Part Three

Hope of Morning

"'Some say the world will end in fire/ Some say in ice./ From what I've tasted of desire/ I hold with those who favor fire./ But if it had to perish twice/ I think I know enough of hate/ To say that for destruction ice/ Is also great/ And would suffice.'"

Taiga lifted her eyes from her book of English poetry, part of her coursework for pursuing a career as an English teacher. Kiritsugu, sitting across from her at the table in the main room at the Emiya house, met her gaze as he turned a page in the copy of the newspaper he was leafing through for himself. He smiled in that way of his that was faintly touched with sadness.

"That was lovely, Taiga-chan," he said sincerely.

But Taiga sensed he was biting back something, like Robert Frost's poem had reminded him of something he'd rather not remember. Hastily she flipped through her book and found a piece she hoped might be more agreeable. Finding one, she cleared her throat and began, again, reading off in English as it was written:

"'I celebrate myself/ And what I assume you shall assume/ For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you./ I loaf and invite my soul/ I lean and loaf at my ease...observing a spear of summer grass.'"

Venturing another glance at Kiritsugu, she was glad to see his expression soften to something less dented with a mysterious and distant pain. And then, even more happily, he laughed that special laugh of his, the one that always secretly brought Taiga on the edge of joyful tears.

"I see why you like that one," Kiritsugu teased. "It sounds just like you."

Then the color rushed to Taiga's face, and she buried it in her cup of green tea, which made Kiritsugu laugh even harder, to the point that he had to clutch at a stitch in his side.

And despite her discomfiture, seeing him so happy, Taiga could easily forgive him, and smiled into her tea, muttering, "Ever the idiotic jerk, Kiritsugu-san."

Kiritsugu managed to catch his breath then and blinked happily at Taiga, grinning broadly. "That's okay though, I can tell you're smiling anyway," he quipped.

Taiga set down her tea, no longer hiding. "That's because I'm glad you are," she admitted.

Kiritsugu chuckled softly at this. "Ah, Taiga-chan..."

As the dream of this memory faded, Taiga slowly opened her eyes, her brain fuzzily awakening back to the real world and the new morning it might bring. Recalling the dream, her heart ached for that memory, for she'd forgotten it until now, and she had a painful curiosity as to what Kiritsugu had had in mind to say but didn't when he'd said "Ah, Taiga-chan..."

Painful because now she would never know. She could only guess, and that just filled her with regret. Taiga had hoped she might be one of those lucky people who could live without regret, especially after having been born into the very laidback Fujimura clan.

She sighed and turned onto her back, throwing an arm over her eyes to block out the sun streaming into her flat. It only took her a moment to pull herself together though. Shirou was waiting, after all. And then she had school, and kendo with her father (since it was Saturday and therefore a half day) until dinner, again with Shirou.

In the weeks that had passed since Kiritsugu's death, she and Shirou had settled into something of a meal routine that seemed to be growing less and less strained with each one, but still, Taiga still couldn't help worrying about how much Shirou was pushing himself to look for a job. She was thinking at this point she might ask Otoko Hotaruzuka if she might be willing to take the kid on at her family's bar, Copenhagen.

Which prompted her to give her a call, and later that afternoon after school hours found the two of them meeting at the same restaurant where Kiritsugu would sometimes take Shirou for a parfait or ice cream when the boy had been smaller.

"Yo, Fuji-chan!" Otoko waved to her from the corner booth she'd saved for them when Taiga entered the restaurant.

"Yo, Neko!" Taiga called back, calling her friend by her nickname, which had inspired her to sew the cat face on the bottom of the apron she wore for work.

She grinned as she slid into the seat across from her friend. "Thanks for meeting me. How're you?"

"Awesome! Copenhagen's on a roll, rakin' it in!" Otoko made a kind of pumped punching gesture at the air and then tossed her dark hair. "And you? Teaching going okay?"

"Yeah, I like it," Taiga said with a rare moment of quiet enthusiasm.

"I always thought you might." Otoko winked. "And meanwhile poor Ryuudou's still sweet on you."

