The Everdistant Utopia

Arcadia

The world of fairies was called Arcadia... the same name as a region of Greece. For the most part, this part of the Netherworld was a large forest with some strange and beautiful castles and large meadows.

Different species of legendary creatures lived in Arcadia. Each had their habit.

Shirou had lived here for almost a year. This had given him time to understand the habits of the inhabitants and to understand what faerie drink and faerie food a human could consume without... bizarre aftereffects.

He had become friends with brownies, the least mischievous and the most helpful and friendly of the Faerie Folk. This was no surprise to anyone who knew the redhead. Wasn't he nicknamed Homuhara's Brownie (1) before the 5th Grail War?

As he walked along the path leading to the throne of Queen Titania, the young man looked around him. At times a face appeared between the trees, pixies playing hide and seek among ferns or sleeping on mushrooms. Common Faeries, Green Wood, Silver Bells, and Night Elves flew from one flower to another. They appeared as tiny handsome men or women standing no more than six inches with butterfly or gossamer wings.

He knew his stay in Arcadia was coming to an end. It was time for him to come back to Earth. Of course, it was not the planet Earth where he was born... but someone had to fight to protect the inhabitants.

A lot had happened to the Faker since the beginning of the 5th Grail War, he had abandoned his ideal of saving everyone. Except that it had not prevented him from facing Berserker, then Alter to save Sakura...

The illness called "Shirou" was incurable.

At first glance, the 5th Grail War had fundamentally changed Shirou. He had given up his dream of becoming an Allied of Justice to devote himself to the protection of the woman he loved. And he had finally sacrificed his life... before being reincarnated in another world, with a body created by the goddess Ishtar.

But was the present Shirou the one who fought Angra Mainyu?

Not exactly.

He had received part of Archer's memory. After his arrival in the Campioneverse, memories of the Heroic Servant (a more mature version of himself) had often troubled him. Then Lancelot used her Insane Rush Authority on the redhead. The Queen of the Amazons had broken the unconscious barriers that prevented him from using Unlimited Bladework and forced Shirou to accept that he was Archer.

Because it was something he unconsciously refused... oh, he accepted that fact intellectually. But EMIYA's memories were... painful.

His hatred of Archer also made no sense. What did Archer do to deserve it? The truth was that Shirou hated Archer because his mature version was proof that he could never fill his hollow inside. That he was flawed. That he was broken.

During his stay in Arcadia, Shirou had a lot of spare time to think about his death, his resurrection, the separation from Sakura... and Archer's memories.

Ironically, Shirou realized that even after all the time he had spent serving Alaya and his long imprisonment in the desert that formed his inner universe, Archer was still an idealistic moron. His case was desperate. What a beautiful soul.

EMIYA's life had been entirely dedicated to saving others.

After the disaster of Fuyuki's fire, his only thought was to somehow atone for the fact that he alone survived. That's why... that's why he did not consider his life his own. He swore that he would never allow another tragedy like the one he survived to ever happen to others. If he hadn't done that, he wouldn't have been able to survive himself. It was then that he gave up his name. He also gave up any claims to being a human and swore that he'd live for those who had died and not for himself." To become a hero of justice whose purpose is to save others." It was with this warped idea that he grew up. It was the result of a traumatism and it was also childish. But anything is possible if you're determined enough. He somehow made a childish promise come true. And during the transition from childhood to adolescence, EMIYA finally realized what he'd become.

Someone who can save people.

Someone who can stop catastrophes.

Someone that Emiya Shirou dreamed of.

A superhero.

EMIYA became that.

His techniques were all a copy of his enemy's.

His weapons were copied and his technique was copied. Therefore, he cannot match real heroes.
He couldn't match them even if he was in top condition.

An imitation can get close to the original but never surpass it. He could not match a true hero from the start.

EMIYA drowns in his ideals and dies.

His life was a false life.

And, of course, this Emiya Shirou was the same.

He could not object to those words because he had the same ideal and the same power that made the impossible possible.

Like EMIYA, an existence that saved many people and became a heroic spirit, he also wanted to become a hero before falling in love with Sakura.

