A/N: I haven't posted a new story on FFN in quite some time, but I reckon it's time to try my hand at it again.

This story is somewhere between the Heaven's Feel and Unlimited Blade Works routes, but mainly drawing from the HF route. I felt there was another path the story could have taken, and this is going to be my attempt to tell that story. Let me know what you think, and if you've got any ideas for what Servant Shirou should summon when we get to the War, let me know.

Please be warned that my knowledge of the Fate series is limited to F/SN, UBW, and HF, but I'm going to do my best to preserve the feel of the original series as best I can.

He stood beside the hospital bed, staring down at it in shocked amazement.

Shiro Emiya hadn't found joy in things in years. When Kiritsugu died, it felt like everything that had been left of his humanity had died with him. But here, looking down at the girl, the woman, smiling at the child in her arms, he felt some spark of it again. He felt that he'd done something irreversible, gone beyond his nature, repaired something he hadn't noticed was broken.

And when Sakura held their daughter up to him, his hands shook as he reached out to take the littlest hands he'd ever seen into his own.

"Hey there, little one. I'm your papa, it's nice to meet you."

His words were a whisper, and his eyes stung as the infant grabbed onto his thumb. He stared into her lilac eyes with a smile, even as Sakura reached up to touch his cheek.

"You're crying, Shirou?"

He nodded slowly, still smiling as he held their daughter as close as he dared.

"I'm… happy. Thank you, Sakura."

She smiled back at him, and for a moment, everything around them faded away.

It hadn't been an easy pregnancy, for Sakura or Emiya. He'd been more than a little panicked, and they'd realized each other was a magus after the mood swings started. Sakura lost control of her magic from time to time as her mood and personality shifted, but as much as she was the hand that held the blade named Shirou Emiya by the hilt, he was her light that kept the darkness at bay.

He'd gone to Zouken Matou after the third time. If Sakura was a magus, it was only logical that her family was, too. Shinji had hated him ever since he made the announcement that he intended to assume responsibility and do his duty as a man to Zouken, and asked the elder Matou for advice on helping Sakura keep control of her magic. The answer was deceptively simple, supply her her with his own Od to help keep hers under control. That involved sharing blood or sleeping with her ritually, but the way Zouken had phrased it had begun to strike him as odd, nearly a year later.

Between the two options, though, they managed to get her magic to settle down. Once they figured that out, it was her other personality that made things difficult. He'd met that Sakura more than a few times, but there, his nature to give and give without taking anything in return helped him. A full day, just the two of them, every week, doing whatever they wanted to do.

"Mister Emiya? Miss Matou? We have some paperwork we need you to fill out so we can let your family go home."

The voice of the doctor reached him in his reverie, pulled him back to the present. He cautiously handed their daughter back to Sakura, and nodded at the doctor as he passed the new father a clipboard.

It was simple to sign his name as the father, and with the stroke of a pen, Honoka Emiya was officially and legally under his protection, as far as magecraft matters went. Within the month, that protection would extend to Sakura, as well.

The trip home was a quiet one, walking from Fuyuki General Hospital to the Emiya household. They'd been certain to bundle Honoka up as much as they could, and Shirou had brought Sakura her own coat to wear. It wasn't quite winter yet, but it was already cold. In retrospect, the walk home had been too quiet, so Shirou really should have been expecting the old man waiting patiently at his doorstep when they got home.

"Ah, you're finally back. Welcome home, Emiyas."

The words made his skin crawl, like insects burrowing under his flesh. Shirou stepped in front of Sakura, feeling her lock up at the sight of her grandfather at their home.

"Zouken. I guess you've come to see Honoka for yourself then?"

The old man nodded with the creepiest smile he'd ever seen, and Shirou steeled himself. The old man was probably the creepiest old man he'd ever met, reeked of bugs and blood, and he made every single nerve in Shirou's body feel like it was about to fire. The hammer of the gun in his mind was cocked, his mana at the ready in case Zouken tried anything, but the older magus could sense that. He was many things, but he wasn't a fool, and he knew more about Shirou than Shirou would have liked. But for now, he had been helpful when Shirou and Sakura had needed help, and refusing to let Honoka know she had a great-grandfather didn't sit right with Shirou.

He took the bundled up infant from his partner, and cradled her gently as he bent to let Zouken see her.

"Honoka Emiya."

The way the old man spoke her name almost made Shirou's control slip, almost let the hammer go.

"You'll grow to be strong, girl. Yes, I can see it now."

He laughed, staring at the girl with lilac eyes and pale red hair in Shirou's arms.

"I expect the invitation to your wedding soon, boy. You wouldn't want to leave my granddaughter dishonored, would you?"

There was another peak of laughter as the old man dissolved in front of them, and a small tide of worms fled the boundary of the house as Honoka began to cry.

Shirou immediately began to panic, before Sakura hugged him from behind and unlocked the door around him.

