Day 7: Shirou — Unreachable
Sakura, draped in shadows, strode into the center of Shirou's battle-torn lawn. Darkness poured from her body, swirling and mixing with the night, forming into the tendrils of black energy which wrapped around the Servants and their Masters. Some were better off than others: though Red Archer's limbs were tightly bound, an array of swords still hovered in the air above him, ready to be launched. Likewise, though Saber's body was tightly trapped in bonds of shadow, she appeared confident in her ability to escape – by using her Prana Burst ability to convert her magical armor into an explosion of wind, she could probably burst free in a moment. For other Servants, however, the situation was more dire. Though Crow could exude blood-blades from his body, he had much less magical energy than Saber and his Noble Phantasm was relatively quite weak; it wasn't clear if he could actually slice his way free of the clinging shadows. And Black Archer, with her hands bound, could neither draw her bow to ire arrows nor twist her shield to activate Faust Buckler. Worst off of all was Lina Inverse, who had nearly exhausted her magical energy and fallen unconscious even before Sakura's tentacles of dark magic had wrapped around her. But even the better-off Servants dared not act; any action on their part might results in the deaths of their Msters, who had no defense against the shadow magic.
Shirou didn't care about any of that. He had eyes only for Sakura. Sakura, his friend and classmate, who had come over to his house for breakfast every morning for as long as he'd known her. Sakura, Rin's biological sister, separated from her family at an early age due to the ruthless traditions of the magus world. Sakura, who now had one of False Avenger's chains embedded in her chest over her heart, pumping dark magic and foul curses into her blood.
"You have put up an impressive fight... but a futile, and ultimately misguided, one." Sakura said. "God, my Master, seeks only to save you. The curses which have incubated within the Grail will soon spill forth and ravage this land with the fires of hell. Only by accepting God's protection can you survive. Accept this chain, this bond, and find salvation... as I have."
"We know that the Grail has been corrupted." Rin said. "That's why we're putting a stop to this Holy Grail War. No one will win, no one will wish upon the Grail; the curse won't be released."
"It's far too late for that." Sakura said. "The curse has grown impatient – it has the will to be born into the world, and it is no longer willing to wait. The Great Grail has already accumulated more than enough power from the previous Wars. Even if no Master is willing to open the Grail, the curse has grown strong enough to tear its way free regardless. There is no longer any way to save this world; the curse that humanity has created is so powerful that not even God can oppose it. The most it is within his power to do is to preserve a small number of humans; to create a family which might be sheltered from the coming apocalypse as Noah was from the flood. And you have the honor of having been chosen. Beginning with..."
Sakura ran her eyes over the Servants and Masters ensnared within her web of shadows, then let her gaze settle on Black Archer.
"...you, False Archer." Sakura said. "Though you initially seemed too weak to be worth recruiting, your Noble Phantasm has proven most impressive; and so, you shall be granted the privilege of using it in God's service."
"I will not yield to corruption." Black Archer said. "My soul shall never be darkened."
She struggled in her bindings, managing to shift her arms so that her buckler covered up her heart. Sakura only shook her head sadly.
"God is the master of all souls." she said. "You're only making things harder on yourself. Things would have gone much easier if you'd just offered your heart willingly. I learned long ago that it's not worth fighting battles you can't win. Resisting the inevitable only makes it so much more painful."
One of False Avenger's chains rose up and shot towards Black Archer. It aimed not for the shield covering her chest, but for her head. She didn't even have time to scream before the barbed head on the end of the chain gouged into her left eye, burying itself deep in the socket. A moment later, her entire body began to shudder and twitch. A wave of dark corruption began to spread from her eye, advancing across the surrounding skin. At the same time, Rin gave a cry of pain and grabbed her hand. Her final Command Spell was changing color, darkening from red to black, and the skin around it was beginning to smoke and sizzle as False Avenger's cursed energy flowed into it through her connection to her Servant.
Then there was a second sound: the hiss of air flowing over a keen steel edge. One of Red Archer's hovering swords suddenly accelerated, shooting through the air as straight and true as if it had been fired from a bow, and sheared directly through Black Archer's neck. Her decapitated body tumbled limply to the dirt below; her severed head, still impaled on False Avenger's chain, immediately began crumbling to golden dust. Sakura was dumbstruck for a moment, then turned on Rin.
"You would go to such lengths to deny your Servant salvation?" she asked incredulously.
