond saving. He wanted to reach out and pull them out of their torment, but the fire that swallowed them prevented actions of even getting close.
This fire, it did more than just burn the flesh upon contact, it burned through the soul. Latching onto the living with vengeful intent, hatred, malice, enacting a curse that wishes for death to whomever or whatever touches it.
He could feel it's unbridled fury.
He could mourn for them, but now, he needed to survive for the living can mourn for the dead, but he couldn't keep running for long from the burning of his own lungs.
It hurts.
He was scared, the pain was unbearable, but all he could do was move forward or be burned to ashes.
How did this happen?
He could only walk now. The fire licked him on occasion, as if taunting this boy to succumb to its crimson death.
This is a nightmare, or perhaps a reality, for pains originate from real events.
Moisture escaped his eyes only for the tears to evaporate from the extreme heat. His skin seared where spots of his clothes burned away.
What was this? Even for a nightmare, the vividness is far too crystal clear to be even normal, what could he have experienced to have go through thi-... no.
Before being adopted, before awakening in a hospital bed, he lost his memories. They told him how he and Shirou were rescued from a fire, one that took away many lives that day... the one he is walking in.
So... is this a memory?
Amidst his current pain of his feet burning in melting shoes, amongst the blackened rubble of concrete and corpses, a distance figure walked through the same flames. The short statue, that red hair being recognized even from this distance.
"Nii-chan!"
He sprinted, regardless of the suffering his lung are subjected to, regardless of his skin being torched by the hellfire, he had to get to the one he calls family.
"NII-CHAN!" He shouted as he closed the distance.
Shirou was within view, his golden eyes seemed lifeless, devoid of feeling or determination, just a living machine aimlessly walking in a straight line.
Heartbreaking as the image would have been, Hisashi remained determined to get to his brother not related by blood, but by the bond they shared in that house.
A little body protesting in pain and agony, resolve push into motion, a resolve to see this nightmare through to the end...
Yet, as if fate played the hand of tragedy, he tripped.
A melted rebar caught his pant leg which consequently thrown his momentum and balance into disarray, skidding across hot debris and burning him even further. He excruciatingly pulled himself up while fighting back the pain coming from his smoking hands. It didn't end their... for a broken wall fell over.
The crash blew around a cloud of embers and ash obscuring ones vision of the area, but sound was another matter.
"AHHH!"
The sensation of his right leg crushed underneath a ton of burning concrete sent savage pain throughout his entire body. The limb turn into charred meat, the blood leaking immediately bubbled and became crusted black.
"Gah!" The boy cried, and more over he was stuck.
Everything hurts.
Flames snaked up from his crippled leg, literally consuming it slowly, traveling up his body as if to prolong the suffering of immolation.
It's unbearable beyond words.
"Help.. me..." His voice became rasp by the scorching dryness of his insides.
His blue eyes dried of tears were blurry as he gazed at Shirou's withering figure.
"Nii... cha-" Hisashi's pleads died in his mouth and eyes dilated as he witnessed his brother's body fell into the fire.
NOOO!
His body is suffering, his heart shattered, he wanted to wake up.
it hurts.
He felt like he could not breath and was dying, something that a dream shouldn't be capable of let alone a nightmare, but the agony felt all too real.
It's unbearable.
"Please..."
No soul will hear his pleads.
"I don't... want to die."
A torture that came back to haunt.
"I... don't want..."
What caused more despair for the boy wasn't just death itself.
"to be... Alone."
But the realization of the forsaken loneliness that came with it.
He wanted to experience the world.
He craved connections.
He wanted to share a good dream.
But... was this the end?
Please... I don't want to be alone anymore.
...
"I'm sorry"
A timeless moment froze in that hell. The wrathful fires, the hellish scene of burning lives, the vermilion red of taint and despair, it all disappeared in deafening silence and replaced by darkness.
"I was too late this time"
This voice, familiar and gentle as if it came from the spring breeze, but... it was laced with a solemn tone of regretful melancholy.
"But please..."
