It had been three months since Shirou had ...gone missing.
It was like a fresh hell had yawned open for Sakura Matou. The wounds on her heart, which had just begun to scab over, were ripped off her. Pus and blood then flowed from it as she was driven insane by All of the Worlds Evils and then...
Shirou had left her.
'What did I do wrong, senpai?'
As always, the darkness of the night held no answers.
Rin Tohsaka and Rider, respectively former Master and Servant of the Holy Grail War, had looks of weariness to their profiles as they looked up from where they were sitting in the abandoned living room of the Emiya home. Sakura Matou, eyes glassy and expression slightly slack, wandered past them for what seemed to be the fifth time this hour.
"I'll get her this time." Rider finally spoke up with a faint undertone of hate in her tone. "Someone has to get her to get off her feet, afterall." She rose from where they had been pretending to be a stable family unit. The table that the two made sure to keep in between themselves was dusty from disuse.
It was all a charade, of course. A kind lie for the older, kind-hearted woman that had nearly broken when her ward had gone missing and the girl that she had wished would marry that ward had gone into a living death.
It was a joke to think this could ever be a functioning family. Neither of the two women could stand the sight of one another now.
'You failure – you let him die.' Rin's eyes screamed. 'You hateful beast.'
'She's been dead for years because of your negligence.' Rider's eyes retorted with all the venom in her nature. The only reason the young girl still lived was only because Sakura couldn't afford to lose anything more.
The Gorgon shuddered at the look of anguish that had briefly appeared on Sakura's face when she saw the body. The trembling became visible as she recalled how everything that represented Sakura to the Gorgon was just...swept away to a dark recess in the young woman's mind.
Leaving only this puppet.
This horrible, lifeless puppet.
"Senpai..." Sakura moaned in agony. "Where are you?" Her breath hitched as the cool air of the night made her remember when Shirou had walked her home. Sakura's gag reflex kicked in as her traitorous mind turned in on itself as her memory expanded to the rest of the night.
With the pit of worms again.
The young woman collapsed on her knees in the middle of the yard as she dry heaved a few times. Acid and spittle flowed up her throat and over her lips and down her chin. Sakura rattled like a dry leaf in a storm, feeling pieces of her come undone with each shake as the phantom sensations of her dirty, dirty training ran across her skin.
The fog broke apart in Sakura's mind as she felt a pair of hands firmly grasp onto her shoulders.
…!
Then she was screaming and falling and squirming and the lustful worms kept coming and they wouldn't stop and god help me sister senpai anyone please just he-!
Even as Sakura collapsed to her side, she saw the beautiful goddess approach. "Sakura!" Rider quickly took Sakura's shaking body into her arms. Sakura let out pathetic mewls of agony as her mind deterriorated into a bawling child.
Yet Rider silently held Sakura, despite the wretched sight of her pathetic cries of sadness. The Servant's hands - capable of crushing anything she saw fit to destroying, merely tenderly stroked Sakura's hair. Rider quietly spoke nonsensical noises, modulating her voice to make it sound reassuring.
Sakura briefly remembered her mother before...before it all went terribly wrong. She began to bitterly weep into Rider's black sweater, desperately clutching at her Servant as she bawled and screamed until her throat went raw.
Rin trembled on the other side of the thin, wood door leading into the hall. Each of Sakura's mournful cries for their mother and her longing screams for Shirou brought a fresh wave of agony for the oldest of the sisters.
Yet despite the pain Rin felt, she could bring herself to cross the thin divide. So she sat at the door in silence and let her own tears of mourning for her own losses run down her cheeks.
Then it stopped.
Rin went still when Sakura's cries suddenly and bizarrely went quiet. A soft thump could be heard on the other side of the door, causing the older sister to leap to her feet.
"RIN!" Rider's bellow split the night as Rin threw open the door.
"Sakura!" Rin screamed.
Ilyasviel von Einzbern silently brooded as she overlooked the main foyer of her castle. In a fit of madness, she had torn down the very walls of the Einzbern Castle down around her with an elemental fury of raw prana a week ago.
Sella, her only remaining Servant, slowly picked through the remains, stacking the bricks off to the side. The Dress of Heaven, formed by the corpse and magic circuits of Leysritt, was still drapped on her body.
It silver surface had several tears and smudges from the month. The golden fabric was unraveling in several parts. Yet it still felt like Leysritt. So Ilya kept wearing the outfit.
'Stupid doll.' Ilya bitterly thought down to the slim maid. 'You were once my teacher, but now look at you. Desperately doing the one thing I had them add onto you to keep your death at bay. How the mighty have fallen.'
Sella merely continued to gather stones in a wheel barrow she had found in a storage room. She was the weakest of the three homunculi by far. Sella had been solely designed to teach magic, and any unneeded abilities were locked away. Even Ilya herself coud reinforce herself to grant herself the strength of an average teenager.
