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I don't own anything related to Fate/stay night; this is a work of parody.
Act Two: To The Beginning
Worldenddominator (Music) /bIBoVGwBVRM
There was a bad feeling. If the premonitions that I held before were the cracks beginning to form, then this was the swell of disaster pouring down at me at an inescapable speed. 'What is this!?' It was no natural disaster. It was... a magical one if I could guess. I had felt the burning of mana in the air, but this was different. It was more like all the mana had been taken out and swallowed by a vacuum.
The only problem was... anyone with even a degree of magical knowledge would be feeling this too. I just knew it; this was real enough that even the merely magically attuned would feel the sweat on their back.
The Tv is on in the background, "... Yes, and it seems that the gas leak last night did more than just cut electricity; there also seems to be cases of people missing from their homes..." The smell of ash permeated in the air, yet there was no fire. Normal people see it as a gas leak, but it is the after-effects of magic.
"Shirou!?" He should be in his room... Why didn't I check last night...? And what about the girl? I was letting her stay here... I could see the pain in her, I couldn't just let her be. I would neither save or damn her... I would just be a coward about it. What else could be done? She was in the most despicable family there was.
They should be here, shouldn't they? I fell asleep after coming home and didn't even think to worry about that. I didn't think twice.
It doesn't seem to matter now.
I feel like I am about to be swept up in a flood, and it is coming closer and closer... The pressure is immense, and yet... I just sit sipping tea, awaiting the resolution to come.
Time passes and I wait in the kitchen, as if there were a meteor marking the end of the world coming to the house.
The power goes out.
Ring
The warning bell rings, and I am swallowed alive by the whirlpool of fate.
.
.
.
.
When I come to, my face was wet. I feel a soft feeling on my chest.
'...?' A wetness on to my cheek. This is not an unfamiliar feeling.
I'm being hugged... and kissed on my neck. It's something uniquely sensual and completely wrong. This is not right at all.
It's not something I've felt in years. "What the..." It's all too surprising.
'What the hell is this?' As I push this person off of me, I see a face.
A face...
A face...?
My mind breaks at the sight of it.
It is an unmistakable visage, one that leaves me speechless. My dry throat makes the sound, "..Iri..." my blood seemed to still and paralyze me, I didn't know how to react. I couldn't think.
What was in front of me was the woman I was married to, the woman I loved. 'Am I dead?' I wanted to believe that this was a true meeting, if only for a moment. Why else would he be seeing her now? It is just like her to show up for me now, seemingly at the end.
Had I actually been killed earlier? Only to meet with her once again in death?
It is strange, though, that my heart beats so fast, even in death. I regarded only her face, ignoring everything else, and my brain didn't seem to want to look anywhere else.
Her voice came again as if in answer, promising happy days, "We will be together now, my love." She confessed to me. It was the voice that haunted me most, but I tried to be soothed in its embrace.
I looked away, tears almost came to me. Would I break down? Could I, now that I am dead, have peace? Even with all that he left unresolved?
But, as if in answer, when I looked up again, something was off... "Together forever." She was smiling... but it wasn't right. That... was not the gentle smile I recall. Horrible, horrible horrid, similar to looking into a black swirl of darkness and malice. A twist in his stomach seemed to indicate danger.
The voice was the same, the face, the love, the beauty, the physical appearance. Everything was attuned perfectly yet...
Her smile was wrong... and her skin seemed even whiter in contrast with the black-red dress she wore. Yellowish eyes like a vampire's.
The woman who was like an angel looked as If she had fallen into corruption. The dark voices, so loud for so long, started to dissipate. They seemed pathetic in the face of this woman.
"Yes, Husband?" She smiled softly, yet there was a hint of maliciousness in it. That face of love... it made me remember...
'Kill! Kill! Kill! Don't think, don't look, just kill!' Malice and hate come naturally to me.
Emiya Kiritsugu took her neck and squeezed.
Emiya Kiritsugu, the hero of justice, was being a hero. I was saving everyone... I am a hero...
I don't think; I just act. I can be a hero.
"...!" My hands tightened, but my strength was poor, and my full being was not in it. It was still enough. I slam her head to the ground.
'Die! So I don't have to remember you! So I can go on without you being there!' I can't bear to look into her face while I do it.
"...!" Words came from behind me, but the blood to my brain had made hearing it impossible. 'A second enemy! You can be a hero, Kiritsugu! Wouldn't that be a great dream? A beautiful dream worth any sacrifice? Killing is your only expression of love.'
