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I don't own anything related to Fate/stay night; this is a work of parody.

Act One: Oblivious

Peaceful Scenery (Music) /L10BJjMjKNU

When I first met Emiya Shirou, I could sense that he was... different. A faint unnatural air came off him, one that was weirdly familiar… The problem is that I can't tell what it is! It was putting my mind in a tussle; I couldn't help but get agitated with him whenever we met. It seemed like as soon as I decided to sit with him on the bus that rainy day, it was too late to escape.

I remember my thoughts that first night. Alone in my cold house, I thought about the promise I made to find that girl's brother. Why was I reminded of such a moment? It was just another bad dream from back then. Yet... it did stand out as a personal failure. It was the faint hope I could have done something... I never even had that chance with Mom or Dad; that war was beyond me...

The boy's name... what was it again?

...Shirou...? "Agh! Is that the only boy name I can think of nowadays!?" I can't even remember it right... It's not like it matters anymore. It was me who was unable to find that boy, despite making such a careless promise to that red-haired girl. The fact that Father was involved in the ritual that caused all that destruction made me frantic to clean up after what destroyed my family and life. I at least hoped to mitigate a fraction of it, to do something for his memory. I was desperate enough to turn to Kirei for help, something I've long since found to be unwise.

"Such a boy would have certainly died, heir of Tohsaka. For you to wish for him to live would require that you accept that others would die in his place," Kotomine told me that back then. That man who would go on and on about various nonsense, but he wasn't wrong here.

Reality is a turbine: it can only put out as much as it takes in. To wish for the life of someone who rightfully should die requires a payment of equal measure. Only a hero has the power to break that barrier, and I have no desire ever to become such a distorted thing. So I broke that girl's heart; I hardened her to the harsh reality she probably wanted to escape from.

'It's the best I could have done...Right?'

The last time I checked, that girl's mother had passed away, and she disappeared, likely lost in the orphan system. I don't know why I was thinking about it now. It was just another regret. It's as if my brain had picked it out as relevant information, but it wasn't sure how to connect it all.

I stayed up all night fretting about it, to the point that I forced the housemaid to shake me awake for school. I was at the top of the grade for the little that mattered at my age. Dad wouldn't want me to have a poor reputation, after all. It's only natural that a genius like me does that, even if it means little in the end. It would simply be embarrassing not to be at my full potential in all things that I can be. That's the right mindset of a magus, no matter how much I have to work to attain that. I succeed flawlessly in all the less significant undertakings

...However... One bothersome pattern seems to follow me like a curse... when it comes time for the most important part, I feel like I regularly make a miscalculation. Sure, I certainly never make the same mistake twice... but for a magus, a single mistake can mean a prompt death. And that's the feeling I have looking at Emiya; I feel like I'm missing something. It's annoying. He's annoying... so it's entirely justified that I sometimes show my anger at him.

He's the only one that I do that with; my visage just can't sustain itself in the presence of such a fool. I should be avoiding him; that would be the correct choice. 'Remove that part of you that is negative,' that would be like Kotomine's magic: a surgical excision. That would be the right choice...

...And yet... I've ended up at the point where I'm taking the bus after school just to meet up with him. It's the curiosity. Until these feelings I have around him are resolved, I can't leave him alone. A principle of magical research is not to cower away from a possible point of study.

So even if he is an ordinary kid, he can still work as a sort of elementary experiment for me. And it's not like I couldn't tell the fake priest to come over and teach me at the workshop. It's just that I'd rather not have him over more than is necessary.

The fact that I have to see Shirou is just a detriment to that ...but maybe a bonus...? ...No, no. Definitely a detriment! He's easy to push around, and he's weirdly reliable and helpful. I should leave him be and live as a magus... But before that, I should at least ease my heart into my life as the magus of Tohsaka. And there happens to be a way to do that, he is going somewhere in Shinto every day, yet it seems like he lives in Miyama.

I have to see that fake priest at the church, but what is he doing? So I followed him, I felt so ridiculous doing it, but I couldn't help it. My curiosity as a magus would not tolerate this mystery. 'I have to know what my frie- ahem... occasional acquaintance is really up to!'

He walks all alone for an hour and a half or so... He is walking, but he moves deceptively fast; he knows the route by heart, I gather. He sits on the bench for a little while, blankly looking at the trees. He then falls over like a broken doll and starts sleeping on the bench.

