Part Two

Grim Day

So…even if she actually could feel like she could actually handle this day better than she previously thought, it didn't mean that Taiga was any less reluctant about facing it. When she woke up in Emiya guest bedroom, the numbness of sleep faded rather quickly and everything about what happened yesterday, the memory of seeing Kiritsugu dead, hit her painfully, and made it more difficult than it usually did to drag herself out of bed.

And then she had that weird dream stuck in her brain, a dream of an ethereally beautiful woman whom she'd never met, yet felt she knew in some way. Taiga had the unfortunate habit (among others) of getting stuck on things that puzzled her, to the point that they drove her as much to distraction as her fixated feelings for Kiritsugu had.

Even on that odd (though admittedly fun and exciting) encounter with those two foreigners all those years ago. Even though the boy had been a surly, skinny thing who seemed to have dragged himself here from England and was further disgruntled by his inability to speak Japanese, and even though his ridiculously burly, red-headed companion of a man had had to translate, and seemed quite jovially the opposite of the boy—Waver and Alexi, were their names?—well, she had found Waver's disgruntlement just a little endearing. Now she thought of it, she felt the same way about Shirou when he'd get disgruntled with her. Maybe that was the reason. She liked making boys grouchy when she knew they couldn't really get mad at her, or were being grouchy to hide something more positive toward her.

And then there had been all those strange, scary things before that mysterious fire in Shinto…like that golden light on the Mion River that the authorities had explained away with some kind of sciencey-sounding thing, or like that serial killer that had been abducting and killing children, almost en masse. For a while that awful incident was all the students at Homurahara Academy had been able to talk about, such that it had even made Reikan Ryuudou uncharacteristically solemn, but of course for the sake of his little brother Issei.

Taiga gave a low grumble. Why was it she managed to let her mind wander to the most random things as her half-asleep brain tried to process the reboot procedure of waking up?

What made it a little easier after a few more minutes of meandering rumination was the smell of food cooking.

And then a bitter taste settled in her mouth, as she realized what that implied. But then that at least provided her with even greater motivation to finally get out of bed.

Rubbing her eyes as she slid the door into the main room open, she indeed found Shirou in the kitchen cooking breakfast, as she had suspected once she'd sniffed out the scent of cooking food, and the bitter taste she knew was guilt that it wasn't her doing the cooking. She felt less like an adult and more like a petulant child, which unfortunately didn't improve her mood.

Just so, she was determined to take what weight off Shirou's shoulders she still could, and insinuated herself into the kitchen without a word, opening a cabinet and taking out plates.

Shirou—who still needed a stool to be high enough to work at the stove (properly work at it anyway)—looked over at her from where he was frying a mess of eggs, rice, and vegetables, giving a small gasp of surprise at seeing her.

She looked up at him and smiled. "Good morning, Shirou."

"Ah…good morning…Fuji-nee," he said, and even tried to work up a smile of his own.

So it was that Taiga at least saw to it that Shirou didn't have a breakfast alone, seeing as how her father and grandfather had returned to the Fujimura compound. From the note her father had left her, they had made the necessary calls and Kiritsugu's wake and funeral had all been arranged as far as setting dates was concerned: the wake was to be tomorrow night, the funeral the following day.

That fact seemed to hang over her and Shirou's breakfast, making it a decidedly morose and silent meal at first.

But Taiga couldn't stand seeing Shirou pick over a meal that ironically tasted so damn delicious in her opinion. Though she herself was on the edge of crying because it was so damn delicious, and poor Kiritsugu was no longer alive to enjoy such things. Perhaps that was why it seemed so ironic, because Shirou had never cooked something so delicious, his best work yet, and it was like Kiritsugu had to die first to make it happen.

More than that though, it was just so incredibly sad. So sad in fact that for a brief moment in experiencing this feeling on the edge of tears, throat tight even as she endeavored to swallow the delicious meal, Taiga sorrowfully wondered if this meant she was cursed to spend the rest of her life with the attitude of a grieving widow.