Archer was a hated man, everyone hated him. It was fine though. He was used to it. He just shrugs off the hate. He accepted it even. After all, he also hated himself. However what he did do wrong? He had created with his own hands the hell in which he had locked himself. Condemned to travel through history, EMIYA, the Alaya's Dog, was a killer in charge of cleaning up humanity's garbage. This was where his dream of saving everyone led him. Archer deserved hate. He definitively agreed to be hated.

Shirou could only take pity on the part of him who was 'Archer'. However, he also felt that living a life without an ideal was wrong... completely wrong. Archer was 'realistic'. Certainly being realistic was a good thing... but Shirou understood that by sacrificing all his ideals, Archer had done nothing but lie to himself... in another way.

It was ironic.

Archer lied to himself, claiming to have rejected Shirou's ideal. But his younger self felt that deep inside him, Archer still thought, "Helping people isn't wrong". What EMIYA had completely rejected was the childish behavior of his 'moron version', this ideal borrowed from Kirutsugu. The heroes who save everyone do not exist.

Whatever his incarnation, Emiya Shirou was utterly hopeless. He was unable to be honest with himself and he kept trying to save the others.

By accepting the part of him that was Archer, Shirou had also been forced to accept that he too was lying to himself. Every time he thought about his actions during the 5th Grail War or in the Campioneverse, the redhead felt a mixture of anger, annoyance, and irritation because he lied to himself, he became a fake. All along he was pretending to be something that he was not.

He was pretty childish.

He wasn't Sakura's hero.

He did not devote himself to the girl he loved.

He was a poser. "Look, I'm a hero and I'll save you".

The Emiya Shirou who became Archer tried to become greater than God but "Not even God can save everyone". In his arrogance, in his emptiness, he sought to become complete. To fill his emptiness. And he eventually realized it was all a convenient fantasy. He could never be complete. He could never fill the emptiness inside him. In the end, the part of him that was Archer became an unwilling robot, doomed to forever kill, and the only escape was suicide.

This is what Shirou realized. He too can never fill himself by becoming a 'hero'. No matter how hard he tried or the number of people he saved.

From the start, his quest to become a hero was just a way to fill the void inside him.

He has a self-esteem problem its solution was in him not outside.

Archer had forgotten much of his life during the centuries of his exile inside Unlimited Bladework.

But even if Shirou Emiya had inherited only part of the memory of Alaya's Dog, some reminiscences remained very strong. Although Archer had forgotten Rin's name, he had never forgotten Saber, still remembering the smallest detail of her arrival or the awe he had felt seeing her fighting Lancer.

But not all of EMIYA's memories were as pleasant.

Notably...

"Oh. I remember, now that I think about it. He said your ideal is a borrowed one. How conceited of you to think that you can manage anything when you have nothing you created yourself."

Archer had only a hazy memory of his encounter with Gilgamesh. But he couldn't forget the scornful smile of Humanity's First Hero.

"A superhero? A world where no one gets hurt? Ridiculous. No world can preserve happiness without harming anyone. Humans cannot live without sacrifices. 'Peace' is a myth created by those who cower in fear of the dark. You lowlife. Your ideal is just an excuse to cover up your ugliness."

Even after centuries spent in his sand prison planted with millions of swords, Archer still felt the fury of his past self, but even that anger was a lie. Gilgamesh's words would not have hurt Shirou/Archer so much if they didn't reflect the truth.

"You lowlife. Your ideal is just an excuse to cover up your own ugliness." (2)

Gilgamesh had inherited the divine wisdom of the goddess Rimat-Ninsun, his mother. He saw straight through the Shirou who became Archer. This Shirou was using that ideal as an excuse to find his own happiness.

Continuing to walk, immersed in his thoughts, Shirou grimaced. Of course, he was not Archer. He had renounced his ideal of becoming a hero who saves everyone. But when he devoted himself to saving Sakura, he had only changed the kind of 'hero' he was, not the goal itself.

He remembered something he had told Saber before she was devoured by Angra Mainyu's corrupted Grail.

