AN: Ideally, at some point in the future, you can read this with some music out of Fate/Zero playing. And yes, again, I had this planned before the series started airing, and long after direct influence from reading the light novels.

Fate/Far Side: Healing Hands

Chapter 9

Radiant Blessings

A quick glance to Tohno-san told me that she was still alive—her breath was faint, but I could still see the rise and fall of her chest. While Hisui rushed to her side, I glanced about, making sure this wasn't some kind of attack and there weren't intruders still lurking about.

"She is still alive, but her pulse is faint," Hisui said.

At that, Tohno-san's eyes slowly opened, as if she were fighting off medically-induced lethargy. "Hisui?" she whispered.

"Here, Akiha-sama."

"I'm…glad." I could make out Tohno-san's eyes focusing even from a handful of meters away. "Emiya-san?"

"Here," I said. "Did someone attack you, Tohno-san?"

Her head moved faintly side to side, and I went to kneel down opposite of Hisui at that. "It's…nothing," she said, coughing.

Hacking blood into Hisui's face.

That…wasn't right. I looked her over again, but only confirmed my earlier suspicions, that she was uninjured insofar as her external body was concerned. There were no signs of bruising or cuts, no damage to her clothing. Besides the blood Hisui wiped away from Tohno-san's lips, there was no sign she was even hurt.

Hisui seemed to understand though, her eyes narrowing. She gave Tohno-san an even stare, that same interrogative intensity I had seen before. "Nee-san did this, did she not?"

Tohno-san said nothing, but even I could tell that her silence said more than any words could. Even when she shook her head, I wasn't convinced, and Hisui seemed to ignore it.

"Why would Kohaku do anything like this?" I asked. "Revenge for you?" Was she really angry that Tohno-san would allow it to happen? But she had kept it from Tohno-san before…was she angry that Tohno-san hadn't noticed? What was I missing?

Her eyes turning down, Hisui said, "No. It…has nothing to do with me."

"She wouldn't blame Tohno-san for not trying harder to keep you here? For—"

Hisui reached up and pressed her finger to my lips, the corners of her eyes tightening in such a way that looked as if she wanted to cry. "No, Emiya-sama, it is…I will explain latter. Just please, do not think wrongly of nee-san. Things are very…complicated."

I nodded. Taking a moment, I Reinforced my hearing—no loud noises about here, anyway—and leaned down to put my ear over Tohno-san's chest. Her heartbeat was irregular and weak, and each breath she took seemed pained. Whatever was going on was causing internal damage, like an acid or the like. "Where is Kohaku anyway?"

Hisui glanced around, but I turned my attention to Tohno-san. Though her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to stay conscious, struggled against the pain she must be feeling, there was a haunted sense with them, like she had seen this all coming and was unable to stop it. I was starting to gather the impression, now that I thought back to the argument she and Kohaku had over Hisui's departure, that this was part of the issue at hand.

She had known Kohaku was going to do something. She had known, and had not done anything to stop the maid.

There were still parts not lining up, and I wondered if they ever would, or if my heart could take it if they ever did.

Hisui said, "I will find her. And make her help."

The look Hisui gave me told me everything, and even in the face of the dire situation I wanted to cheer. The stoic look had melted away, and while her jaw was set and her eyes fierce, it looked nothing like the shield she had put up before. I nodded. "Find your sister. I'll be right here."

With a determined nod, she took out of the foyer past my sight.

Looking down at Tohno-san, I cursed my own hands. If I were a magus of diverse ability, if I had Tohsaka's skills, or even the skills of other magi, this might be a wholly different situation. I could heal myself, but not others.

Though…

Myself.

It wasn't as though I were actually healing myself. Something else did it for me, due to someone else's intervention. An exterior force, one that I merely held. One I did not command, but was blessed by.

It wasn't as though…it was my ability alone…

Shirou.

Sometimes, it felt as if I could hear her voice. I could never decide if I was hearing things, if I was making it up, or if really…

Truly…

But, it seemed right, the thought warming me from the inside.