Then she gulped that feeling down, determined that she been the one doing the gulping, not having the feeling gulp her. Besides, she couldn't go breaking down on Shirou: it was bad enough he'd already been the one to cook breakfast (though admittedly her attempts would have been grievously disastrous).

Determined to get Shirou to start talking, as his growing silence made her more and more fearful for him by the minute, she raved with more than her usual enthusiasm about the deliciousness of his rice omelets.

"I'm telling you, I could eat this every day!" She was half-considering it. She couldn't bear the fact that otherwise Shirou would be eating all alone.

Shirou, for his part, could only offer up another half-hearted half-smile for gratitude, but Taiga supposed it was at least a step in the right direction. Though it was sobering to see it on a face as young as his. Not even a teenager yet and already he was close to going around with that jaded look brought on by the trials and tribulations of growing up too fast.

How many times had the three of them sat together for dinner at this table? Just wondering made Taiga's heart ache terribly again, knowing she would never again hear Kiritsugu's particular way of laughing, one that had always thrilled her, perhaps because she had started to get this feeling after getting to know the man (as little as she did) that when he laughed, loud and free, almost like an old child, it came from the heart of a man who had once spent his life locked in a darkness that would not let him laugh...the kind of laugh that broke through years of pain and sorrow...the kind of laugh that almost hurt to hear.

And suddenly Taiga was crying. Cold tears ran soft like smooth, gel pearls down her cheeks and dripped onto her plate, even as she kept trying to smile.

"Fuji-nee?"

Taiga looked up at Shirou, who stared at her with a pinched expression: a sincere show of worry for her—of course he was more worried for her than for himself. His voice had even cracked waterily when he'd spoken up.

Giving a bark of a laugh, Taiga wiped furiously at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt from yesterday, as she'd slept in it. "Damn it," she muttered. "This sucks," she added before she even really thought about it.

But it was true. Having Kiritsugu dead did suck.

"I'm sorry, Shirou."

"You don't have to be sorry, Fuji-nee," Shirou murmured. "You haven't done anything wrong."

"No, I just feel terrible that you're...so sad..." Taiga clarified, though rather lamely.

But Shirou stared at her, as if her words confused him. Then he lowered his eyes back to his plate of food that he himself had cooked so excellently and of which he'd only taken one or two bites, as though forcing himself to eat was like forcing himself to swallow down that awful-tasting medicine that Kiritsugu used to give him for whatever lingering effects he'd suffered from surviving the Fuyuki Fire.

When Taiga thought about that detail she went right back to feeling like crying again. Kiritsugu had done his best for Shirou, but something dark had crept in and slowly snatched the man away from them both. There were so many things about it that were unfair, and Taiga also had a suspicion that she didn't know the half of it.

"I just didn't...wanna cry like this," Taiga growled, flicking away more tears furiously. And why did it seem like all of Shirou's tears had dried up for that matter? Last night he'd been a complete wreck, sobbing his little heart out. But quite quickly after that he had slipped into a state of numb acceptance.

Or maybe all children were like that. She sometimes forgot how resilient young children could be, even at as old as ten, like Shirou was.

With a sudden burst of frustration (with herself), Taiga dived into the rest of her meal with more growling gusto, and at this point she let the tears go. She would simply eat with the fervor of making an effort to put a stopper on them. In fact, Shirou actually watched her with a little shock, and then that half-smile actually came back, such that he found it in him at last to eat a little more himself.

Watching him, Taiga seized an opportunity. "Bet I can finish before you can."

At last: a flicker of that competitive little flame of his that she inspired in him. She could see that he was tempted, but then he withdrew at the last minute and went back to his half-hearted method of eating his breakfast.

"I'm too tired right now, Fuji-nee..."

Taiga outright frowned. She was about to argue though when she realized she was pushing him too much without thinking. With a sigh of resignation, she wiped away her leftover tears and finished eating in unusually morose defeat, reflecting that this had probably been the most emotionally erratic breakfast she had ever experienced in her life.

Of course she finished before he did, but when she stood she made it very clear that she would clean up for the both of them. Shirou stared at her again, blinking his golden-brown eyes as though bewildered.

