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

Act Two: Open the Door

Apathy (Music) /PxxAmlmVvQ4

"Sorry... I know I am useless."

"...You're not useless, Sakura. No matter what, you are not that. For one, you are nearly reaching my ability in western food..." I won't admit it, but her earnest learning spooks me sometimes. It's almost like she is trying at every second to catch up. "You are better than me at more things than you know."

...But you know, food really is important...

Mom continues to learn too, but she doesn't really care about being a good cook in general. She bases her food entirely on how Kiritsugu looks while eating it.

I would say that the good cooks are me, Sella, Leysritt (even if she has strange tastes), Sakura and Tohsaka. I've offered Ilya, and she has taken me up on it, but she quickly starts to make it more of a game than actual cooking. She will start dressing me up in the apron and then watch me make her food ...That's fine by me. Sometimes I do feel like my precious responsibility to preserve my cooking is essential, but I already lost that a while back.

"Senpai...?"

"Ah, sorry. I was just thinking about cooking."

"Cooking... I can help you at dinner-!"

I chide her gently, "Absolutely not! If you are sick, rest is what you need, and we wouldn't want you to infect people. Hmm, you must have gotten this same illness from Tohsaka..." They were acting the exact same way. They had a frighteningly similar stubborn side.

"O-of course."

"I will be looking after you today. I can skip school, I'll just have to give Ilya instructions to make sure she actually goes. I might be sick already by being here..."

"I-I wouldn't make you sick!" She declared earnestly. For a sick girl, she certainly had a lot of energy.

"...Of course. I have a strong immune system, so I wouldn't worry." A common cold would have to compete with far worse diseases inside me. In that way, I am... well, immune to poisons and diseases entirely. That's something I don't want to think about.

"I believe you, Senpai."

"Good." I took her hand in mine and sat next to her in bed.

"W-what is this...?" She began to blush. "T-there is no need to..." despite her words, her eyes flickered with joy.

"Stay still. I'm going to diagnose you. Don't worry, it went fine with Tohsaka, so it should be even better this time." Looking into a human is much different than looking into a sword, or a calculator. It's much more complicated for one.

"You... did this with Tohsaka-senpai...?" Her hair covered her eyes, and a great shadow came over her face, "Nee-san... Unforgivable." Despite my focus, I shivered. That emotion... was hate. Twisted hate for things that she wants to remove. Yet it lasts only for a glimmer of a second before falling back to her normal state.

"Hmm, I don't see anything wrong." Sakura's body was in great shape... There was nothing wrong inside her, in fact, she has become a great bit more healthily in the past year. ...She used to be lanky to the point that I worried if she was being fed at all... But now, she is on track to fully develop. It is a great relief.

"Y-you d-don't?" She turned very nervous as if there was some disappointment that I didn't.

"Nope... This is troubling... If it is not from the body, then it could be... magical? Perhaps I should call Mom or Ilya... They could look at yo-"

"No! You mustn't call them!" She frowned in bed. "...This is not going as I thought..." She mumbled distraughtly.

"...Then there is no worry. I'll stay and look after you myself... i"

"Ah, well... yes." After a little redness came to her cheeks at my directness, she nodded.

If this were a serious illness, then I would get them... but I don't know yet. It is not something coming from the body.

"Sakura, you want to be strong, right?"

She nods not knowing what I am getting at. "Yes. I want to be strong."

"I want that too.. for you, I mean. It's felt like a long time since... all that. I want you to be alright on your own."

"Huh..." Her breath left her. Her voice was cold looking back at the past, but the pain could never leave.

"I think you have do so much good recently, whether it is trying to make friends with Ilya or cooking with or learning magic with Irisviel... I think that is really... cool." What am I saying all of a sudden? "Sorry, I don't know what to say..."

"No. Thank you, Senpai... If you notice me then that means it is all worth it."

"Sakura, if you had an illness since you were born, and you... simply never knew anything but that... Do you think it is possible you could live with a terrible pain that would seem normal to you? What if... you were the one who was causing people pain around you, and you just never even realized it?"

"I... guess so. What are you talking about...?"

"Just thoughts... If I left... could you be okay on your own?" I hurt her with these words, yet I can't stop myself.

"W-what are you saying...? ...Senpai... I c-can't do that." I am putting her on edge now.

"No. You could, but you can't envision it in your mind. ...I could show you."

"Show me...? What do you mean-" And I tightened my hand, and like touching an electric socket, a link is formed. Though it is harmless as we both have magic circuits of our own, thus it is only a matter of aligning the currents to the same frequency. Hers is higher than mine as I don't have as many, or as high quality.

And so...

The taste of freedom, to smile freely without anything holding me back, being accepted for who I am, cooking for Taiga.

These are more than my images, they come from her. A guarantee of this future.

Things would be happier with no me.

Walking alongside Nee-san to school, planting a new sakura every spring, finding love all on my own, making friends.

I couldn't do what Mom can with the control of minds and stuff like that, but I can communicate... feelings, images. That sort of thing. "Senpai... Stop it. Don't... don't do that..."

"W-what... did I do something wrong?"

"That... was not right, Senpai! That's wrong! It's a lie!" She yelled at me for the first time. I thought to show her a good future, but she took it badly as if it was poisonous.

"No... It could be true..." She could be truly free. "I'm sure of it." II try to smile reassuring, I think that she will come to see it too. She could have a blossoming life and I would not be there.

Yet, my vision of her response is dead wrong.

She began to cry. "No, Senpai." She shook her head. "You... don't understand... you don't know what I have seen in my dreams... Why are you showing me this!?" It was misery. As if recalling something horrible, yet there was no memory in the past that was tearing at her. It was the future that burdened her heart.

Her... dreams? "Sakura... are you alright?"

her visage changed so quickly that you would think there was no problem at all.

"I'm fine, sorry... that's just the sickness... I didn't mean any of that. I'm fine really..."

"I'm sorry too, I'm talking nonsense..."

"I want to stay with you, Senpai. ...Don't you...?" The thought lingers.

"I do. But I don't want you to think you have no choice; I just want you to know that I will be there if you ever tire of the burden of it. I never want you to suffer ever again. You have a great future ahead of you if you simply grasp it." I smiled.

With hesitation and fear, she grasps my hand and doesn't let me leave. "Senpai... Why weren't you there?" She looked at me in real anger, a first. "Are you leaving me?" There was a genuine dread in that. As if it was a matter of when, not if I was going to leave and never return. Her hand became tight to mine.

"...I'm not going anywhere, Sakura. I have no intention of leaving... Where would I go? This is my home." I joke, but it doesn't amount to anything. I don't cheer her up. "You know, I know a special tea, I can put it on right now and come right back."

"Go ahead... I can wait. But Senpai... please come back..." Her hand did not let go until the last possible moment.

"Of course. I will always come back."

Even now, her fear held her heart. The blackness could only numb pain with more pain. 'Let me take it from you.' Yet this was not the time. She had not hit bottom.

But anyone who had that darkness in them would eventually hit the point that they would do anything to get rid of it. All I could do is be there when that time comes and pick her back up at the boundary of the abyss.

I took care of her for the rest of the day, but I did not talk to her. I spoke only with touch and did my best to temper her pain.

The only thing that seemed to work was to sit by her side and hold her hand just as I did with Tohsaka. As if that had been the only purpose of this in the first place.

I would have to think of some way to pull her into the future, maybe we could go out for food? Just the two of us.

It is a funny idea, two little kids doing that but I don't have any better ideas than that.

She may not be physically sick, but in her mind was something deserving of equal care. I spent all day concentrating on her.

Taiga and Ilya. They were enemies at first until Ilya soon learned that loving a cat can be much more rewarding than hating one.

The same unenviable lesson that Mom had to learn. Mom was trying to kill Fuji-nee to no avail, while Ilya was trying to sweep her away. Neither succeeded.

Even the maids failed in their duty to keep her away.

A cat always lands on its feet, and Taiga always came back home. Taiga was the sort that could just win without effort, then when she tries she gets bored quickly.

Ilya, of course, had no intention of letting Fuji-nee have what she wanted — a little brother that would attend to her needs for free throughout her life. And so began to the domestication of Taiga on a scale that Irisiviel never went to.

Mom may have accepted Taiga after she realized that she was a good presence in the end, and after ensuring that Kiritsugu would not look at her with straying eyes. This was after failing to murder her, of course.

But Ilya... was a far harsher, and subtle master.

First, she went after Taiga's grades and forced Taiga to actually learn English the right way.

Then she began to critique her fashion sense and dressed her up like a mannequin in all sorts of weird clothes.

And finally, Ilya infiltrated the Fujimura group itself and talked to Raiga at length about Taiga's future, and attitude problems.

Ilya's cuteness defeated Taiga's and thus even Raiga, the old grandfather he is, listened to Ilya seriously.

Ilya probably had originally the intention of sending Fuji-nee far away to some faraway school, but at the last second, Ilya changed her mind.

Ilya would never admit it, but I think that she had become swayed by Fuji-nee at the very end. Ilya convinced Raiga to put her in charge of Fuji-nee's allowance, and thus assumed full control. That was her mercy.

They may have been at odds and Ilya enjoyed teasing Taiga, but also they grew close and interconnected to the point that they could not simply cut the other away. Ilya made a friend, whether she would admit it or not.

Just like any cat and its master. It is sometimes in question who is really in charge.

'Who did he save?'

Who was saved and who died.

It wasn't something that Dad had talked about in a long time.

Dad always had bright eyes telling that story, as if it were the best day of his whole life. In fact, he confirmed that multiple times. I was born in that fire, and to him, it balanced all the bad that happened. Saving me was the best moment of his life.

Taiga must have heard it a hundred times, but Ilya, Sakura and Tohsaka, not a single time.

After he finished the story of how I was saved, the room was silent.

"I had no idea, Senpai..."

"It's no big deal... no one is to blame. Haha." I laugh for no reason.

But one thing that I did feel and see was the guilt that swirled in many of the faces in the room as if to say they blamed themselves for it.

Taiga didn't have it. Ilya didn't. The maids didn't. Everyone else did.

Ilya looked at me with very sad eyes, but no guilt.

The full story never came up, did it? I was clearly an orphan unless people misread the white parts of my hair as somehow coming from Mom. I guess, in a way they did.

I can say that it is no big deal, but that is wrong. To them it is a big deal, but not to me. This is my life, it is what I have come to understand over five years of time. Even if the nightmares of fire still come to haunt me, it is normal.

Tohsaka said nothing, but I could see her increased heart rate and intense look at me. Not quite fully sad, nor pitying, perhaps regretful.

I look at Mom and her neutral expression, yet... she can not hide that my words are soothing to her. I wonder why.

The fault lies on the one who was the worst that day, the source of it. The one who was the most despicable that day.

The best way to deal with it was to move forwards.

Track 02 (Music) /lVvxMoRzcUM

It was a particularly hot October day. I didn't think much of it and so as I played with Ilya outside and effortlessly pushed her to try and catch me more and more... I thought it was fine.

The stipulation is that if she can catch me in a game of catch, then she can do whatever she wants with me for a day. She gave me no reward for avoiding her.

Though so far, I have not been caught once. I am not easy to catch, I know that.

She was not a sporty person and preferred lazing about but I did sometimes get her to play with me. She was like Sakura in that way.

