I don't own Fate. Fate is the property of Type-Moon, and no financial gain is made from this or is sought. This is for entertainment purposes only.

Divergent Fate

Chapter 5

Shirou trained alone in one of the many training rooms of the Einzbern Castle, cold winter light filtering through stained glass windows and mingling with the light from the candles. However the room wasn't cold, nor was it particularly warm either, thanks to the glowing coals filling the iron braziers standing on tripods in the corners. Simple tapestries hung on the wall sections between the windows, depicting stylized battles and hunts.

Shirou ducked as one of the golems he was fighting swung a polearm at him, avoiding a blow that would have taken his head otherwise. The traced sword in his hand swept upwards diagonally, the runes on the white metal of the alchemically-forged blade flashing briefly as they tore through the un-living arm of the golem. Stepping past the construct even as the severed arm fell to the ground, he raised his sword over his head with two hands and cut the golem in half with one swing.

As the crumbling halves fell to the ground, Shirou stepped aside and nimbly avoided a lance thrust at his back. Turning, he swept his sword up along the golem's lance as he ran up and cut in half as well along the waist. "I am the bone of my sword." He whispered, gesturing in the direction of three other golems waiting for him with massive, double-bladed axes in their hands.

Rune-swords flashed into being before lancing forward, light flashing off of the axes and swords alike as the golems spun their axes to deflect his attacks. Two of the three went down, but the last charged forward. Shirou blocked the first swing, only to curse as the traced sword in his hand shattered into a shower of glittering prana.

As he jumped back to avoid a stabbing motion by the golem with the spearhead at the tip of the axe's head, he remembered his conversation with his grandfather a few weeks back during Christmas.

Flashback Begins

Jubstacheit von Einzbern blinked at the sight of his grandson (or one of them at any rate) bowing before him as soon as the doors into his office had closed behind the boy. "Please accept my apologies Lord Jubstacheit…" Shirou said formally without raising his head. "…my behavior earlier during the Christmas Ball was most unsightly, and rest assured it will not be repeated in the future."

"What?"

"I accept full responsibility for my actions, and I will accept any punishment."

Jubstacheit sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. "Yes, I suppose your earlier behavior was rather unsightly…" he said. "…but that's not why I called you in here."

"My lord…?"

"Oh enough with the bowing…" Jubstacheit said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "…trust me you're not the first of our family to break protocol to run after a pretty girl. Granted not all of them ended up as well as I did and you probably will…"

Shirou gaped at his grandfather as the elder magus rambled on about some woman named Wilhelmina and a midsummer festival over a century ago. "…anyway…" Jubstacheit said with a cough, and Shirou closed his mouth. "…my concern here and now is about your relationship with your sister."

"My lord…" Shirou began with a deep breath. "…I assure that I have absolutely no idea why my sister seems so infuriated with me. However I fully intend to uncover what it is, and to reconcile with her as soon as possible. I give you my word as a magus and as a member of our family."

This time it was Jubstacheit's turn to gape at Shirou, if only for a moment. "By Odin…" he finally said. "…you're absolutely sincere, aren't you?"

"My lord…?"

Jubstacheit sighed and palmed his face. "You have absolutely no idea how your sister really feels about you, do you?" he asked in exasperation.

Shirou blinked. "She's my sister." He said, and Jubstacheit sighed again.

"Shirou…have you noticed any changes at all with the way she's been acting around from when you were both children?"

"Sir…?"

"Just think about it."

Shirou lowered his face while doing as his grandfather ordered him to. Come to think of it…yes, Illya had been acting strangely over the past year. She'd always been clingy, but…the way she would hold onto his arm had felt more…intimate…well, since her breasts had also grown over the years…

Shirou shook his head to clear his thoughts, his face red much to his grandfather's veiled amusement. Alright, Illya had gotten much clingier lately. There was also the staring…she'd been staring at him a lot lately, more often than not with a slightly-mesmerized expression on her face. In fact she'd worn the exact same expression on her face during the Christmas Ball.

"Well…" he finally essayed. "…she has grown even more attached lately, and she's been staring a lot, but apart from that she's still the same she's ever been."

"Is that all?"

"What else is there?"

"Hasn't she been spending more time with you lately?" Jubstacheit pointed out with increasing exasperation. "I understand that the more inbred and therefore brainless members of our family see and treat you as pariahs, but I'm quite certain that neither of you are actually friendless."

"That's true. Yes, Illya has been spending more time lately with me than usual…is she getting afraid that we're drifting apart as we grow older?"

"Are you that dense?"

Shirou frowned slightly. "With all due respect…" he said. "…I don't quite understand what you're getting at here."

"She loves you."

Shirou blinked again. "Well yes…" he said after a moment. "…we're siblings of course she loves me…"

"No, she doesn't just love you that way anymore. But she does love you."