I'm so flabbergasted by this vagrant behaviour that I can't accept it for at least twenty minutes. He sleeps like a drifter without a home, exposed to the summer elements. "..."

What the hell was this!? That's all I can say to myself when I finally admit this scene. "What are you doing, idiot!? Are you actually homeless and never told me?" Red pools into my head. I'm so pissed off for some reason that I run up to his sleeping face and pull on his arm. What sort of dream courses through his head to make him sweat this much? "Wake up!"

It wasn't a story he thought he would ever tell... but he figured that he may as well tell his story now, with the captive audience that he had.

It was something that ought to happen only once. For a long time, I was simply crouching down. Not a single moan escapes me. My throat was pierced by a rotting branch. My tongue was the first to be pulled out. My vocal chords carefully destroyed in order to silence me. I hold no body to struggle with. My limbs were all completely severed as if my life was only my heart.

My body failed long ago, but my sense of pain had yet to fail. Living and being in pain are one and the same. As long as I continue to exist, even as only a heart, the pain will not end. I had been left in this sunny spot... for a long time.

There is hope at its highest and despair at its deepest. It's stupid... All emotion stems from some detestable figment of my imagination. I lived not long enough to hold awareness. Only delusion remains.

...I repeat that cycle of pain and relief. It's like how I used to exercise as a kid. Up to heaven, down to hell. West, then east. It's not painful anymore to have no limbs, or to lose everything. I'm just scared. I'm scared of becoming nothing. I can't bear the lie of ceasing to be. If nothing will come of this...

Then this suffering is nothing more than suffering for its own sake.

Back to the Night (music) /S70HvCHGqZY

My body is on the verge of death. While desperate to finally die, I frantically push myself to continue living.

...That contradiction... The old men would call it hell. ...And to be entirely honest... I didn't want to die. I wanted to live out the life that was denied of me, but also the one that was wished of me. It lasted so so long... time lost its worth.

I wasn't sure when I did die, as the pain never ended. It did happen at some point, but nothing much changed.

The pain was still there.

Those old men believed the soul does not travel to the afterlife right away. Instead, it lingers near the body. It does so to mourn the separation from one's body.

So even when I died, I could not move on. My hatred had burned into the walls. There was no way to move on from this. From the mountain view, I watched over the humans. Only glimpsing that 'everyday'... I wanted to know what it was they fought for. A selfish wish, slowly burning like a fireplace in his cold prison.

Long after the village was covered in volcanic ash, long after the religion that made me faded away... I remained still, a lone evil heart beyond the horizon. Forced to watch as the people who did not value themselves wasted their everyday life. Blessed with the freedom I was denied, they chose voluntarily to indulge in all their evils.

It was my fault, after all, so they could not be blamed for it. What a joke... I never knew when it was that I did pass on through the bridge of judgment ...But eventually, everything became vaguely different than it was before.

That place had eternity and emptiness. Even as nothing, I was still unable to pass on. There was no real pain it... pain requires something to change for the worse, as I had lived an entire life in suffering. It was the norm.

I was given a world based on my memory. Pain was my 'everyday,' so I was given a world to live in for the rest of eternity: the complete reflection of my own inner world. Prison. Plunder. Abuse. Contempt. An eternal void. And at the very end of all that, having finally affirmed the ugly side of humanity, a selfless trance.

No happiness, no sadness, not to mention suffering. Nothing exists there. It was the last crack for that boy, said to have been all the evils in the world. Angra Mainyu was not allowed to escape. He was to blame for all the death in the world, so he could not die himself. If only they could all share in this, they could finally understand...

They wished it of me; they begged me, whimpering, screaming, and crying. "Grant... our... wish!" More akin to the ravenous wish of a starving dog than any of that nice 'civilized' society that they believe distinguishes them from animals.

The golden realm that would house me, as nothing, forever. I didn't think, but I did figure that I would remain in hell forever.

That was my fate... ...Until I felt something tugging out up and away, into the world once again. Far far away from where I was born.

A foolish group thought that I could bring them their deliverance. They attempted to summon the devil but ended up with the weakest hero of them all. Someone whose only worth was that they had lost every last shred of themself.

The dream ends, and I feel something attacking me.

...*Tug, *Tug*...