She saw me at gym class, and I was able to bring her in. She could be a very active person, yet was like a cat. She would tire and then take a nap after exercise. She would not admit it, but she and Taiga really are the same.

I thought she was just abstaining because of laziness.

I thought a great many things.

I had this idea that pushing someone will make them stronger, I got that from Tohsaka.

But I learned that is not absolute.

I found that she couldn't catch up no matter what. I learned that only when she collapsed.

Ilya fell right over onto the ground as she tried to catch me, I didn't understand it at first. But...

I soon came to understand when she had truly fallen completely out of consciousness. I panicked.

...I yelled for Mom or Dad or anyone.

Who came first to help was Sakura... "Senpai, let me help you." She helped me take Ilya inside and to Mom. She asked no questions. Nor did I as to why she was close by.

But I am too worried to pay any attention to her today. 'Sorry, Sakura... not now.' I had nothing to say. Mom tended to her, but I had no words to say. Sakura had to speak for me, in a reversal of roles.

All I could do is look at Ilya and fear the unknown.

She didn't die, but she did collapse from 'heatstroke'. After all the summer was fine, I don't understand why now?

I... knew better. I wanted to believe everything was fine, but I won't run from a problem.

I waited hours looking after her. This was the third time I had to do it, but this was the worst.

I couldn't comfort her the same ways I did with Tohsaka and Sakura.

When she did come to, she was still distant. Her voice was uncharacteristically soft. "Onii-chan..." She gripped my hand and fell back asleep.

Mom came back to the room when I called her.

"W-will she is alright? Mom... She woke up but fell back..." I whispered. I didn't want her to hear, even if she was asleep.

Mom patted my back, I was not like this. I need to act more like a man and be strong. "Of course, Shirou. She's fine. Ilya... she made one mistake. She forgot to protect herself with her magic, and this is the result. For a brief second, it seems she wanted to catch you so much that she let go.

Mom was always omnipotent, in my view. I trusted her words but...

...For her, it is different from me and Leysritt. She is... perfect, and part human, and so today she neglected to protect that part of her with magic, and this is the result. An ill omen of the future."

"An Ill-omen...? What do you mean?"

"She is the greatest homunculus, on par with the original. A miracle unto herself that is the result of all Einzbern's efforts across 1000 years. Heat will not kill her, Shirou. It takes a far worse thing to drain her so." She ridiculed my fears directly. I felt worse now, my suspicions felt justified.

"..." What can I do? I think that, but she knows.

"Be with her. That's what she wants. She wants you here, so you two are a couple whether you like it or not!" She declared.

"We're siblings, Mom..." When she calls us a couple, I can't help but feel a bit embarrassed. ...Sometimes I feel like I am receiving the wrong idea about what I and Ilya were supposed to be. I am her big brother.

"So? What are you imagining? Siblings are couples even if they are not romantic, are you in love with your own sister?" The same devilish smile Ilya has. Like mother, like daughter.

"I do not... look at her like that!" I don't! Love... is something for other people. For me, it is something I will never have. And that's fine, Iri has much more use of it than I do. I cast it away so Mom can take it all.

"Hihi! That is how you see it, but it is only a matter of time. She is a bit too cute for even your heart."

I shake my head. "Nobody loves me like that, so I don't think I will learn it." My eyes would have seen it by now. Love was lost to me ever since I gave it all to Mom. Since she needed someone else's to fill her hollow body. Ilya doesn't love me, even if she would say it.

"Hah... you really are clueless sometimes. Let's hope that you don't realise it too late to matter." Mom took my shoulders and brought me down to a chair by the sleep Ilya's side.

She pushed me over and I fell down and to the room across the house. I fell into the chair next to Ilya's bed.

"They say that a kiss of true love can wake up princesses, will you try it?"

"No! I couldn't do that to her!" Ilya would hate me forever. I would be a creep.

I held her hand, it's not lost on me that at this point it doesn't mean much. I'm holding everyone's hand these days.

I don't look into her because I know it is above my level. I'd be electrocuted by the difference in power between us. I wouldn't want to damage her after, all.

So I did what I can, which is stay by her side. No diagnosing, and no cleaning. No talking. Just looking after.

An hour passed.

"Ahhhh..." Her arms stretched.

"Ilya? Are you awake?"

"Uhhhhh..."

"Are you alive?"

"No."

"No? Then I will have to leave then." I make to leave.

"Wait! What do you think you're doing! " She raises her voice but soon learns that her energy is not very good.

"I can't stay if Ilya is already gone. I guess I will have to move on..."

"Meanie! I'm alive! Your supposed to kiss the sleeping princess you know!" Oh... Mom was right.

"Sorry, I enjoy your face when I tease you. I can't help myself..."

"You do...? Well, okay." a pink shade is on her face. "Well... uh, what happened? Why am I in bed?"

"...You passed out."

"I... did?" She is surprised at first, and afraid. But it turns to resignation as her face falls.

"Ilya..." I say her name, but I don't have any good words past that. "Sorry."

"Don't apologise for something you have nothing to do with, it's unbecoming of you."

Yet it is my fault. "I pushed you-"

"I wanted to play with you myself, isn't that my choice? It just so happens that this time I... or my body did not have what it takes. I was not made for that, I was made to..." She trailed off.

"Well, you need to look after yourself more! I think we can make a new plan and-" She shushes my attempt to chide her.

"How can you say that while ignoring what is happening to you?"

I shake my head, I am fine. "It's not about me. That doesn't matter anyway, what about-" She keeps bringing up irrelevant topics.

"Yes, it does! YOU matter to me! Why is that such a hard thing for you to understand I ...? you!?"

...

"Sorry... but I can't understand that. I am not allowed." I must not. She doesn't understand... I could only destroy something that I feel that for.

"I've never heard of such nonsense! What are you talking about!?" She yells at me for the first time in the same way she could look at Kiritsugu. A complicated look of sadness.

"No... sorry, Ilya... Only Mom and maybe Sakura understand this, but I really can't... feel that anymore." I try to smile softly, but that seems only to put her down more. "But it was a worthy exchange, only with that was I able to summon Mom! So it's been worth it a hundred times over!" I try to make it sound like a good thing.

I made a contract, and I have already forsaken the rest of it. I can't give up on something that keeps me alive.

I would die if I... loved someone like that.

She looks away from me. I don't know why. Her shoulders shake, and incredible sadness wells up in my chest. After a minute, she calms down and talks, still looking away."Look inside me, Onii-chan."

"In... side you?"

"I know you... I saw you cast your magic, and I know that you can... look inside things. So look inside me. Then you will see."

My heart says no. It tells me to look away and not admit it. I'm not crying. There is just a little dust in my eye. That's why I have to wipe it away.

"I can't look into you, Ilya. You are like a power plant, and I'm just a little socket." She had a tiny bit of that smoky smell to her, but really what she was like was a very strong smell of sugar. Ilya may not use her magic, and thus her smell was not always strong. But if I were to connect to her directly, then that would be a different story.

I know instinctually that it would not go well.

"What...?" Right... Ilya doesn't understand technology at all...

"I'd explode or something."

"Oh... I wanted to know how it felt. You were having so much fun doing it, Sakura... I thought you could look into me and understand everything without me having to say anything. ...It sounded good in my head. You have such a... strong link to her as if she was your sister and not me." Jealousy. It's not surprising that she would not go to school if I didn't, even if disappointing.

I am not knowledgeable like Mom. "It's not like that... I can't see that much. I am not like Mom, but she doesn't know everything either. For one, she doesn't know how to make a good stew. I am an idiot at most things most people do without thinking... I can only see the things that mean nothing to normal people."

I see useless things and am blind to the important ones.

She laughs, but the water that wets her pillow is not out of happiness. "Yeah... you are an idiot." I pat her shoulder awkwardly.

I made her cry. What a horrible older brother I am... Is this what everyday life is like? Making the people that you that you ...? cry.

No. This is the abnormal part that comes as life is disrupted by unnatural evils.

Everyone seems to be sick these days. It is flu season, but only Tohsaka was physically sick.

"Ilya... you will have to tell me. I want to help."

"It's not important. It's no big deal." But for good or ill, lies were useless against me unless you really believed them. She didn't.

"I'm not leaving then until you do; I'll stay forever."

"Fine! See if I care!" She turned away from me and pretended to sleep. but she couldn't.

A few hours passed.

"Shirou... do you really want to know?"

"Yes. I will listen. I will help you whatever it takes."

"I'm dying, Shirou. One day I noticed it. I am decaying into my designed form. It is slow, but there. I dream of becoming a cup." Her words become quieter and quieter. I don't know how that would happen. "But it's not that bad! Really, it's no different from how a normal person ages!" She added quickly.

That was true... but not the full truth. There was something she wasn't saying.

It wouldn't be an issue if it was the same as ageing...

People don't pass out due to age.

"Why? Why is that happening?" I know that she and Mom are 'designed', but... why is this happening? Isn't there something like a war or something? My head is all jumbled on this.

"Sorry, I don't know." She lied.

"Why won't you say it?"

"...I won't."

"Ilya, you must tell me. I will do whatever it is to fix that, but I can't if I don't have direction..."

My problem is not fighting my enemy: It is finding it.

"You will have to kill me then! I don't care! I won't tell." She did. She wants to be saved, and yet... won't tell me. She was steadfast on that. Why?

"Ilya... " As much as it pained me, I would not push her. I could not take it seeing her cry because of me. "Alright, but I will save you. I don't care what it takes." She looked down, she felt guilty by putting me on this path. "I'll do whatever it takes." This is it.

Someone that needs saving right in front of me. Someone that...

"I'm sorry, Shirou... I'm so sorry..." She apologised to me as I left. I left the room after making sure she had water. "Don't say anything to Mom and Dad, alright?"

"Yes, alright..." I will save her myself if that is what she wants.

It would take more than a day before Ilya was back to normal... By the time it was nearing September, and the ending of summer, and the return of school, the old energetic Ilya was back. She went on with life as if nothing had changed.

As for me, I had started to unravel this mystery. I push my magic more, I never asked her again but I studied out of books I never thought I would read.

I started down the path of a... genuine magus. I was sick of being clueless.

Yet still, I don't know much. I can't find anything about a homunculus; that is all Einzbern knowledge. I will save her, I have time...

Fall stretched on, and we fully gave ourselves to the natural life. Even despite the distorted events, I went on with it like normal.

Everyone was happy like normal.

Luvia and I have continued our letters. Our letters had become more sparse and shorter. But that's because we knew each other better now, and there was less that needed to be said to convey more. My English is fair at this point, and I just feel that I can be true to her in a way I can't to anyone else. Though... I think that I could speak any language if need be... That's just how I feel now.

It is easier to talk to someone so disconnected from me, she tells me about her sisters and her training to become a magus. What is scary is that it confirms what Tohsaka was worrying about: there are others working as hard as she is.

So I don't tell anyone but Mom about Luvia, and she just pushes me to be more personal in the letters. That plan seems to be working as it makes sense that I must compensate for the divide of being a letter correspondence by being explicit in complementation.

I'm no poet. I just put the words I feel down and send without really caring about it too much.

We've learned to communicate more with less, and naturally, our own sort of Japanese - English hybrid language formed, and it was a code unto itself. She seems to be interested in some sort of coding challenge, so I guess it is okay to indulge her. I can disconnect from the rest of my life in this. I can ask for objective advice.

I tell her everything, even things I never said to anyone else.