Taiga felt the color rise in her cheeks, and just as she was stammering on a response, the waitress came to take her drink order same as she'd done for Otoko, and was happily saved the trouble.

"But you wanted to discuss that little boy of yours—Shirou, right?" Otoko stirred her own drink with her straw as she graciously turned seriously toward Taiga's intended topic of conversation.

"Yeah..." Taiga sighed and made a show of stretching her arms out. "You mentioned, since Copenhagen has been doing so great, you might be looking to hire a new part-timer or two. Right?"

Otoko sipped on her drink on a long pull. "Mm-hm." She came up and smacked her lips as she swallowed. "Is little Shirou looking to get hired somewhere? How old is he?"

"Only ten," said Taiga, struggling to keep the melancholy out of her voice. When the waitress arrived with her drink, her thirst curdled in her mouth and she could only bring herself to stir the ice packed into her glass.

"And he already wants a job?"

"He's...on his own now."

"Aren't you looking after him though?"

"He...wants to say he can be on his own...that he doesn't need anyone... He doesn't want…to be a burden..."

Taiga had to suddenly bite her lip to keep it from trembling as her throat grew tight and her eyes pricked. Out of a bout of hasty nerves, she sipped up just enough of her drink to lean over and drip a few drops onto the crumpled wrapper of her straw, offering her the distraction of watching it open up as a result of getting wet, stretching out like a lazy cat.

"Ah, Fuji-chan..." sighed Otoko, and Taiga was so painfully reminded of Kiritsugu saying practically the same thing she almost broke, looking up at her friend from the twitching straw wrapper in painful earnest.

But of course, Otoko was even more adept at finding a smile than Taiga, rather like Reikan.

"He'll ask for help when he needs it," she tried to reassure her.

"I'm not so sure," Taiga said forlornly. "But I was hoping...if...you took him on... I mean I know he's too young to handle the liquor, but he can do other things—he's such a hard worker." Her voice cracked, just for a moment. Clearing her throat, she continued. "I just think...if he could get something...it's hard because he's so young but...even if it helped..."

"Take his mind off losing his father?" Otoko guessed.

"Yeah," Taiga answered, feeling the weight of what she was asking lift a bit.

"I don't know…." Otoko's words tailed away and she sucked pensively on her teeth.

"Come on, Neko…I mean I went to all that trouble to track down that wine barrel that got stolen from your family's liquor stores for the bar way back when we were in school," Taiga pointed out, now putting on a show of disgruntlement.

"A wine barrel you failed to recover," Otoko pointed out in turn.

"It's the effort that counts," Taiga grumbled, but she remained humble in light of the situation. After all, she had in fact tracked down the barrel, but after getting to know the thieves—none other than that young older boy from England and his larger-than-life, leonine, red-headed man (also a foreigner, yet knowledgeable of the Japanese language)—she'd let them get away.

"Ah, I suppose so." Otoko sucked on her teeth again. And then, like that, her bright, sisterly grin said it all. "I think I can see my way to working something out."

Now it was simply a matter of steering Shirou toward applying with Copenhagen so he would believe he'd gotten the job all on his own. That was important. With that simple goal in mind, Taiga started to feel completely like her old carefree self again.

Sparring with her father in the Fujimura dojo helped too.

"Excellent, Taiga-chan! Your bounce is back!"

Though Taiga was painfully reminded of Kiritsugu when her father said this, it made her happy at the exact same time, like Kiritsugu was near in some way. She wanted to believe Shirou might feel that way too, if only to lift some of his own sadness.

Taiga glanced at her watch: right about now, Otoko would be fulfilling her end of the bargain and guiding Shirou towards his getting a part-time job with her family's bar, without him even realizing he was getting the help he so stubbornly refused to ask for. With that in mind, she grinned back at her father and raised her shinai.

"I just get this feeling things are turning around for the better," she said.

Kichiro's smile was gentle. "Good. I'm glad." He raised his shinai too, and when his and his daughter's clacked together, Taiga could already feel her victory in her hands as she held the hilt of her tiger-striped weapon.