Someone's hand is tugging at my arm… "Ugh..." I'm awake, my eyes still closed... but I feel like I'm coming up as if I were underwater.

Madder Red Town (Music) /D90Dc0WmmiU

"Wake up!" A hard voice comes out. It seems that the time for sleep is over.

My head hurts from my interrupted nap. "Mom... is that you...?"

"I'm not your mom, Emiya-kun. Now, up, up!" The girl shakes me from the bench to my feet.

"I'm up; I'm up... jeez." I break off the weird stuff in my eyes and open them, only to see someone out of place. A red girl with a scowl.

"You'll get a sunburn if you sleep without a care like that." Her arms crossed at me. She was not amused.

"T-Tohsaka, what are you doing here!?"

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that you are sleeping like some ingrate alone in this heat!" 'I don't know if you should just wake up random people.. but she seemed to have good intentions.' It's weird that the only people I've ever seen come here, other than Mom, of course, are Dad and Tohsaka. "This place is wrong, Emiya-kun. I-If you really don't have a house then... maybe... you... could. No, what am I thinking…?" She started to drift off into her own thoughts, her face a little red.

"I have a home, Tohsaka-san." It took a second for her to come out of her own thoughts.

"...Then... why are you sleeping like this!?" Her finger pointed out at me.

"I... don't know..." I don't have an answer for that... nothing she would get.

"From now on, If I see you doing this… I-I… I'll beat you up!" It wasn't the part she yelled that caught me.

It was the idea that apparently, she is coming around here commonly or intends to at least. "I didn't know you came here often like that. This park isn't very popular, after all." It wasn't that much of an issue, I guess. She can't see Mom anyways...

"Of course I would check up on you!" She said with anger.

"...Ehh, but why does it matter to you?" I was genuinely confused. Maybe it did seem like I was doing something wrong, but a hero does not create more of an issue of something than necessary.

So I didn't know where she was coming from. By the look on her face, though, her arms were down, and her entire body seemed to take on an aggressive stance. "And what do you mean by that?" She said in a lower voice. She was almost starting to smile at me.

'Uh, oh...' Tohsaka is manageable when she's angry, but when she turns like this... it's never good.

"Well, we're just bus buddies. We're not real friends." The word was like cool water on her. The heat she was generating died off suddenly.

In its place... that fake, sugary smile. "...Is... that really all this is to you?" She said almost... resigned.

"..?" I don't understand this girl at all... she was the one who made it clear to me from the beginning. "Tohsaka-san... but you said-" she completely ignored me and came to her own conclusion, interrupting like my opinion had little merit.

"It doesn't matter. You're completely correct, Emiya-kun... I don't know what came over me. Forgive me for before; that was just a slip of the tongue. Have a good day." Her voice was almost monotone. She turned around like a robot and started walking away forcefully. It was almost like she was trying to get away from me.

"Oh, Tohsaka-san!" I yelled out to her as I remembered to say something.

"What is it, Emiya-kun?" She looked back at me with a stone face that was wavering.

"Oh, well... Thanks for looking out for me... You really are a good person, Tohsaka." My bad habit of ignoring her honorific had started a while ago. She didn't admonish me, though.

Tohsaka is a good person... I knew that for a fact now. Her yelling could be tolerated. What I cared about were her intentions. "..." The look on her face didn't change, but maybe it was only in my imagination that I thought it looked like she was even madder at me. "No, I'm really not." She whispered to herself, trying to convince herself that she was a proper magus. The truth of it was hidden, her back the only thing I could see as she walked away. You are an idiot, I could surmise at least that.

I don't need you to tell me that, Tohsaka...

The truly awkward part was that we both had to go to the same place after that, our goodbye before meant nothing, and though Tohsaka said nothing on the bus, it felt like she was communicating to me that if I said even a word, then she'd throw me off the bus herself. The only thing she said after that was a quiet "Baka." whispered as if it were goodbye.

The whole wakeup episode almost makes me forget what I saw in my dreams... The more I try, the more I know I can't forget it, though. The pain was like recalling an old wound. My whole body felt sore. It was as if I, too, was being hurt.

It's all just a story... I can't accept that something like that would happen. People are good, and I should save them. I know it is wrong to want it to be true... but... Angra Mainyu, I wish I could meet you if only to tell you I don't hate you.