I jump up and turn around, only to find a woman laughing at me. Not just any woman, but Iri... why does she laugh still? 'I killed you! I killed you twice, and yet you still come back! Why!?' I think, yet she answers.
"No, my love. You didn't kill me at all... Were you even looking?" She sounds amused, my blood pool in my head.
That opens the question then, who was the one I was strangling on the ground...? I look down... only to see a deathly pale boy with red hair, and strands of white. The white parts are dyed crimson by the blood of his cracked skull.
"Huh...?" Familiar? Why would he be... familiar...? The word comes out naturally. The world slows towards infinity. "Shi-rou." It felt as if I were the one who had been suffocated. All the air left my lungs and left me a breathless man.
"D...ad... T..." Even breathless, I still hear him try to call out to me. Yet, it means nothing. He closed his eyes and stopped breathing. The boy didn't whimper or cry, he tried to tell me something to the very end.
"Son...? I...?" My hands are covered in death. Have they ever not been? 'What have I done? Did I finally go insane?' This is not real. I am just in a nightmare. Shirou lost his pulse after three minutes. Yet, it also looked like Shirou was finally at peace. I had tried everything I knew, and yet it was too little, too late, as always. "...Agh... Ahh...Aghhhh...! Forgive me, please..." The crying came uncontrollably. Another loved one dead by my own hands. Unimaginable sadness and self-hatred clung to me. Was it the fourth or fifth time this scene had repeated, it's ard to say.
From behind came a gentle embrace. The woman I loved so dearly... I didn't fight it. It's just a dream, of course... it's just a bad dream... She held me in her arms. "What is it you would wish for?" She whispered into my ears. I look past the horizon to the world where all great dreams lie.
I give myself to it, so I can escape reality. 'My... wish? ...That everyone would be happy... no, that was a lie. I would not seek that ever again.' It's a farce.
I am on a beach: a beautiful sunset reigns over the sky. It marks the end of the day. "This is... the same as before? Why is this happening again?" I had Ilya, and then I didn't; I had Shirou, and then I didn't. It won't stop until everything I have is lost. I am at peace here, I hide away from all emotion, and I can speak rationally. I am all the way back to the beginning.
There she is, the phantom that clings to me and won't let go. "The trial never ends, not as long as there was someone who wouldn't accept the results." Her eyes bore into mine; they were yellowish, not the red I had loved... and yet the way they looked at me were unmistakable.
"You are... not-" She hushes me.
"Yet I am. My love, all I ever wanted was to make you happy, but if you can't take that yourself then it can't happen. You may think I am just a horrible presence, that may have been true before, but I am different from then... I am here for you. To take what was not allowed of us."
"I..." What...? What do I do? It was the right decision the last time.
"Now, now..." She held me close and pat me on my back. "Must everything always be doom and gloom? Where is the love in this story? The romance and friendship and simple everyday life? Why can't we have that?"
"Because... it's a lie. I don't deserve it! A wish would destroy everything!"
"Hihihi, but what If I were to tell you that wasn't true. What if I would give you a third option, one built out of a miracle unto itself?"
"Huh?" A miracle?
"You are correct, that convenient wish-making object is broken. But why bother with that medium when you can go straight to the source of it all? Take me instead." She flipped her long white hair and made a strange pose as if to show off. I didn't get it.
"What... are you talking about?" This thing, I could not understand it.
"C'mon! Is it really so hard to guess!?" She pouted angrily.
"I..." Didn't quite understand anymore. "I burden the world with my wish, I will no-" The woman had no patience for that.
"Haven't you been hearing me!? I love you, and I'll solve all your problems if you just wish for us to be married!" She yells out swiftly and angrily.
"...All of my problems? My crippling depression, the fact that I killed my own son and doomed my daughter to be alone. No... I think Emiya Kiritsugu is done." Yet the woman didn't stop smiling. "I think it is over now, so just let him go..." Emiya Kiritsugu had met his end, so he would just quietly move on.
"I can fix that." She smiled confidently.
'That's... impossible...' The world can not find a place to fit me.
"It is possible, I promise."
"..."
"Kiri, I will make it simple for you: either you marry me again, and we live happily, or the bad things will continue." Her voice rose assuredly.
"I-I..." My hands were still so bloody.
"Be confused, be suspicious... doubt everything except for one thing: I love you, and I am here, to make you the happiest man in the world." Irisviel's wish... she wanted... I know now she never really cared or understood my dream, yet she was like a prophet for it nonetheless.
