Welcome, Readers.

I am GreenEyesOrigamiDragon, and this is my debut story; Shinji's Paradox.

There is some information in the Author's Note at the end of this chapter. Please give it a quick skim if you don't understand this story's context.

That will be all from me until then.

So, without further ado;

Welcome to…

Shinji's Paradox

Chapter 1:

Do you want to live?

February 7th, 2014, 8:47 PM, Matou Residence.

I refilled the bowl in the small kitchen with dry cat food, expecting to hear a bell chime in a haphazard jingle, or see a black and white critter burst from the hallway.

Neither happened.

"Panda!" I called out, waiting a good fifteen seconds for the thing to reveal itself.

I briefly thought back to the quiet, rainy, and otherwise uneventful evening Sakura brought home a starved kitten she found on the side of the road. I had initially been against even letting the animal inside, but I couldn't ignore her insistence. Sakura had already named him Panda for his patterned white and black fur, and wouldn't take no for an answer. Eight years had passed by since then, and the creature provided us with a welcome distraction of mischief and affection.

This evening, Sakura wouldn't be home until later that night, so I was responsible for the thing. I'd let him inside earlier, so he was probably in one of his usual napping spots. Like under the furniture in the living room.

I groaned when I realised I needed to look for the thing before I went to sleep.

I put the bowl of cat food on the floor in case he wandered in to eat on his own and opened the cupboard beside me, retrieving a teabag. I made sure it wasn't the sort that would keep me up in bed before I arranged a teacup and left the kitchenette to start combing the house while I waited for the kettle to boil.

Most of the doors in our home had been closed for years, and the rooms behind them were bare, so despite the size of the building, there weren't many places Panda could have hidden.

In the living room, I checked under the sofas and chairs, leaned by the wall to have a look behind the television setup, and briefly rummaged around in a cupboard, but the cat wasn't in there. Sakura had left a plate behind though, probably from the hurry she was in this morning, so I took it back to the kitchenette before I went to search the small dining room opposite it. The only real place Panda could have hidden was under the table, and he wasn't there either.

On my way to the laundry room, in the middle of the building's eastern hallway, I passed a particular part of the wall. I stopped at it for a moment, eyeing the quality wallpaper.

A door was here once.

There was no way the cat was actually in there, though. I simply had a habit of letting myself fall into thinking about the past whenever I stopped by that old threshold to hell.

Little more than eight years ago, Sakura had gone to conduct her usual practice— if it could be called that— and a few minutes later she came to tell me that everything was missing. That the worms were gone and Zouken wasn't responding to her. Not simply taking her word for it, I'd decided to take a look for myself, and it was just as she'd said.

No worms. No Zouken.

Weeks later, we eventually assumed that the elder had left the Matou Residence, or, as I liked to think we both preferred, had finally been taken to whatever eternal punishment was reserved for him. We certainly didn't miss him, and his unbearable presence had been replaced by a sense of vacancy in the large building. The empty rooms didn't feel as unnaturally occupied as they had before.

The first thing I did was hire people to seal up the door to the catacombs. Nothing was going to come in or out of there ever again. I made sure of it. The opening became a flat plastered wall covered by long-lasting wallpaper, just like the rest of the mansion's hallways. I'd often caught Sakura standing with her hand pressed against it during the hours she'd previously spent down there, arriving there only out of ingrained routine.

Over the next month, it had sent her into a panic on more than one occasion. Not only that, but she'd told me the only worms left behind were the ones that lived inside her, and that without Zouken around they had stopped restraining themselves. I'd done my best to support her, letting her drink my blood when it was necessary, and stopping her from doing anything… foolish.

As time passed, she seemed to have rehabilitated, and the submissiveness she always displayed had slowly faded in favour of a more headstrong demeanour. I'd tried to accommodate her newfound freedom as best as I could. She had long since earned the right to it, after all.

And she smiled more, too.

I let her have her way far too often, I thought as I finally pulled free of my reminiscence and continued down the hallway.

It didn't take me long to determine that the cat wasn't in the laundry, and I'd begun to doubt whether or not I had imagined letting him inside earlier. Fortunately, as soon as I took my search upstairs I caught sight of a door that was open when it shouldn't have been.

I found Panda in the old library, sitting on top of one of the mostly emptied bookshelves. As I approached him, he proclaimed ownership of it with a proud cry.

"Am I going to have to come up there and get you?" I asked him from below.

He stared at me the way that he always did, purring in anticipation and eyeing me with the level of suspicion that only cats possessed.

"Get down here," I demanded.

In some kind of understanding, Panda started trying to scale his way down the shelves. His weight proved too much for the furniture to handle, though, and the bookshelf quickly started to careen forward.

"Whoa, whoa!" I hastily stepped to the side as the thing toppled onto the ground with an impressive clatter, scattering its meagre contents on the floor. Some of the books were crushed under the wooden frame and had their pages creased.

Panda made a panicked dash for the door once he landed and scampered out of the library. His claws tapped furiously on the floor as he ran.

"Coward!" I called after him petulantly before looking over the fallen bookshelf.

I considered simply leaving it there, but I ultimately decided it would be better to clean it up sooner rather than later, or at least not leave it on the floor like this. So I rolled up my sleeves, squatted beside it, and gripped the frame to lift it upright. I gasped in surprise at its weight, but after a good few heaves, I managed to lean the deceptively heavy thing against the wall it had previously stood by to prevent a repeat of the event. I could arrange a more permanent solution later.