Rin's Melody (Music)/34iWk0vKDrk

"Gugh..." I'm so embarrassed. I bury my head into the pillow and yell.

"What the hell was I doing back there! Get ahold of yourself, Tohsaka! You are a magus! Second owner of Fuyuki and the true heir to Zelretch!" The more I yell into the mirror, the less this is working. I'm stuck in a vicious cycle of frustration; when I see his face, I can't help but feel angry. The more that distracts me, the more I become frustrated, and thus the more distracted. I can't help but seek it out, like an addiction.

Is that not the definition of friendship, though? I admit it. I'm not ignorant of my own blunder. I'm getting distracted by something unrelated to my duty.

"..." It's a... troublesome situation.

The path of the magus leaves few openings for friendship, and basically, none that would leave us on a level playing field. Not that I would be okay with him being on my level, I think he's best left under me. I don't see him in school for various reasons. But I have been walking with him recently to school; it's honestly strange that they always tend to be at the intersection when I get there. He and that tiger, they are a troublesome pair.

'Hmm...' There must be a solution to this, using rationality. Magecraft is best used to fit a situation; thus, there must be something there waiting for me to use to fix this. There is precedent for mundane servants under the care of… exceptionally humane magi. Yes...! that's it! He can be my butler!

"...Wait...'" I start calculating the cost. Ineffective child safety laws, insurance plans, payment plans, inflation rates, tax rate... "Ugh!" I physically cringe at the thought of paying out like that... I'll need to wait, then hire him when I deem him fit for duty. "Hahaha..." A soft maniacal laugh echoes in my room.

'...' It exposes how quiet it is, though. I'm the only one left here. It exposes the cold loneliness of this house. It is a beautiful large mansion, a house that I think is really the most majestic in town. But... It is no home...

The only people who come here anymore are me, the maid, and that fake priest. And soon I won't even need the maid anymore... I can handle my own house. Ten going into eleven is adult enough. The problem is that until I'm eighteen and ready to go to the Clock Tower, I'm stuck here with Kirei.

As for Kirei... not long before I met Shirou, I told that fake priest he wasn't welcome in this place anymore. I'll come to him at his ruin of a church for lessons if I have to, but I'm not letting his presence dirty this house. Of course, that doesn't mean he doesn't come here anyway once and awhile, despite my objection. Presumably as a way of telling me that I have no power as a child.

One of the many reasons I hold little respect for him, even if he is a satisfactory teacher.

'I don't need him. In fact, I don't need anyone!' I'll pay them all back twentyfold!

I'll pay them back for what they have done well for me, and then I will pay them back for all the bad.

You know, all of this pretending is a big pain! Why bother with the social interaction in the first place? Being the best is just who I am, but I am tired… Living all alone is fine, school is optional... many magi do that, and they all end up fine.

Yeah, right.

...I know I'll never do that, though. I can't stop, for the sake of the ones who I must succeed for. For the one I cannot see, I must become the greatest magus of this generation. I will simply work even harder going into the future... and I'll make them pay me back tenfold for all the damages. With these dysfunctional thoughts, my body loses its weight, and I start to feel heavy.

"Yeah..." Turning over in bed, I mumble. "...I don't need you..." My mind fogs and all the lies are dissolved. As I fall into my dreams, I smile contently. The boy in my dream smiles back at me.

I think back to the first time I met Matou Sakura and how my world suddenly expanded after that.

There is a nice aroma; I am brought to it in a trance as if I were starving and could smell a nearby feast. The smell was near, I opened my eyes, and a purple girl sat there in front of me. It was night out, and she seemed to blend into the darkness out here; she was paler than most kids. "Oh, uh... Nice to meet you... Ahh, how did I end up here..." Suddenly, everything inverted.

'Ugh!' My eyes seemed to flicker as if they had run out of batteries, and red filled my vision for a second. A sharp migraine stabbed in my head. Holding my hand to my forehead, it slowly calmed down until the pulsing stopped entirely.

Opening my eyes again, the sun blares at me, and my eyes adjust to this unfamiliar girl again. Even now, in the sun. That was weird, though. Is it normal for it to be so dark like that for a few seconds? I don't know about that, so it's not worth worrying about.

Sniffing around, I could gather that she was the origin of it.

