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The Saber Servant, Artoria Pendragon, was grateful for her time in this war.
Despite her reservations towards her current Master and his lack of knowledge regarding Magecraft and the War itself, he made up by the fact that he trusted her completely, and, if necessary, could defend himself against a Servant.

Plus he made good food, that was three whole points in her "Better than Kiritsugu" list, not that she would tell anyone said list existed.

But during the few days they've been partners during this War, she realized that her Master had certain… eccentricities.

First being his obsession over sales in the supermarket.
A few days a week she could understand, according to the knowledge the Grail (and the TV) had given her, people in this time valued money and savings a lot more than in her times.

But every single item in his fridge came from sales.

Second, his "alone time" was late, near midnight.

Saber never tried to discover what he did during that time, her Master was a teenager, and with someone like Rider around, she could understand that he needed time to "relieve" himself.

Third, he liked to take photos of their entire group with Taiga's camera, according to him "as mementos"

He usually put them in the same place where his photos with Kiritsugu and Taiga were, much to Sakura's embarrassment.

And fourth, his unhealthy obsession with helping people.

At first, she brushed it aside simply as her Master being kind, but then it started being a bit worrisome.

According to Sakura, he used to work at a bar/restaurant with a friend of Taiga, usually covering for other employees, working extra hours and refusing the pay.

That wasn't normal.

Once, Sir Tristan said that she couldn't understand human emotions, and while she didn't resent her knight's comment, it still hurt her.

So she tried to be better this time around.

When Rider went to the library, she asked to come with her, determined to understand her Master a bit more. So she went into the Psychology section and took two books.

"Emotional Intelligence of a child for a concerned parent" and "Modern youth and relationships"

She hoped to find some ways to connect to her Master on an emotional level, as a friend, so she could understand him better.

Unfortunately, the books didn't help.

Shirou usually evaded her questions, changing topics as soon as he could. But she didn't give up, until Rider told her she was being too forceful.

According to her, "men usually prefer to deal with their problems alone".

But that wasn't correct, Shirou was never scared to ask them for help in any kind of situations, and he was the one who asked Rin for help with his Magecraft.

Apparently, Kiritsugu didn't teach him correctly, leading to a botched and highly dangerous method of creating a new circuit everytime he tried to use one of his spells.

And then it hit her.

Kiritsugu

In one of the books she borrowed, it mentioned how a parent should be involved in the life of a child, to help them deal with things they couldn't, to act as emotional support and help them understand the world better, to give them a more broad view of life, while letting them have enough freedom to become independent later in life.

(She ignored the guilt in her chest regarding the Rebellious Knight of her court.)

From what Shirou told them, Kiritsugu used to leave the house for unknown reasons, for months at a time, with Taiga being the one to look over him.

And everytime he came back, he looked more and more sad.

Saber didn't understand her last Master, she didn't know what reason he had to leave his adoptive son alone, but she did understand that Shirou lacked a parental figure for most of his life.

Taiga might have tried, she didn't want to blame the woman either, but during those years she was a teenager herself, still looking for a path to follow in her life.

A child, forced to grow up alone, made an emotional immature teenager who tried to deal with his problems in an unhealty way.

And that was of course, without taking into account the fire ten years ago.

It was like a bucket of cold water.

The Fire

When Rider asked around, they found out that around 500 people had died during the fire, with over fifty more dying the next few days due to their burns and overexposure to smoke.

A month after the fire, the final count was 564 people having died due to the fire, with very few survivors.

Shirou being one of them.

Saber finally understood, and realized that by herself, she could never help her Master.

He needed professional help.

So she went into the city, she asked around and tried to find a psychologist.

The people she asked gave her funny looks, and proceeded to ignore her question.

Finally, after visiting a hospital, she found one.

Who currently was in Misaki city.

With her plan having failed, she resorted to asking her current allies.

She asked Sakura and Rin, but they already had their own issues to deal with, so she didn't pressure them.

She asked Rider, who had no experience in dealing with this kind of situations.

So she called Taiga and asked her to come to the house one day, saying that she had something important to tell her.