"She's probably hungry, Shirou. Let's get inside and I'll feed her."

All he could do was nod as he slid the door open and practically ran inside the house.

The tuxedo itched horribly, and he had to stop himself from pulling at the tie that was threatening to strangle him where he stood. He had to deal with it, for Sakura's sake. This was for Sakura, and for Honoka.

Shirou stood at the altar with Issei at his side. His friend's stoic presence was somewhat calming, helping him keep his focus in front of a crowd that was larger than he'd ever realized.

Shinji Matou sat in the front row, glaring daggers at him, but he didn't dare make a scene here. Between the hollow-eyed, smiling priest that felt all too familiar to Shirou, the sad but accepting look of Rin Tohsaka right behind him, and the amused blonde man with crimson eyes that just screamed trouble, there were deterrents all over the crowd. Even Shinji was able to sense that amongst this crowd of mostly normal humans, magi, and other things, he was the weakest by far. He was thankful that Fuji-nee had been able to attend, sitting next to the ever-stoic Souichiro Kuzuki, with Honoka in her arms. That meant she wasn't near Shinji or Zouken, and that was a good thing, as far as he was concerned.

And then came Sakura's chosen bridesmaids. Most of them were former members of the Archery Club, the few people Sakura could earnestly call friends in any capacity. And then, he saw her. Even with the dark and ugly presence of Zouken Matou beside her that seemed to set everyone in the church on edge, she took Shirou's breath right out of his lungs. She wore a light blue kimono with lavender ribbons embroidered into the fabric, with a purple obi tied at her waist, and her violet hair pulled into the most ornate hairstyle he'd ever seen her wear. He suddenly felt underdressed, with even Zouken wearing a more fancy kimono than usual, and all he'd worn was one of Kiritsugu's old tuxedos.

At the very least, he hadn't spared any expense for the venue or the decorations. Even though Kotomine had charged him through the nose for renting the church and his services, he'd paid anyways. It was for Sakura, after all, and for her, there wasn't much he wouldn't do. He'd given up being a hero for her, to be her hero instead. And as far as he was concerned, so long as she could smile, he could smile too. The same went for Honoka, now that she was here.

Sakura joined him at the altar, and Zouken broke off to sit beside the still seething Shinji. He whispered something to the other man, but Shirou couldn't hear it as he smiled at Sakura.

The priest began his speech, and Shirou only listened to him peripherally. The exchange of vows went off without a hitch, Shirou only just managing to slide the ring Issei handed him onto Sakura's finger with trembling hands. With a kiss to seal their pact, Sakura joined their family officially, and Shirou couldn't have felt happier.

The reception began and went by in a blur. There wasn't much Shirou could remember of it the next day beyond Sakura, and how she looked with Honoka in her arms. But he did remember the priest, and the conversation they'd had. The warning Kotomine had given him about Zouken, a warning he hadn't needed but served to confirm his suspicions.

The man was playing at something. Between learning of the Matou's crest worms and their true nature from Sakura's darker half, Kotomine's warning from one kindred spirit to another about Zouken's quest to live eternally, and formally introducing himself to Rin in her capacity as Second Owner, it only cemented his decision to begin breaking away from Zouken and the Matou family.

The next morning, he made his first impulse purchase as the head of the Emiya household. A bow, and the arrows he would need to get back into practice. There was enough space in the courtyard to practice his kyuudou, and soon, he was applying his still limited magecraft to his art. He was facing a man with centuries of experience in the arts of magic, and he wanted to be as prepared as he could be.

Nothing happened for two years. He'd been beginning to think his practice was for nothing, when Shinji Matou finally returned from his trip to Europe.

It had been a normal day. He'd kissed Sakura and Honoka goodbye after breakfast and went to work, as he usually did on Fridays before he spent the weekend with his family. It wasn't exactly legal work; he'd gotten in touch with Old Man Raiga, Fuji-nee's grandfather, and started officially working for the family rather than occasionally fixing their bikes and cars. Officially, he was just a mechanic, and he did enjoy the work when he did that part of his job, but he was also hired muscle. Little more than a modern day samurai. Between his height and muscular build, he was a natural fit for a quiet and intimidating bodyguard for the boss, and having returned to the way of the sword and the bow alike, the old man considered him one of the sharpest swords he could call on.

But when he came home, he came home to a mess. A bounded field had been raised across the entire city block, but it was only his home that was damaged. The front gate was still in flames, the door in splinters across the courtyard. And in the front room, he saw it, heard it.

Sakura's screams tore at his heart, and for the first time in nearly three years, Shirou's body moved before his mind could process what he was seeing.

Shinji didn't know he'd been discovered until a hand grabbed him by the hair and pulled. He screamed as he was torn out of his adopted sister's half-dead body and thrown across the yard. His back hit the wall, leaving a crater where he impacted, and he fell into a row of roses with a roar of anger.