Of course, it is a monthly cycle at best as our letters travel across the world.

That was my fall. A new year was on the horizon, and the path of my life felt singular.

All leading to one place. An unavoidable rift in the road that not all can pass.

It was Winter soon — the season of the long decay, where loss is expected, and collapse is the rule.

Ilya came at the end of winter last year, and time has flashed by since then. The best time of my life.

Happiness in an evil world is denial. I will deny this world and form a shining path, this is simply the first roadblock to that.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Energy flows between me and the air, and then to the gem in my hand. This time I will succeed, I am calculating it all every second.

I must force a balance, or else the entire reaction falls apart, resulting in its failure.

An aberration starts, and suddenly, the amount of energy flowing from me to the gem is too much for the flow to handle.

I know how to handle failure, and drain the excess energy out into the air harmlessly. It drains some power of the gem, but it is better than causing the crystal damage in the long term.

"Aghhhh!" I yell out in frustration. I have failed again.

"Hihi, angry?" The albino woman laughs from behind me. She is sitting and sifting through her hair, yet it seems she is paying attention to my failure.

I have exchanged one cruel teacher for another...

The difference is that I could talk back to Kirei, but to this foul woman, I have no chance. She is an evil that I can't best. I admit that.

Yet... I also must admit that she is beyond a first-class magus, holding power and knowledge that could only be found amongst the best and wisest of the Clock Tower. That is impossible to deny considering the magical feats I have seen her do.

She created a boundary field over the Emiya house that denies reality itself (Should not be possible!), she can control the world as if we were all under her strings, I have seen her mention people and concepts that are beyond the norm. She is a witch that defies normal ideas about magi.

Yet that is it. She rarely uses her magic. If anything, she pretends it is not there at all.

...She is not a magus as I was taught to become. Everything she does is for her own sake, and for her family, not for power.

The evil in her feels... unnatural as if it is added to her personality rather than being it. Despite all that, I can't call her bad.

She is a good person, kind when it is right to be, and cruel when that is right. She enjoys pranking her own children and acts like a 'fun' mother.

Irresponsible, I call it.

She melds this kind and cruel act in a way that puts you on the back foot. Everyone else may be tricked or entranced, but not me! The heir of Tohsaka will not be fooled by Einzbern, even if I asked for her to be my teacher!

"Do not stress too hard, Tohsaka-chan. You are trying magic beyond your years, no one would care if you took a break. Why not go on a date with my son, relax a little! I hear that Sakura and Shirou are going to have some fun of their own soon."

"I did not ask for your pity. ...Hmph." I will not ask about this 'date'. I don't care. I will not ask about this 'date'!

"I do not pity you, Tohsaka-chan. I'm simply telling you what is right, yet you seem to think you know best."

"...And what is this... a... date?" Shirou asked Sakura out?

I guess I should be glad... They are a good couple, though they are young. It leads nowhere. I mean... I am satisfied.

Does Sakura not care about leading the Matou family?

"Oh, it's been on my mind of late! You see, Shirou asked Sakura out all alone! They are going out to eat at some restaurant by themselves."

"So not a date then. I don't really care." For some reason, my breath released. I flip my hair, as an emotion passes.

"It seems that you were holding your breath, Hihi. Jealous of your sister, are you?"

A strike at my heart. Despite the attack, I am ready. Breathe in, breathe out.

Don't give her the satisfaction.

"It is none of your business, Einzbern..." That's the best you've got, seriously? Nice comeback, Tohsaka...

Why do these people think they can intrude on my life? It's not their business.

Whatever sister I had is gone.

I asked Sakura if she was alright here, and she said yes. That is all there is to it, thus I will keep my duty as the head of Tohsaka and she will keep hers as Matou.

Stop adding more trouble to my life; I have more than enough.

"Simply checking is all. I am your legal guardian."

"No. Emiya Kiritsugu is my legal guardian." His lack of care is much preferred to her intrusive interest into my life.

My next gem is nearly ready now. I can try again once more in perfecting the flow of energy. Once I have that, then all magic is essentially open to me.

"And that is my husband, blessed in union by Angra Mainyu. His things are my things."

I'm not a thing.

But wait... that name... "Angra Mainyu... I've heard that before..." Emiya-kun said it before. A long time ago.

But I haven't heard about it since... her horrible excuse for a wedding, in which she... my stomach turns as I see Kirei stabbing my father in the back.

Yet her response helps me to change subjects in my mind. "It's not important; forget about it." Her voice cut that off. Hmm... she never was like that, she enjoyed talking and now... she doesn't like the subject? Could I use this?

"No important...? Then I will have to ask Shirou-kun." I thought I was so smart.

A cold hand grasped my heart. "Don't. Do not push him on that." Her eyes flared, and I could feel a rabid threat form over me. She burned away my visage, and took my weakness with her cold hands. She could crush me like an ant, and I could do nothing to stop her.

And she would, I realized. She was 'good', but her idea of good did not shy away from murder.

Her morality was twisted.

"Okay..." A weak girl's voice says.

"Good. ...My son has enough trouble as it is. He shouldn't be harried by you any more than he already is. Maybe that is why he wants to date Sakura, and not you." Her opinions pile on. She loves to make me mad.

Now I wanted to do it even more... but I also knew when to give up. I would have to look into it all by myself.

Now it was her time to act with responsibility. "Now, time to try again. I'm growing bored already, so you better make some progress. You aren't listening to me; I can see you trying too hard. Stop thinking about the flow. Just do it. Focus on something that puts your mind at ease, and then go from there." She gives me only emotional, and cryptic advice.

She is like a walking encyclopedia of magical knowledge, and she had no reservations about sharing. Yet her style of instruction relies entirely on emotion as if that matters if I don't know the theory behind it. So I am left to fill in the blanks with my books at home.

If I really did become sick, then that is why. It's her fault.

Yet so far, and I hate to admit it, it has worked. She is unbearable but fair and her advice always seems to come together in the end.

I start the magic up again, "Anfang..." The words of beginning and the flow starts once more. This time I just say whatever and go with her advice.

Let's see...

My life has been good these last months since Emiya-kun has become my 'servant'. That is not the right word all the time, but assistant is too informal just yet.

Shirou may be a weakness, but due to my complete failure to kill or drive him away, keeping him as a butler is the last acceptable solution and he is... acceptable.

I did not think he would take it as seriously as he has. I almost feel bad for not paying him, almost.

As for the others, Ilya and I were... acquaintances. As the only Magi that took themselves seriously, we bonded slightly in that. Though her unhealthy attachment to Emiya-kun is... unfortunate. I can understand her, and among us all, she is the only one who will talk magic to me straight.

The same... for Sakura. Why those two were so eager about it made me feel crazy.

I mean, really, why do I never have time with him alone outside of our contractual obligations? Why doesn't he invite me out past that?

Though the others haven't either, he doesn't seem to get it. At least I am not behind. I hate losing. This night out at a restaurant doesn't count! Despite Irisviel calling it a d-date.

Sakura and Ilya need to get ahold of themselves.

Sure, Emiya has nice eyes you can get lost in. He looks after you as if it is the most natural thing to do, he doesn't break his words, and you just know that if you asked, he would stay with you forever.

...Nevermind that! What am I even thinking now? Jeez... Emiya-kun is a dunce. He is the worst. He is my most hated person! Even if he is my best friend.

A strong image of Shirou, Sakura and I forms in my mind as if we could all be happy. It is a flicker of a moment, but it is enough.

Shing. Blue light fills the room and the faded sound of magic.

The bluster of a magical reaction brings my eyes open.

Suddenly, a light flickers, and then the woman I had forgotten entirely about claps.

"I'm impressed! That is magic that the Clock Tower would be proud of! That surpasses the mineralogy department standards." What...? "I never lost faith you would find it!" She clapped and smiled for me. Being praised so freely took me off guard.

"Huh? I... I did?" I forged a perfect flow between the gem, me, and the mana of the air. Thus this is what mastery of fundamental magical flow looks like. It was still going.

That sounds basic, and it was, but actually mastering is unexpected until you are at the Clock Tower itself. I only reached it once now, but it is easier for the next each time you do.

The flow breaks down, but this time I do it deliberately. I had control this time, and that is no small feat.

Many magi never reach this point, and I just did at age 12.

She was right. I wasn't paying attention to it... I was just thinking deeply about...

"I was watching. I could tell you finally took my advice to heart, and you must have thought of something important to you." Huh?

The realization takes a few seconds to come. "Important!? I thinking about-" No... It can't be...

She seems excited all of a sudden. "Wait, wait! Let me guess..." Just before she decides, I know I must not let her know! My everything says that I must not let this woman know or guess. I must shut her up.

I lie quickly and easily. "It was my father. I was thinking about my family, and becoming worthy of him." That's right. Tohsaka is the most important. That is really what I was thinking about!

I had finally reached mastery of the fundamentals of the flow of magical energy leading out to all the other forms of magic. That is... tremendous. With this, I could definitely develop a working application for the Clock Tower. I'm way ahead of schedule!

This is not something that Kirei could have helped me with.

I could not tell her face as I felt great. "What do you have to say for yourself? Where would you be if I didn't take you in off the street?"

She sounds... almost proud? ...Of me?

"Well... I could have figured that out by myself!" My twin tails swung as I crossed my arms and said thanks. Being polite is the right thing, but the way she says it makes me feel defensive. This was my effort, not hers.

She laughed and took as some thanks. "You are welcome. There there." She pats my head suddenly. "I apologize for looking down on you; I like to think of you as a neice. The Einzbern and Tohsaka have fought much over this and that, but you have always been an earnest group. Maybe all you needed was direction from a cool aunt." She looks at me like my mother once did.

"Ah..." I can't help it.

I... can't hate her.

She might be impossible to tolerate, but she is... good.

In these months with her, I have probably made the equivalent of three years with Kirei.

I can't hate people who help me. That's a weakness of mine. I don't like it when someone isn't rewarded for their efforts, so I can't just ignore someone working hard on my behalf.

Like mother, like son.

I know it is stupid, but I can't help it.

I won't ever say it, but she has given me much and asked very little.

"Thank you..." I mumble.

"Hah, a rare thanks out of Tohsaka, come here!" I am able to avoid a hug.

"Don't push it! You barely did anything!"

"Hahaha, of course. We all know who you really want to hug." Ugh, I hate her!

So much for tolerating this frightful woman.

"Hmph, if there is nothing more today then may I take my leave?" I cross my arms and I feel nothing but disdain for her once again.

"Nope. Just that date between Sakura and Shirou, but you don't seem to care about that. I could-"

"I will handle it myself, thank you." I bow and leave. You can't let her control the conversation ever, or she will unravel you.

I left the guest room where I do my learning at the Emiya house, and pass the door to where Sakura must be.

I stop. 'What are you doing there...?'

I can feel a slight magical reaction there; she must be practising herself.

I move on. It's none of my business, really. Matou and Tohsaka must keep their distance from the other, that is in all the books I read.

Dad's journals too, he knows best.

I must... listen... to father. This is not my family, and even if they are... amusing, I can't let myself accept it. That's why I will not accept it.

I come here to learn magic... and for a good meal. There is nothing here that is important. Power and my family name are what matter. Everything else is just a tool to improve that.

But if...

If having something to centre yourself with is necessary for an act of flawless magic, then it can't be helped...