A sense of weightlessness came over him, filling his being in a different sensation, as if free falling from the perpetual sky; but something more than that.
"Wake up."
In an instant, the blue world re-emerge once more from the darkness, but just as quickly as it blinked into existence,
"And fall."
A sensation of an impact overcame the boy's body.
Awake to the reality he knows, perhaps with those who remember him and the one where people he care for resides.
But the trial of suffering still remained, as fate would have it.
O.O.O
"AAARGH!"
An afflicting scream resounded throughout the house. It awoke Kiritsugu up on his feet in urgency. The cry of terror, this was different from the ones Shirou let out from his traumatic nightmares, because it came from Hisashi.
The man bolted through the halls with adrenaline coursing through his tired body and immediately barged into the boys room to bare witness a display he would never have imagined.
The father's youngest boy has curled himself on his side into a convulsing fetal position while he tightly grip onto Shirou's arm like a security blanket, to which the older brother readily complied within part panic and lost at the sudden situation. Judging by Hisashi's violently up turned futon, he must have been thrashing around substantially before their father got here.
"What happened?" He asked in extreme puzzlement, getting to the bottom of the situation in a cool but near distressed manner.
"I-I don't know!" Shirou stutter in forming his thoughts. "He started shouting when he woke up! I think he had a nightmare or something! But for some reason he said his body is hurting, and when I touch him, his skin feels really hot all of a sudden!"
A cold realization pervaded his mind from Shirou's hysterical explanation. The bodies temperature rising at an abnormal rate, the excruciating pain Hisashi is displaying.
"No, it can't be." Kiritsugu eyes widened in horror.
Only one think came to mind, his son has Magic Circuits.
Pseudo-nerves within the body of a magus, paths that convert life force into magical energy that is used to enact mysteries. Kiritsugu has never surmised the possibility that one of his sons would be born with dormant circuits. The fact that Hisashi's circuits opened while he slept, the nightmare must have been traumatic enough to have him feel like he was dying.
"Dad!" Shirou's shouted in confused urgency . "Do you know what's happening!?"
Kiritsugu inhaled to calm his nerves, because right now he will need a calm mind to make a clear judgment on how to handle this matter.
He nodded to the boy with a promise for explains things later once this issue is in order and dealt with.
Seeing Hisashi sprawling on the ground in pain, his trembling fetal position did little to alleviate the pang of physical rejection of magic energy flowing through him, tearful eyes closed tightly expressing his shear agony.
Kiritsugu felt the wrenching of his heart when watching his jovial little boy being tormented by his own body.
"Pa... pa" Hisashi rasped slowly in his despairing cry. "Please... it hurts..." Sobbing, his weeping eyes pleaded for salvation from the blistering pain. "Help me..."
His father was close to breaking down in tears this time, a mirage of an image that will haunt him. The one he had left behind in the snowy castle, he could nearly see her make the same expression by experience the same pain... no, worse than this.
"God damn it!" Kiritsugu balled his hand into a fist as his nails almost teared into the palm. Now was not the time to lose himself in his drowning emotions.
The small hesitation he had to reveal a small part of the thaumaturgical world in front of Hisashi and Shirou, it became irrelevant in the face of his child's suffering.
He took hold of Hisashi's shoulders to face him while the boy winced and muffled a whimper.
"Hisashi," Kiritsugu started as serene as possible for the boy's blue eyes blurringly looked at his father figure. "Listen to me. I need you to calm yourself first if you want the pain to subside." He brought Hisashi close to him in a hug, feeling the heat literally coming out of the small body. "Can you calmly breath in and out in a slow and steady manner?"
The child's heaving lingered in instability as he didn't say a word due to the immense pain. Yet actions speak louder than words, because gradually his shaken breaths began to slowly descend into a pace much like breathing exercises. The feeling of a thousand hot needles dragging into persistent, but it was less intense and abated to at least some level of tolerability.
"Good," the man also felt calmer by Hisashi's adaptive action. "Just keep that up until you managed to fully calm yourself."
"I-it still hurts." His voice cracked on a borderline sob as small hand tightened their grip on a father's yukata.