Her dream...? ...yes, I know it. It is what I one that I once offered her when I was unsure of myself. Did she want that? And yet, she denied me because of my dream.
"Together, we live for ourselves. We can find our own peace; that is all I ask of you." She smiled gently, but her face didn't wear it well. "It's okay to be happy, you know... You can love me... You can have a family... just as we used to talk about." All good is a lie: I mustn't trust it. "Whoever said I was good?" She chuckles.
"You really are...?" I was so unsure of everything I had ever known.
"I'm your wife." Her eyes were resolute. "I'm Irisviel, and nobody else." Shirou rested on my lap; there was blood everywhere. He started to breathe again, one... two... somehow alive. Remade like a damaged doll.
"But... Irsviel died."
"Oh, yes... It was a long journey... When you ordered Saber to destroy me, I heard you asking for forgiveness. And it was in that moment: a quiet wish dropped into the grail. It was the last wish of a woman who was unwilling to let go. Yet it should not have worked had it not been for one who was attuned to bring me here." Her eyes traced down to Shirou, who slept: alive and peaceful. "Everything after that was luck, or more accurately, it was fate."
"But Iri.. you're not her at all.. she died, and you are... Just the cup she was in."
She facepalmed, "Kiri... I was never human. I am here as both the cup and the filling: I am the grail made whole. I am both original and copy. But that is meaningless, for we are one and the same. By the way, whoever said that a copy can't be better than the original?" She moved in a way that accentuated her breasts... they were bigger than I recalled. Stupid thoughts...
Now I was talking to her as if I really believed her, "You cursed me..." Her screams held me to a horrible fate. Yet now she comes back all of a sudden to be with me?
"Oh, it was a difficult time then... I died, Kiri. I was not me then... I-I woke up later, much, much later... and by then, it was too late. I've been trying to reach you since then, trying to do my best to be and here and heal you." Her words were like honey, so sweet to hear, but I found that they were difficult to move through.
"..." The amount of pain I had gone through these last years was really all that? But that's not true because that pain was always there, it's just that she brought it out. Believing her or not made no difference, as I didn't actually blame this person for anything. My pain was my fault alone.
She fidgeted uncomfortably, "Come now, does the past truly matter, Kiri? We can be married again; can't we do happy things now?" A childish question and almost impatient question.
"Married...?" It was such a strange thing to hear suddenly, even in this situation.
"Of course! Today is our second wedding! You just need to renew the vows, just think of something it doesn't matter what!" This was a nightmare: It was not real at all.
My face was cold to her.
"Is that so difficult? then there is one way to call it off." She pouted, yet didn't seem to be out of control.
"...And what would that be...?" The edges of her mouth moved into a wicked smile.
"Remove the source." She points to Shirou devilishly, as if selecting a sacrifice for the stake. "What would a hero do? I welcome you to make your decision, just know I will help you come to the right one in my own way." Her mood shifted from manically pleasing to evil.
"Hah..." Breath in... and out... Out of all the nightmares I have suffered in my life, this was the strangest one. But... even in this altered state, I was a little happy to see her. And yet I cried, why do I cry in a dream?
She was back to being manic, "Now, now... don't cry. What can I do to make you happy?" She sounded desperate. "D-do you want me to please you!? I can... uh... I can kill people for you! Or we can have sex, that always made you happy!" She nodded as if that truly sounded like a good idea.
"...Just... leave me alone for a while..." Leave me, so I can pinch myself and wake up.
"Oh, I see..." Her face was distraught, but I couldn't bear to look at it anymore. I can't say. "Kiri... I will be in the kitchen, I think what you need is a hot soup." I stopped listening to her. Let me forget this woman...
After that, I cried some more... I waited for a while and made sure that I would wake up. I even dozed off for a time and felt much better waking up... Sleep heals all wounds, except when you have insane nightmares, I guess. I must have been having a long nightmare, and I just woke up... yes, that's it! 'Why can't I make the tears stop?'
I open my eyes to a hot miso soup that was left quietly in front of me. Who made this? Does it matter? To be honest, it's not that well made, it has too strong a taste... not like Shirou's uncanny skilful cooking.
'Hmm... it's a bit nostalgic.' I had tasted it like this one before, that's strange... the only person who had messed up miso this bad was Irisviel... but she died. She turned into a cup and died. That is strange then, that this bowl is here then. I enjoy this taste. She is totally gone, and I don't even remember her face or beauty... not at all...