Rin, too, had looked shocked for a moment; but at Sakura's question, she composed herself. Shirou had no idea what Rin was truly feeling, but her face showed only defiance.
"Red Archer did save her." Rin said. "All mages know that there is something even more precious than their life: the purity of their soul. It is better to die than to be corrupted and eternally enslaved by evil. To save Homura's soul from False Avenger's darkness, I would have slain her myself with my own two hands! That is what it means to be a mage!"
"If that is the way you feel..." Sakura trembled as she stared at her sister "...Why did you never try to save ME!?"
The cursed energy staining her body began to seethe and roil, like a liquid that had just reached its boiling point. The flow of energy down the chain lodged in Sakura's heart had not changed, so this was not some new flood of curses being poured into her by False Avenger; rather, a terrible pent-up darkness that she had held restrained within herself for a long time had finally broken free. Combining with False Avenger's curses, it was erupting outwards without limit or boundary; an infinite wellspring of hatred and self-loathing.
"You abandoned me!" Sakura howled. "You let Zouken take me away and violate me with his worms! The things he did, the things Shinji did, the feelings of the worms entering my body and wriggling around inside of me – yes, I would have preferred death! And so I kept waiting for you to come and save me. Surely you would come check on your only sister, on her body and her soul? For years, I waited... and you never came to free me from the darkness. I tried to stay strong, tried to fight the pain and the defilement and the despair. Meeting Shirou gave me the strength to resist, for a short time longer... seeing how bright and heroically he shined, I was able to pretend while I was with him that I wasn't ruined, that I wasn't soiled. But even that could not last."
Memories of Sakura filled Shirou's mind. She'd always seemed happy, always been smiling. He'd never thought that she might have such serious problems at home. That she smiled for him so much because it was only when she was with him that she was able to smile. That behind her cheerful face, her pained heart had been crying out for rescue.
"It's too late for me now." Sakura said. "I can't fight it any more. The darkness... it has me."
The chain in her heart began to throb as False Avenger began transmitting more cursed energy down the length of the chain. Sakura's body, already fully saturated with malign power, began to overflow. She began to cry; but rather than tears, rivulets of thick black mud flowed down the sides of her face. When she spoke, more mud sprayed from her mouth like spit; where it landed on the yard, the surrounding grass instantly withered and died.
"I have become vile and debased!" Sakura said. "In mind, body, and soul, I have been ruined! There is no manner in which I have not been violated, no part of me that has not been defiled! Only God could love this sick, twisted, ruined thing which I have become. That is my only salvation now: to let God draw me down into the deepest abysses of darkness where I am no longer capable of seeing just what I have become, or just how far I have fallen. To embrace God in eternal unending blackness. Eternally."
Sakura's words tore at Shirou's heart. Give up on saving someone? That was one thing he could never do. He existed for a single purpose: to be a hero. No matter how bad things got, he would never give up. He would never let the darkness win. He would save Sakura – whatever it took.
In Shirou's mind, a trigger was pulled and a firing hammer slammed down. Prana coursed through Shirou's magic circuits and flooded his body. He broke free of the magic binding him, his limbs sheering through the shadowy bonds as if they had become as hard and sharp as steel. It was Reinforcement magic, applied not to another object but to his own body. He, himself, was a sword; a weapon of justice which would cut through the darkness and save Sakura.
"Trace, on."
Behind him, people were yelling, but Shirou couldn't hear them. His mind was filled with only one thing: the image of a golden sword. Its structure, its composition, its history, its creator, its wielder, its power, its weight in his hands as he dashed towards Sakura.
There was no doubt in his mind. This was a holy sword that shone with a light that could purge any darkness. If he used it to sever the chain driven into Sakura's heart, she would surely be freed from the control of the evil force enslaving her.
The sword was golden and brilliant, just as it had always appeared in his dreams. The symbol of a king, pulled from a chosen stone. A sword that was broken and would never exist in the world again, yet which had been temporarily made manifest once more through the power of his magecraft. The Golden Sword of Assured Victory. Though he could hear nothing else, Shirou heard Saber distantly but clearly speak its name.
"Caliburn."
Shirou's footsteps thundered on the ground as he charged towards Sakura. The tip of the glowing sword left a trail of golden light in the air. His attention collapsed to focus on only one thing in the world: Sakura, standing before him. He hadn't been enough of a hero to save her before, hadn't even been enough of a hero to see that she was suffering; but now, he had the power to set it all right. With this perfect and unsullied sword, the manifestation of the concept of justice within his heart, he would save Sakura.