'Some sort of perfume or something?' First Tohsaka's notably sweet perfume, now this girl's ashy smell... I thought that perfume was supposed to be... I don't know, more like a flower or something? 'No... that's wrong.' This smell was not something that could be applied; it is something that comes from within. If I had the right understanding of it, I knew what it likely meant.

That doesn't matter, though; this girl looks like she's thirsty. "...You'll get burned if you sit out here like this."

"..."

She was blank, her eyes open like dead fish. Ah! she must be dehydrated! Act first, think later! I run back to the cafeteria and get one of the water bottles they put out there. Luckily it was the first day, and the teachers were giving them out for free. I don't really understand why... but it turns out to be advantageous to me.

"Here, you must be thirsty!" I outstretched my hand to her.

"..." She looked at me odd; I was unsure what she was thinking.

Then, her hand moved, and she took the bottle from my hand slowly. "Aww, thank you." A wave of satisfaction came over me as she received my help.

She didn't drink it, but I knew that for some, they needed time to trust a stranger like me. I need to introduce myself. She's probably confused by a stranger like me... she's younger too, I think...

I sat next to her. I hope not to make her uncomfortable, though. I try to speak cheerfully so as to liven her mood, "I'm Emiya... Emiya Shirou. what's your name?"

I try to pull my mouth into a smile consciously; I'm not really good at that smiling thing yet, though… The girl finally speaks up, in a voice so quiet it nearly blows away with the wind,

"My name is... Matou... Sakura." Sakura, eh? She must like the cherry blossom in front of us, for her to look at it so blankly for so long.

"Sakura... that's pretty." She really is pretty, someone that I could... look after maybe?

We both seemed to brood separately long enough that I came out and said the thing I had on my mind, "can you be my friend?" I asked casually.

"I don't think so..." Her voice came back to me, less in denial and more like she was stating a hard fact.

"I see... that seems to be a common thing for girls..." First Tohsaka, now her... I think that maybe... I am the problem? Patience: that is what Mom would tell me. Jeez, Mom... You never said that finding friends was harder than casting a spell. The girl walks off at that. She seems to want just to go back inside obediently.

Before she leaves, however, I speak to let her know my intentions, "see you tomorrow!" I won't leave her alone. Not as long as that darkness I can feel remains. I will stay by her side until the time it is gone.

Magic... I completely forgot about that smell... "..!" I finally noticed... what that smell means… Dad smells like that, and he is a magus. Mom reeks of it, and she is a magus... and a spirit? I'm pretty sure that I smell like that too, but it's hard to smell yourself. And now this girl... it's the smell of magic, and she has a trace of it herself.

'B-but that means! She... is a magus too!?" Magi are supposed to be evil, but looking at her, she seems fine to me... I must be overthinking this. There are no magi here but me and Dad, right? By then, The teachers started calling everyone back inside.

I really can't let her go unseen… Sorry, even if you can't be my friend, I'm going to look over you from now on... So began my playground bond with Matou Sakura.

Reunion (Music) /efpGRmC85j4

It was a surprisingly long time until I realized that she had a brother when he showed up suddenly. There was definitely a resemblance... at least in their hair. I wouldn't have known. Truly, he never checked up on her once until that day.

"You... What are you doing here…? Who are you?" He moved his head around as he likely didn't know my own name. One thing I understood about Sakura was that she was not the type who liked excitement much. So once it looked like me and her brother were coming into conflict, she started to look anxious.

"Emiya Shirou... And you?" He didn't answer my greetings with his own name.

"Emiya, is it? I've seen you in class before, haven't I?" He crossed his arms and smiled at me like he was looking down at me. I was a little taller than him, though.

"You sit two chairs to the left of me."

"I don't have the habit of pointing out people I don't care much about, so I would know." He made a slimy smile as if he had made a joke. I didn't really get it. That sounded obvious to me.

"That's funny," I say without laughing. I didn't want him to think his joke was terrible.

"Don't mess with me. Why are you associating with Sakura?"

"Sakura... well... we're sort of conversation partners."

"Sakura, is this true!?" He asked loudly.

She held her left arm tight with a panicked face and responded with a hushed voice. "Uh... well... he just talks to me..."

"And you didn't say anything about this boy pestering you?"

"Nii-san...It's not like that..."

"Hmph. Hahaha… You are odd, Emiya, to like a girl like that. Hmm... I am a forgiving sort... Why don't you help me out...?"