"This is what it means to ally with someone. I'll keep sacrificing important things for the one I love.
And on this path… There's nothing brilliant enough to make up for what I've lost. But Saber, I'll search all my life for happiness that can measure up to what I've lost. I'll keep losing more than I gain, and I know I'll stop someday. But I'm going to take responsibility for stealing things away, even if I'm pathetic, comical, or meaningless. I don't know where I can find happiness. But I swear to myself that I'll never give up, even if I can't see the end." (3)

Just like Archer, and even if he had taken a different route, he was trying to find his share of happiness, trying to fill up the emptiness. Trying to find what he lost.

He was by no means an altruist. He too acted like a machine, he was ready to sacrifice himself for Sakura simply because - in his mind- that was how he thought to find happiness.

He was as broken as Kirei.

Kotomine Kirei could only find pleasure in the suffering of others.

Unable to find happiness for himself, Shirou felt joy only in the happiness of others.

It was no surprise that the 5th Grail War ended in a duel between the two of them... while they were both dying, having sacrificed everything to satisfy their twisted perception of happiness.

Again Shirou thought about Archer.

He had a vision of the knight dressed in red walking in the desert planted with swords, the sand squirting under his boots.

From the very beginning, his reward was… Not what he received from the people he saved, but the pure action of saving someone.

Archer knew what he was talking about when he said: "It is wrong to save just because you want to save. You are a fake that should have never existed as you are broken as a human being."

He also told him: "Yes, you need to become a superhero. Because that is your only emotion. An emotion you can neither betray nor deny. Even if that wish is not born from within you. That's right. It's not that you felt guilty for being the only one saved." (4)

From the beginning, Shirou only borrowed Kiritsugu's ideal. When the Magus Killer saved him, he saw such an expression of joy on his face that he wanted to feel the same happiness. Surviving the fire that destroyed much of Fuyuki at the end of the 4th Grail War, and seeing people die before his own eyes, traumatized the eight-year-old that Shirou was at the time.

Survivor's guilt. A condition that those who survive a catastrophe often develop.

Survivor's guilt. A condition where the survivor of a catastrophe believes they did something wrong by surviving when those around them died.

Because they survived, they are special in some way.

Or possibly they feel that, since they are still alive, they have to do something exceptional to honor those who weren't as fortunate.

And if the survivor didn't, it'd be the same as showing disrespect for the memory of the dead.

The sound of many voices drew Shirou from his dark ruminations. He shook himself. It was no longer time to dwell on the past. Now he had to focus on the future.

Queen Titania's 'throne room' was not inside a palace. It was an elongated clearing with a guarded end. The rows of trees bordering the grassy path were like the columns of a majestic cathedral, supporting a ceiling of branches and stained glass windows of green leaves whose moving shadows formed on the ground a picture that the wind was constantly recomposing.

Passing between the magical creatures, dryads, centaurs, and fauns that formed the Court of the Sovereign of Arcadia, Emiya Shirou headed for the throne.

The armchair was installed on a stone platform that was preceded by a few steps. Just in front of it, the clearing dug a deep depression, a natural pit in which Shirou had gone several times to face Fatis and Fétaux, fairy knights.

With a hand on his heart, Shirou knelt down... he had spent enough time in Arcadia to know the customs of the Court.

"Emiya Shirou has answered your call, Your Majesty. What can I do for you?"

"You may begin by raising your face, Sir Shirou."

As the queen had ordered, he looked at her... she was incredibly beautiful. She was a very tall, thin, and supple woman, with long black hair, smooth and shiny. Her magnificent clothes, a blue velvet and purple silk cotardia woven with gold threads and adorned with precious stones only added to the brilliance of her beautiful pale and hieratic face.

Yes, Titania was incredibly beautiful and many writers praised her beauty... starting with William Shakespeare (5).

But she was also a strange creature, very different from a human woman, her eyes were too big and her ears pointed. Moreover, her conduct was a bit... hectic. Most of the time, the fairy queen behaved like a noble sovereign but sometimes... sometimes... she laughed like a little girl or made whims.