The woman had entered the house crying and apologizing, saying that she would force Shirou to "take responsability" and that he "was not going to be a deadbeat".

It had taken a few minutes (and half a burger) to calm her down and explain the situation.

They had a long conversation regarding Shirou and his mental state, where Taiga mentioned she already suspected something was wrong wtih him, but she didn't know what to do to help him.

With no real options, they opted to try and help him in a different way.

That being forcing him to sit down and relax for an entire day.

A day of doing nothing related to fighting, to magic, to the war or spirits, just them relaxing and spending time together, like a family.

A few movies and six pizzas later, Saber and her Master were inside his shed, and Shirou opened up.

She underestimated him, he did understand what she had been doing the last few days, and confessed to having no idea what to do himself.

Shirou told her about his family, how his mother taught him simple recipes, how his father taught him how to play football, how they watched his favorite movies every sunday.

Midway through his stories, he started crying, choking a bit.

So she hugged him, and let him cry.

He told her how his father woke him up in the middle of the night, and took him in his arms running outside their burning house, how he told him to stay there while he came back for his mom.

Neither of them came out.

So he walked, he walked until his legs gave up and he crawled until his arms gave up, he dragged himself through the burning city, trying to ignore the people yelling and crying and insulting and dying and suffering.

Until he simply gave up.

He was lying on his back, he didn't know how much time had passed since his dad took him out of the house.

He was lying on his back, looking at the black sun in the sky, as a cold, horrible feeling took a hold of him and his entire body.

He was lying on his back, until the crying face of a man came into his view, taking his hand and holding it for dear life, repeating a single line:

"You're alive, thank god you're alive"

That was the day Emiya Shirou was born.

That was the day a broken man commited a horrible sin.

That was the day an empty man and an empty child made a broken family.

That was the day two beings were born, from the fire and curses of a blackened entity.

Shirou had stopped sobbing a while ago, having finished his story he fell asleep in his Servant's arms.

For the first time in years, Emiya Shirou didn't dream of the hell that gave birth to him.

For the first time in days, Emiya Shirou didn't dream of a world full of swords and a man full of regrets.

For the first time, Emiya Shirou dreamed of a girl pulling a sword from the stone, hoping to save her country.

Hello everyone, Enhance here, currently sobbing from being unable to hug a fictional character.

So yeah, the Saber Interlude! It came out a bit heavier than i expected (at least to me)

First things first, i am not a psychologist, a psychiatrist or anyhing like that, i am in NO WAY an expert in this kind of situations, i am merely trying to show how i think the characters would deal with it, taking into account their personalities and the world around them.

My main problem during this chaper was trying to tie Shirou's lack of mental help with the fact that, as mentioned during chapter 4, Zero-One and Saber already aired on TV.

And trying to not make Saber too out of character, but it was inevitable in the end.

My objective with this interlude was to give Saber some screen(?)time and start Shirou's personal arc, at first it was supposed to being with Saber watching Sakura transform and fight the Spirit, but then i realized that it would make the chapter too cluttered, so i changed it (i'm sorry sakura)

As a reminder, with George acting as a mentor for a while now, this Shirou

is a bit more "mature" (but i don't think that's the word i'm looking for) so he isn't as depressed or Repressed as his self in the VN, to the point where his suicidal tendencies are a bit reduced.

But being a mentally troubled child growing up in late 90's Japan, plus Kerry and Taiga trying and failling to be parental figures led to his current problems.

Originally, i had Rin organize an intervention where they forced Shirou to speak about his problems, but i quickly threw that idea away because even if i think it's something Rin would do, it is a bit disrespectful for the kind of problem its being presented. Plus it would probably seem more like a joke than a serious thing

With this chapter, i hope to make Shirou and Saber closer, not at the level of the Fate route (she still has her own issues) but certainly more than the first few days of the routes, whle giving a bit more of information regarding the fire and his memories with his parents in the past.

It's obviously not going to help him right away, but it does help him know that he can be more open with others

Again, i am no expert in this kind of themes, so i want to handle it as best as i can.

That should be everthing for now, i hope you all have a great week, and remember:

You should throw away the yogurt in your fridge, it expired three weeks ago.