"Fuji-nee!"

Taiga's ears pricked up eagerly at hearing Shirou call out to her with exuberance such that she hadn't heard in weeks when she came inside the Emiya house for dinner that night.

"What is it, Shirou?" she asked brightly, naturally acting all innocence.

"I got a job!" Shirou pumped his fist in triumph, and for a strangely brilliant moment, it seemed to Taiga that he was wielding the spatula he was using to cook dinner like a heroic blade, like he'd just pulled King Arthur's sword out of the stone.

Or something.

Taiga laughed. "That's wonderful, Shirou," she congratulated, having no trouble being genuine even though she already knew what had happened. As she said this, she sent up a silent thanks to Otoko.

She put her hands on her hips then and asked the obvious next question: "Where at?"

Shirou lowered the spatula and tucked it behind him, suddenly a little shy. "Well, it's…at this bar…."

Taiga, who was rather enjoying making a big show, went wide-eyed with over-the-top surprise. "Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…? A bar? But, you're too young! You won't be old enough to even touch the alcohol for another ten years!"

"But the lady who owns the store said she was really impressed with everything else I could do," Shirou insisted. "You see, she picked me out of the street because she was having trouble with her sign—I guess she hates ladders or something—and I was the closest person around who could help her, and she was so grateful for my help that she offered me a job right there on the spot. I thought it was too good to be true, so she decided to put me to the test cleaning up the place, and after the job I did with that, that pretty much settled things." In spite of himself, he snuck in a small grin of pride.

Taiga was glad to see it, and if she had really been furious with Shirou, this alone would've been enough to persuade her to let him go ahead with the job. Being that this had all been pre-arranged, everything couldn't have worked out more perfectly. Though she hid a snicker on behalf of Otoko's anxiety over heights that her attempts to hang that sign of hers always left her whimpering and going jelly-legged. She'd been the same in high school, doing everything she could to avoid getting assigned a task that would have her do something like hang a banner for a school festival or the like.

"Oh, very well, I guess I can't argue with performance results like that," said Taiga, feigning an admission of defeat. And then she winked. "Know what this means though? You and I'll have to celebrate. Tomorrow is Sunday after all and we both have the day free…."

Shirou opened his mouth just as a burning scent wafted on the air. With a gasp, the boy turned tail back into the kitchen, shouting, "Hold that thought, Fuji-nee!" over his shoulder as he rushed to salvage what he could of their threatened dinner.

Shaking her head, Taiga followed him into the kitchen to give him the hand he hadn't asked for. But then she was beginning to think might be how things were going to be from now on.

The following day seemed to pull out all the stops for it to be absolutely and divinely beautiful for Shirou and Taiga. Taiga even woke up to an uplifting sensation in her chest that was augmented by the feeling that she could somehow feel Kiritsugu nearby again. Or maybe she still wanted to believe that so badly.

Either way, spring was awakening the world again with the melodic twittering of the Japanese bush warbler. Taiga was determined to maintain a lightness of spirit, and hoped she could pass that feeling on to Shirou. It was so wonderful to think that he might start smiling again, like he did before Kiritsugu died.

She arrived earlier than usual at the Emiya house so she could surprise Shirou with cooking breakfast, even dolling up and wearing a sleeveless dress, her hair done up in its usual energetic ponytail. It was a dress she'd only worn once before, and hadn't worn since, when she'd gotten the feeling that it had upset Kiritsugu somehow—not that he'd expressed it openly, but he'd fallen into one of his bouts of melancholia upon seeing her wear it, and she'd become convinced that she must've sadly reminded him of something or someone.

As for the breakfast she'd brought over, certainly Shirou enjoyed doing the cooking for them, but she wanted to treat him as much as she could today. She planned to use the fact that they were celebrating his getting a job to her full advantage.

Shirou greeted her rubbing a tired eye with his knuckle when he slid open the door. "Good morning…Fuji-nee," he croaked sleepily. "You're early. I just woke up, so I don't have breakfast ready ye—"

"Never mind about that, I'm beating you to it!" Taiga patted him on the head and pushed her way inside with her basket full of ingredients.