She was a queen certainly... but the queen of Arcadia. And she looked like her people, as strange as the other fairies.

By looking up, Shirou could contemplate the principal nobles of the fairy court. It was a rather... wacky assembly. There was a humanoid with a cat head and dressed like a musketeer with a large feathered hat and a rapier on the side. It flanked a creature with brown skin that moved like a gorilla and had the general appearance of a giraffe and the head of a horse. just next, there was a knight with ridiculous armor... a parodic one with a huge helmet in the shape of a raven's beak, a rickety body, and in addition, he was armed with a spear so long that he sometimes lost balance. There were dozens of others. Apart from being particularly eccentric, there was no commonality between them.

However, he smiled at Annie Charlton, the only other human currently residing in Arcadia. Paradoxically, the young (and pretty) redhead seemed even more unusual than the magical creatures that surrounded her. Simply because she was always dressed in a strict pantsuit and glasses that made her look like a businesswoman... at the Court of Titania.

"You must be wondering why I summoned you both."

Titania had just spoken and was addressing Annie and Shirou.

"I brought you here to officially announce that I was ready to open the Faerie Corridor and send you back to Earth."

Shirou's initial joy lasted only a moment, quickly replaced by apprehension.

The queen of fairies smiles gently.

"Your concern for your friends honors you, Emiya Shirou. But you have no reason to torment yourself like this. Only a few hours have passed on Earth. Your friends and allies still have to heal and rest, the final fight is still in the future. You didn't waste your time here... you crossed swords with our best swordsmen and shot arrows alongside the best archers. You have been healed and you have rested. You will be an asset in the final conflict against the Strongest Steel."

Shirou acquiesced. But, deep down, he couldn't help but blame himself for having spent 'all this time' out of the fight... even though - precisely- time had not passed as quickly for others as for him. It was this propensity not to wait for the right moment, to refuse to wait, to act immediately, without a plan, without having the slightest idea of what he was going to do, just because he could not stand still, which... had allowed Angra Mainyu to devour Saber.

"It's not the words of others that determine who you are, Shirou Emiya... not even Archer's."

The redhead startled before rubbing his neck with a sullen expression.

"Why do I feel like I'm being transparent to you, Your Majesty?"

Titania laughed... suddenly she was no longer royal... she laughed like a child. It was a crystal shivering. A spring rain...

"But Sir Shirou, it's obvious to everyone..."

Even more embarrassed, the Japanese teenager looked away blushing. Titania stopped laughing and spoke with a little sadness.

"Do you want to change to not make the same mistakes again? Take another route?"

Shirou shuddered and swallowed his saliva, nodding his head unable to respond verbally.

"Then you're already doing the right thing."

This time, the redhead understood nothing.

"But I don't know what I'm doing, I have no idea..."

She interrupted him.

"And you think you are different from others, Sir Shirou? No living being knows the road ahead of him... to be alive is to doubt, ask questions, and seek his way. Blindly following a path without questioning one's certainties is not living."

Shirou blinked quickly and swallowed. "Blindly following a path without questioning one's certainties". He saw Archer sitting on top of a dune in the middle of a desert where each sword planted in the sand represented a person he had sacrificed in the service of Alaya.

Yeah... it wasn't living, it wasn't even dying.

"The purpose of life is not to find some universal cosmic truth...but to understand the meaning of one's own life. Unless you thought you were born to become the messiah of a new religion?"

Titania had said the latter in a mocking tone and the young redhead laughed shaking his head.

"Shirouism? I think I'll avoid this... Finally, I already have the idea of the first mantra to teach the future monks. 'Don't think the wall is thicker than your head. Rush over it without thinking. Your faith will knock down all the obstacles...' Or something like that. This mantra has led me to such a place that I would not have reached otherwise..."

The queen smiled at him calmly.

