Chapter Sixteen

Shirou hummed softly to himself as he examined the stock of food in his fridge and under the counter. As he'd expected, they were nearly out. It wasn't that they had been overeating or anything recently, but it had been a long time since he had been able to make a run out to buy groceries. There had always been something bothering him to prevent him from prioritizing it.

Well there was still something bothering him, but now he could no longer put it off.

"Hey, I'm running out to the market!" He called out. Neither Rin or Sakura were in the room with him, Rin was working on something while Sakura was resting. He'd... done a lot with her. Training her was intensely enjoyable, and it was easy to get carried away. Especially since she, unlike her sister, was completely open about enjoying things from the beginning and was always asking for more.

Shirou liked both of them, of course. Rin pushing him to get him to punish her, Sakura's complete submission... they were different flavours of the same thing, and that thing felt inherently right to him. Just like the dream he had inherited from his father.

But if he let himself think about that too much he'd decide to check in on Rin, who was for some reason almost as tired as Sakura, and then nobody would get to eat lunch. Shirou slapped himself lightly on his cheeks to clear his thoughts and set out down the path towards the market.

X X X

Although he was doing his best to stay focused, Shirou found himself distracted as he shopped. He knew the market well enough that it was easy to decide what to buy in bulk and what to grab while it was on sale, which left him with plenty of free time to think.

He frowned, because he just couldn't shake away the thoughts no matter how hard he tried. Seemingly every time he close his eyes, he saw that blonde woman. Caster. His body was still sore from the spot where she had kicked him, but what was worse was the way she seemed to have captivated him so easily. He could still see the curves of her body, a mix of the voluptuousness of Sakura combined with the athletic muscles of Rin. Her eyes had been so bright and determined, but her expression had been so pained...

...And even though he tried to tell himself it was ridiculous, he couldn't shake the feeling that he knew her.

That was silly, of course. He certainly would have remembered seeing such a beautiful foreigner wandering around town before.

But, as his Servants had pointed out last night, she certainly seemed to think that she knew him. Worse, she seemed to think that he was cheating on her somehow. Why? No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't think of an answer.

In his dreams, a proud girl often spoke to him.

"Tch. This is all the natural result of a poor Master getting carried away. Shero, promise me that if you ever find yourself becoming a Master with a Servant of your own, you need to become the ideal Master. Kind, but firm. Quick to punish, but quicker to reward. A proper Master is selfish enough to demand that his Servants fulfill his needs, but selfless enough to ensure their needs are met in return."

No.

"Onii-chan?"

That was just a dream.

If it was real... no. That was just a dream.

"Onii-chan!"

But he couldn't stop seeing it. The young girl in his dreams, that Caster who had tried to kill him... could there really be that many people with such a distinctive haircut? Could his young imagination have just invented something like that?

None of this made sense.

"ONII-CHAN!"

"Huh!?" Shirou nearly dropped his shopping bags as he swung them around, trying to figure out where that noise was coming from. Thankfully they swung right over the head of the person speaking, who was waving her arms around like a wild woman.

"Geez, Onii-Chan!?" She yelled, angry at home he had been ignoring her.

...

It took him a few seconds before he fully understood what he was seeing. "Berserker!?" He called out. Standing directly in front of him was the small girl with white hair who had tried to kill him twice before. She was no longer wearing the white winter outfit that he associated with her, but instead a black coat and rather adorable matching hat. He looked around them, both relieved and terrified to see that there were no witnesses around. "Are you – are you here to kill me?"

Berserker pouted. Shirou just stared, not understanding how the girl who had tried to kill him so gleefully could look so... childlike. "Onii-san, don't you even know the first thing about the Holy Grail War? Servants can only fight at night."

"Ah... right." He said. Come to think of it, she had attacked him both times in the middle of the night. He'd been out for other reasons both times so he hadn't really been thinking about it, but he supposed that made sense. He stared at her some more, to her confusion, but she really didn't seem like she was going to attack him. His panicked heart rate began to fall back down to normal.

She looked so young. What was a child like her doing in a war like this?

"Um... Berserker. I just want to check. Is there some Master forcing you to fight?" He asked. It was the most likely cause. If she had been ordered to kill against her will then maybe he could solve it with Rule Breaker. In his head, he was already preparing his circuits...

Wait. What was he doing? He would need Rin to do a projection like that. She'd warned him against doing anything similar today, and for all he knew yesterday had been nothing but a freak accident.