Taiga smiled for him. "It'll take baby-steps, Shirou, but we'll get through this."

Shirou opened his mouth and then closed it, and was clearly about to open it again when the doorbell rang.

Taiga held up a finger. "Hold that thought."

Then she went to answer the door, sliding it open to a rather unexpected caller.

"Ryuudou-kun?"

Reikan Ryuudou grinned that grin of his, burly as ever, and changed out of temple dress for street clothes. "Yo, Fuji-chan." He did a kind waving salute.

"Shouldn't you be at the temple?" Taiga asked. "What're you doing here?"

"I was at the temple, which is incidentally how I received some pretty bad news." Reikan turned as sober as he did those days they were speaking of the kids getting abducted and murdered five years ago. The guy hadn't changed much since high school. "I heard about what happened. Your grandfather called last night. For funeral arrangements?"

"Oh. Yeah. That." Taiga pronounced these words as though she were trying to get an unpleasant taste out of her mouth.

"Are you okay?" Reikan leaned in, lowering his voice to a rather tactfully comforting timbre, which Taiga appreciated.

Trouble was though, she didn't really know how to answer that question except with:

"Not really...I guess."

Indeed, she was sad, but she hated admitting that to Reikan. Maybe that was the problem.

Which proved to be more the case when she realized that Reikan, still crushing on her even after high school, was extending a helpful hand with this question, inviting her to open up to him.

But Taiga couldn't do it. Except to say: "I don't really wanna talk about it."

Reikan accepted her answer, closing his eyes and nodding, understanding. When he opened them, he had that smile of his on again. "Okay, I get it. No worries. Guess I'll just be getting back to the temple then."

Taiga thanked him sincerely with a bow, for she really was grateful for his amitous gesture. After she slid the door closed behind him, she heard a cough behind her and turned to find Shirou peeking out from around the corner and watching her.

"Aren't you going to go out with him, Fuji-nee?" Shirou asked, rather bluntly actually.

Taiga lifted one shoulder. "Nah. I don't need to. I'd rather hang around here if it's all the same to you."

Shirou blinked and then said, more gently, "You don't have to."

Taiga blinked back. "But of course I do. I can't leave my Shirou-kun alone."

"But..." Shirou scratched at his ear, looking forlorn. And then he said to Taiga, working up a smile again: "You should go out and have some fun."

For some reason, Taiga stared at him longer, hearing this. And then she said: "What if I said I wanted to have fun with you?"

Shirou blinked again too. "Eh?"

Taiga made a move in the direction of the corridor that led to the Emiya compound's dojo. "C'mon. Let's have at it. A grand spar session in Kiritsugu's honor."

Again, Shirou seemed to seriously consider taking her up on her offer at first, but then his thoughtful expression turned forlorn again, and he looked away, as if he felt he might be disappointing his big sister in some way, and he felt genuinely bad about it even when he couldn't help himself. "No, I...don't think I want to."

And before Taiga could try and persuade him to change his mind, he turned away, leaving Taiga to stand there listening to the sound of her own broken heart beating and the quick snick of Shirou shutting his bedroom door.

One thing Taiga hadn't particularly liked about going to Homurahara Academy was the school uniforms, that crisp collar of the white shirt that went underneath the pressed, dark beige vest for the girls. Reikan and her other friend, Otoko Hotaruzuka, had made similar complaints about the high collars that mimicked Japanese military uniforms bothering them in a similar fashion. Now that she worked for Homurahara Academy as a teacher, she could relish the fact that she could now wear her own clothes (and she rather pushed the envelope with it, but at this point the older, stuffier teachers were starting to realize there would be no changing her, and the intelligent work she did more than made up for her freer personality) while her poor students still had to endure those same uniforms. Not that she got any kind of sadistic pleasure out of it, certainly, but more that she knew that one day, they'd know the same joy she had come to know in graduating and finally being able to take off that uniform for good.

But with the wake and funeral for Kiritsugu, it was back into another pressed, high-collared outfit starched to prim crispness for appearance's sake. Just that this time, it was all black. Though Taiga liked to think that if Kiritsugu had had his way, she'd be allowed to at least add a dash of color somewhere.