Shirou stood between him and Sakura, fury blazing like fire in his golden-brown eyes, but he turned his back on Shinji as his magic circuits faded from his skin. Shinji laughed as he knelt beside the broken woman he called his wife, and he pulled.

Shinji hadn't spent the last two and a half years idle. He'd never been good at magecraft, but the Matous were never the strongest family to begin with. Their magic relied on the absorption of od from others, and he had magic enough to set up a bounded field to power himself beyond his limited capacity as a magus. Nearly a full one hundred lives ended in an instant as he tore their life force from them, and a spear of fire manifested in his hand. He pulled back, the fire darkening as he drew on Sakura's own power to fuel his spell, and threw it.

The explosion tore through the front room of the house without any remorse, and for a moment, Shirou found himself remembering the Fuyuki Fire as the flames licked at his back, consumed his clothes and flesh as he pulled Sakura underneath him. Reinforcement magic lessened the damage, but it hurt all the same. The fire washed over him in an instant, and he whirled around the moment the flames dissipated.

"Sakura. Please, get to Honoka and get her out of here."

Shinji was laughing still. He didn't see if Sakura heard him, but he could hear her crawling up the hall now. He didn't dare turn around, even as the blood on the front of his shirt stuck to his flesh. He couldn't see her like this, didn't want her to see him like this.

How long had it been since he'd felt so… angry, he wondered. Had he ever?

Mana pulsed over his body, viridian circuits blazing to life as he closed his eyes. Shirou Emiya, husband and father, retreated for the moment, and as his aria spilled out of his lips like an old friend's arms wrapping around him, he felt the trigger pull. The hammer slammed home, and strength flooded his body. Shirou Emiya, the Sword, opened his eyes, and he lunged.

He'd never been a good magus. He had a total of three spells to his name, Reinforcement, Structural Grasping, and Projection. Useless spells, as far as most magi were concerned, but Shirou had spent a decade with just those three spells. He'd pushed them to their absolute limits, and then broken those limits.

It was that strengthening magic he used now, launching himself at Shinji. He crossed the space in the blink of an eye, and was rewarded with the sound of his foe's ribs snapping under his fist.

Shinji recoiled back, vomiting blood with a choking cough, but Shirou was on top of him again in a heartbeat. Another blow to the guts, the cheek, the chest, the jaw. The wall gave way as Shirou drove his foot into Shinji's chest, through the shattered ribs. The Matou boy went sailing into the street, showered in concrete powder and blood.

That space gave him the time he needed to retaliate. He pulled again on Sakura's power, and on Emiya's own. The man staggered in his advance, but Shinji only let out a choked laugh as he stood up on shaky legs. Ribbons of shadow danced around his legs, supporting him and reinforcing his weakened body. They plunged into his flesh like knives, knitting his bones back together as Shinji pulled and pulled on powers he didn't understand yet coveted.

Sakura was screaming behind them. Every part of Shirou wanted to run back inside and help her, but the threat to his family was in front of him. He could help her by ending him. As her husband, as her sword, as her hero, that was all he could really do, wasn't it?

He staggered in his advance again, before fire surged through his nerves. Shinji threw an arm towards him, and a shadow lunged towards him in response. Shirou ducked, old instincts flaring to life in a moment and he pushed off the ground. A crater formed in his wake, his fist blazed with power as it raced for the killer in front of him, only for ribbons of shadow to dance between them.

Shinji's eyes had gone crimson, now. Some part of Shirou recognized that this was no longer his brother-in-law, it was the same thing that had influenced Sakura's other personality. He didn't care. His other fist whirled around, curling around the shadow armor to catch Shinji in his reinforced ribs, a dark grin curling Shirou's lips as the boy screamed and went sailing away again. Stolen powers or not, Shinji was years behind Shirou, in both magecraft and physical strength.

He reached into his memory, the gun in his soul firing again as he incanted his aria. A bow formed in his hands, arrow already knocked and drawn. It dropped into firing position, and he let fly. It found its mark as all his arrows did, burying itself in the throat of his enemy. Shinji fell back to the ground, gurgling on his own blood as the bounded field began to collapse.

The chittering of worms would have startled Shirou had he been anyone else. Another arrow found its way into his hands, and he aimed it at Zouken as the old man formed from his worms, poking Shinji's dying body with his cane.

"Idiot child."

The words weren't directed at him, but Shirou didn't let go of his weapon. The old man turned to stare at him, gray on black eyes sharp with disdain.

"Put that thing away, boy, and go ensure your family is safe. I will handle my idiot grandson from here."

The old man's worms crawled over Shinji and the pair vanished under the wave of insects and worms. His bow vanished, and Shirou turned to run back into his own house.