Her cheeks puffed up in rage. "Onii-chan, that's mean! Do you really think I would have been held back by Servants as plain as yours if they didn't have an advantage over me?"

"Hey!" He shouted back. For some reason his flash of rage made her giggle. "My Servants are the strongest around." He denied. Okay, he couldn't deny that she was certainly more powerful... but he would put his faith in Rin and Sakura until the very end.

"You only say that because you're thinking with that lower part." Berserker said, putting a finger against her chin.

Shirou blushed. "B-Berserker! Children shouldn't be talking about something like that!"

Her head tilted sideways. "But I'm older than you are." He just stared for a second. "Illya."

"Huh?"

"Call me Illya. Illyasviel von Eizenbern. There's no need to be calling me Berserker right now, since I can't fight you." She said. For some reason, she smiled.

"Illya." He said, testing the sound. "Illya... why are you talking to me?" He asked.

Her pout was back like it had never left. "Geez! I just wanted to see you!"

Shirou put a finder against his chest, twisting his shopping bags around. "Me?" He asked. Did they have some kind of connection too?

"..." She glared at him silently for a while. "I told that woman not to trust you, you know."

"That woman? You mean Caster?" Shirou asked. He couldn't help but wonder about the nature of their alliance. "Speaking of her Illya, does she have some kind of connection to me?"

"You met for the first time last night." Illya said, with a too-serious expression that made him wonder if she was making fun of him. "But you've also known each other for years."

"What?" He asked. He frowned. "That doesn't make any sense."

"Of course it does." Illya said. "After all, you couldn't call dreaming about each other meeting, could you?"

Hearing that felt like something had stabbed him directly in the heart. Shirou grunted, pressing a hand against his head as a splitting headache suddenly formed. It was like every wound that he'd received in the past several years had opened up all at once. "In a... dream?"

"That's right." Illya said, with a wide smile. "In the end, that's all it was. Just a dream. But for her, it was something of an unforgettable memory. How sad. I guess this is what they call unrequited love. Or being cucked."

A dream. A dream. A dream.

"How could she have seen the same dream as me?" Shirou asked.

"I don't know." Illya said. She shrugged her little shoulders, taking far too much pleasure in his confusion. "You would have to ask somebody who knew more about the fourth war."

The... fourth war?

He thought about the fire. Were they...?

No. This time he was absolutely silent. He remembered the fire, the terror of that event. And he remembered the dream, even if it was only a dream, and he knew they were fundamentally different events.

"I have to go, Shirou." Illya said. She sounded a little sad now, and she was glancing behind herself as if waiting for somebody else to show up. Or as if she was listening to somebody else speak just over her shoulder. "Before I do... this isn't something I would have asked if it was just me, but... did... did Kiritsugu Emiya ever leave?"

Hearing that name was like adding another weight onto his back after he'd already been crushed to death. "What? You know my father?"

The small girl, who he could not believe was older than him, looked like she wanted to say something. But she just kept silent, waiting for his response.

"Yeah... he did." Shirou said. It was a very dear memory to him, even if it had been a little lonely at the time. "He used to travel around the world, all the time. Why does that matter?"

She looked down sadly. And then, without a word she turned and began to walk away.

"Illya!" He called out. She stopped in her tracks, turning back with a clouded expression. "Do you have somewhere to stay?"

"...Yeah." She said. Shirou could still not read her expression. "There's a big mansion in the forest. You'll get to see it eventually."

Shirou could only watch as she departed, confused about more things than he could count.

X X X

Back at the house, Shirou ended up making a pretty simple lunch. Sakura and Rin both volunteered to do it instead, but he forced them to give up and let him work on it. Although, perhaps he should not have. After all he was far too distracted.

After taking a few bites, Rin only had a few words to say to summarize how she felt about the meal. "Master, is something bothering you?"

Shirou looked up. Rin and Sakura weren't sitting on either side of him this time, but across the table from him. Unfortunately, that gave him a very clear view of just how concerned they both looked. "Is it that bad?"

Wordlessly, Sakura nodded.

"You should get some more rest, Master." Rin said. "After what happened yesterday, it would be strange if you were back at full condition already."

Shirou stared at his food for a long minute before responding. "Yeah, I should go and lay down. But before I do... I'm sorry, but there's somewhere I have to go."