As he approached Sakura, something moved between them – the False Berserker, its face twisted in its usual rictus of fury. But Shirou would let nothing obstruct his path. He swung the divine sword in a glittering arc, a perfect crescent which would bisect the Dark Servant's chest–
–and with the superhuman reflexes of a Servant, False Berserker smoothly slid out of the sword's path. The golden blade arced through empty air, biting into dirt rather than flesh and bone. Shirou suddenly felt very foolish. Did he think that just picking up a fancy sword would instantly transform him into a hero? Of course it was naive to imagine that an ordinary highschool boy like him could wield this holy sword, a weapon fit only for a king. Red Archer had told him, hadn't he? He was not one who fights, but one who creates.
False Berserker thrust his palm against Shirou's chest, and Shirou felt a strange tingling sensation as tendrils of red lightning crawled across his skin. A flash of red light enveloped Shirou, and time seemed to slow to a crawl. His mind turned inwards, desperate to avoid acknowledging what was happening to his body.
The Servant was utilizing something somewhat similar to his own magecraft, Shirou realized. It was analyzing his structure and composition, just as he would do to an object he was preparing to reinforce. Of course, the Servant was on a completely different level from Shirou. Shirou had to clear his mind and concentrate in order to create a mental image. As Berserker, this Servant was filled with mindless rage, and yet still somehow seemed to be capable of performing the necessary magecraft. It could be that the tattoo on his arm functioned like a Magic Crest, performing the necessary analysis for him; or it could be an instinctual affinity, like Shirou's connection with swords.
Chunks of meat and bone sprayed through the air.
Reinforcement was a difficult process to perform, and one that risked destroying rather than enhancing the object it was performed on. When Shirou performed reinforcement, he was trying to add to something that was already complete. Just as an apprentice sculptor trying to add detail to a master's finished piece might end up damaging it in his fumbling efforts to improve it, improperly performed reinforcement could weaken rather than strengthen the object. It seemed the False Berserker was doing something like intentionally imperfect reinforcement, amplifying an object's flaws rather than its strengths in order to break it apart.
Shirou fell to the ground on his back; and with that impact, he could no longer keep his thoughts turned inwards and avoid recognizing how bad his situation was. His chest had been blown open, his outer ribcage vaporized; even now, entrails were landing on the ground around him, spreading out like a crimson flower blossoming from his chest. Shirou could feel his beating heart exposed to the open air. For some reason, there wasn't much pain. Probably his body was so damaged that it was beyond pain, and was choosing to simply shut down and die rather than continue to struggle.
"You won't die." Sakura said, as though reading his mind. "God won't let you. Not even if you want to. You'll stay with us forever, here in the darkness. You don't need to worry about your friends; after a while, God will make you forget they ever even existed. And you won't get lonely, because you'll be with me. We can be a happy family together. For eternity."
A chain emerged from the darkness beneath Sakura's feet, stained black and crimson with malice and curses. At the end was a wicked nail with a barbed tip, made to pierce hearts and never be pulled out.
Shirou was sinking into darkness – his vision fading away to blackness as his life seeped out of him. Was this what it felt like to die? And was this twilight limbo without pain or sensation what his entire future would be like – an eternal half-life as a slave to the cursed chain, neither fully dead nor truly alive?
...unknown to death, nor known to life...
Shirou's body erupted into agony, as though just now recognizing its wounds. His magic circuits were screaming in rebellion, and it felt like every piece of his exposed guts was being skewered with swords. However, the pain had the effect of jolting him out of the soft darkness he'd been drifting off into and focusing his mind. It was already too late for him, that much was clear; but there was still Saber and Crow to think of. When Black Archer had been pierced by a chain, the curse had flowed back through her link to her Master to begin corrupting Rin as well; likely, it could also move in the opposite direction as well. If False Avenger's chain pierced Shirou's heart, it wouldn't just be enslaving him; it would subject his Servants to the curse as well. Shirou wasn't willing to let that happen. Even if his own life was about to burn out, all he could think of was saving what others he could – that was the way of life lived by Shirou Emiya.
Shirou clenched his hand and focused on the two remaining Command Spells. Those two marks were the seal that bound his pacts with Saber and Crow; if he were to use them before False Avenger was able to corrupt him, then the connection would be severed and those two would be free to flee from enslavement. After that... well, it would be up to them. All he could do was give them the chance.
"By my Command Spell, I order you..."