I'll have to embrace that thing. Whatever it may be.

The path to power can not be shied away from, no matter what is demanded in it.

'Emiya-kun thinks he can simply go on a date with whoever he wants? I will have to educate him on proper etiquette.' I won't show mercy to Sakura; I will treat her as my equal. She could have chosen not to continue to learn magic, so that is just how this will be.

I grasp my future with my own hands.

My memories are so strange recently. They are certainly there, and I was the one a part of it, but slices of my life are missing. As if a different actor was playing my part at different moments.

Emotions are forgotten, a few words are left behind.

Sometimes I feel like I repeat the same four days on repeat, but the season most certainly change.

And I am always finding new events in my life.

Events like going to the festival with Ilya and Dad, being forced out to shop with Mom and Ilya, watching the sunset as a family, Kiritsugu occasionally coming out and playing as he used to, exchanging letters with Luvia, making a new friend in Issei, helping Taiga pass her English exam, going to the harbour with Mom to see the fish, bringing Sakura out to dinner at a restaurant to try and make her comfortable with other people, bringing Tohsaka out to dinner at a restaurant after she got inexplicably angry at me after that.

The memories are weird. I can't explain it well...

I guess you could call them colourless.

They are missing that dimension to them, like watching something that happened to a different person.

An assortment of sentences, coming from different people across these days.

"Fish are much better than humans. They are not evil." Mom observed as she watch me and Dad try fishing in late september.

"You are stronger than you used to be, Shirou." Dad beating me at kendo.

"Senpai... Thank you for taking me out, I was glad." Sakura felt out of place along with me at a restaurant, but with time I think that she will be comfortable in this world.

"Onii-chan, please get me that!" Ilya pointed at a special toy from at the festival.

"Shirou, please, you must help me!" Taiga panicked when she realized her English test was the next day.

"Emiya-san, is it true that you can fix things?" Issei, our new student president, needed help in fixing a broken chair.

"I must become the greatest Edelfelt head there has ever been. Every year I will take on more responsibilities from my mother. " Luvia wrote out her wishes and worries.

"I know you what you did with Sakura. You better take me out then!" Tohsaka demanded a lunch out alone suddenly.

Good days, good memories.

A life that is so... normal.

I may be having trouble recalling it all, but it fills me with warmth. Every day has something to see.

That is my everyday life: not important and distinctive.

Normal, with a tiny little bit of magic sprinkled on top.

The more I experience and feel, the more I understand that inside me, there is something... a wish. An unsolved puzzle, searching for its last piece.

A will that is not my own. I am my mother's son, but...

It is... almost boredom. A horrifying taste that I can't place, a desire for something new. An impulse that I must change things up. Like a puzzle that will be solved whether I like it or not.

Magic is the act of solving the mystery of the world, and I have not given up on that.

But once everything has been sorted, what happens then? Once the puzzle is complete, what happens then?

The eternal flame that burns inside me would go out.

And yet... I want to see it. I must see it all, I must push myself further.

I want new.

I lust for new; I want to see it; I need to see it.

Yet there is a limit in this current form, a deadline. A formless dread, a day coming soon when I can't comprehend the world using all that already is inside me.

There is a gun pointing at my brain, ready to sound off at any moment.

I can't run away from the sword coming to impale me. It's just a matter of minimizing the damage.

Time turns ever onwards.

Tresspassing 2 (Music) /nXnRjzVzB4c

My dreams are always hidden in shade. Yet they are also jubilant, like a fairytale. I'm like a princess strolling through her castle of silver.

A place without pain, my own world.

But...

The nice illusions last only long enough for me to realize it must be fake. Good things can't be real.

I remember the near past, yet my dreams branch out into something worse than what was.

Two girls smiled in that dank ground of torture. They smiled over the pained unconscious boy with different expressions of happiness. A strange sense of freedom, one that occurred for those who were about to be freed from the constraints of life.

The girl would suffer more in her life, but it could never be said that it was anything but her suffering. She was alive now. It was something that she chose to take on herself, so it could not be laughed at. A fight against fate... was hopeless, but to accept it is worse. This was only the beginning; the true story starts now.

The red and black woman laughed. For that was her purpose, to laugh at the senseless cruelty of the world.

All the evils of the world was free from its prison, and its first act would be to wrap everything it held dear in its strangling clutch. "Let us sing then! A gentle song of love and misery that will bring it all back to the beginning!"

The moon ran red that night.

Blackness swallowed her whole as the nightmare continued without the end in sight. It would always continue endlessly.

Truth. Deception. Memory.

A family sleeping.

A dog.

A child.

A group of friends.

A pair of lovers.

Tasty candies fill my thirsty mouth.

Dried up laughing voices.

I do not remember seeking them.

I am scared, so I should go home.

But... where is home?

"It's... girl."

"Are... lost?"

"...You... Help?"

I didn't need help.

They surrounded me. They were the shadows. "...Parents?" It's only natural to want that would leave.

Red filled everything.

"Why AHHHHH!"

"AGHHHH!"

I see a dream of a breeding box.

They were surprised to see me in the house. Oh, it's because it wasn't my home. My home...?

I said goodbye to them, but they were so noisy for some reason.

"...! Ahhhh!"

"N... Stop!"

It was just a mistake, like stepping on a bug.

On and on.

...Creeping, stalking into the dead of night.

Something jumps up and stands in the way. Some bleeding and broken thing that is standing up despite being completely out of energy. It is so weak it doesn't even smell tasty.

"...!"

It screams. Behind it is food.

I am hungry!

I push at it yet it jumps away. It pushes back at me, yet a thread like a knife slaps it back. It is cruel to me. It hates me.

It hurts!

I slam to the ground, yet it gets back up. It keeps getting back up and running arround.

"S...ra!"

It screams.

It continues to stand in front of the hiding things. The tastiest treats are right there, but the thing with red eyes is not letting me eat. So hungry! I hate it!

I try to go to the little things that are waiting for me to eat, but again it tries to stop me. It slashes across me.

It burns!

It threw a nasty sharp thing at me. I scream and became angry. Even this thing is now standing in my way.

Why does it stand in my path? Why does it hate me?

I just want to eat! I'm starving!

...Yet why is something inside me screaming that I must not hurt this thing? It yells and shrieks for me to stop.

But the roaring hunger is strong than those screams.

He yelled out and got in the way. "Sak...a!"

It was fast. They died so fast that even if it was a cruel death, it wasn't painful. The boy that protected them fell, at the last second he had stopped.

He could have gone through with the attack. He could have destroyed his target. Yet at the final moment, it seemed like he looked at me deeply, and simply could not go on.

A slash came and made him stop.

Only then do I hear his voice. Only then do I remember who that was. "Sakura!"

But it had been too late by the time I had swallowed my first victim. By then... the taste had become too addictive to stop — sweet candies popping in my mouth.

A rush of power that made all the past suffering seem far away. I threw away a chance at life for that, and he who was my only reason to cling to life is dead at my feet.

The girl he called out to... did not respond. She snuffed herself out as he fell.

Blood falls from his body, and laughing voices covered the red moon. My breath comes to me, and it is like falling out of a dream and into the cold cruel ground. "It seems that you killed him. That's too bad. This was one possibility... there will be no happy ending here. Only death and destruction, as it always is... A dream is a dream because it is unreachable."

The boy... his red hair was unmistakable. His resolve had been clear... His eyes did not shine as they had. He fell, and the people that he sought to protect died with him. His body was the only one spared.

Yet it was only so that it could be seen clearly as the dead corpse of the only thing I have loved as Matou Sakura.

"S-senpai..." My throat is cut. This boy that I never trusted, yet was the only one on my side the whole time. I betrayed him in the end. After all that he did for me, I... killed him? "Y-you said you cared... y-you said you were his m-mother? You said that I would look after him, that he could look after me!?" I yelled out for the first time in so long. My voice screeched awkwardly.

"Hahahahaha! Indeed I did. Where did I lie? It was not me who did this, you did it. It was your anger. I was hungry, but I never asked for this particular meal." Entire families in their homes disappeared. But to where? Where did it all go? Why? WHY!? "We all respond differently to emotion, girl. It seems that when you were faced with your challenge, you choose to embrace the pain. It is nobody's fault but yours."

Her smile was hollow. The woman found no enjoyment in this. No, in the first place... I only now understood her.

A villain... no one wishes to be that. So someone who would act as the ultimate villain would be miserable... It would never have been their choice.

It wasn't me! I swear it wasn't me!

It these people... these people... Humans are scum. They made me do this! They killed Senpai for what they did to me, they let me suffer and they killed my only tie to life left! The family he tried to protect dies with him. I laugh as I kill them.

"HIHIHI... HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" A sick laugh echoed out into the night. My disgusted laugh no longer sounds like me.

"It seems that you have finally fallen. You are just a beast now, and your hero has now chosen to die than end you. Do you want to taste him? He would taste only like steel and dirt anyway. Perhaps he will wake up the power of love?" She was so unconcerned. Maybe because this was the only outcome? There was no world where this was happy. That must be it. It wasn't my fault, it was fate and the people who made that all up. "Oh. It seems that it is my time too. Without him, it is my end too. Without him... there is no hope anymore. There will no everyday for us to live. Goodbye, Sakura-chan. Welcome to your hell." Her form became a formless shadow that I swallowed too.

From the beginning, she was something that only Senpai could conceive of. She was his mother, the one he had wished for. Without him... she didn't even exist.

If only... I had...

I am alone with him in front of me.

My voice only brought the frozen tears. "Senpai...? Senpai...?" I shook him, but he didn't move. He didn't breathe.

In the first place, he had no heartbeat. ...Because it had been impaled along with the entirety of his left side.

There was not even what could be called a heart now.

I cried. Grandfather had been beaten, and I had been cured. Yet I fell to despair that night. I fell to the deep depth that Ojii-sama had been pushing me all that time yet in the way he had not foreseen.

My tears did not wake him up, or bring any miracle. It only brought out the shadow of death from within me, to finally enact the suffering inside me on all others. I would give them all evils of the world! I will give it to you all!

In the end, my black tears of hate would fall until they caught fire and the entire town flooded in it.

It wasn't my fault... I take my vengeance. I would avenge his death until the entire world was wound up in flames.

(Music Stop)

I dream about the breeding box.

I dream about never being born.

A far distant past.

"Nee-san...? Is that..." The red item had always been her prized item. A rare gift from Father she almost never took off.

"My ribbon. Yeah... It's yours now."

"But it is your favourite ribbon..."

"It's yours now." She closed my hands on it.

"Haha! Thanks!" I could smile and laugh so freely then. It was easy without fear.

I loved her.

I had always been jealous of her because she really was my favourite, but I had never really cared. She was always the one I followed, and I was always a follower.

I thought that if you trust someone like her, that nothing bad could ever happen. "Yeah... goodbye, Sakura." She said it so sadly then, I didn't know why. She put her hand out as if to take mine but stopped. She looked at her hand then walked away to her father.

We boarded different trains and Tohsaka Sakura was murdered not long after. She was left to be raped and tortured, with only a red ribbon to remind her of what was lost.

She didn't love me. She would have saved me.

I always wondered how she would have felt. I always wonder how many days she could have gone on. I dream about doing it all to her, and I imagine making her broken like me.

.

I see the broken egg, yet it has no more yolk.

Something came out of it.

The thing destined never to exist, miraculously birthed something alive.