"You want help?" I'm always willing to help.

"Yes, help me with this project, and perhaps I'll allow you to be friendly with my little sister. She has no friends at all, you see. It makes me look bad in relation to her."

"Sure, I can help you," I said honestly.

"...Err, really?" Surprise came to his face, was my response that surprising to him?

"Yeah, I can do that right now. Are you okay with that, Sakura?" I turned back to her. She was the one that I usually hung out with, after all.

"Ohh... whatever Nii-san thinks..." This brother character seemed annoyed.

"Listen, stop bothering with her. I am the heir of the Matou family: Matou Shinji. So allow me to tell for myself what sort of person you are." That's weird. He says he's the heir... yet he didn't have any particular smell, so he definitely did not have any magic. I thought that in families with magic, it was the heir who learned it. I don't know for sure, though.

After the recess ended and lunch came, I asked him what it was he needed. "It's a group project, yet my group is useless. They couldn't keep up with me! And now I'm alone; they don't like it when they are with someone much smarter than them." My sense of justice came in. I couldn't let something like this stand. I was under the impression that it was a solo project, but I must have been wrong.

"What is it that you are making?"

"A bowl. How useless, right? It is something a woman makes, and yet this school is making us make it for home economics. As if I will be the one in the kitchen! Isn't it pathetic?"

"So… just a bowl? They gave you a whole month to make that?"

"Yes, just a bowl, Emiya. And I would have finished a long time ago if it weren't for my useless helpers. Now I have a day left to finish, and they left me alone…"

"...A bowl…" That was a sort out of nowhere. I have made so many bowls that I stopped counting at one hundred.

"Yes, a bowl. Do you know what that is, or is your head too thick for even that? Too hard for you? " He smiled like he was winning at some sort of game.

"No. I can definitely do that! I'll help you now." If there was one thing I felt comfortable with, it was making bowls over and over. Swords are pretty cool too, but no one ever seems to ask me to help with those.

Shinji needed help. No one else hung out with him much, but he had confidence with girls that I lacked. He seemed never to care what he said or did, not thinking of consequences. I had to make a bowl for him, as he didn't have the ability himself.

So I made the bowl of a lifetime the only way I knew how. I did use tracing, but only to judge the materials. It was real creation rather than projection, so it was not magic. I wouldn't want to make a shoddy item like that and try to give that to Shinji. That would be wrong. Anyways, this bowl is the most important thing right now. It is a perfect bowl I created out of wood that is smooth down to its fundamental structure. If I could just project it like this...

"Ah!"

It honestly was an eye-opening moment; no wonder all those projections are empty... they are utterly devoid of the care of the actual creator. They had no connection to their history, so it figured that they would be hollow on the inside.

Sometimes, when you think hard and directly about a problem, you will simply blank forever. I spend so so much time on the magic part of it. Maybe... that's actually a bad thing?

...Should... I try to slow down a little, then? Of course, not on the idea of creating a vessel for Mom, but perhaps in my general magic training? It's something I'll have to talk to Dad or Mom about. I should do other things. I can learn all sorts of things this way.

A realization, all thanks to some weird interaction with the brother of my recess associate, that's proof enough that I'm still pretty clueless about a lot of things... When I brought him the bowl, he smiled at it as if he were the one that had made it.

"Is it good enough?"

"Emiya... this is a really smooth bowl…" he moved his hands over it. "Pah, I mean it's adequate for what I need. Hmm, you are a bit peculiar... You may be an idiot, but you're a hard worker, aren't you?" I do try my best.

"Thanks."

"Hmph. You did your part, now my own." He smirked a little and shook his head.

With a marker, he drew on it to make it look a little... artistic, I guess?

"See, Shirou, look how I have improved this?" Ehh... not really, but those letters were familiar… 'Привет' was written messily on the side of the bowl I stayed up all night making.

"What are these characters?" They had similarities to a Latin script, as I used in English. But there was a bunch more than that.

"It's Russian, Emiya." He said with a hint of superiority over knowing that.

"Wow, you know Russian!?"

"Impressed, aren't you? I'm pretty much fluent." I knew that was probably an... over-exaggeration.

"Yeah, I'm trying to learn English myself, but... it's pretty hard." It was hard work, but I couldn't not know it considering the fact that one day I will have to visit Europe, no matter what.