Blinking blearily and bemusedly, Shirou wandered into the kitchen after her, too half-asleep to argue as she started making the only thing she was good at making: octopus hotdogs over scrambled eggs.

"You go ahead and get dressed," Taiga told him with a grin. "I've got this."

Shirou gave her a look like he was skeptical and half-expected that she might even burn the kitchen down, but then let it go with a shrug and went back to his room to do as she asked. When he returned, she had hot plates piled high with eggs and little octopus hotdogs cooked to perfection, which was saying something for Taiga.

"Wow, Fuji-nee, I'm actually impressed," Shirou teased as the two of them dug in as usual at the table.

Taiga scowled at him, but then sniggered on her own bite of food, more glad to hear Shirou poking fun at her the way he used to than anything else. And when he joined her in her laughter, she laughed even harder, until both of them were snorting hilariously into their eggs and little octopi, which just made the whole situation all the more hilarious.

Their laughter echoed throughout the great big Emiya house, and Taiga's spirits lifted again to think, to hope…that Kiritsugu could somehow hear them.

After they cleaned up the breakfast things, Taiga took Shirou out so they could enjoy the sunshine in downtown Fuyuki. It was too early for the cherry blossoms to bloom, unfortunately, but the trees themselves, with their fuzzy buds just waiting for that moment, were lovely in their own way.

The shopping district too was a lot of fun, since Taiga led the way, and even though she knew Shirou was being his usual acquiescent self in the sense that he wasn't arguing about where they went because he still had this stupid idea stuck in his head that he didn't deserve to make his own choices in enjoyment (Taiga and Kiritsugu had talked about it a little when he'd been alive) she did her best to take his level of enjoyment into account. Basically she was just short of forcing him to have fun at the point of a sword, but this turned out to work quite effectively. Shirou soon seemed to awaken even more from the dark spell of grief and guilt that had taken ahold of him, and before he knew it, was having fun without even realizing it, window-shopping for cooking utensils, admiring the works of artisan clock-makers, books on shelves…. He even participated in a round or two of arcade games (of which Taiga was a huge fan, but of which Shirou wasn't particularly keen on)—even getting him to stumble awkwardly through a set on DDR, though she was actually pleased that in this case, he had more fun being the spectator and cheering her on when she did her set and drew an admiring crowd with her adept performance.

"You know I'm not all that into pop, right?" Shirou told her, raising an eyebrow before taking a sip on the fruit soda she'd bought him.

"Gah, come on, it's called 'pop' because it's short for the English word 'popular'. As in everybody can find at least one thing about it they can groove to," said Taiga. She neglected however to add that she'd grown rather fond of the old kayokyoku records from the 80's that Kiritsugu had collected on vinyl, something that had fed one of her many theories about his life before coming to Fuyuki and Miyama Town: that he had actually been an international rock star who had grown weary of the hard and fast drug-abusing and depraved lifestyle of a celebrity and had settled for the quiet life he'd come to at what became the Emiya residence. Somehow she could see him passionately grabbing a mike, wearing nothing but a black t-shirt over a white undershirt and jeans, screaming out lyrics that pushed the boundaries into thrash metal. With that hair and everything….

"Fuji-nee?"

Taiga jumped, and realized that Shirou had been trying to get her attention for a long minute now. "Oh…sorry, Shirou. I spaced out there for a sec."

Shirou watched her with genuine concern. "Were you…remembering something?"

"Oh, just silly things." Taiga gave a rather nervous giggle and pressed on. "Where shall we go next?"

Only then did either of them realize that they had wandered out of the shopping district and come to the park where the great Fuyuki Fire had taken place all those years ago…where Kiritsugu had rescued Shirou from death, and then taken him in to raise him as his son.

Shirou stopped, gulping down the last of his soda, but he didn't slacken his grip.