Inversely beautiful to the corruption of its birth. Steadfast and struggling to live.

He reaches out the sky, but his hand falls.

Yet the images flash, and a new place is now there.

Not of the past or the present.

A future of fear. I try to wake up, but I can't.

Searching for you (Music) /vMS7Oo4a5lM

I am alone in a grey house. It is dark, and there is no colour to it.

Every morning I wake up and look for you, only to remember you are gone.

Another Sakura, another spring... 'The wait is long... when will you return, I wonder?' It has been a long time, a very long time.

You're not here now, but maybe next year you'll show yourself finally. I try to keep it clean, I know you would have hated it to fall into disrepair.

No one remembers you anymore, just a nameless monument to one that was lost.

Nobody cares anymore.

They're all gone now, like a kite that lost its string; they all detached and flew away. I know you wouldn't have blamed them, but... I've never been as forgiving as you I can't help but hate them a little for that. The place that once bustled with guests now houses a single forgotten resident, similarly shunned in the eyes of the sun.

'Sorry...' I'm never very good company, am I? Is that why you can't keep your promise? Because I never come with good news? '...But I can't change...' You can build up a foundation around a great structure, but if that great structure collapses... then what is the point of trying to build up anything again? It would mean nothing.

My only wish is that I could go back to those first days If I could tell my younger self to make sure he doesn't go. That he wouldn't have to face it alone.

It is funny how wishes have a tendency to come true when it no longer matters to the one wishing.

Visions continued to come to me, but tonight was the worst.

A girl who killed her sister and then ate her. A girl who killed her sisters and then ate them. A girl ignored and forgotten, left behind as she watches everything she held dear leave. A girl who destroys the things she loves out of basic fear and hate. A promise that could not be kept.

I writhe and ache.

Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.

Hate for itself. Hatred towards hatred, an infinitely perpetuating scorn.

That is all that throbs in my head.

Why? Why me?

This is the thing that I was made into.

My heart turns, and my dreams begin to blend into the waking world.

Yet it doesn't end. I may see the real world again, but the terror won't let me escape. "Don't go... please don't go!"

It happened in a night that Dad, Mom, and Ilya were away. They had decided to take something of a sabbatical out at the mansion in the woods.

Mom was insistent that I come, but I had still been worried about Sakura recently, and after a long argument in which I had to make all sorts of promises to Ilya and Iri, such as going out shopping with them and many horrible things like that, I was allowed to look after the house in their stead.

Nightmare (Music) /Q1cRk5CQRN4

"Ahhhhhhh!" A scream echoes through the house, " Noooo! Don't go... please don't go!" Echoing all the way to my room, Sakura's cries jumpstart my body.

A second passes before I realize myself and jump up, running into the door and stubbing my toe. 'ouch...' It is the worst sort of pain. Limping on one leg, I run towards the girls' room, I don't sense an enemy, so I don't push myself to the limit.

Coming to her door, I hear shushing and sobbing from the inside... "Shush, it's alright, Sakura-chan..."

"I'm coming in!" Any trace of a usual hesitation to enter a girl's room is broken in a situation like this; if it turns out to be some sort of girl thing... then I'll just have to face that!

Unfortunately, it was much worse.

Taiga was standing near Sakura, but she couldn't comfort her. Because...

The air around her was dangerous. The world near her was falling apart as her absolute terror was pushing her magic out onto the world uncontrollably.

My stupid sympathetic eyes are sending that same feeling to me. I can't look at her.

"Senpai...Senpai...Senpai... ahh!" A sob followed every word until it seems to release in a whimpering scream. It was undeniably a sort of anxiety attack from a dream.

"Shirou..." Fuji-nee had been sleeping in the same room. Thanks to that, I feel a little better about this situation. I wasn't alone, and Fuji-nee was dependable in situations of need. But... this was magic, she can't help.

Fuji-nee's eyes wake me up fully. She's afraid, and so am I. Nobody likes to see those you care for in pain.

I take her by the shoulders and try to find a use for her. "Fuji-nee... could you get some water? Please..." I try to stay calm, but my voice cracks despite myself. A terrible excuse in this situation.

But whether it is because she knows something is off, or because she trusts me, Fuji-nee goes with it. "Yes, Shirou... good thinking." Taiga seemed to have had her usual energy sucked out of her. Whether that was her interrupted sleep or what she saw in here, I could not say.

As soon as she is gone, I go right to Sakura. Her energy is oppressive but not as potent as Irisviel had been. It is similar magecraft, yet Sakura's is even worse. It is... some sort of boundary field sort of magic. Everything around her is covered in blackness like ink.

Her sobs made it worse, "I kill him, I killed him! I didn't mean to!" It was clear she was seeing something.

It is unstable, and destructive whereas Mom's is stable and constructive.

Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate. Hate.

It promises certain death, especially to me. It hates me more than anyone.

Despite that... I push forwards as it tries to burn me. She must be burning up too, I can't let that happen! "S-Sakura..." I struggle up to her futon. Had she truly seen some so horrible...? I could not blame her for how she was... It used to be that my dreams would bring me to similar tears.

But she doesn't see me or regard me. She is just stuck in her dreams. That is not how it should be. You're supposed to wake up.

I hold her close to me, hugging her fully. I hold her roughly as if fearing that she could simply fade away if I didn't have a firm hold. "Senpai...?"

"It's me Sakura, I'm here!"

"Senpai...! He-he was...! It wasn't my fault!" In her eyes, I can not find her.

"Sakura... I'm here." her hand reached out to me, desperately feeling all over my face like it would melt away.

She held her hand on her head as if having a horrible migraine, "... Don't die, Don't die, Don't die!"

Her hand in mine began to burn me. Her curse is like a hot pan on my skin, but I take it. Her black curse spreads across the skin and drains from the nerves that I have there. This is getting out of control, "Sakura, y-you need to control yourself!" Her magic was actualizing without any control.

If it were anyone but me holding her hand, they would be consumed by it. It would eat them alive.

But it isn't anything I haven't faced before. It is rightfully mine. I can't have her be like this anymore. "DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE ALONE AND FORGOTTEN! Every curse, every pain!" I pull my hand over her and take her fully into my grasp. This has gone far enough.

Her energy is trying to stab me, but I won't let it.

I pull her up and hold her in my hands. Every contact that I have on her body is fire. I am burning. I simply remove the idea of escape from my mind.

"Trace On..." I struggle to say. I form a connection between her body and mine. I am going to let all this excessive energy leave her.

As My hand forges a trace of her, it creates a connection between us, and immediately I am drowned.

All of the feelings she has: terror, hate, fear, jealousy and even ...?

I take it all at once. This thing that has been festering in her, I will take it.

I took it from Irisviel. I took from all of those that died back then. I took it from Ilya.

Now I take it from the girl who was on my side.

It's just pain. Empty evil that is not meant to exist.

Unspeakable pain, scarring past simple physical pain. It uproots your misery and retells them again but worse. "No! Senpai... don't be alone!" She cries out, yet her voice is hoarse.

'You are living a lie! Die. Die. Die.' Screeching beasts in my head.

I hear something behind me, but I am far too distracted to care.

I push more, and I keep taking it from her. It is unbelievably sad. I want to turn back. Yet it is for her, and thus I will never turn my back.

It... is... a... matter... of not giving up!

"Listen to me, Sakura. Come to me, come out of the darkness and to my voice. Let go of it... Let go of it..." It is like a spell, but all I do is speak to her. I am coaxing her to listen to me. I must guide her back to the light. "Whatever it is that you fear... let me help you. I made a promise, and I won't give up on that. I am here, so take my hand."

"Senpai...?" Her hand unclenches and opens. Her energy lessens. "Senpai..." I take my chance. Her hand is in my mind, and I hold it tight.

"It's me; I'm here. Now... let it go." Her black tears stain my shoulder as a fragment of a spirit falls out of her and into me.

Sakura was cured. Her pains were taken away, but... where did they go? To the hollow world known as imagination. It has no power to humans... but to a magus like Sakura... the imaginary is as important as the real. The curse was both tolerable and horrible for her. In the absence of anything, nothing is allowed to fester. Imagination forms an empty abscess, and it becomes infected with evil and fear.

Eventually, left untreated... it grows like cancer over you until all that is left is despair over something that doesn't even exist.

Only now, as she hit bottom, could I take it away from her.

That lasted a long time.

Eventually, even her tears fall short, and there is a limit to the infection inside her. All of it is now in me.

Ever-present Feeling (Music) /3L1DEvzsftw

"Shirou... I have water." Taiga was there behind me; she must have seen much of that. She was most certainly out of her element. But in that way, she was easiest to explain this to. "I had no idea that Sakura was so sick. I've never seen that..." The unshakable Taiga was shaken.

Indeed, this was needing the limit of insanity. Even Fuji-nee would have to stop and breathe slowly now.

"Yes, she is sick... but I had medicine. She should be better now." Sakura was breathing slowly in my arms; her hand was firmly latched to my arm.

"Senpai..." Her eyes slowly flickered into reality, her heart was cooling down, but the anxiety remained. She was conscious now.

After drinking Taiga's water, her pale face warmed a little.

"Do you mind if... I could talk to Sakura, Fuji-nee?"

"It's alright... I can just look close by..." Taiga smiled the best she could. She must be a bit ashamed that I am taking the lead here, but it is unavoidable in this case.

"Sakura, you don't have to worry anymore. I've taken it all away now. That darkness can't hurt you anymore... So..."

'What happened?' That conveyed through my eyes to hers.

"I had a dream." She confessed slowly and with a sense of dread, strong enough that even with my eyes off to budding sakura trees, I could feel it in my heart.

"I see..."

"I am horrible... I shouldn't even sleep..." She must feel ashamed now, knowing what I had to do.

"Hmm, then did you wish to ignore and let it fester? I could have-"

"No...!" Moments passed, and she took her time to think. Whatever it was that she was thinking about was tearing her apart inside. "You don't understand... It was Nee-, ahem, Tohsaka-senpai... She was below me, and I was laughing at her. She was experiencing what I've been through, and she couldn't even last a day! She was whimpering, but I didn't stop... I just laughed as she finally would understand." Her words poured out to me. "I deserve this... I deserve it..." Her tears came back, but I was there from the start this time.

Ever since that day that Tohsaka and Sakura spoke in the kitchen, a rift had formed between them. Before, it was a cordial relationship where I could sense that they both liked the other... Now there was a deep rift, and both seemed to actively try to pretend the other did not exist even when they both had the same teacher of magic. And yet... they both tell me that I can't force them to be friends.

She argued for the idea that she was evil and unforgivable.

It's sickening. A horrible thing to hear, so imagine seeing it in a dream. ...It's not anything that I myself have not dreamt of before. Having horrible things done to me, and doing them to other people.

"You're not evil." She was not that. She didn't do anything but dream. I've dreamed of doing bad things too.

No, Sakura... I simply relocated you for my own selfish reasons. I would have never had the guts to save you if not for Mom pushing me to. I would have never put it together in my mind until it was far too late.

Yet she feels helpless to the point that she thinks she will lose control of herself.

A demon is a thing that covers the pains of humanity. She made her own one, giving her the pain she thought she deserved.

I killed it and took it all into myself.

I won't let her.

I hold her tight, I will take its place, but I will be better.