"You have a way to go, Emiya. If you have trouble, I could help you. Of course, I'm a busy person. I don't always have the time for that. You can be my follower, but I don't know if I have the space for you."

"Thanks for offering, but I already have two teachers of sorts." Three if you counted, Mom... I was a little afraid, though, if I asked her for help, I felt like she would do what Dad did with Fuji-nee and speak in only English.

"Hmph. You'llregret that, you'll see… I didn't want someone like you anyway. Huh, we really are done." He smiled at my finished project, I had effectively made everything but those symbols he wrote down at the end.

Of course, it turned out that it was a solo project, but it seemed the teacher liked the bowl so much that she gave us both decent grades. I don't know, and all this art seemed so small in beauty to some of the things I've seen.

For instance, Mom was pretty in a very unique way too. That golden sword that sometimes shows up when I'm daydreaming; That was a true beauty: something that could not be replicated. So all this... felt mundane compared to that. Is this what magic does to you? No... I still enjoy the time together with people I care about, but when I'm not with those people... it does feel a little bad. Magi can become numb to all that, consumed by their want for power through magic.

I wonder why that is... I think of Shinji. He feels... crude. His bad parts outweigh the good. That's just the feeling I have looking at him. Even when he admitted he tricked me into doing all that work for him, I still won't leave him alone. You could say out of a certain sense of responsibility for him and her. He wasn't unforgivable.

Shinji was a boy who acted like he had many more friends than he really did. People around him seemed to leave as soon as they got to really know him. So he would come to me at random times, asking me out to lunch or interrupting one of my Fuji-nee stories I like to tell Sakura.

I could accept that, though. I wish I could do more to help him change, but I don't think he is the sort that thinks he should change in the first place. We did not have really much of any similarities at all, connected only by the fact that I was sorta close to his sister. If I could say anything about the relationship between Shinji and me. I guess it would be that sometimes very dissimilar people can end up as associates under the correct circumstances. I just couldn't shake the feeling that it kind of felt like a reunion of sorts… We were not friends. I had still not yet found a real friend.

A week or so after that, Sakura accepted my friendship suddenly. It was not something I thought would happen, but I don't think I'll ever forget it. "Senpai, can I say something?" Sakura asked so suddenly. She rarely spoke unless spoken to first.

"Oh... Yes, Sakura?" I was surprised that she initiated a conversation for once.

"Senpai... you asked if I could be your friend... Well, I-I accept."

"...Really!?" It took me a second to realize what she said.

"Yes... Senpai." She is good. I can't believe I ever doubted her at all. All it takes is perseverance. She must be happier after all those recesses together.

"Sakura..." What is this feeling? A warm feeling in my chest... that's weird... and my mouth was moving despite myself.

What... is this? I'm smiling, but I didn't have to force myself to.

"Thank you, Sakura..." I say it so softly that I don't think she can hear me. Looking back at her, I glimpse something other than absolute blankness on her face for the first time. It lasts but a moment, but... maybe this is a first for both of us. She appeared lighter, almost as if maybe she had become more attuned to being in the sun. I wanted to show her all sorts of things.

After that day, the floodgates seemed to open, and making friends seemed easy. Shinji seemed weirdly angry when I told him about Sakura. Of course, he basically coerced me into being his friend, too, after that. If Tohsaka was sweet with a cold exterior, then Shinji was sour underneath with a warm surface.

As for Tohsaka, well... she continued to be my acquaintance only. It would be some time before that would resolve itself, leaving us in an even stranger connection.

Author's notes

A shorter chapter focused more on filling in gaps than pushing the story, I tried not to make it too much filler though. Really more of a characterization chapter than anything, sometimes, material just doesn't fit with other chapters and that's why this sort of chapter exists. This is pretty much parallel to the previous chapter.

Tohsaka is our most intelligent narrator, but in many ways, she can be the most unreliable. She has so much going on in her head, and she is very headstrong. She looks at Shirou and since she can't envision him as anything but mundane.

If she analyzed Shirou objectively and slowly, she would probably realize that those weird feelings she has around him are an indication of Magic from him. A more mature Tohsaka, like in the original would be able to do that... but this Tohsaka is still really immature, even if she wants desperately to move on from all that.

Will take another look at this chapter later, for cleanup.

Shinji/Shirou is in full swing.

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated and welcome.