Shirou stared blankly at the old man for a long moment. And then another…and then an expression of shock and horror began to dawn on his face. "…no…" he said. "…no…she can't…I…we're siblings…she can't possibly…she shouldn't feel that way!"

Jubstacheit rolled his eyes. "So the boy finally gets it." He muttered as Shirou spluttered in disbelief.

Flashback Ends

Sparks and fragments flew through the air as a traced war-hammer shattered the golem's axe, and a back-swung blow blew the golem apart. With all the golems out for the count, Shirou fell to his knees breathing hard and thinking even harder.

"She's my sister!" he raged silently, starting the internal conversation that would no doubt end the same way it had always ended for the past few weeks. "It isn't right."

"You're not related by blood." A treacherous voice in the back of his mind replied.

"We grew up together! It's more or less the same thing."

"Sophistry…you're attracted to her too, aren't you?"

"I…that's…we…I can't just act on that!"

"Sure you can. You've been dreaming about it since the old man spelled it out for you. If that's the case, why not make it real? Sure she's not as curvaceous as some of the girls here or in the Clock Tower, but she's got the right curves in the right places."

Shirou didn't bother to respond to his own treacherous thoughts, instead hurling the war-hammer against the far wall. It blew a crater about an arm deep into the reinforced wall with a thunderous explosion, and showering the staggered Shirou with bits and pieces of stone. "Damn…" he muttered while pulling flakes of stone from his hair and brushing them off of his clothes.

The rustle of cloth behind him drew his attention, only to find his sister warily peering through the slightly-open door. They'd been avoiding each other since the incident (apparently for the same reason: that is to sort out their feelings for each other), so this was something of a surprise.

"Um…I…" Illya began, blushing deeply. "…I…sorry of disturbing you!"

The girl immediately ran off, with Shirou in hot pursuit. "Wait Illya…!" he shouted at her.

Fire burned merrily in the hearth, the crackling of wood filling the nearly-empty sitting room. At the moment only two people were sitting in the room, on opposite ends of a couch facing the fire. "Do you want to talk about it?" Shirou asked hesitantly.

"You think it's strange don't you?" Illya answered his question with a question of her own. "You think I'm a dirty girl for falling for my brother."

If you're dirty, then what does that make me?

Shirou ground his teeth at his own weakness, and giving a cough to cover it up. "No, not really…" he said. "…I mean we did grow up together so…"

"That's precisely the problem!" Illya snapped. "We're not related by blood, but we grew up together! Something like this…this…this…can it be called 'right' in any sense of the word?"

"…Illya…"

"Shirou…" Illya began. "…how…how do you feel about me?"

"…I…"

Shirou lowered his head in mixed confusion and shame. He was attracted to her, he couldn't doubt that anymore, but was it the same feelings she had for him? Or would he just be taking advantage of her?

There was also the fact that she was the spitting image of her mother: Irisviel von Einzbern. If he took advantage of her, what would that say about him?

"…I don't know." He finally said, and Illya snorted sadly.

"I thought so." She said softly, and then she laughed without mirth. "We're a pair of imbeciles aren't we? Falling for people we can't have, and coming to a line we can't cross…"

"That's not…!"

"It's true and you know it." Illya all but spat out.

"Then what are we supposed to do?" Shirou asked, his turn to be angry.

"I don't know." Illya replied after a moment, and Shirou scoffed before falling silent himself.

"We can't just ignore this." He said after several moments. "But we can't act on it either. If we do the former, it'll eat away at us. If the latter…"

"Then I suppose…" Illya said. "…we're just going to have to deal with it, one way or another."

"It seems that the rift has been sealed…" Bernhardt von Einzbern said while looking away from the viewing sphere and directing his gaze at Jubstacheit. "…to an extent."

"Yes, I think so too."

"I wonder why you don't simply bind them with a marriage contract integrated with a geis." Bernhardt ventured. "I admit that it would leave something of a sour aftertaste for the parties concerned, but considering that they do in fact share a certain degree of romantic sentiments for each other, pushing them together might actually help it grow."

"Possibly…" Jubstacheit conceded, but mentally reminding himself that Bernhardt still had a few things to learn before he could become the Lord of Einzbern. "…or it might not. And who said I haven't?"

Bernhardt blinked, and then he stared as Jubstacheit opened a sealed and reinforced section of his desk, and after rummaging through a sheet of documents pulled out a document and offered it to his great-grandson. "This is…" Bernhardt muttered while perusing the document. "…how on Earth did you manage to get Kiritsugu Emiya to sign this? I doubt the man would have consented to binding his children together with a marriage contract, even one lacking a geis to impose it."

"He was delirious at the time." Jubstacheit said with a smile, a smile that grew wider at Bernhardt's answering smirk. "And I'm certain that while Kiritsugu Emiya wouldn't have consented to binding his children together like this, he wouldn't mind them being together."