Mom said once that heroes give what someone needs, and a demon gives what they want. I didn't get it for a long time. I thought that was the same thing. But I was dumb then, and I am just a little smarter now...

If I could do both for Sakura, then she could. That thought is what I decided, I have already promised to look after her so...

"Sakura, I will never let you be taken by pain like that. I'm not letting you fall... I'm not giving up on my promise."

I won't numb her, but I will keep her from drowning. I know that is selfish, to make someone go on... But I believe in her happiness. I think this is right.

"That is what I have decided, and that is that. You can't say anything that can convince me you are anything less than a good person. All you deserve is happiness." Where I find these words, I don't know, but I say them without embarrassment.

"Senpai..."

I give her a hug she deserves and no words. There was nothing more to say.

Sakura fell asleep.

Taiga witnessed all that, "Are you sure you can be so near her, Shirou...?" It wasn't comfortable for me, but Sakura had a death hold on my arm, and I had to try to move with that.

"Don't worry, Taiga... I've always made sure that you would never be affected." It's a bit too late to worry about that, Taiga. I never wanted to hurt Taiga, not ever.

But I had already been spoiled long ago.

I made sure to keep her hydrated, but even then, she seemed uncomfortable. She kept holding tightly to me as if in need of something, and I was ashamed not to know what. But because of that and my own exhaustion, I couldn't move away. That night Sakura, Taiga and I all slept in the same futon.

We would never bring that up again, but from that day forwards Taiga and Sakura were much closer.

Still...

I didn't feel right, and I knew that I hadn't fixed everything with a hug. So I knew that I needed to ask the one who may have the answers.

There was one person who could explain this to me.

"Sorry, Ilya... but I can't keep that promise." I'm not going to hide anything if Sakura is also threatened by something.

It was a bad dream... just a set of thoughts and worries that the mind constructs from all the crap she has been through. That was what I hoped it was, despite it still being horrible. No one would judge for having a nightmare. We all have nightmares of things we'd never do. That's the entire point of them.

But still... I asked the woman who always had the answers. I asked her for explanations.

"Dreams? No. Those are less so dreams and more visions. Vivid fictions of possible past and possible future. Her fear forms her dreams, and the dreams perpetuate her fears. Thus she sees the futures she fears the most, ironically making them worse and worse. Like a container that keeps being filled, yet never empties."

In short, Sakura is absorbing magical energy into her body at a rate someone shouldn't.

"What... do you mean? How could that be possible!? Y-you fixed her!"

"I can fix and change a body, but no one can change the nature of a soul. Not even if I were the complete third magician could I, and I already used whatever power I had to keep Kiritsugu in my arms. And in the first place, it is not her flaw really." Her classification had changed... for one, she was much easier to manage magical energy-wise. She has required much less magical energy from me since Ilya came here and she and Kiritsugu have fully reconciled. "She would be fine all on her own."

"But... the reason, you didn't answer why?" If it is not coming from Sakura herself, then what?

She smiles cruelly, and I don't have to guess as she cuts to the point. "Because of you."

"...me?"

"What? Did you think that just because you think you can handle that curse all fine, it would make it alright for those around you? To those who are designed to become a gate for the soul, just being near you must be tough. Carry a boulder on your back and carry it up a hill, but don't be surprised when those near you happened to become crushed by relation."

"No..." That is...

I knew why Ilya wouldn't tell me whose fault it was now. A homunculus is much more reactive to souls near them...

I look up at her, shining red orbs looking back at me.

She doesn't have yellow eyes anymore. I took that away.

"Hehe. What? I saved her and gave her as many freedoms as I could tolerate. Do not look at me like that for something that she has full control over. If Sakura leaves you be, then there is no more problem; same with Ilya, but my baby has grown attached to you."

"They don't want to." I already asked, even before this mess.

My answer has been tears, and I won't ask again. If they won't forsake me, then I won't forsake them.

But... what do I do then? What do I break, and what do I hold?

The answer is obvious.

"I will save her!" I yell out in anger, letting go of my steady self-control. I try to take deep breathes, but the air is warm to the point it hurts my lungs. I look and see that the lights are flickering. My shadow is across the entire room now.

"Save whom? Do you wish to save Sakura? Then kill Ilya. Save Ilya? Kill Sakura." She looks at me with deathly sincerity and proposes it without any humour.

It's not Irisviel's fault... I have to remember that. I know first-hand what it is like to be cursed, and she must have had it much worse than me. Despite coming through the lens of cruelty and death, her solutions are her attempts at kindness. It's just that all she knows how to do is exploit a weakness and cause pain.

She was a master of omission.

"What...?"

I'd like to run, but the room has no doors. There is no light in here, no windows. Just a black shadow extending all the way to the horizon's silver edge.

We are not even meeting in reality.

"Indeed, Ilya is to the light side, and Sakura is more to the dark side. Why do you think they're always in contention? They are natural enemies. Sakura is like my illegitimate daughter that I didn't even know I had. Both of them in the same place only makes it worse. One of them could stay with you and be fine, but two? It is like a feedback effect between you three, a threesome, but without any of the fun, only despair. It will only grow worse, even if Ilya has been drowning her bad dreams by holding to you as you sleep. Sakura has no such maiden-like protection, she will dissolve first, but if you let it go that long then, Ilya would be too far gone as well." Dissolve... like how it was back then...

"How much... time is that?"

"Less than a year, but more than a month." It was December now. There was no promise that we would make it past the winter.

It never lets me escape. I'm still in that fire, even now. Naturally, those around me will burn as I survive. "I don't have the heart to tell Kiritsugu. He thinks he has more time. What a burden it will be when he sees it for himself."

Her words stab me deeply. I am... not only killing two people dear to me, but I am a burden on Kiritsugu?

I am... a burden to him? "Stop it! I refuse to believe in that nonsense! It is a twisted lie!" She can be cruel, and she can be a liar.

But... she would not lie about something like this. She only tells sweet lies.

"Of course, my son. I'm fine receiving your curses, but didn't you say you were strong enough to hold them?" She had empathy, but she didn't conceal the truth. A child. A child may have strong and flexible bones and be far stronger than anyone expects. But... at the end of the day, Emiya Shirou was a twelve-year-old boy carrying too much load for any human. "This is the path of the hero, Emiya Shirou. Isn't it painful? You've tried so hard already. Let it go... Kill Sakura, don't worry, I can find some new catalyst for my manifestation. Let me dispose of her mercifully."

Let it go?

Let it go?

...is this the extent of my resolve? Break a promise so that I can go on, only to form a chain of broken promises.

A hero can not break their word once. At least not if it means letting someone go.

Let her hand... leave mine? As if I had been seeing her as trash from the start as well? As if to dispose of something that wasn't precious?

My hands tighten. I look back up and see that the white woman is gone.

My knees don't feel so strong now. My anger loses its strength, and I look down. The ground is like a mirror of water. There is only one person reflected. All I see is a boy with red hair with white patches. This is my enemy. This jerk has always added some loophole, some curse to every step I take.

"...What can I do?" This is the test that has been building up from the start. Even before I started this path, she asked me: 'How far will you go for trash like this?' "Tell me... how do I save everyone?"

I look up and see her again.

She seems surprised. What? Did she truly think I would fold here? That I'd give in to her?

"You really do care..." Of course, I do! "Let this be my final lesson. You can't save them all. It is a matter of choice."

"...How did I save them all!?" I ask again. That is the incorrect answer.

Give me a direction, and I will forge it, but do not leave me aimless! "You are the crazy one looking for the future of most resistance! Don't think you can just lump me with you; I want to live!" What is the point of living a hollow life!?

"How do I save them!?"

I meet her head-on. I will not back down against any fear. I don't care! I'm done with excuses!

She answers with a sad smile.

"So be it. If you wish to see this madness, then cut out the source of it."

(Music Stop)

Oh. Why did I forget that?

"I...I..." That's stupid.

I am in her arms like a baby. A mother's embrace.

It is something a child would blindly walk towards if they thought they could have it again.

"You know what the right choice is, but you hate it. It ruins everything, doesn't it?" She hugged me. She never held back with her affection like this, as if she were trying to eat you. "No mother wants her own child to suffer. But I'm not good at much else than exactly that."

I wanted to. I wanted to be with her forever, and what she represents... but it is not so. A year was never enough, but for more than what would have been.

Everyday... was attained. And now, I was being given a choice to end it all on my own.

"Mom...?" I didn't want it to end. I wanted to stay like this, happy, forever.

"Come now, embrace me, and I promise you I will forge a world where we would never suffer. We would have everlasting life, and all the people you like would be there. An everyday that stretches onto eternity. I can even get Kiritsugu to go along with me, he will, I'm sure of it! With your help we could repeat these days forever and ever. All you would have to do is wish for it."

Promises that could never be attained in reality.

Yes! Live forever! You want to live forever.

"Sorry, Mom... I can't do that." I hold my splitting head as the pain fired through.

The answer she must not have wanted.

"..." She embraces me close. So warm and comfortable, I stopped seeing her as anything less than a mother long ago... "The outside must never admit it, but the inside knows. Deep down, you understand, don't you? The jumping memories, and a life half-lived."

A will to live as an ordinary human.

A will that wanted to be a hero.

A will that wanted to be a demon.

An incoherent contradiction. Something impossible to reconcile.

Those that wish for the most are the first to lose what they have. Greedy... very greedy. Foolish, very foolish, and destructive.

Is it wrong for a son to want his mother and father to be happy, even if that means that others will not? Is it wrong to want to be happy...?

I can't answer that anymore.

It was the height of selfishness to push my own problems onto others. I should have been doing this myself from the start. And yet... I didn't want to let go.

If I let go, then that's the end. I will not be able to take hold of her again, and she will fade off. Both of us are done.

There will be no more family to take hold of. No more warmth... just the colourless memories left behind.

A void awaits.

"If you are going to choose the most difficult path, then do not weep. Don't lament that a dream ends. Celebrate that you grasped it for the fullest while you could. Of course, I want to be with Kiri forever and ever, and if you do nothing, then I will do just that. I will see all the wishes that I was contracted with fulfilled."

I need to stop being a baby. I need to stop hiding behind the illusion that I am still a kid.

"But... I still don't understand..." I held my eyes tightly closed. I would not cry. I would not back away.

"Shirou, I am not the one who has any more answers for you. I know all about the world as it is and as it could be. But your future is not something I could ever truly know. All I am is a wish that resounded out into a smoky night five years back. Make your decision, or I will finish what I was designed to. If this wish ends, then I have one left."

"The next wish...? Yours is to live happily with us right, so... what else was there?"

"Indeed. We have lived inside the wish of a wife who could not let her husband and child go. But the next wish would be of a man who had come to hate the world. He made a wish not so different from the cacophony of curses itself. You have seen it already, Shirou... I did it once, and I will have to do it again. Don't you remember how we first met?"

I could never let that happen! Not ever! Mom... she...

I knew. I most certainly knew already what killed everyone back then... I knew. The first time I saw you was... not at the bench. It was...

Acid was stuck in my throat to think of it. A blaze that covered everything, and they all burned. I can feel the burning even now. I remember the noises of twisting steel. Mothers screamed for help to save their babies, children saved adults only to die. A burning field, which I can smell even now.

A chain of sacrifices led to my saviour coming at the final moment.

I ran from my family and fell into a pit of black mud. A man took my hand as it fell but neglected to see my other fall deep into a puddle of darkness.