Shirou couldn't hear the sound of his own voice; his ears had stopped registering anything but a faint yet persistent ringing tone. He wasn't sure he was speaking at all, or even breathing; his body had nearly completely shut down. But he could feel the Command Spell throbbing with magical energy in response to his will, knew that he still had strength enough to complete this final task.
"Saber... or rather, Arturia... may you reach the ever-distant utopia of your dreams."
One of False Avenger's chains shot downwards, aiming to bury its barbed head into Shirou's exposed heart – and was repelled by an explosion of light. Shirou's body seemed as though it were engulfed in white fire, so brilliant it was painful to look at; but a fire that replenished instead of consuming, that healed instead of burning. And from deep within his chest poured a deep golden light. Even as flesh and bone once more knit his gaping chest wound closed, the golden light continued to shine with undiminished intensity; it was the light of divinity, which nothing mortal could occlude. The light banished all shadows within the yard, dispelling Sakura's dark magic as though it were nothing. Those of False Avenger's chains which were not anchored within a victim's heart blew apart, reduced in moments to mere ash as the dark curses composing them were overwhelmed by an unconquerable light. Those chains which were already firmly anchored in victims were far more resistant, far harder to dislodge; but even they seemed to tremble and crack before the luminescence that had filled the night. False Berserker howled like a wild beast as False Avenger's control over its madness wavered, and Medusa began to tremble and moan in pain as the dark energy which had been accelerating her healing was banished. Of the Dark Servants, only Rei was unaffected – the defense offered by her AT Field was absolute, proof even against this light.
As Shirou drew himself back up, all his pain vanished and all his wounds closed, he focused his sight on Sakura. The dark stains marring her features had receded, and her body was writhing with the effort of what must be an immense internal struggle between herself and the dominating curse of False Avenger. Her hands rose to the chain emerging from her chest and tugged at it; but though the black metal had cracked under the golden light, it still resisted Sakura's weak attempts to pull it free. After a few moments, she stopped, turning her head down and letting her hands fall limp to her sides.
"Sakura!" Shirou called. "Don't give up! I'll find a way to free you! I promise!"
Sakura raised her head, and Shirou saw that her eyes were brimming with tears.
"It's too late for me." Sakura said, her voice barely more than a whisper. "I've fallen so far into the darkness, had my body defiled in so many ways... I can't be saved."
"Don't say that!" Shirou shouted.
"Please... give up on me." Sakura said. "Being bound by Avenger isn't so bad, compared to what I endured under grandfather. When I let the curse fill me, it numbs me to the pain and I don't even care that I'm being controlled. But, Shirou... your light makes the darkness unbearable. The hope of a rescue that never comes is the worst kind of poison. If I was just able to accept my fate, I would be able to be at peace; it is only when I allow myself to believe that I might return to the sunlit world that my heart breaks for what I have become. Let me have my peace."
"I will not give up." Shirou said. "I will save you, Sakura. That is a promise."
"I can't go back." Sakura said. "Not a tainted wretch like me. I'm too corrupted, too broken. There's no place for me in your world anymore. If you ever cared about me, then don't try to save this thing that I've become – just hold to your memories of the girl you thought I was. Someone capable of being loved."
With a trembling hand, Sakura yanked a necklace from off her neck. Shirou had not seen it before; he had never known Sakura to wear jewelry. A small pendant of crystal hung from the necklace, looking almost like a dagger; Shirou got only a momentary glimpse of it before Sakura drew her arm back and flung the necklace away from herself. It landed on the ground only a short distance from Shirou.
"Just... remember me." Sakura said. "That is all."
Then the chain in her chest, all the chains in the Dark Servants' chests, drew taught and pulled them rapidly backwards. They were swiftly dragged away, out from the radius of the golden light and into impossibly deep shadows, where they vanished. Shirou could feel the magical pressure of the cursed energy that had been pushing on the bounded field surrounding his property ease up as the enemy presences faded; at the same time; the light shining from within his chest slowly dimmed and finally faded to nothing.
For a few moments, there was silence. Then Arturia walked towards Shirou, her steps uncharacteristically slow and hesitant; almost as if she disbelieved what she'd seen. She pressed one delicate hand against Shirou's bare chest, feeling the skin which had miraculously regrown after False Berserker's attack; and at her touch, he felt the golden light pulse within his body once more.
"Avalon." Arturia said in awe. "Shirou... all along... you've been my scabbard."
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