I want to save you, Shirou, so that one day you will be saved.

I pulled the keychain out and unclipped it from where it hung on the ribbon around my neck. With one last squeeze, I reached for Tohno-san's hand and placed the tiny sword between her fingers. "Tohno-san," I said, closing her hand around the pendant, "I know it hurts, but you have to try something. Please, try."

Faintly, she nodded, her eyes going down to her hand. "Warm," she whispered.

"I know." In spite of it all, I smiled. It was warm, warmer than anything I had ever known before. But now…I could only hope, I could find something even warmer than that.

Please, let this work.

I leaned over her, held her clasped hand to her chest, held my hand over hers. "Repeat after me."

She nodded again.

"Thee first, silver and iron.

Thee stone of foundation, and the Archduke of Contracts.

Hear my call in the name of our ancestor, Archmagus Schweinorg.

Let the descending winds be as a wall.

Let the gates in the cardinal directions be shut, and from the crown, come forth and follow the forked road to the kingdom.

Fill, fill, fill, fill, fill.

Five perfect repetitions. Destroy each sigil when full."

Tohno-san coughed, and I wiped the blood she spat from her lips and chin. My Reinforced hearing could hear the murmurs in her heart, the shudder of her breath. They reminded me all too well of holding another in my arms, remembered her breath seeping out of her lips like an emptying bottle.

Or of…

Don't think about it.

This would be cutting it close.

"I propose:

Thy body is made of my will, my fate is made of thy sword.

If thou answers to the call of the Holy Grail, and if thou shall obey this mind and reason, answer!"

Her voice grew very faint, though the grip she had on the keychain tightened.

I raised my free hand to my own chest.

"I make my oath here:

I am the person who is to become the virtue of the heavens.

I am the person who is to bear the evils of the underworld.

Thou, clad in the Divine Trinity and of the Seven Heavens, remove thine self from the rings of restraint.

Guardian of the balance!"

It felt as if she were basking in the sun, warm grass beneath her fingertips and toes, a faint breeze tickling her nose. She wanted to laze about there like an animal, wanted to listen to the lulling buzz of a ladybug, sleep a long time, dream even longer.

Footfalls woke her, and Akiha opened her eyes, slowly, the glare from the light beyond briefly imposing.

The woman before her was lovely, radiant even—hair as golden as the sun, eyes as green as the grass. The blue dress she wore almost melted into the sky beyond, made her somehow more a part of this place than an occupant.

"Shirou wishes to save you," the figure said, half question, half statement, a smile on her lips.

Akiha wanted to speak, but felt that now, for some reason, it would be somehow blasphemous. She wanted to agree, wanted to let this person know, for certain, that the stranger that had brought her here was as kind as the words implied. Instead, she let the figure move over her, put a hand over her eyelids to close them, and listened to the woman as she whispered:

"And so, Akiha Tohno, I ask of you: are you my Master?"

When she woke, Akiha was in her own bed. It did not feel like her lungs were on fire, like her stomach was caving in, like her fingertips and toes had frozen numb. No, instead, it felt closer to that dream, so distant in her mind, something she could only feel within her, no longer something she could explain with words or thought.

She woke to a weight upon her chest, something hanging from her wrist.

A weight of gold and blue enamel. A curious blue keychain.

She wondered what she had done to be blessed by the weight, to have forged the chain.

I charged back out of the rear entrance to the house, the Reinforcement I had put on my hearing clear that no one besides Tohno-san still stood within the echoes of the building. I glanced around the patio out back, but that too was empty, so I dove into the wooded area further back, trying to filter out the buzzing of animal life there.

It wasn't until I was completely clear of the patio that I could hear it, the sound of rustling clothes and shoes stomping through the grass. I bounded over some bushes and headed in that direction, brought blades to mind just in case.

Past another thicket and clumping of tall bush, a much larger tree spanned my vision, two figures beneath it. Hisui was breathing hard, Kohaku standing out of her reach, holding a knife in her hands—

Holding it in a way that was not threatening to Hisui, but to herself.