The laughing in my dreams of that night. It was hers.

I hated her when we first met. She was suspicious, and every nerve in my body said not to trust this woman who never left the bench at the park.

I don't hate her anymore. I would love her if I didn't cut that out of me. I cut it out in the first place for her sake.

I know it's not her fault. I know better than anyone that the act of blaming is meaningless in this world.

In fact... she is the one who I must save. Save from a fate worse than death.

My fists tighten. ...Never again. "I could not let that happen..." Everything that I am tells me that.

No matter what else. No matter what, I am giving up.

There is only this will, to never let another child suffer that same fate.

"Shirou, If you know what to do, then there's no more point in talking about it, is there? See you at dinner, Sweetie. Hihi." With the time left, we could at least enjoy it all to the fullest. She laughed and left.

Yeah... life is not measured by its length but by the quality of the time it is given.

It was an alright dinner, but now that I knew what I had to do, it tasted like ash in my mouth.

The winter was long that year; it had been a full year since Ilya had come here. Christmas passed, a happy day full of fun. Since the Einzbern is a Catholic family or something, we had lots of fun celebrating it in the house. Sella and Leysritt made the house a bright wonderland.

The idea of being a family on a 'White Christmas' seemed like an important idea to her. Western movies seemed to show that theme to her, and she was corrupted by it.

'There is always next year...' I hoped. Maybe this 'White Christmas' was beautiful because it was rare? But that was not the sort of thought Ilya cares for. I want that to happen too, but I can't control the weather.

All I can do is hope, though, that we have a chance next year.

But it was never any single day that was important.

Why? Because the everyday itself was the celebration, and we had never stopped. Every dinner was like a birthday of fun, and no one ever held back waiting for some special occasion.

Though I did have some strange horrifying dreams near Christmas, a small blond girl dressed like Santa broke into the house and forced me to cook for her. It was worse than my normal nightmares.

Anyway...

By some point, no one hated anyone. Sure, Ilya, Sakura, and Taiga were personality conflicts, but that is fine. Conflicts can also be compliments, and with time there was no discomfort in hearing Ilya and Sakura talk about inane things.

Tohsaka had even started to ask Irisviel and even Kiritsugu about the world. She wanted to know everything, and Kiritsugu was secretly glad someone was there to hear all of his stories all over again. Taiga and I have already heard them a hundred times. Ilya was too shy to ask, and Sakura didn't care.

Tohsaka would never be able to trust us or look at Mom without having some pain of her past, but it seems that she had gotten over it. She had strengthened her resolve exactly as she said she would.

As for Kiritsugu, he had finally grown as comfortable here as he did when it was just Taiga and me. I was glad when I realized that.

It had taken him a long time to let go of his suspicious nature. He no longer mistrusted anyone. It seemed like he had just moved on. I was glad.

But... it was winter, and as it slowed life to a crawl, I too began to fall behind.

I could run no further.

Lost in thought and feeling a split inside myself, I walked off my anxiety and came to the natural place that Emiya Shirou would go to think. A park that still smelled of smoke. A bench that was a place to think all alone.

Yet that was a mistake. Being alone to think was not a luxury I was allowed.

He was tall and walked carefree and proud to where I sat, though I doubt he would ever sit on my level. He looked down at me, yet I ignore him.

He is wearing the sort of clothes you would think an odd westerner would, and he looked like it. If not for a part of me streaming to escape, I would not have thought much of it despite his appearance.

I know who this is.

He is...

The Golden King (Music) /z0tnpSZC6VY

I don't pay him much mind, yet he walks right up to me.

"Mongrel, you should be honoured to regard your king. Do not ignore your king further at the penalty of death." His word mean nothing, you must first have pride to feel indignation. Recently I have felt... untempered hate. Hate that has no outlet.

But this man... I don't like him...

He helped to kill Tohsaka's father, he is that priest's friend or whatever. So I feel a different sort of persona arise in me.

The sort that is sick and tired of treating the world with any sense of gentleness. I want to take it all out on someone, and this man seems like he can take it.

So I am glad when he appears. "I do not ignore you, Golden King. But I fear that my eyes would burn if I looked too deep. "

That made him laugh. "Indeed. Something like you burns even at the sight of me! And that is why I have come, to tell that I have you to be disappointing beyond measure. I expected to see a world on fire, so to see how the men of this age would react to a being like you, yet instead, I have found a child playing household!"

My life is my own. "...I do not live to entertain other people. Much less you. I am not your clown." The world burns with or without me.

"You lead a far worse career than that. Less of a carnival and more of a brothel. You are like a miserable prostitute, bereft of pride. A most horrid piece of trash of this world, giving out wishes for free. And your mother is the queen of whores. She would make any contract to keep that deformed love of hers." And yet I feel a subtle weakness in this indomitable man as he says that as if there is more to that. What is that?

"Indeed, and you are like the firstborn child who received all the toys of the world and thought that made him the greatest ever. Hmm..." I see it now, I can feel it. "You are taking energy from my mom, aren't you? it seems that you are not so self-reliant."

The next thing I know, the man is looking down at me not far away with clear scorn on his face, like looking down at leftover trash.

"You have a vile tongue; what a pitiable child you are." He holds his hand up as if some invisible executioner will call for my end.

He says the word 'child' with irony.

I feel a knife's edge at my neck, but I can't see it. My body feels like it has felt the pain of execution enough to predict it.

The guillotine's edge is right there, waiting for its master's call.

I feel both that fear of death more than anyone and less than everyone. I have felt it so many times that it is almost expected. "Do as you will. " And today... I don't feel any will to fight. I have insulted enough, but he is not truly the one I hate.

"Do not presume to influence me!" Was he determining his verdict? Of course, I am guilty! What is the point of judging something like me? "Hmm... I deem you guilty." A fair verdict, an almost sliver of justice from the man. But I doubt he bases his decision on anything but his own arrogance.

"May I ask what of?"

"No. You do not have rights. Though, a king must rule with clarity: I have decided to tell you your charges." Of course, he can't be told what to do by the like of a kid like me.

He'll find his own justification for everything.

"Mankind of this era are weak. Great men are corralled by the masses and given no opportunity to shine. Every life has melded into one vast system meant only to leave itself weaker and weaker as time moves on. Humanity is weak and dying... The golden age of man has ended. Heroes can no longer exist in the present." He comes to the same conclusion that I saw so long ago for how crazed he seems. "And you are the lowest slave of them all!" Just as he moves his hand, almost like a guillotine to slice me in half, he pauses.

He looks at me as if waiting for me to run. Yet I don't move from my seat. Only then do I deem to look up and into his red eyes with my own. I see him: he holds... that single emotion I can not yet feal. He holds it for humanity itself, but he is unhappy with how it has turned out. The curse poured over him, yet it could not corrupt him. Of course, that didn't mean it had no effect at all...

He was searching for hope.

But that is the most scarce resource there is

Thus, we are opposites. If he is the ...? for humanity, then I am the hate. He is the strongest, and I am the weakest.

"Yet killing me would do nothing, wouldn't it? You still hold out hope to find some redemption here, a single spark that could justify this world."

His eye slants down, and as he sees my own, his hatred explodes.

Golden armour fades into view over him.

My eyes burn as his golden armour itself blinds me. I don't know what I was expecting... I went blind by looking at Mother back then too closely, so it is natural for that to happen by simply glancing at this man.

When he realizes that I can see the truth and past this man's lies, his restraint is lost entirely. To look upon a king's heart like that is undoubtedly a crime of the highest magnitude. As if I care. Every crime, every insult is already in me. Today I am not feeling any reason to hold back.

"Claryvoince, is it? I would have pardoned you, but now you are a worm to be crushed! I will take those blasphemous eyes of yours! To dare look upon a king as you do is indefensible." A sword drives through the air and smashes the bench that so many memories have been made. It crashed exactly where my left eye was.

Now blind, I must rely on all other things. All I can see is a black hollow world. But that is fine!

I will fill it up with my imagination. 'Trace on.' I smell the intense sweetness in the air, and I can hear the swooping of something in the air.

A second...

I had a second's notice as that thing came at me. I imagine it was sharp.

I was not there when it arrived.

"Come then, let us see how many weapons it takes you to take out the trash!" I imagine that riles him up.

Come! Kill me!

A sword again fires from the air, and I can just manage to jump away.

A lance again fires from the air, and I roll away.

Three at once, four at once, five at once. I writhe without pride escaping certain death. Why does it feel so natural?

Without vision... it feels easy, almost. I simply find the solution in my head then apply it.

Without vision, I am not held by the constraints of reality. My enemy is not him or the blades. It is my own mind finding a solution in time.

"Hahaha! Is the king tired?" I mock. I have no idea where he his, I can't even go on the offensive for a moment.

"Die mongrel!" His voice betrays his location in my mind's eye, but what use is that when I can not stop moving for a moment without being impaled? The fact that I have made him irritated only makes him bring out more to cut at me with.

I hide in the shadows, but that doesn't work. Nothing works but running away. "Do not think that darkness means anything to me!"

Each one is of incredible craftsmanship. I can feel myself think of their histories and creation. It is like he is toying with me. Why is he slowly making it worse? If he has some higher limit, then he could end this at any time. So... why?

Perhaps it is that once he started this strategy, he couldn't simply end it. He refused to bring out any power against what he considered trash. He reminds me of a bully, almost like Shinji in a way.

Each second become worse as I feel like my body is falling apart. I can't catch my breath, and I barely do. My head hurts!

Kill. KIll. Kill. Kill.

Those damn voices! I can see them!

Like a pack of wolves in my mind, in my blindness, I see those damn things!

They are demons that hold only hate; they attack me along with the swords.

I dodge continuously, following the single path I have set in my head.

Die. Die. Die. Die.

More blades, more wolves. I am outnumbered by 10 to 1. 20 to 1. 40 to 1.

So I just move faster. I imagine going faster, and I reinforce myself more.

My body is cut. Skin rips as I evade by millimetres.

Yet I survive. I'm pretty good at that one thing. My body moves as if knowing how to dodge all manners of death as if it has felt it enough times to guide towards that single perfect dodge. I am covered in a thousand cuts but not a single fatal wound.

My mind's eye sees all the attacks coming. The regrets of all the Shirou's who did not survive these attacks inform me how to live.

So... I won't stop trying to cling to life, even as everything tries to kill me.

I scrape and elude without any sense of pride. I am like a worm writhing on the ground to survive the attack of a hawk. That is the difference between us.

He does not want to come close to me at all.

I endure for much longer than either of us expect, to his true disgust. Surely he is humiliated to have wasted much time on me.

So it lasts until his disgust overwhelms his pride, and he ends it.

The attacks end, and he brings out a single blade. One that will not miss me.

It is a sword that does not rely on hitting on its opponent... rather, it will hit it no matter what. It will not stop until it hits its opponent, I know this as my eyes begin to return just for this one sword.

The beasts step back and wait for me to die. They wish to eat me so that I will join them in their eternal torment.

I am paralysed.

A weapon that would forever be in my head, for it was a familiar one. Not in composition but in spirit.

Hul-ul~ The blade of a thousand sins

A single-sided blade, sharp to the point that the air itself cut at its edge. It enjoys gouging the heart and exploring the body in a bloody mess. It will not stop until it tastes blood, thus it can not be dodged.

Cursed. Sword.