"The day will come when people will look at you with admiration because you will have become a very important person, Sir Shirou. They will envy you, they will fear you. They will speculate to know the origin of your strength and what deserved or undeserved advantage allowed you to get the place you will occupy at that time. They will seek to imitate you and will not understand why they will fail. But you will know the truth. One day you admitted that you were wrong and decided to free yourself. At that moment you took the first step out of lying... you became yourself. The rest of your life will perhaps be a journey of ten thousand kilometers. Nevertheless, you will never forget that the first step cost you more than this long journey."

The queen stopped for a few moments and then clapped her hands.

A fairy-tale creature entered the clearing. It was a brownie, a kind of little man covered with brown fur. He held a silver tray with two objects. Shirou easily recognized the mask of John Pluto Smith that the fairies had finished rebuilding from its fragments. As for the second...

"Avalon!"

Excalibur's golden sheath was inimitable. The decorative pattern made of elegant bands of blue enamels that crossed over the metal, the short sentence in fairy letters, all this was easy to recognize... especially for him. It must be said that he felt his prana in the sheath.

Shirou turned to Titania.

"Is this the copy of Avalon I arrived with?"

Shirou had been invited by the fairies following a... misunderstanding. They thought the copy was a gift of the fairies of another universe to a real hero. Except... he Traced it. Once again he was a Faker, usurping the achievements of another.

The redhead had explained his Magecraft and dispelled the misunderstanding. But, he felt ashamed and uncomfortable after that. But the fairies treated him with the same kindness as before.

"That's right. It's your version of Avalon... at least for the most part."

She had said these last words in a mocking tone and Emiya Shirou frowned. It was not surprising that Avalon did not disappear. In Arcadia, magic did not meet the same rules as on Earth... whether it was the version of this planet where he was born or the one where he now lived. First, time made no sense. A day could last a century. A century could last a day. So it was no surprise that the weapons he Traced kept on for a very long time (or perhaps never disappeared).

And then concepts like 'reality', or 'true', or 'false' didn't run in Arcadia. Everything changed, and changed again, in the fairy kingdom. Nothing remained constant and no one was really what it seemed to be. This was probably why the fairies had so easily accepted his Tracing Magecraft or the fact that he was not the real owner of the sheath.

Shirou used Structural Grasp Magecraft and...

"It is not possible."

The queen was not offended by the disbelief of the redhead. She had a Machiavellian smile which made her briefly resemble Rin.

"Oh? So you have become so wise during your stay that it is now possible for you to define what is impossible for the fairies even though their queen, who is only a few dozen thousand years older than you... a trifle, is incapable of it."

Several fairies in the audience, but also Annie laughed with exuberance. Once again, Shirou looked away, scratching his cheek, uneasy.

"Please excuse me, Your Majesty. That's not what I meant. "

"Too polite" murmured the queen, shaking her head with amusement.

It is true that many faerie creatures did not have the slightest respect for their queen and did not hesitate to insult her publicly or make nasty jokes...

"Then why is it impossible?"

Shirou concentrated.

"This is Avalon, at least the replica I Projected. I feel my prana in it... but..." He looked up at the queen, a little like a slow pupil would have looked at his schoolteacher who asked him too many difficult questions. "Well..."

Merciless (it was too much fun), Titania smiled at him.

"Yes?"

"Uh... it's a real object... an object made of matter... I would say once again that it is impossible but..." He ended his sentence by reproducing Archer's mocking smile "... but I have already made myself quite ridiculous, haven't I?"

The queen nodded her head.

"There are very talented people in Arcadia. The creators of Avalon were fairies. And my craftsmen seem to be upset that other elves could have built something so extraordinary. I think they took that as a kind of challenge. They created a replica of Avalon and then infused the energy of the Traced version of Excalibur's sheath into the one they had made, transferring all its properties to it."

Titania smiled and nodded in a calm motion.

"Since it is a physical replica of Avalon, it will not disappear."

(1) In the English version of the LN... in the Japanese version students talk about him as the school kodama.

(2) These were citations of the Fate Stay Night LN (UBW route).

(3) This was a citation of the Fate Stay Night LN (Heaven Feel route).

(4) It's a citation of the UBW route... But, in HF route, Archer may have said something similar to Shirou 'off-camera'.

(5) A Midsummer Night's Dream.