"I know." Answered Kiritsugu in a solemn tone. He needs to explain what's going on at least. "What's happening to you right now is paths of your magic circuits being opened."
"Magic... c-circuits?" Hisashi winced for a moment and refocused to maintain his breathing, even thought the feeling of needles penetrated his brain, he willed himself to hear his father's words.
"Pseudo-nerves in which a magus is born with in order to use magic."
Shirou attention was caught at this moment. Understandable as for some time, he has pestered Kiritsugu to teach him how to use magic since the man revealed his status as a user of magic.
The medicine he made when the Shirou had one of his panic attacks also contributed to his persistence as the magic imbued concoction had worked literal wonders compared to regular drugs. If it cause such resulting effects on simple medication, then it stand to reason that its impact on other applications would be profound beyond normality.
Though the core reason for his desire to use magic was perhaps as another means to make himself more versatile to help others in someway.
But now... seeing Hisashi in such a state, the fact that the power he seeks cause his little brother such a great amount of pain and torment left Shirou at a loss for words.
"Right now, the pain you're experiencing is a natural response of rejection as magic energy within the body is considered unnatural and a foreign substance." Kiritsugu explained further, and to his relief, Hisashi has calm downed further within his father's embrace.
"The burning... it still hurts..."
The man clenched his teeth in contained frustration, he hoped that this next phase of the process will go smoothly. Kiritsugu bit his lips in prep for requesting something that would be considered incredibly cruel by multiple standards.
"At least you are calm, but you need to do the next thing I tell you." Kiritsugu took a breath and continued. "Your circuits are open for the first time, and in order to switch it off, you need a trigger that started it in the first place."
He tightened the hug which pulled the boy closer to his body. "A trigger in which you have to fully visualize and entrance your mind in, to the point of self-hypnosis." The ex-mercenary had to steel himself for what ever reaction this will cause. "The triggers are different for each magus who uses their magic circuits, and it would usually take some time to figure out what the trigger will be. But for you... you have to recall the moment in your nightmare that opened you circuits."
Unfortunately this is the most effective means of turning off the boy's circuits. In extreme cases, to open these astral pathways could be afflicting self-harm, other methods could be either sexual arousal or even the use of drugs. But for Hisashi's case, a nightmarish trauma that activated his magic circuits in the first place will also be the means to deactivate them.
His small hands quaked once more, and in turn, his bodies temperature rises with an accelerated heart rate. He had to re-experience that scene?
"No Please!" He desperately shouted. "Please! I don't want to go back there!" He hyperventilated at the memory. "The fire! The deaths! Nii-chan died before me and I was buried and dying!"
Both Shirou's and Kiritsugu's eyes widened in realization.
The Fuyuki fire.
Hisashi must have regained some of the repressed memories of that tragic incident, but it seems his dream altered the event in such a fashion that the boy had experienced a gruesome conclusion.
"No. He regained the memories of that incident!" Sweat proliferated on Shirou's forehead, because he knew what walking through that hell does to people on a mental scale. They were children that barely made it out alive and left very deep scars in their minds; and Hisashi's re-emerge with vengeance no less.
"The pain was real... the fire hated everything... please *hic*... I don't want *hic*..." Moist liquid falling down his face once more. "I don't want to die again... to be alone again."
Surrounded by hatred, immolated by it, a life ending in isolation. Even if it was a dream or a reoccurring twisted memory, the reality is that no one deserves such an end, definitely so for one who has not yet reached a maturity that has fully experienced life itself.
Death should have only been felt once at the end of a lifetime.
"..."
In despairing silence where contained cries are only heard, Kiritsugu is at a loss. He expected this, but he couldn't do anything. Any medication he could make with magecraft won't be effective in this case because the magic flowing in the boy would just expel the medicine's intended affects.
Why? Why him? What did little Hisashi do to deserve this?
He couldn't bring himself to force his son to remember such terrifying events against his will. And most of all, Kiritsugu is helpless in his own incompetence when his son needed him most.