As Taiga watched him taking in the scene of the practically barren park—not because it wasn't a nice, lush park, but because too many citizens were too reminded of the painful event it represented—she thought she could almost see the memory of the horrific fire reflected in his golden-brown eyes, though she hadn't been there herself, and only recalled the event from shots on the evening news. It was sad, the way he was observing it, coupled with how much life was growing here and yet hardly anyone except the homeless keeping out of sight wanted to enjoy it, as if to enjoy life grown from death would be a sin. Kiritsugu had come here once on his own, so Taiga understood, but like everyone else, he'd tried to avoid it. Maybe for Shirou's sake, but he too had seemed to have a painfully personal connection to the place, beyond his having rescued Shirou when this place had been a fire-riddled field of death.

Heaving a sigh, Taiga was about to ask Shirou if he'd like to quickly move on to somewhere else, when instead he suddenly spoke up and said:

"Hey…let's take a walk through here." He blinked up at her. "Can we, Fuji-nee?"

Taiga considered him a moment. "If you really want to," she said, trying to be careful not to upset him.

"The grass looks nice," said Shirou, and even smiled a little. "We can lie out on it and watch the clouds." And then he tossed his soda cup into the nearby trash can.

So they did just that, picking a spot in the middle of the open park surrounded by trees, lying out on their backs and watching the clouds sail by across the bright blue ocean of perfect sky.

Taiga thought she might be lulled to sleep as a great peace settled on them both, neither of them speaking as they just watched. But she didn't fall asleep, perhaps because her mind raced again with thoughts of Kiritsugu being able to see this, that if she fell asleep, he wouldn't be able to see this beautiful day through her eyes.

And then Shirou woke her from her thoughts again, as she felt his small hand reach for hers. Sucking in her breath, she looked over at him, and saw that he was giving her a smile brighter than any he'd given since Kiritsugu's death—but also one laced heavily yet beautifully with sadness. Accepting his invitation, she squeezed his hand back, without words letting him know that she really would always be here for him, that he didn't have to be scared of being alone. And for her it was reassuring too, like he was wordlessly telling her back:

"Your little brother's still here. He doesn't want his big sister to worry so much."

Then Shirou sat up, and Taiga did the same. Though he let go of her hand to wrap his arms around his knees, in a way she felt he hadn't let go at all, and she too wrapped her arms around her own knees.

As they both looked up at the divine sky again, Shirou said, "Thank you, Fuji-nee. I…I feel better."

Taiga glanced at him hopefully. "You do?" When he nodded at her, she didn't hold back her sigh of relief. "Good. I'm glad. That's all I want for you, you know."

"Yeah. I know." Then Shirou addressed his knees. "It still hurts that…Kiritsugu's gone but…I'm…I'm so glad you're still here…Fuji-nee…." He swallowed and then took a deep breath. "But…there's something…that's been on my mind…ever since he died…."

"Yeah?"

"Just that…well…he just…always seemed so sad when he thought you and I weren't looking, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"But then…if I called out to him…he'd turn…and he'd smile…and for some reason...it was such a magical thing…to see that smile…like a small miracle…."

"You're right. I saw that too."

Taiga briefly closed her eyes as the breeze lifted. And then she could see it again, so clear in her mind: Kiritsugu staring rather forlornly out at the garden in all its springtime beauty, as though he felt it lacked something that for him turned his world grey, and then turning at the sound of her voice, and that smile that melted away all that sadness, so handsome in the gravity that it had overcome, and then, speaking her name:

"Ah…Taiga-chan…."

And stepping away from the garden, walking toward her, as if trying to forget the sad and mysterious things he'd been pondering….

Kiritsugu-san….

There was a sniffle beside her, and Taiga opened her eyes to Shirou crying quietly with his face buried in his arms, his little shoulders shaking with every little sob. Then he lifted his tearful, golden-brown eyes to her and asked her, almost pleadingly, "Why wasn't there anything more I could do for him, Fuji-nee? I wish there had been…."

Taiga fought back her own tears and on sisterly impulse pulled the quaking Shirou into her arms, hugging him close against her, letting his tears soak into her dress. "I know Shirou…I ask myself that too…all the time…."