Which inspired her to take the innovative risks she always enjoyed taking when the occasions presented themselves to her. Earlier in the day, she had at the very least been able to drag Shirou out shopping for an outfit of his own for the funeral, and she had come across a hairpin that had featured a Japanese iris, and she'd recalled again that night Kiritsugu had given her an iris blossom from that garden of his, so precious to him, and decided to buy it for a hair piece for the wake and funeral. With this she finally settled on taking out her usual ponytail and putting her hair up such that it seemed almost cut short, which did serve to make her look even more mature.

Nevertheless, the incense smell at the wake was richly oppressive, and not at all, Taiga thought, something Kiritsugu would've wanted for his funeral guests. At the very least, she knew she didn't want it for her own funeral. None of this tugging at a stuffy collar and closed in by a heavily sweet smell. Blecch.

The wake itself was pretty high pressure too for Taiga, which didn't help matters as far as how much she was sweating underneath her pressed black dress. She felt exposed, or rather that she ran the risk of exposing her feelings concerning Kiritsugu. Her father and grandfather both knew she'd been very fond of and attached to him, but even they didn't know that in the depth of her heart...

"You're fidgeting..."

Taiga whirled around. "Dad?"

Kichirou smiled and tugged at the cuffs of his suit jacket. "See? I can fidget too."

"Heh, heh, heh." Taiga waved a nervous hand.

And then Kichirou frowned, turning serious. "You know, you don't have to do this."

Taiga lowered her hand and turned solemn too. "I'm fine, I told you. I can't have Shirou seeing me break down, after all." As she said this, she spotted Shirou crouched in the corner near Kiritsugu's coffin, here in the main room of the Emiya house, unable to bring himself to face again the sight of his father dead.

"Taiga-chan..."

"I have to look after him, Dad...Kiritsugu...made me promise so...I can't be weak..."

Kichirou reached over and brushed at a few strands of his daughter's hair. "Is part of it that you feel like you have to prove you've grown up?"

Now it was Taiga's turn to frown. "Dad..." she growled. "I'm not..."

Out of the corner of her eye, Taiga spotted a minor acquaintance of the Emiya family, an older woman, a neighbor who had said her hellos now and then to Kiritsugu, and whom Kiritsugu had helped out when he'd been able to carry a few heavy pieces of furniture into her house, Etsuko Akiyama, approaching Shirou. Shirou looked up at her, looking lost and scared of her, shy as always. She bent her knees and spoke to him kindly, and Shirou nodded and let her pat him on the head.

But after she turned away, Shirou, with a desperate look in his eyes, sprang from his corner and dashed from the room, escaping into the garden.

Taiga's heart went out to him, and she excused herself from her father to go after the boy. She heard Kichirou call out to her, and her heart ached more that she couldn't find it in herself to confide in her father the way she normally did.

"Shirou...?"

Outside, she found Shirou crying again, probably because he thought he was alone. He was crouched down by Kiritsugu's irises. Carefully, she knelt down beside him, but she refrained from touching him to give him his space.

"Shirou?" she repeated, softly.

Shirou looked up at her and quickly wiped away his tears. "Fuji-nee..."

"Oh Shirou." Taiga worked up her smile for him. This was happening a lot of late and it was getting exhausting, even for someone of her naturally perky and bright disposition. "I know this is hard for you...but...if...you wanted...we could say goodbye to Kiritsugu together..."

"But I don't wanna say goodbye…I don't him to be gone…" Shirou whimpered. The crux of the matter at last.

"I know…neither do I, Shirou…." Taiga's voice only cracked for a fraction of a second. She hoped Shirou didn't catch it. "I wish…he was still here with us…like before…."

Shirou blinked at her, and then he looked at the irises blooming in the waning moon. "Are you scared to do it too?"

"Yeah, a little," Taiga admitted.

Sniffling, Shirou considered Taiga, and then the irises again. Then he looked over at Taiga and stood, offering her his small hand. "Okay. As long as we can do it together."