...
Don't notice that you are in the kitchen. Don't notice the boy in your lap. Don't question who made the soup. Don't notice that you have been awake all this time. Don't notice the white hair hiding past the corner watching you. Don't notice the tears that fall from your eyes. ...And yet it's the taste that gets you?
... I deny it. I will deny it all up to the point of oblivion.
'Then it will be a fight between a mind of steel and an infinite length of time. An Emiya should know the answer to that.'
A presence writhes in my arms. My hand feels cold, yet somehow right.
What do I do?
"Dad?"
What do I trust?
"Dad...?"
What would you betray?
"Dad...!?" A tug pulls me back to reality.
"Oh, Shirou... you're awake." He had probably been awake for a while now. he must have walked from his room and called asleep in my arms. "How are you feeling?"
"I'm thirsty, Dad." That's no good, he looks parched.
"Oh, here, I have some miso for you." I help him up, but he was still in my arms. I didn't let go, not this time. I didn't let it end like before.
"This miso is badly made. But at least it's hot." Shiro said coldly. If there was anything that I felt Shirou was strict about, it was cooking.
A soft whimper could be heard nearby.
"But why do you have a knife, Dad?" A knife... It's true. In my hand lay a sharp blade.
"It is used for... being a hero."
"A hero!? Could you show me how? I really need to know." His eyes light up in admiration.
"Alright." And I do. My hand feels so cold.
"..." Shirou has nothing to say. He has nothing to say... because I cut his throat clean off.
A yell bring it all back to the beginning, "Do you insist on this? Still!? Then fine, Hahahaha! If you are happy being a hero, then be one: forever! See if I care!" She laughed, but it was closer to crying. She watched me crying.
"Dad?"
What do I trust?
"Dad...?"
What would you betray?
"Dad...!?" A tug pulls me back to reality. It's you again?
"Shi-rou...?."
"I'm thirsty, Dad."
"..." I help him up, but he was still in my arms. He drinks from the miso nearby.
"This Miso is badly made. It's a bit cool too." Shirou said coldly.
A soft whimper could be heard nearby.
"But why do you have a knife, Dad?" My hand feels numb like there is no difference between it and the knife.
"I am... a hero..."
"A hero!? Could you show me how? I really need to know."
"..."
I cut his throat clean off.
What do I do?
"Dad?"
What do I trust?
"Dad...?"
What would you betray?
"Dad...!?" A tug pulls me back to reality. It's you again?
"..."
"I'm thirsty, Dad."
"..."
"...Dad? Wha-!"
I cut his throat clean off.
"Dad?"
What do I trust?
"Dad...?"
What would you betray?
"Dad...!?"
I cut his throat clean off.
"Dad?"
What do I trust?
"Dad...?"
I cut his throat clean off.
"Dad?"
I cut his throat clean off.
I cut his throat clean off.
I cut his throat.
I cut his throat.
I cut his throat.
I cut his throat.
I cut his throat.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut.
I cut...
I cut forever and ever, and then he is rebound. I try to cut everything holding me, but I find myself bound no matter what I try. I am tangled in a mess I will never be allowed to escape from. Forever cutting my single victory with my own hands.
To cut and bind forever and ever.
She crouches down to me. "Does it ever become tiresome? The negativity and torture? Is that really what you prefer?" My hands are drenched in blood. "You won't find anything but this if you continue, you know? There is no happy end for you here. If you can't find the will to finish the job, then allow me to show you your error."
"This is the only path..." To cut and bind, I can't do anything but that.
"That's what you keep telling yourself. But do you know what makes a human greater than an angel? It is because a human is born with both good and evil and yet can still choose good. You have a choice, a million times over, and yet you choose wrong each time knowing the result, you know what they say about doing that? I'm sure you know."
"Curse me if you will, I don't care. I have a mind of steel." She hated me, I could tell. I had come to know hate from so many that I could read it on their faces.
"Hahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahaha! How cute! Oh, my poor Kiritsugu. The ultimate fool... and here I thought you had changed, yet it seems you still cling to that parasitic dream even now. I will save you from the one who curses you more than anyone: yourself."
"... I will... not break." I can not change.
"You are assuming I'm giving you a choice. A wife will not stand by and let her husband be sad, even if she has to carry him through the depths of hell." Her face darkened into one that didn't suit her. For once, she was not smiling. "Remember Kirtisugu, there is a point at which even steel will melt. Let's see how much it takes for it to crack!"