X X X

The church doors creaked open slowly, and Shirou wandered in hesitantly. He felt like there were eyes crawling all over his back. "Hello!?" He called out. The church was fully lit, but the pews were empty and the alter seemed poorly decorated. "Hello!?" He repeated. Rin had said Kotomine would be here for the duration of the war, but there didn't seem to be –

"I did not expect I would see you again, before the completion of the war."

Shirou very deliberately did not jump. Not because he wasn't frightened, but because his instincts were screaming at him that he needed to start running. The shadows of the pews seemed to stretch out towards him, but when he blinked he realized he was only seeing things because of his exhaustion. He turned around slowly. "Kotomine."

The priest was standing almost directly behind him. Shirou glared at him, even though he knew it would do nothing but amuse him. The priest smiled. "Do not tell me that you have rescinded your decision to support Rin."

"Don't even think about that!" Shirou shouted, denying it with all of his heart. He would never abandon Rin. Or Sakura, although there was no need for Kotomine to know about that. "I just came here to ask a question."

"Oh?" The priest put his arms behind his back, shifting his posture to be less menacing. There was something about him that Shirou just couldn't put hit finger on. "I do not have all day to satisfy your curiousity. But tell me what you want to know and I will answer what I can."

Shirou wanted to growl at the man for some reason, but he held back. This was likely all that he was going to get from him. "It's about the Fourth Holy Grail War. You fought in it, didn't you?"

"Indeed."

Shirou hesitated before speaking. He didn't really know if Kotomine would know anything or not, only that Illya thought somebody involved in the past war would know something."Was there... were any kind of Servants involved with a control over dreams?"

He expected Kotomine to draw out the answer, to slowly goad him with his words, but instead the priest merely nodded. "Indeed."

Shirou thought that straight forward answer was somehow more suspicious than anything else, but he had nowhere else to go. "There was?"

"The Servant Caster." Kotomine said. "The identity of his Heroic Spirit was not identified before he was killed by the Master of Saber. However, he was using his powers to attempt to create several dreamscapes to ensnare the people of Fuyuki. After he died, his dreams slowly fizzled out over the next couple of years, doing no more than dragging in the occasional unlucky participant."

"Isn't that dangerous? They weren't destroyed?" Shirou asked. He had been told that it was Kotomine's entire job to prevent things like that from happening.

"A dream is only a dream." Kotomine said. "It cannot harm anyone. Or at least, without the guidance of Caster it could do no lasting harm. At worst, someone trapped within might have found themselves living in a nightmare that seemed a little too real until they awoke the next morning. They might find themselves craving the seductive delights or fearing the scultped horrors contained within it, but that is the limit."

Shirou could remember the dream so vividly. The world had been in danger. Hadn't it? Or had that been nothing but wishful thinking? "...Okay. One more question, and then I'll go. You said that they were constructed within Fuyuki. Could someone else have been drawn in? A foreigner?"

Kotomine at last had to pause and think about that one. "Hmm. Perhaps. If they were in Fuyuki when the Holy Grail War was occurring. Or perhaps if they were related to someone that Caster was attempting to target, they may have been drawn in through some stroke of misfortune."

Was there any relationship between Caster and someone who might have been involved in the Fourth Holy Grail War? He had no way to tell. It seemed like he had reached an end to this path of investigation. At least he had gotten confirmation that the girl in his dreams and Caster were one and the same.

And that meant...

He'd really failed her, hadn't he?

"Thank you. Goodbye, Kotomine."

The priest smiled at him. "Do your best, boy. This church will always be available to retreat to if you should fail."

There was so much more than just losing Shirou was worried about now.

He left the church, glad to leave the creepy area behind. If he never went back there again it would be too soon. It was a long walk back, but he had plenty to think about as he moved.

The dream had been real. Or at least, the little girl had been. The one that first taught him how to be a proper Master. He'd never repaid her. He'd ended up as her enemy.

He looked up towards the sky, and made a sacred promise. "Caster. I'll make you mine. Like a better Master would have a long time ago."

Welcome to the exposition chapter, I hope you enjoyed it! Mainly this was about setup for Illya and Luvia's characters. We've got Illya and Shirou finally having their meeting in the market place (technically just outside of it, but whatever), and Shirou finally confirming that Luvia was the girl he dreamed about. As well as the origins of the dream. Coming up next I'll be showing the dream in a lot more detail, which should hopefully explain a lot of questions!