The sight horrified him. Honoka was wailing, crying 'mama, mama' over and over again, and Sakura was still, far too still. His heart shattered in his chest, and he picked Honoka out of her mother's arms, and began to cry with her. He couldn't even acknowledge her first words at the moment, but he hoped Sakura had been able to hear them.

It was only minutes after Honoka had cried herself to sleep and he'd tucked her into his bed that the sound of running footsteps came into the shattered remains of his home. Shirou ignored them as he slipped the sheet over Sakura's body for the last time.

"Emiya!"

The sound of his name was ignored as he clasped his hands, and said a small prayer for Sakura. Only when he was done did he turn to see the panting form of Rin Tohsaka standing at the threshold of his room, tears swelling in her eyes as realization came over her.

"Where were you, Second Owner?"

His words were cold, harsh and distant in ways that would have shocked him had he not felt so emotionally drained. She fell to her knees, and Shirou stood.

"I… I didn't-…"

He closed his eyes, hand twitching. He wanted to draw his bow again. But he couldn't, not against Sakura's big sister, not against Honoka's aunt.

"You were supposed to keep track of the magi in Fuyuki. You failed. I say this with all the respect I am capable of, Miss Tohsaka: get the fuck out of my house."

Rin flinched. He supposed that was a fair reaction; he hadn't called her by her last name since before Honoka had been born. Her and Sakura had been trying to mend their relationship, and he'd gotten used to thinking of her as a sister in law.

But she hadn't been there. As Second Owner, it was her job to know where every magus in the city was at all times, to defend the city's non-magus population from the rogue magus or other threats from their side of the world. Yet she hadn't been there to stop Shinji, from attacking Sakura or from setting up a bounded field that had left so many dead around them.

It was a little unfair, he supposed, to blame her. He hadn't been there either. If he'd just been a little faster getting home, if he'd just been a little quicker fixing Old Man Raiga's bike again. If only. If only. If only.

Shirou didn't feel himself collapse, but he did feel Rin's arms wrap around him, and he started crying all over again. Rin joined him in the waterworks, and the two of them mourned.

It rained on the day of the funeral. It was a far smaller affair than their wedding had been, only Rin, Taiga, himself and Honoka, and Kotomine were officially there. He could smell Zouken's worms watching them, and he held Honoka tight as he helped her put the first handful of dirt over the casket.

Kotomine's hand grasped his shoulder after the funeral was ended. Taiga was the only one who'd gone home, a few of Raiga's men walking her to a car and driving her back to her house.

"Emiya, I must ask you come to the church with me. It would be wise to bring Rin along, so she may watch your child as we talk."

Shirou stared at the man for a moment. Hollow gold met hollow blue, and the younger man nodded. He turned his attention to Honoka as he approached Rin.

"Honoka, be good for your Aunt Rin for papa. Papa has to talk with Mister Priest for a while, okay?"

The girl cried as he passed her off to Rin, planting a gentle kiss on his daughter's head before he turned to Rin. His eyes sharpened for a moment as he glared at her.

"You will not let a single hair on her head be harmed."

She nodded solemnly, taking her niece from Shirou's arms and cradling the girl close. There were tears in her eyes as he turned his back on her, and the quartet made their way back to the church.

Rin sat on one of the pews with the girl, as Kirei and Shirou walked into one of the rooms behind the pulpit. No words were spoken as Kirei walked to a cabinet and pulled out a pair of glasses. A bottle of whiskey was pulled from another, and Shirou accepted his glass with a nod.

The taste was bitter and burned on the way down, but the physical pain helped him focus. He slid the glass to Kirei once it was empty, and the former master refilled it.

"Zouken Matou cannot hear us in here. His familiars cannot pass the bounded fields of the Church. So tell me, Shirou Emiya. As one single father to another, one survivor of that fire to the other, what will you do now?"

Shirou stared at the amber liquid in his glass for a moment, before he drained it again. He considered his options, but only one made any sense to him. Shinji had been the one to pull the proverbial trigger, but Zouken was a manipulative old man. There was no way Shinji could have learned Magecraft like that without the old man's help, and the old man had certainly had a hand in it.

"I'm going to kill the both of them."

Kirei nodded, a smile crossing his lips.

"In three years, a war between magi will take place in Fuyuki. It is called the Holy Grail War, founded by the von Einzberns, the Tohsakas, and the Makiri family, who now go by the name of Matou."

Shirou's glass was refilled as Kirei spoke, and the way the younger man sat up at the mention of the Matou family made his grin stretch.

"Zouken or Shinji Matou will most assuredly take part in this war, as they have for all the four previous wars. We have three years to prepare, and I will help you see the worm finally die."

Shirou leaned forward, drained his glass again, and matched Kirei's grin with one of his own. A tanned hand stretched across the table, and Kirei shook it with a smile.

Zouken Matou had been a literal dead man walking for centuries now, but now, his time was finally coming to an end.