Kanshou and Bakuya flared to mind, and I lobbed them before either of the sisters noticed my presence, Kanshou hard to my left and Bakuya close to halfway between the girls. The whirling noise they made as they split the air the only thing that caught Kohaku's attention, and by then it was too late—Bakuya made a hard turn toward its twin and spun right into the knife blade Kohaku held. Just like those Touzaki blades had before Saber's swords, Kohaku's knife snapped and flew out of her hand before the weight of Archer's swords.

And when Kohaku turned her eyes toward me, the haunted look on her face burned itself into my head.

So, Tohno-san, you weren't the one haunted after all. You were merely mirroring what you had seen. Somehow, I think I understand, if only a little.

Though her stare—hard and cold as any doll or figure's blank look could be—seized me with a feeling of absolute sickness and loathing, Hisui charging in and tackling her sister would always be the reckless and awkward image I had of what would someday counter it completely.

The younger twin dove head first into her sister at the sternum, sending them both toppling to the grass. I ran in after them, only now realizing that where Kohaku had stood covered from view the most inane of sights.

That large wooden post-stake that I had helped Hisui with was embedded in the ground just beyond, a hammock anchored between it and the large tree.

Kohaku struggled beneath Hisui's weight, trying to push her sister off with her knees and elbows. I spotted something in Kohaku's other hand, a vial, and when I reached them, I descended onto her arm, holding it flat to the grass and dirt with one hand, then pried the container out of her fingers with the other. Her fingers tried keeping their grip, but when I had purchase, I loosened her thumb just enough to pull the thing right out of both our grips, sending it into the dirt a few feet away.

"Trace, on!"

I'm not really sure why, but the first weapon to come to mind was the bone wakizashi that those Touzaki fellows had tried out on me. The short sword tumbled through the air before embedding into the earth, splitting the vial in half and sending its contents into the ground.

I turned back to look down at Kohaku; she stared up at me, stared up at her sister. Those same eyes, somehow both angry and yet devoid of emotion at all met mine, and even though we stood over her, I felt like wilting.

Sometimes, in the darkest of nights, I found myself looking into a mirror, and could almost see something like them.

"Emiya-sama!" Hisui cried, looking up at me with horror. "Akiha-sama—"

"She'll be fine," I said. "I…figured something out."

The shuddering breath that came was not from Hisui, but Kohaku beneath us. With such simple words, the girl seemed to lose all anger, and though her eyes were still like that, still so lost and void, the way her eyebrows tilted, the way the skin rippled at the corners of her eyelids seemed to say something else entirely.

"Why?" Kohaku said, her voice sounding as if it were falling away from us. "What did you do?"

"I…" My voice hitched, and I let up from her arm, and Hisui sat up as well. Kohaku was no longer struggling, anyway. "I guess…I saved her."

Saved her.

Saved her.

Could I…really claim such a thing?

Kohaku's jaw tightened. "I hate you, Shirou Emiya." Though I looked down to meet her eyes, she was now looking over Hisui's shoulder, up toward the hammock. "I hate you, coming here, trying to remind me. Like you could say this was all wrong, like everything was wrong."

Hisui was looking over her shoulder as well, and things were falling more into place. "Hisui…what is this for?" I asked, motioning to the lounging swing.

"Nee-san has been coming here often. I wanted her to have something nice to wait in."

The moan Kohaku let out sounded like an animal dying, like the death-throes of a pet being hit on the road. With a lot more strength than her small body and unleveraged situation should have managed, she pushed her sister off and reversed their positions, pinning Hisui beneath her. I tried reaching for her, but Kohaku pushed me back—

And finally, I saw there, beyond those unchanging eyes, tears.

"Why? Why do you do this? Why isn't the world right? Why?" Kohaku raised her hands, as if she would strike down at her sister, but halfway in her muscles lost all their tension. Her hands slapped the earth to either side of Hisui's head, and she shuddered over her sister.

"Because," Hisui whispered, and I thought that I might be the only one that could hear. "Because I love to see you smiling."

Healing Hands: Radiant Blessings, End