Dark whispers surround me and siege my mid of steel. Faces from the past who tempt and ask: "Why can't you forgive yourself?"
"I told you to kill me, and yet you didn't. You didn't listen, and everyone died. It was horrible, yes, but why can't you move on when there is so much that can still be done?" One by one, the whole town would burn to ash.
"You killed me, you did as I taught you to. You save many people, for once, so why can't you forgive yourself?" The plane billowed in smoke and dropped out of the air.
"I lived for you, and I was happy. You saved me from my fate, so why can't you save yourself from yours?" Her dark hair was red as she died in your arms, yet she was happy.
Of course, finally, she comes, the white angel from hell. "You live in the past. Why can't you forgive yourself for that which can never be taken back? Why can't you work to save that which is right in front of you, rather than that which you can never reach?" She reaches out her hand. A branch that leads to the present.
But still, I do not take it, "It is not for me... it is for the sake of all of those who could not be saved."
'Then we shall continue. If the past is not enough, then what of the future? How do your actions measure to them?' New faces appear, some I know, others I do not.
"You're late, Senpai... I'm getting old at this rate." She waited for her meaning to come back to her, yet it never would.
"No...! Noo, wake up, please... How... I thought I was lucky...?" Her nature inverted, and she spread only negativity thus forth.
"You... Idiot boy... This is... Hah, goodbye Emiya-kun..." She would try to live her life with her held up high, but it would just turn out that nothing would ever give her a sense of fulfilment ever again.
"No...! Don't come clos...er...!" A white flower is impaled from the inside out.
"From the moment I was born. I've never been accepted by anyone!" She fell into an infinite living death and was disintegrated for all time.
"Why was I born then...? Why am I who I am?" When she learned the truth, she drowned herself in the lake.
"Humanity is so foolish... Shame, I never even had a chance to say hello..." She went back to sleep and found little reason to wake up again.
"...If I could just take it all back..." Forever waiting on her hill, she would never find her answer.
"Sorry, Onii-chan... I guess you were a victim too..." The white princess fulfilled her purpose without emotion and was glad to discard herself from the world of the living.
Voices from an avoidable future, one which stemmed from this act. To kill now, is to kill much more than just my son.
Ever-present feeling (Music) /3L1DEvzsftw
The faces crumble away. They have said their piece: that my choice is wrong from all sides. Neither the future nor the past justifies me, and I fall from the floor that supports me. Everywhere you turn, only sorrow awaits.
"You are a hero because you would kill our son to end me? How many lives will you ruin with that? A great many. How many will you save? One, or two? What does it matter!? Are you going to cast away the person you love most to save people you don't even know?" She damns me with the knowledge of the scales. To balance it one way means to let the other fall into oblivion. To save five means to kill four... or even more.
How could that be possible? It's the same trial as before, but a different offer. What is right? "...To save one person is to not save another. I-I... must save the most number of lives." Even a mind of steel has limits... and my mind of steel had been fractured years ago, this was just the final nail. My words feel empty and false. Who am I even saving?
Even... If... I... would...save...only...one...extra...life. A dream that makes no sense, yet clings to me like a parasite.
My hands shake at the lies. What is it I am afraid of? "I-I must... save..." Water collects in my eyes.
"I love you, but don't think that you ever deceived anyone with that crying face of yours, Kiritsugu." I try to cut myself away, but even that doesn't work. I try to run away, but she catches me. "Nice try, but that's not fair, is it? Why do you respect your fate, even when you know how it ends? How can you not fight your fate, when there are others who were never even given that chance!?" An enraged visage entered into her, so different it might as well be another person. "You can't run anymore. Make your decision, I have made it so easy for you, so why do you continue to deny me? Why do you care so much about those you never even see!? What is your true fear!?"
"I..." Don't know. I am closer to destruction than I ever was to love. It was easier for me to kill than to reconcile.
She calmed herself and put her hand to my heart. "You are stubborn, I know, and I love you for it. But there is a point at which a husband must know to surrender. I, too, tire of this, so here is your final choice: Live in the present, or... let us not speak of anything other than that. I'm not giving you a choice here!" She was troubled, as desperate as I have seen a person in my entire life as if yelling as loudly as she could: 'Save me!'
Why do I always deny what is right in front of me? 'Because of what you are...' But... is fate truly unbreakable?
She holds her hand out to me. In it lays the ring I willingly lost. Inside lay the inscription: 'Ich werden Liebe Sie für immer.' I will love you forever.