Glad to see she could coax him, Taiga accepted his hand and stood, and the two of them walked together back into the house.

It was a relief too, because it appeared that most everyone else had said their final farewells to Kiritsugu, so Taiga felt even less like she was being ushered onto a stage, with everyone else off milling around and talking. She spotted her father watching her as he spoke with her grandfather and few other members of the Fujimura yakuza, and she gave him a quick smile, a kind of apology for her attitude a few moments ago. His returning her smile suggested he had forgiven her, and her grandfather gave her a smile too, demonstrating a rare moment of solemnity in it.

But Taiga felt Shirou squeeze her hand—no, more like crush it—as they approached Kiritsugu laid out in his coffin. Though again, he still had that same look of his peace on his face. What could have happened to him in his life that being with Shirou and Taiga hadn't been enough to bring about such an expression of utter serenity? Why was it that the peace of death was what it took for him too look that peaceful?

Well, Taiga still liked and wanted to believe that she and Shirou had had something to do with it, that he hadn't just been a man waiting to die all this time.

"Kiritsugu-san…" she said quietly, almost on an exasperated sigh, the way she would when he was being infuriatingly, teasingly difficult, or needlessly distant, or clearly only smiling for Taiga's and Shirou's benefits, while inside—

"Thank you, for everything, jii-san," Shirou suddenly piped up as Taiga still groped for something more to say while her throat kept constricting on her. He spoke in earnest, as though something inside him were coming back awake. "I've always said it, but…no matter how many times, it could never be enough…." He audibly swallowed. "But I'll keep my promise. And I'll do my best…to grow up to be the kind of man…you would be proud of…."

Taiga felt that strong urge again to take Shirou in her arms and hug him as tight as she could as she watched him. "Shirou…."

Shirou took a deep, shuddering breath, and then offered one of the irises he'd plucked from Kiritsugu's garden. "Here. Because they always made you happy…jii-san."

Now it was Taiga's turn to squeeze Shirou's hand, as Shirou nodded at her to go ahead and say her piece. Her lip trembled on the words…

I think I've loved you since the day I first saw you….

But then, somehow, thinking those words, it became comforting for her, and she felt calm, glad even, for this moment. Somehow, she even felt suddenly that Kiritsugu really could hear their prayers, and before she knew it, she reached over and, light as a breath, brushed her knuckles against the side of Kiritsugu's face. The warmth might've been gone, but she'd known that touch whenever she'd bopped him one for being an idiot, before hastily apologizing for having been so disrespectful to her master and mentor, only to have him hold his cheek and laugh it off with that exuberant joy of his that was like light cutting through darkness.

"Kiritsugu-san…you loveable fool," she finally said, on a light laugh under her breath, and then, still riding on the high of her feelings, she bent over and kissed the cheek she had just stroked, whispering, "I'll take care of him. Just like I promised. You don't have to worry anymore."

When she raised her head, she saw Shirou gaping at her just a little, as though surprised by her forwardness. But then he seemed to realize perhaps he shouldn't be all that surprised and closed his mouth, smiling a little even.

"Okay. Shall we go, Shirou?" Taiga offered.

Shirou nodded, and the two of them turned away from Kiritsugu. But shortly after they had left his side, the boy's small hand slid out of hers, and Taiga couldn't help feeling a little piece of herself leave with him as he hurried on ahead on his own, as if determined to carry on without her.

The funeral procession the following morning was bittersweetly lit by a gorgeously bright and sunny day. Taiga endured it all—including that accursed stiff collar again—but felt more unsettled when the walking stopped and she could no longer be comforted by the rhythm of simple forward movement: all the time while they lowered Kiritugu's ashes into the ground, she had to put up with a tight knot in her stomach that might have actually been a bomb set to go off for all she knew, only she couldn't be sure when or if it would go off. All she could do to make an effort to quell the threatening beast was twist the heels of her black dress shoes into the dirt.

Shirou stood beside her, his mouth a tight line, as though he too was holding in an explosion of screams and tears. She wanted to reach out and hold his hand, but was hesitant to do so after his having voluntarily slid his hand out of hers at the wake, and this only served to increase her melancholy.