I feel like I know it deep in my blood. It is like a magnet resonating in me, yet still... it is not right. It is something I saw a long time ago.

Mu...ramasa?

That name resonates, yet it is not altogether accurate. This is not that... yet it is? This is the origin of something that I feel connected to. It is not what I am expecting it, it is a perfect construct... yet hollow. It has the composition and proof of creation. Yet the history is all wrong. It is an empty thing full of hate.

More like jewellery than a sword.

Die. Die. Die. Die.

Think dammit! How can you survive an undodgeable blade...

Even as time slows to a crawl, and I feel the air burn as it cuts it, I try to find a solution.

My mind looks through every option and find none that I am not impaled.

Wait! If you can't escape it, then you must...!

Time unfreezes, and I stop and steady myself.

This single sword is all I can see. It is too late to try to project anything.

I simply know in my heart that this blade does not stop unless it has tasted blood. My heart can feel itself being impaled before it occurs. It must feel attracted to something similar to itself, and thus it cuts the bench entirely apart as I use it as a last effort defence.

And so I...

"Agghh!" It comes, and I catch it by its blade. I hold it with everything I have, every plan, every reinforced strength and resolve. Still, it stabs into me; I can barely divert it right away from my heart as it penetrates into me.

Being cut by that blade is painful, as my blood flows down and evaporates at the burning. Unbearable! This is just the sort of blade that curses its victims to torments. But in that way... it almost feels empathic to me, as I am empathetic to it. It is so close to my heart that it almost feels like it is fighting me to push forwards and finish me.

I have survived worse!

It has tasted my blood, but it wants it all. I won't let it, I want it gone.

So I pull it out.

I spin and throw it back at him as a straight arrow with power I didn't know I had. I fall to my knees as my strength goes with it.

It dissipates into golden dust right before reaching him.

It was a good try.

I collapse to my hands. Blood is seeking from my body.

I am defenceless and expect my end to come... yet it does not.

...I peer up.

I see the man. He has stopped. Looking at least with a tinge of interest at my form holding onto life.

If he truly had wished it, he had the power to end me easily. But instead...

"A mere boy catching of my treasures? I should have you cast down for sullying it. ...But I would not have it ever be known that I am a king who does not reward a subject that shows promise. There is a spark in you, past worthlessness. I will grace you with some wisdom: choosing between two lives is simple, whichever hold the greatest potential is the one that should live, no matter how close it is. The sacrifice will make the other shine brighter, or better yet, sacrifice them both to one that is worthy." His prideful words leave me with no voice, and as he fades away, I fall to the ground with a thud through my body. "You have piqued my interest, do not disappoint me on your way out." His golden aura is the last thing I see.

He vanished as abruptly as he appeared. Likely to find some new point of interest for him. It seemed that pushing himself anymore would be considered exertion, which was unbecoming of him, so he left me. He took the final words, as the victor is allowed.

"Come back here... I'll kill you..." I reach out but fall as my chest has no strength. I don't even hate him anymore. I just feel empty.

What a waste. That wasn't a fight; it was just me running away as he watched to see how much I could take.

Like a schoolyard bully roughing up some kid.

It is only fair that I would fall here, where I murdered Sakura's father. I killed him and forgot about it. I pretended it would all be okay.

I am blind again. But I can never willingly look away from the truth. I killed more than him, didn't I?

Yet I willingly forgot about it, and I let Sakura think it was her.

I killed only the guilty, yet who am I to know that? I am just a stupid kid with stupid eyes, they could be lying, and I wouldn't even know it.

Guilty. Guilty. Guilty.

Yes, there is one who I know is guilty. This is vengeance for that. "Hahahaha...!" I laugh and spit out blood. This is unfair. What a joke.

But there is no law saying kids are protected from the world. That is just a convenient assumption.

The truth is children are the least resistant to the world. They can easily be moulded to reflect another.

My laughter reaches no one.

No one was left to decide for me.

Just me.

Live forever! Fulfil our wish!

The demons surround me. They will likely start feasting soon.

That bench is destroyed now.

Whatever magic it had was now gone, perhaps now the few people who walk here will fix it, but the very existence of it will be a surprise to them. It never existed before now, they will think.

Things change. Precious things are lost all the time.

If a single life can save so many, and that life is useless otherwise then... they should take responsibility.

The wolves start feasting.

Ever-present Feeling (Music) /3L1DEvzsftw\

.

I held out a blue flower for her, and she looked at me with an emotionless face.

I met her in the park a long time ago.

I wanted to help her, despite being a stranger.

I didn't know about ideas such as consequences, and neither did she.

Is it right to hold someone's hand if it will burn you?

Would you save someone, if in the process, you would be grated down to nothing?

We met a few times, and then it was over. Her name was...

"I wish we were real siblings then." It was over quicker than lightning.

It was just a simple wish from a little girl, and yet...

A sharp pain.

I remember the screaming.

I remember the melting blood.

Everything creaked. The entire world cracked like a broken shell and shattered.

I remember that there was death. That had been the first time I saw it.

It ended in blood.

The world changed overnight.

"Katarina, you're safe. I'm so glad!" Mom cried. Who? "I will never be letting you out of my sight ever again...!"

The girl was new.

It's funny. She looks like me. She would look like me if I were a girl. But I don't recognise her.

I didn't like it. Living as someone you are not, I like people who can be themselves.

I don't know her, but everyone pretends as if they do.

Mom and Dad rejoice that she is safe.

Yet I couldn't remember the one who should have been there either. He had been truly killed.

Her red hair reminded me of blood, and then I realized it: that's because it is blood.

Yet my sister smiled.

I look after her despite it all, and she is my sister. There is no denying that...

I simply wished she didn't have to hide.

She took her place as a perfect actor, mirroring me perfectly.

Even when the nightmares started, and I knew in my heart that I had been cursed, she still smiled.

So I never stopped loving her, even if she had caused this.

The world burned, everything fell, and I was free. I ran away and ran straight to the destiny that my soul knew was coming.

She remained behind. I left her behind.

Her colours switched from black to red to blond.

If only I could have reached her if only to save her from herself.

...

Thinking became difficult, and I closed my eyes. And right as everything was turning black. Someone grabbed my outstretched hand.

My eyes opened and see a man with frazzled black hair; he held my hand preciously, smiling an ecstatic smile.

He seemed so happy, as if he, not I, was the one that was saved.

"Thank you..." he tearfully said.

I couldn't help being jealous of how grateful he was.

"Thank you." he held my hand to his cheek.

His tears fell to my face.

Why didn't he see the black puddle he had fallen in?

Why didn't he notice the boy's eyes were red?

Why didn't he care that the boy he was saving was cursed?

What would he have done if he knew what he had really been saving?

...

I feel a warmth fill my body, and my will to live return. Soft comfort really feeling enters me, not a dream. No more fever dreams.

I am in the darkness, but I feel safe. I feel a warmth take me, and a soft motherly voice coax me awake. "Uhh, Mom..?"

I was still blind.

"Yup. Who else?"

"I'm alive...?"

"Yes, despite your best efforts. You went to that dreadful park all alone, but it's not fun if I'm not there, is it?" I needed to think.

"Sorry..." I have to... I don't know, defeat him or something. I try to get up, but my finger is enough to keep me down.

"Nope, you are staying here. Don't worry. I will avenge you. One of these days, he will be hit with a sudden misfortune. That man will not see it coming, don't you worry."

"Please... no, Mom..." She hated violence, and I know that if she starts, then it is over. She would be unable to control herself.

"Not this time, Shirou... Just forget about that man. He's a no-good man who lost his kingdom long ago and never got over it. I warned him once not to interfere, so this is his penalty."

"Who... is he really?" When I think of him, I have fragmented memories. I know he was a king, he is golden and very old and powerful. But it is like swiss cheese, there are holes all over and I don't even know his real name."

"Gilgamesh, the first and greatest hero. If not for his lack of energy and interest in seeing the world, he would come over and kill us all. But I wouldn't really worry about that. He is waiting for... Well, let us not talk about that. let's just say that I think it should all be resolved in five years or so."

"Okay. What are you going to do...?" She couldn't fight him.

"Worried about me? Don't worry; I won't fight him. No, quite the opposite, I will continue to grant his own wish and give him the energy needed to see the world. But... I have some good ideas for a trap he won't be able to escape from. Consider it a long term gift from me." She smiled her deadly smile. "So... have you made your choice?" She seemed concerned. I wonder how she looks, but I can't see.

"Yeah..."

She smiles. "I see..." She kissed my forehead, and I feel exhausted enough to go right back into sleep. "Sleep then, you have all the time in the world."

I wonder what I look like. My body is healed, but it still aches.

Maybe everything that I look like swiss cheese, and under that I am...

I fell back into a dreamless sleep.

My body is fine by the time I wake up. Someone is holding my hand for a change, "Don't worry, Senpai, your mother, said she found you passed out sick... Tohsaka-senpai must have infected you back then." Of course, since Sakura said she would never infect me... Thus it must be Tohsaka in her mind.

That was the day that I had to stay in bed for a change, I was completely healed and okay, but Sakura was so stubborn about keeping me there that I ended up in her care all day. ...?

She was too elated about the situation for me to find any means of escape. Sakura could be surprisingly frightening in her ability to control a situation suddenly when she gains power. My eyes were back to working but she didn't want me going anywhere. "Senpai, you must rest!" She demanded.

I knew that she finally felt she could do something for me as she felt like a burden as I had to look out for her. She was never a burden to me.

It did turn into a mess later as Ilya and Sakura fought over who would feed me, her or Sakura. Neither of them was willing to give up. In the end, I had to take food as if I am a baby from both of them despite feeling fine, but that is all that could avert disaster. Ilya and Sakura...

They are equally important. They have equal potential.

They are both... precious to me.

I chuckle softly as they fight. "Haha, I guess that it is only fair." I laugh at my own misfortunes.

I only know one way to solve all problems.

Die. Die. Die. Die. Die. Die.

Looking back, this went much longer than it should have.

Mom must have truly been incredulous that I survived what I did.

I truly was the lucky one. But luck runs out eventually.

It is time to put an end to it.

I promise never to smile. I smiled to teach Mom how to live in the real world.

I promise never to cry. I cried for Tohsaka's sake when she couldn't do it herself.

I promise never to laugh for myself. I laughed as Ilya tried her best to soften my heart.

I promise never to regret. I regretted my own weakness to save Kiritsugu.

I promise never to find friendship. I made friends with Ilya, Sakura, Tohsaka, Sella, Leysritt, Issei, even Shinji.

I promise to clean and cook faithfully forever. I gave up my kitchen so that Sakura would have something to be proud of.

I promise never to love. All that yet remains intact.

A penalty doesn't matter if it has been lost.

So that which has been gained will now have to leave because the boy is no longer just an empty shell.

Dust to dust.

Ash to ash.

Now that the truth is so close, it is only a matter of opening that door and leaving the stage.

Author's notes:

I have started reading the Tsukihime remake now. I will try to internalise this new information into this story, I have said it before, but we will have Tsukihime characters. Sooner than you may think too, and one that you will probably don't think will come. I've already hinted at her being in this story.

Mahoutsukai no Yoru will get a movie, so that is good for people who were really confused in my other story. I probably won't be doing much with that in this story.

The next chapter is the act 2 finale, and... What? It's already here. Yes. Double upload time.

You can go read that now, or stop and review. I love reviews!