"You do…?"

"Uh-huh…."

Shirou clutched her tighter, gripping her dress in his fists that were still small, but growing bigger every day. There were no more words he could say, it seemed, as he let out a long, loud, cathartic cry that said even more than anything else. A cry that said: "Thank God, I'm really not alone after all."

Though she imagined that he would probably still force himself to be, just to prove he could stand on his own two feet, to grow up into a man as great as Kiritsugu had been, it was enough to know that at least from her, his "big sister Fuji", he wouldn't keep hiding anymore.

"Oh Shirou…" she croaked, pressing him close and kindly petting his red hair. "Stay as sweet as you are," she told him. "Don't ever change."

"Eh?" Shirou lifted his head, sniffling again and wiping at his eyes with the back of his arm before looking up at her once more.

Taiga smoothed back his bangs, beaming at him. "You'll grow up into a fine young man," she assured him. "I have no doubt in my mind about that."

Shirou hiccupped, but his smile came back too, and he nudged away more tears from his cheeks with the inside of his wrist. "'Kay, if you say so, Fuji-nee…then I believe in it."

Standing up, Taiga held out her hands and helped Shirou to his feet, and she gripped his hands fiercely in hers.

"Come on now, let's enjoy the rest of the day like it's the last," she told him fervently. "Remember what Kiritsugu used to say: 'if you're going to enjoy something, then do so to the fullest'."

And Shirou actually gave a laugh, even if it was watery. "Yeah. He was so much like a kid sometimes, wasn't he?"

Taiga's smile for him was warm and gentle, like sunlight banishing all sadness, as she thought back then to a moment such a long time ago, when she had beaten Shirou soundly at kendo, and Kiritsugu had done his best to hide a laugh behind the sleeve of his black kimono as he'd watched her boast and Shirou vow revenge. So much like a kid indeed.

"That he was, Shirou. That he was."

That night, Taiga had another dream revisiting an old memory of Kiritsugu. She had just finished owning him at kendo as usual, and they were taking a tea break at the table, when they'd gotten on the topic of Shirou when Taiga told him how she wanted kendo to be something special between the three of them, and that she was glad that she had at least been able to learn about herself through her time spent on kendo.

Kiritsugu had begun to feel that Shirou had been trying to find himself too.

"I think…Shirou wants to prove himself too…ultimately to be of use to people, but still…."

"Ah, like you…?"

"Oh, well…. Maybe."

"Well, I don't see why that would be so bad. You're a very kind person, in your own way. And Shirou looks up to you. You can't know what he's capable of unless you let him test himself of course, but that's why we try things. Like kendo."

"Hmmmm."

And then Kiritsugu turned to the window, staring off into the distance as he became lost in thought once again.

This time, Taiga followed his gaze, and out in the garden, she once again saw that silver-haired, red-eyed woman gowned in white with gold trim of whom she'd dreamed the night of Kiritsugu's death, as if she'd grown suddenly from Kiritsugu's irises.

She tilted her head to one side and spoke again with great joy. "Don't you two worry one bit," she told them. "Shirou will be all right. He's strong."

"Yeah, he is," Taiga agreed, and Kiritsugu nodded, even as it became clear that he had become very fixated on this woman who had appeared again in the realm of dreaming.

And then Taiga began to wonder….

But as she did, the world around her began to fade away, leaving only enough time for her to look at the silver-haired, red-eyed woman again and hear her say, "You'll do just fine too, Taiga-chan…."

"Why are you…?" But the question Taiga had only got stuck in her throat only—

—for Taiga's eyes to flick open as she woke from her subconscious back into the real world of a brand new morning waiting for her.

"I'll do just fine," she murmured, and only then did she realize there were tears rolling down her cheeks. She wiped them away and rolled out of her futon, breathing in deep, full then of zest and determination such as she hadn't been in months.

Outside, the sky was still dark, just now purpling with the coming dawn. Yet she couldn't see herself falling back to sleep to catch another hour before going to the Emiya residence for breakfast before work.