"I'm sorry." Desperation weighed firmly in his embrace. "I'm a failure of a father."
He took lives as a mercenary in the scant hopes of saving more lives, when in reality he had taken more lives than he had saved with his own bloodied hands.
His own father, a girl of a tropical island, a freelanced woman who took him in, a woman he once saved, the love of his life, and the little girl he reaches out for. The bonds they formed were severed by his ideals, and tie them back as he might, the results are irreversible.
These boys he saved, the ones he has raised and abandoned his ideals for, are broken and scarred by the volition of his own actions. And the one with the calmest state of tranquility has now descended into a maddening turmoil of trauma and pain.
The consequences of ones own deeds rears its ugly head.
He knew it was his fault.
"I'm sorry Hisashi. I don't know what to do." Soft mournful words whispered to the boy. "This must be punishment for my actions up to this point."
A breaking heart leaks the floodgates for an innocence is subjected as a sacrificial victim.
"You don't deserves this."
Grief beyond compare, for a man's own continued condemnation.
"I should suffer in your place."
He was cursed, and he would gladly receive more in exchange for a pure soul's alleviation.
"I haven't redeemed the happiness you have gifted me."
As much as he saved them, they saved him in ways beyond what words could truly describe. But now, reality mocks him of his inability to save one child of their own agony.
"I don't... deserve you forgiveness."
Because he caused the fire. Far too many lives were lost that day, and looking back on everything, his hands are dyed red in all the lives he's taken in the name of his ideals.
He was beyond redemption, he reminds himself of this in every waking moment till it haunts his dreams; and he wouldn't have it in any other way.
Yet... in moments of suffocating despair, the plague of self-deprecation and loathing of his own existence, his tears, his pleads for another's solace.
They didn't fall on deaf ears.
"Papa." Small hands delicately wrapped his neck.
Like the sound of wind chimes that blow away the raging storm of condemnation, Kiritsugu eyes widened upon the realization of tranquility being stable once more as the twitching of small limbs lessened.
Slowly pulling away to face his son, the boy's eyes were red and puffy, his expression still strained from the burning sensation of his flowing circuits, but the smile of melancholy uncovered an understanding in the child's mind.
He alone wasn't the only one suffering.
"H-hisashi?" The man said in absolute bewilderment.
The tantrum of understandable refusal Hisashi exhibited had vanished into a much more subdued yet ken bearing.
As if the boy has reached an epiphany in some nature of personal being.
"It's okey." A voice uttered in pain, but laced in gathered resolution.
The way Hisashi stared into his adoptive fathers eyes, an uncommon sense of understanding for a boy of seven years in age, it was as if he was truly looking at his father for the first time.
"I'll try now..." Then he closed his eyes.
Remembrance of a nightmare made his body both hot and cold. Painful heat generated in the physical body, while a shivering fear made his blood run frigid. Yet the mind itself tranced into a neutral stillness, meditative, parting away distractions like the parting seas.
A hatred materialized in fire.
Steady his breath, was his heart thumped loudly in his ears.
Screams. Cries. Nothing was spared.
He didn't lose focus, but tears steamed from his eyes in mourning.
A body crushed under remnants of civilization.
The phantom pain in his legs almost broke his mind and concentration.
A dear soul falling into flames.
Heart nearly shattered a from such a vivid nightmare.
"Agh!"
Why isn't this working? He delved into such memory of horrors on his own will, yet instead of subsiding, the magic circuits were stimulated instead. The sensation of several hot rods permeated into his nerves, bones, and even into his skull resulting in excruciating suffer on him. It was a wonder how he managed to stay sane under the torment where even breathing became painful.
"Why?!" He thought in agony. "This should have turned off the pain!"
It didn't make sense, the trigger would have been one of those instances when he was hurt in the dream, but why is it doing the opposite!?
Meanwhile Kiritsugu watched in horror as his little boy sprawled on the floor as Hisashi weakly whimpered with tightly shut eyes. He didn't understand why the boy's temperature was rising instead.
"Hisashi!" In a vain attempt on Shirou's part, his shouts were left unheard by his younger brother.