"I don't deserve it."
"You do." Her smile was gentle.
"I would just mess it up... I can't be trusted."
"I won't let you mess it up. I'll look after you as I hope you will look after me."
"It would never end well."
"...Worry not of the future, when there is still so much love to have in the present." Her smile melts steel.
"Hah..." Other excuses, self-denial or beliefs that still held me from this burned away in the flames of her passion. Her eyes were beautiful: I knew who this really was on the inside; it didn't matter what else there was. She was never human, I had never really appreciated the meaning of that fact. "You came back for me..."
She places the ring into my opened hand.
It goes against everything I am, and everything I have done... but... I place it upon my finger. Why...? Because I had a sense to do so.
The illusions end with a wet kiss as if to seal a silent vow. White butterflies carry it away and I am again sitting in the kitchen.
The birds chirp to signal a return to the real world.
"Dad?"
What do I trust?
"Dad...?"
What would you betray?
"Dad...!?" A tug pulls me back to reality.
"Oh, Shirou... you're awake. How are you feeling?"
"I'm thirsty, Dad." His small body fits into my arms, it's just like how it was when I found him. Could I truly take that moment away?
"Oh, here, I have some miso for you." I helped him up, but he was still in my arms. I didn't let go, not this time.
"This miso is badly made. But at least it's refreshingly cool." Shirou said coldly. If there was anything that I felt Shirou was strict about, it was cooking.
A soft whimper could be heard nearby.
He sees what I have in my hand, "A knife, Dad? Who has a soup with a knife?" I close my eyes and take a deep and satisfying breath: an answer...? An answer that I ran away from but was in front of my eyes all this time.
"...An idiot, Shirou... Only idiots has soup with a knife." The knife drops from my hand to the floor: harming nobody.
"Haha, Old Man... you're clueless when it comes to the kitchen." He can laugh about it now. It's a beautiful, if awkward and fake laugh, but I don't mind it.
A gentle cough interrupts my staring. "Oh, Mom, you're here... I'm so glad..." Shirou said slowly while rubbing his sleepy eyes.
"Mom...?" Who...? I look over towards the door, and my mind creaks and shatters for a final time.
Oh... I guess that was all real.
A woman wearing a pitch-black dress has a kitchen apron on and looks like the sort of picturesque wife you would imagine from an old magazine.
"Haha," I chuckle a broken sigh. How can you not? It is the only sane reaction to an insane world.
"What's so funny, my love?" Her voice was perfect. The same heavenly tune I looked forward to hearing for years, but I didn't imagine it would occur in this life.
"...It's nothing... It's just I am awake now." The world is more clear than ever. The shades of grey have lightened into a world of colour. On my ring finger was a metal presence, it was bound tight, and I doubt removing it would be possible. There was no escape. I was done running away anyways.
"You're stressed out, this tends to happen when you let your soup go cold. Here's some advice: it's best to listen to your wife from the start, it saves a lot of trouble in the end, hehe." She laughed with a high pitch.
They say a wedding is either the most joyous or torturous day in your life, for some, it could be seen as both.
"I see... I never had a chance, did I?" I mutter into the air. She doesn't answer and moves to the kitchen. An extensive amount of food is already being prepared.
The doorbell rings. It was Shirou's birthday, so of course, many guests were yet to arrive. They would arrive to find a wedding from hell awaiting them.
Author's notes:
Act two should be shorter than act one, but you never know. You should know that I get distracted and write vast walls of text explaining minute events that don't have pay-offs for like twenty chapters. That should be lessened now, but I am still me, so we shall see. My plan is to have every chapter be more important, which is different from act one, which was a mostly a slow build-up of Shirou's relationships and powers. Here we will see real events take place that throws all that around and change him in a more sudden way.
If you know Angra Mainyu's true nature, you know that almost never directly writing him in the story is the correct way of doing it. Just turn up Iri's emotions to 1000.
That actually is rule 3 of this story: When able: ignore Sakura and Angra Mainyu.
No birthday this chapter, but Kiri and Iri deserved their meeting to be highlighted by itself. Their relationship is up to your perspective: is it horrifying, or is it heartwarming? Or both. This is the best way to pull off a relationship like this that really is hard to pull off. They are complete opposites, but you know what say about opposites attracting and all that.
If you like me or the chapter, then I politely ask that you review, favourite and follow. Right now, the top three most popular servant requests are Morgana, Jeanne and Artoria. Vote in the poll if you want someone else to be in the story.