In the little bathroom, she looked at herself in the small mirror over the sink, at the tangled mess of her hair just freed from the oppressiveness of the pillow.

This is the kind of mindset…I think…Kiritsugu woke up with…there was something…terrible that happened to him…and here in Fuyuki…in Miyama Town…he found a little solace…but he still had to give himself a reason…to get up in the morning…every morning….

Shirou…and me….

Taiga laid her hand over her heart, and felt how its beat quickened. "Kiritsugu-san…." She swallowed and closed her eyes a moment. "I'm keeping my promise. No matter what."

Suddenly then, she had this feeling that Kiritsugu was not only there, but that he was smiling at her back. And then she opened her eyes and touched her hair, remembering how she'd worn it up at Kiritsugu's funeral.

Her mouth went dry, and she licked her equally dry lips, before she ducked out of the bathroom, only to return with the small knife that her father had actually taught her to use in the event that she'd ever have to defend herself from a perverted creep in the shadows, one that as such she usually kept in her bag. With her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth, and concentrating very carefully, she took the knife to her long hair, brushing it out a bit beforehand, and attentively sheared away at it. The strips of hair fell like feathers into the sink, until she was left with hair as short as Kichiro Fujimura's.

When she finished, she shook it out, brushing away the small bits still clinging to the back of her neck and shoulders, and looked over the result.

"Hm, not bad," she thought aloud, admiring her new look proudly. At last, she felt less like a young girl, and more like a woman. And a little more confident in herself for it.

Only to deflate at the mess of hair she now had to clean out of her sink.

As usual, she hadn't entirely thought things through. But then, not everything about her had changed.

Shirou was the first one to see her new look, and he admitted to liking it from the first.

Instead of finding him making breakfast that morning, Taiga found him out in the garden with his old bow and arrow set, the one Kiritsugu had given him for his eighth birthday, practicing hitting the target he'd hung on the tree overlooking the irises, which Shirou still maintained in Kiritsugu's memory. He'd even put on the traditional hakama, like he were back in the dojo again.

He'd just hit another bull's eye when he turned at the sound of her joining him outside. "Fuji-nee! Oh, you cut you hair?"

"What, you don't like it?" Taiga pawed at it self-consciously.

"No, I do," said Shirou sincerely. "It looks good on you." He shouldered his bow and gave her the thumbs up.

"Good. I'm glad." Taiga grinned, this time shaking her newly shorn hair happily. "And what're you up to? Target practice?"

"Yeah." Shirou drew another arrow from the quiver slung over his back and admired the look of it with fond reminiscence. "I don't think…I can bring myself to take up kendo again…but…I started to think…well, you'd always talked about maybe advising something like the Archery Club, right?"

"Yeah." Taiga swept the skirt of the dress she was wearing with a striped undershirt underneath her and sat down on the porch.

From where he stood in the garden, Shirou gave his "big sister Fuji" a grin, entirely happy and full of hope. "Then I think…I might like to join something like that…when I get into Homurahara Academy. So I'm already practicing."

Taiga winked at him. "All right then. I can approve of that. But you'd better work your butt off on those high school entrance exams. 'Kay?"

"M'kay," said Shirou, nodding seriously. And then he became a little uneasy at the sly look Taiga got in her eye.

"I look forward to it, Shirou. Then I'll be your English teacher…mwa-ha-ha-ha…."

"Ah…." Shirou gave a nervous laugh and rubbed the back of his head. "Ah…yeah…that'll be…great…."

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Taiga demanded, shaking her fist.

The two of them looked at each other, and then both busted out laughing, Shirou dropping his bow and the arrow because he had to clutch a stitch in his side like Taiga had to because they actually got to laughing just that hard.

For that happy moment, the two of them felt freer than they had in many, many weeks, drawn together in that same harmony they'd had when Kiritsugu would laugh like this with them. And as the clear morning rang out with the bright sounds of their laughter, Kiritsugu's irises bent in the gentle breeze, almost like they were holding their sides and laughing too.

THE END