After the burial though, Taiga did experience a little relief that the formalities, for the most part, were over. As the crowd of black-clad mourners dispersed, Taiga and Shirou were left relatively alone with the beautifully carved stone marker bearing Kiritsugu Emiya's posthumous name of "admirable". It was Reikan Ryuudou actually who had helped Taiga pick it out. She caught the young man's eye as he joined the other Ryuudou Temple monks, giving him her silent appreciation for making everything with the funeral go smoothly.

Reikan gave her that special salute of his before turning away.

Still, Shirou made no move to take Taiga's hand again.

As the two of them looked upon that solemn grave, Taiga imagined they both had the same tight lump in their throat.

Then Shirou blinked up at the sunlight. "It's too pretty out."

"Yeah, it is," Taiga agreed. She looked over at Shirou. "Well, what shall we do for dinner? We can just relax, just the two of us. If you want."

Shirou blinked at her instead of the sunlight. "Did you want to?"

"Of course. I always stay for dinner, don't I?"

"Well…okay."

"Farewell, Kiritsugu." Taiga gave Kiritsugu's grave a kind of respectful and solemn salute. "We'll visit you again."

Shirou only bit his lip, making a tiny noise in his throat as though holding back something.

That evening, despite Taiga's efforts, Shirou effectively banished her from the kitchen while he made his first attempt at hotpot, and to his credit, it turned out quite as well as his rice omelets the morning before. Unfortunately, the tastiness of the meal was diluted by the repeated moroseness of the atmosphere, even as Taiga made attempts at small talk and jokes. Though Shirou tried to laugh with her, it was more than clear that he didn't want to, that it hurt to. Truth be told, it hurt for her to do it too.

That and when Kichirou came by that evening and dropped off an overnight bag with Taiga, and Shirou saw it, there was an awkward charge in the air that his expression evoked.

"Have a goodnight, sweetheart." Kichirou squeezed his daughter's shoulder and kissed her cheek.

"Yeah, thanks Dad," said Taiga with a sincere grin of thanks before he left.

"You're staying here?" Shirou asked confusedly, approaching her as if he was wary of her. "You're not going home?"

"Shirou, this is really more my home than anywhere's been, except for maybe the Fujimura compound," Taiga told him, dropping her bag to the floor. "Anyway, I won't stay forever, I just…wanna make sure you can handle things."

"I can, Fuji-nee," Shirou insisted. "You don't have to hang around…."

"But…you'll be all alone…."

"That's my life now though."

Taiga stared at Shirou, and it was more than she could bear to see him so grimly accepting of the solitary life he'd been left with when he was still so young. "Shirou-kun…."

"Please, Fuji-nee, I'll be fine," Shirou pressed.

But Taiga shook her head. "No, I have to make sure for myself. Your dad made me promise I'd do what I could to look after you."

"But, really, I will be. After school on Saturday, I'm going into town to look for a job."

"By yourself?"

"By myself."

"Well, that's all very well and good, Shirou, but I still wanna help you."

"But you don't have to…." Shirou's small hands curled into fists. Bit of a danger sign.

Taiga hardly cared. She had to put her foot down. "Listen, Shirou, you're free to do what wish. If you feel you have to get a job and take part in supporting yourself, I more than applaud that, but…." She was unable to keep her voice catching in her throat. "Please don't shut me out, when all I want is to help you…please just let me help you…. There's no shame in it…."

Shirou was trembling, though whatever irritation had been building, that wasn't what was causing the shaking now. Or at least, it wasn't the only thing. His golden-brown eyes were shining, as he struggled again with grief beyond his years, and that indomitable and stubborn urge within him to always be stronger than he was a moment before.

Finally he shook his head and let out a frustrated breath. "Fine. If you're happy to, then okay." And then he turned away.

Something in the way he carried himself, as Taiga watched his retreating back, told her that he still had no intention of picking up his shinai again in the dojo.

In the weeks that followed, that shinai indeed did nothing but start to collect dust.