"You took advantage of the man…? How very like you."

"An aligned origin and elemental affinity…" Jubstacheit said while walking over to a hidden alcohol cabinet and pouring himself a glass of wine. "…it was for that miraculous potential that we brought him into our family, and protected him from his father's enemies of which there are many."

"But he is not Einzbern." Bernhardt continued, and Jubstacheit nodded.

"He is not." The older magus concurred. "But that need not be true for the next generation. Who better to bind him and his potential to us and to our family but another miracle…?"

"Indeed; Illyasviel is after all, the first to be born from a homunculus who was never expected or even meant to develop her humanity to that extent."

"But there is still the upcoming Grail War to consider…should they fail or fall in battle…"

"There are other issues as well." Bernhardt pointed out. "The Tohsaka…the Makiri…the Velvet…and the other future Masters…"

Jubstacheit drained his glass and walked over to the window. "Human beings are volatile." He said. "Even the alchemists of Atlas can't fully grasp the future, as proven by the Dust of Wallachia's loss of his sanity and humanity alike. I suppose all we can do is to entrust our hopes and designs on our designated champions."

Bernhardt smiled without warmth. "With respect…" he said. "…that doesn't sound like you at all."

Jubstacheit smiled just as coldly as he stared out at the frozen grounds. "No…" he said. "…I suppose it doesn't."

"…once we apply the Ashcroft Theorem…" the instructor blandly droned as he drew a diagram on the chalkboard along with a series of calculations. "…the curvature of non-linear space should follow along this predicted course. However as with all non-Euclidean geometric systems, there is a degree of error to be compensated for…"

As the instructor droned on, so did the few students in the classroom take down notes and try to absorb as much of the lecture as they could. One of those was Cattleya, who was all but visibly struggling to keep awake. And she wasn't the only one; the subject was interesting, and the class should be popular, if not for the fact that Instructor Yi was not only rather nondescript, but taught blandly as well.

Non-Euclidean Temporal-spatial Mechanics should have more than nine students.

"…by applying the Czerny Property, we can then make a reasonable mathematical assumption regarding the…"

The bell rang, and the instructor blinked before putting down the chalk. "…before you leave…" he said loudly but just as blandly as his students began to gather their things. "…I want a five page essay with at least two thousand words with regards to the application of non-Euclidean geometry in the creation of bounded fields by next week. That's all for today."

There was a mumbled response, and then everyone in the room filed out. Cattleya yawned as she stepped into the hallway outside and briefly wondered if she should head for the cafeteria in the commons or bother her brother to take her out for lunch. "Non-Euclidean Temporal-spatial mechanics right after Christmas break…" she thought glumly. "…whatever was I thinking?"

Someone tapped her on a shoulder, and Cattleya turned and sighed at the sight of a bespectacled girl her age smiling at her. "Susanna…" she said, and simultaneously signing the same with her fingers for the deaf and mute magus' benefit. "…was there something you wanted?"

Susanna pushed her glasses up before carrying on the conversation. "Haven't you heard?" the girl signed without any hint of self-deprecation.

"No not really."

"Lord Zelretch has named your brother as operations chief for the conference in May."

"Is that so?" Cattleya said with a small grin. "I wondered why he was in such a bad mood recently."

"Ah!" another girl shouted in alarm from behind them before running up to join Cattleya and Susanna walk down the stairs to their usual meeting place. "What are you talking about without me? That's not fair!"

"It's not like we're keeping secrets – any more than is usual for magi at least – from you." Cattleya snapped good-naturedly, and Miranda Carnarvon giggled while rubbing the back of her head. Susanna gave a soundless laugh as they continued onwards to their destination.

"Why would he be in a bad mood? Isn't it an honor to receive such attention from the Wizard Marshall?" Susanna signed.

"Stop that…" Cattleya chided. "…you know as well as I do that the Wizard Marshall never does things in a straightforward fashion. There's more to it than meets the eye."

Susanna smirked and pushed her glasses up again. "Of course I know that…" she signed. "...that doesn't change the fact that it's still a great honor."

"She's right Cattleya." Miranda put in, also signing for Susanna's benefit. "We'll just have to keep our guard up."

"That's what I told my brother." Cattleya said, and Susanna frowned at her.

"So you have heard!" she signed accusingly. Cattleya just grinned and then actually laughed as Susanna frowned even harder.

"Of course I know that the Wizard Marshall has also invited the 'El-Melloi Pentagon' as observers for the conference." She said. "So what's this all about anyway?"

Susanna scoffed and strode ahead of them to their meeting room, leaving Miranda and Cattleya to chase after her. Surprisingly all the other members of the Pentagon were there already. "Well I suppose there's a first time for everything…" Miranda said cheerfully as she closed the door behind her and Cattleya. "…including us being late for once..."

"That's true." Cattleya agreed as she took her seat.