So the maid fought with each large chunk of stone. Her hands were raw, but Sella continued to silently clean up the annihilated foyer. If she ever stopped - she would surely die, but she continued gathering stone after stone.
In that moment, Sella looked as beautiful as Shirou had in his death.
'Why couldn't I have been made that way?' Ilya thought. The weight of her years, far beyond her child like appearance, settled down on her burnt out body. 'Less than ten months to go...' She bitterly closed her eyes. 'I never got to say goodbye to Shirou, and I never will now.'
Ilya pushed away from the half melted bannister she was standing by and plodded off to her room.
Sella continued to work tirelessly. No words of complaint left her mouth, nor did she cease her actions. This was the only life she had left. For the sake of Mistress Ilyasviel, she would not stop until the day that her youngest charge left the world.
Then she would follow.
The homunculus groaned as she felt her muscles tear along her legs once again. As soon as they did, she used her magecraft to mend them together. The burning sensation along her nerves was worked past as she lifted another stone and dropped it away in the wheel barrow to cart away.
She would proudly do Leysritt's, and Herakles', and her part in keeping a smile on Ilyasviel's face.
Sella turned and stood at attention when she heard a delicate cough behind her. The mistress gave her a strange smile when Sella attempted to delicately fold her bloody hands together in front of her dress as she attentively waited for her orders.
However, in her impudence Sella accidentally glanced away from her mistress's face to see that she was holding the artifact Avalon in her arms. Memories from her existence prior to this one appeared in her mind's eye in a split second.
Avalon looked much more worn down than it had the last time that the Sella model as a whole had last observed it. Its golden finished looked faintly rusty. Analysis showed that the metal had trace amounts of blood within it.
"Sella...have you ever heard of Gensokyo?" Mistress Ilyasviel kindly asked her. When Sella shook her head mutely in response, she gave her a smile. "I've been looking into rumors about the land." She began to explain. "Ever since Tohsaka returned Avalon to me from...well, from where it was."
Sella stayed silent as Mistress Ilyasviel's eyes briefly looked haunted.
"I want to leave this cold world, Sella." The silver haired girl closed her eyes. "One where I can't even see my brother when I die. Gensokyo is a new land, a plane that developed its own natural laws over time. With Avalon, we can open the gateway to it, Sella...we might have a chance to at least try and eek out a new life there."
Sella was about to ask her mistress when they'd leave, but the front door of the mansion suddenly collapsed on itself. She swiftly moved to protect Mistress Ilyasviel as the door slid to a stop in front of them, but her mistress's cry of shock behind her gave way to fury as a trio of females walked up to them.
The heir of Tohsaka was carrying Makiri's disciple-project while the long haired Servant of theirs merely ignored everything.
"Tohsaka! What the hell are y-" Both of the homunculi stiffened as they saw Makiri's state. The young woman's head was bonelessly lulling about with every motion that the Tohsaka heir made. Her purple eyes were hollow, empty of life. "By the gods, what happened to her?" Mistress Ilyasviel demanded as she walked up to the Makiri, shortly followed by Sella as the maid kept a wary eye on the Servant.
"We need Avalon." The Servant demanded, interrupting Tohsaka before she could speak. "Give it to us, now." She took a threatening step towards Mistress Ilyasviel, reaching for the sheath that belonged to her adopted brother and was now hers.
Even as Mistress Ilyasviel took a step back in surprise, Sella moved forwards. A lightning fast crack of a tendril of water, gathered from the environment itself, lashed out and smacked the Servant's hand back. With anyone else, that would have been enough to sever off a few fingers, but the Servant merely darkly scowled at her reddened fingers and then at Sella.
"Don't you dare touch my mistress." Sella quietly hissed as she took a combat stance to match Rider's own.
"Ilya, we don't have to do this!" Rin called around one of the ruined pillars in the foyer. She carefully covered the still Sakura with her own body as Rider overwhelmingly pressed Sella back where they were battling in the center. Rin resisted the urge to measure Sakura's pulse again as she wildly looked around as she felt a build up of prana by the heat in the air.
"You three are attacking me and you dare say that?" Ilya's voice sharply retorted as Sella let out a cry, having been kicked away from Rider as the agile Servant weaved through the furiously whipping tendrils of liquid Sella had summoned.
"Dammit, Einzbern! You saw Sakura! We need Avalon!"
"It's mine! It's the only thing that I have left of him now!"
Both girls' voices screeched across the air at each other. Rider charged towards Ilya's direction, but she was forced to turn her charge into a dive as Sella sent a wave of icy needles at the woman. The homunculus maid looked half dead at this point from Rin's perspective, dragging herself up on a single leg. Her dress was torn and bloody at Rider's hands.