"God damn it." Kiritsugu's hand bled from the puncture caused by his nails.
They couldn't do anything at all, their grief, frustrating without end.
Why... won't the pain go away.
Hisashi was slipping away, his nightmare... no... his memories causes more pain than thought possible to be tolerated.
Please... stop...
What was it before he woke up? What else should he remember? The ringing in his mind and the metaphorical fire of his body proved to be harrowing to stand from. Death, pain, despair, nobody wanted it, nobody deserved it, yet... feeling pain was a part of people...
The people that died... they didn't feel the pain anymore... because they weren't alive anymore...
I'm sorry
An ephemeral echo, a voice fading like the waking of a dream.
Was it a thought he made?
A condolence for things he couldn't accomplish maybe?
A still and calm point in the raging tides of turmoil.
Actually... these very simple set of words, wasn't there a feeling of ease at one point.
The moment of solitude, the unheard words of whispering sadness, a beginning and an end. A sense of falling, where a fire still burned in the wake of weightlessness.
Wake up.
A result of realization in clarity, an imagine of a descending star burning away in an endless sky. A body that vanishes when entering the atmosphere like a life at it's end.
It hurts, but it resonated with him.
"Fall"
As the word left his lips, the relief of liberation has arrived.
Now, the silence of the night returned once more, though peace did not take privilege in this moment.
His body went limp, sweat condensates all surfaces of his skin, haggard breathing could be heard from the near insurmountable ordeal his body had to experienced firsthand. Now welcoming of cool air brushed body in relief, his family check his condition in alarm and allayed distress.
"Hisashi?" Shirou called out in notice of his little brother's reaction, though his heart still beat with lingering anxiety.
"It's okey Shirou, Hisashi finally turned off his circuits." Though in part relief, tension remained in his body as the concern for the boy's mental state has yet to be determined. "Hisashi?"
Against their expectations, the young boy pushed his body upright with his arms while the shadows over his eyes made them uneasy to say the least.
Shirou conjured his courage to speak up. "Hisashi? You okey?"
The black haired boy remained silent for the duration of a few seconds, until he lifted his head.
"I'm... okey." Yet the sound of his voice betrayed his words.
A spoken sentence that came from a strained throat holding back a wail, but that was least of their worries because his eyes have lost its cheery luster. They are dimmer, empty of the usual optimism that were once thought to be nay immovable of tampering no matter how terrible life could be; but life is cruel beyond measure.
Salted moisture continued to stream from his eyes as the boy abruptly took hold of and hugged Shirou while pressing his tearful face into the yukata.
"Please..." Hisashi begged in the middle of soft sobs. "Don't leave me..." his arms trembled about his brother's body.
"It okey Hisashi, I'm not going anywhere." Shirou tenderly rubbed his back in reciprocating the embrace. "I'm still here."
Hisashi continued his fit of muffled sobbing and trembling body in Shirou's reassuring arms, Kiritsugu felt the stiffness he unconsciously held in his body finally loosened up. But seeing his optimistic son crying like so broke his heart, because the fear that this event would change the boy weighed heavily in the man's mind.
What truly distressed him was how the boy is already one foot into the world of mystics all because of a nightmarish memory manifested in a dream. It truly seemed to him that his curse extended far beyond just the deterioration on his body, but magic is a curse in general.
It's late past midnight and he opt to go back into his room now that the situation settle for now, but he will have a lot to think about in the following days ahead on him.
Just as he got up, he felt a tugging on his yukata and looked below. Still hugging Shirou, Hisashi right hand grasped on the leg section of his father's clothes as the boy's watery eyes stared at him in begging.
"Papa," he stared at him in between sniffles. "Can you sleep here tonight?"
A heart in need of mending seeks the comfort of others.
He paused for a moment before looking at Shirou.
"I think you should stay for the night dad."
Kiritsugu relented at this point as he approached the closet to pull out one of the extra futons and rolled it out next to Hisashi's futon.