Susanna Carter, a descendant of the same Howard Carter who opened King Tut's tomb, and heiress to their family's wealth of Ancient Egyptian-based magecraft. Hoarding such knowledge and artefacts from the Age of Gods would normally not be tolerated by the Great Houses of the Association, but since the Carters had never actually involved themselves in politics, they were tolerated. Susanna herself had been born mute and deaf, and along with her average magical potential it was expected that she would not be of great import in magical society.

However under the general tutelage of the Lord Waver El-Melloi II, she had pushed the limits of her magecraft, and had even earned a Noble Color Designation of Topaz for her aria-casting skills. Specifically, her ability to use sign language in place of the spoken word when casting her spells. As a result, she had risen through the ranks of her generation to be among the five most promising magi of her generation.

Miranda Carnarvon, a descendant of the same Lord Carnarvon who funded the excavation of King Tut's tomb. Susanna's childhood friend, they both made use of Ancient Egyptian-based magecraft. Miranda lacks the same flair for magecraft that Susanna possesses, but her Mystic Eyes of Enchantment – rare among Humans – had earned her the Noble Color Designation of Gold, and her eidetic memory and natural charisma has earned her a potentially-bright prospect as one of the greatest instructors of the next generation in the footsteps of her mentor the Lord Waver El-Melloi II.

Christopher Ashwood, a mere fourth-generation magus with something of a delinquent attitude and a fondness for mundane football that earned him the scorn of more traditional magi. However his skill in ether manipulation and surprising intuition with regards to spatial manipulation have earned him the attention of first the Lord Waver El-Melloi II and now even spatial specialists from Atlas itself.

David Wolfstone, the first in five generations among his family to manifest magical potential. The long decline of his family had left him among the ranks of the younger bloodlines, but his talents in illusion-crafting had ultimately led to him being placed under the Lord Waver El-Melloi II's wing and is currently a candidate for the Color Designation of Red.

Susanna 'the Topaz-handed' Carter…

…Miranda 'the Golden-eyed' Carnarvon…

…Christopher 'the Ether-touched' Ashwood…

…David 'the Storyteller' Wolfstone…

…and Cattleya 'the Diamond Princess' Velvet…

…they are all young and talented magi, students of the Lord Waver El-Melloi II predicted to be among the greatest leaders of the next generation, the so-called El-Melloi Pentagon.

"So prez…" Christopher began while leaning forward on his chair. "…what's with this meeting all of a sudden? I had to skip out on football practice to attend."

Susanna frowned chidingly while Miranda handed out folders to the rest of the Pentagon. "Our residence for the conference in May…" David wondered as he read the contents of the folder. "…it doesn't seem like a bad place, a nice little manse in the suburbs of Misaki Town…"

"…lots of greenery…" Cattleya commented approvingly. "…we get individual rooms and a household staff to handle our needs…"

"…but it looks expensive." David concluded with a wave of a hand, his crest briefly coming to life as he conjured a very lifelike illusion of eight elder magi angrily glaring at Susanna. Miranda actually flinched at the illusion, but Susanna just glared at David.

"What's your point?" she signed, and David shrugged before signing back.

"It's very expensive, so much so that I'm afraid the Finance Committee is going to be breathing down our backs."

Susanna rolled her eyes and dispelled the illusion with a wave of her hand. She then pointed her finger at David and then to the second page. "Huh…" Cattleya commented. "…the Wizard Marshall chose the residence himself, even though it seems he's left the conference details and other such things to my brother."

"Typical for the old man, wouldn't you think?" Christopher asked. "For someone who's so powerful and knowledgeable, he sure loves to shirk the dull stuff."

"Who doesn't?" Cattleya quipped, and shared a laugh with everyone else except Susanna who frowned chidingly again.

"Fun things are made from dull things." She signed.

"Actually the quote is big things are made from little things." Christopher responded, and grinned as Susanna signed angrily in outrage. "More importantly, I'm still concerned about what the old man is planning behind all this. Come on everyone, the Wizard Marshall ALWAYS has something up his sleeve."

"I second that." David said, and Cattleya nodded in agreement and gave Susanna a pointed glance. She did bring up that concern just a few minutes ago with her fellow magus.

"As I told Cattleya earlier…" Miranda said. "…we'll just have to keep our guards up. And besides, even if the Wizard Marshall is planning something, how bad can it be?"

A/N

It is now two years prior to the Fifth Holy Grail War (give or take a few months). Cattleya/Sakura is fourteen, Shirou and Rin are both fifteen, and Illyasviel is seventeen (this is based on the East Asian system, wherein everyone gets a year older on New Year). It is currently January, just a few weeks after the Christmas parties of the last chapter.

I hope my OCs aren't overdone, I'd hate to make Mary Sues by mistake/accident (though they ultimately don't have a big role anyway).