"Is your maid's life less than that damn thing? The Gorgon will kill her and then you too if you don't give up!" Rin desperately tried to talk Ilya down. However, the homuclus was having none of it. The dark haired girl scowled as she heard her steady chanting on the other side of the hall.
She decided to make a break for it.
"Sakura!" Rider shouted, looking away from Sella as Rin left Sakura's body hidden behind the pillar. In that moment, the maid she was facing dove and tackled the Heroic Spirit. The Gorgon, caught unawares, went tumbling down with her.
"Tohsaka is heading your way, mistress!" Sella screamed.
Ilya sped up her chanting as Avalon began to spark and glow in between her hands.
'Get us there, get us there, get us there!' The homuculus squeezed her eyes shut as she felt her prana rapidly drain from her and into Avalon. The sheath threw off the blood and rust covering it as it regained its original gold and blue hue.
A swiftly growing dome of light began to erupt from within Avalon, drawing in prana from the entire room.
A hint of life entered Sakura's eyes. 'Sen..pai?' She rolled over to her side. Her hand reached in the direction she felt the golden light form as she tried to stagger to her feet. The drainage on her prana was negligible, but what she felt...
"Shirou!"
Rider gasped as her arms slipped from where they had been dominating Sella. The maid slipped out of her grasp as the Gorgon's body grew leaden with weight as the prana in the air rapidly dropped. The purple haired woman sank to her knees as her vision began to black out.
Rin gagged - feeling like someone had punched her in the throat. She collapsed onto her face as her legs failed her as the horrid sensation of weakness invaded her. "E-einzbern!" She croaked as she tried to aim her hand in the direction that Ilya had been, but before she could fire a curse, her aim was diverted by her little sister.
'Why?' Rin's eyes demanded as she gazed up at her serenely confident sister.
Sakura kept Rin's hand away from the rapidly expanding dome of light. "We're going to see him soon..." She promised as the dome of light consumed the two sisters.
Rider's form began to grow transparent as the dome swept closer to her and Sella, but before she could completely break apart, Sella was kneeling down by her side. 'Mistress wouldn't want an ally to die before we survey the land.' The maid thought as she placed her hands on the Gorgon's head and began to channel her own prana through to her as the dome swept them up.
Moments later, the room was completely empty of life.
In a traditional japanese home, Yukari Yakumo - a blonde haired woman in a white dress and a purple tabard glanced up from where she was playing on her Nintendo DS. Her sudden motion threatened to knock the white cap with purple ribbons on top of her head, but she reached up and adjusted it.
'Hoo...newcomers?' The woman smiled impishly, purple eyes glittering happily. 'Well, maybe they can be more fun than the last two people we got.' She set her DS to the side as she stood up. With a mere thought, a split in time/space behind her opened up.
The rip, held together at the edges with red ribbons, showed a beautiful garden filled with countless cherry blossoms in bloom.
Yukari cupped her hands together in front of her mouth. "Raaan!" She bellowed out in the direction of the kitchen. "I'm going to visit Yuyuko! Don't let Chen touch my DS while I'm gone!"
Another blonde haired woman, which a white cap over a set of fuzzy ears, poked her head into the room from the northern door. "Of course Mistress." Ran Yakumo leisurely replied. "Would you like me to make some tea and take it to you?"
"No, it's alright. Yuyuko's new servant seems to know his way around the kitchen." Yukari had a lavacsious grin on her face. Even if he was mopey, Shirou Emiya was at least a very interesting man. Much better than the normal Outsiders they got.
Ran stepped fully into the room, her own white dress with blue tabard clashing with the mass of nine golden, fluffy tails on her back. "Oh, can you ask him what he put in that last batch of mochi, Mistress? I really liked how it came out."
"Alright." Yukari suddenly had a sneaky look on her face. "But because you asked me for something, you'll have to pay me back."
"Mistress..?"
"I have five new Outsiders who came through the Border." Yukari held up her right hand, with the digits extended. "They punched a hole through it. So~" She fell back through her gap. "You fix the Hakurei Border~"
Ran waited until the gap had closed before she slapped her hand against her forehead.
'Oh well, I should have expected that from the great youkai of boundaries.'
A/N: This story's title is "It's Spring Again". It's based off Heaven's Feel Normal End, where Sakura lives out the rest of her days in misery. However, because she actually saw Shirou's body she couldn't lie to herself that he'd come back. This leads her to breaking. At the same time, Ilyasviel von Einzbern is planning on punching her way into Avalon, land of the Fairies, to reunite with Shirou. It's a desperate hope, fueled by the idea that Shirou had Avalon in him, so maybe he was drawn in.
In this story Avalon is Gensokyo.