Now the youngest child is sleeping between his brother and father. This would be a moment where he might say something like "I'm sandwiched between you two~" in a childish display, but unfortunately his emotions were still in turmoil where his eyes weren't too far off from Kiritsugu's or even Sakura's blank gazes.
It just didn't feel right.
"Have you settles down?" The man asked attentively as he laid in his bedding while Hisashi held his hand.
He didn't answer because currently it was like something was stuck in his throat, the kind of sensation someone would have in heartache and on the verge of crying. A melancholy that pressed the heart like being under an anvil. A whirlpool of thoughts and ill emotions almost sweeping away his mind, but in its chaos, there was a single inquiry in which he wants to reconfirm.
"I-I'm... still here..." It came as a question.
He was afraid to go to sleep, afraid that he would awaken in a nightmare.
Kiritsugu would have spoken to at least alleviate the burden plaguing his sons heart, even if his own efforts are proven ineffective to his lack of well thought out words. Then again, it seemed that a bone was thrown to him.
"Hisashi." Shirou's started in a calming tone that Hisashi would have and a soft smile in view under the moonlit night. "You are here as much as dad and I are here." He squeezed onto is little hand adding to the resolute assurance. "So don't worry, we won't leave you. Just rest for now."
Truly, he meant it from the bottom of his heart, because as Hisashi has shined a light into the lives of the people he cherishes, now it was the rare opportunity for Shirou to lighten some of the burden from his younger sibling.
In essence, Shirou empathizes with him because he too had experienced it, survived it, and lived with the trauma. So the least he could do was offer as much peace and comfort as he could like how Hisashi did for him.
"Can you do that for me?"
Hisashi blankly looked into golden-bronze eyes containing a glaring determination of consideration.
You comfort my nightmare, it's my turn to comfort yours.
Shirou is looking out for him, that much was certain. Faded blue eyes glance at his father and was met with a benign grin, compassionate and serene for his son to see.
"Sleep, you've done well." Kiritsugu said with as much care in his voice as he could possibly muster.
Hisashi's eyes started to swim, for a loving family offered the kind of happiness that brings the heart and soul to tears. He worried them and they were there for him ever step of the way.
"Thank you." He cried a single tear and at last closed his eyes.
First came the heavy heartbeat drumming in his ears as the anxiety of the darkness still persisted, but the warmth of holding his family's hands reinstates that he's not alone in the darkness. Eventually their presence allowed him to calm his heart, his body, and finally fall into a slumber; one of which remains dreamless for the time being.
Now that Hisashi let out soft sleeping breaths, the two let out their own sighs of absolute relief.
In all honesty, they were expecting a an all-nighter of counselling a weeping family member, yet it appeared their being here was enough to ease his distress for now.
That didn't mean things would be resolved that easily. Especially for Kiritsugu, because he knew by morning that an irreversible change would take a hold of the Emiya estate with Hisashi at the epicenter.
Though as fearful as these thoughts has made him, the sight of Shirou empathetically watching over Hisashi's slumbering form had a calming effect on him.
He was astonished by the display of gentleness Shirou initially exhibited. As sarcastic and blunt as the boy could be sometimes, it seems that his time with Hisashi has tampered his mentality in a delicate state of affairs. The man felt relieved by how some of the emptiness in the redhead had begun to fill with a serendipitous factor from an equally serendipitous little brother, even if it's just a little bit.
Shirou in question noticed his father's gaze, and from the looks of it, the boy had questions for him. For now though, the golden iris boy shook his head. He judged that they had a long night already and the questions could wait for the next day.
The boy who stubbornly followed his father around for the tutelage of mysteries has actually relinquish such thoughts for tonight.
"Good night dad."
Kiritsugu was given more than a few surprises that night. Then again, it's appreciated after the ordeal tonight has offered him and his sons.
"Good night Shirou."
Sleep gave rest to their fatigued minds for they will need it in the coming days. Empty dreams visits their unconscious slumber under the midnight moon.
For their fates whirl into an unceasing motion, may their dreams help guide them through the path known as the existence of life.
OOO
The next update will come out soon.