There was a nasty scuff mark on the wood where the shelf had landed, and I shook my head at it before I started gathering the scattered books and loading them onto the lower shelves so the bookshelf was bottom-heavy.

While I was trying to arrange them in alphabetical order, one caught my attention.

The book had a red cover with no significant lettering on the outside. Remnants of a magic circle made of gold leaf still clung to its front. I delicately held the old book in my hands for a moment, apparently one of the very few magecraft-related items Tohsaka Rin had not bought after I offered them to her. Opening it out of curiosity, I lifted my reading glasses out of my shirt pocket and skimmed the first few paragraphs of each page.

As I mulled over the book's text, I recognised that it just happened to be the first one I'd ever read all those years ago when I was younger. A textbook for the beginner magus, meant to be read by the magus that I had not been. The book began by providing simplistic detail about the channelling of od and mana into magical energy, becoming more complex deeper into the book before switching topics to basic spell construction.

No wonder Tohsaka didn't want it, I thought. Something like this wouldn't be of any use to her.

The conversion process the book outlined seemed a whole lot simpler compared to what I'd learned in my years studying medicine. If magecraft was even slightly less complex than stitching together a shredded organ, then I probably could have done it, given the capacity to.

Nostalgia roared to life in my mind, and I remembered nurturing a childish enthusiasm for the arcane arts in my youth. I'd spent so much time in this library, exploring only the most extravagantly decorated books. I'd even started trying to learn Russian just so I could read the ones written in it. I remembered how all that energy became bitter frustration when all the effort I put in yielded nothing. I'd thought that I only needed someone to explain it to me. Of course, Byakuya had ignored my questions, and Zouken only told me to get out of his face…

Looking back on what I'd done in my teens brought to mind some uncomfortable thoughts, and only made regrets fester in me more fiercely than before.

Sakura always said that she understood why I'd done what I had. That she was fine. That everything was okay between us. But even then, I would always find myself thinking that not even that could make it right. I was never comfortable accepting her forgiveness, but it was far too valuable for me to even consider throwing it away. Sakura should have hated me as much as she rightfully deserved to. She shouldn't have had any forgiveness for me, and I felt compelled to explain this to her every time she said I didn't need to worry about it anymore.

But I never did. I couldn't. Even today, my regrets felt as though they would burn me alive. I wanted her to hate me just as much as she didn't hate me, and that only made it worse when she would—

… The sound of the kettle whistling downstairs broke the guilty tension I'd managed to work up.

I closed the book with a sentimental sigh, gently placing it on one of the shelves. I really wanted that tea now.

And worrying about tattered tomes was pointless.

February 8th, 2014, 12:01 AM, Matou Residence.

The Matou manor echoed with the sound of my hurried footsteps on the old wooden floors as I stormed my way down the hallway towards the library. I almost sprinted down the final stretch with absolutely no sign of slowing down as soon as the door came into view. At my heels, Panda followed me enthusiastically, his bell chiming as he tracked my footsteps.

I couldn't figure out what had sparked this fixation of mine.

I swung open the library door, put on my reading glasses and swung my hand for the light switch. With a click, the library lit up, once again revealing the mostly emptied shelves.

I returned to the bookshelf from earlier and plucked the red tome from it. Splitting the pages apart, I read through the words as I lowered myself into the reading chair in the corner. I read about circuits again, skimming over the topics I still held faint memories of; circuit opening, conversion triggers, the specifics of mana…

Had my circuits even been opened? Zouken at least must have tried, and there was no point in him lying to me about it.

Unless Sakura had been in his sights from the beginning.

A bitter feeling welled up in me at the thought. Reflecting on the nature of Zouken's machinations was not something I wanted to lose myself in.

Returning my attention to the book's description of the circuit opening process, I recalled the feeling of Gilgamesh stuffing me with that lump of flesh. The heart of that girl from the war. That may have opened my circuits if they weren't already, as what the book described matched part of what I'd felt that day. Lacking the resulting mass, of course.

… I shook that particular memory away.

All that remained was to decide on a trigger and try od conversion.

I read through the book's first two chapters once more, focusing on anything that mentioned triggers. Considering my options, I decided to go with something that felt good.

Punching Gilgamesh in the face.

It seemed appropriate, and I wasn't even trying to suppress the grin I found myself with as I put the book down and went to stand in the centre of the room.

I closed my eyes and acted out the vision. I pulled my arm back and swung forward, putting a mighty effort into it as if the bastard was actually there. My fist flew into Gilgamesh's face, dislodging his jaw and sending spittle flying into the distance. His proud red eyes dilated in complete disbelief before his body spun from the impact and went limp, collapsing shamefully to the ground.

So, in other words, I punched the air in the empty room and achieved nothing but a mewl from the feline witness in the doorway.

"What are you looking at?" I said with a glare.

Panda spun in place with a hummed purr before he disappeared down the hallway.

I'd already known that it would fail, but I was disappointed that nothing had happened and felt awkward even trying. I gave up on magecraft years ago, and I didn't even know why I'd bothered with all of this.

… I was tired.

I turned back to the chair with a sigh.

Then my body slammed unimpeded into the floor with a dull and unimpressive thud.

I was so surprised that I didn't even bother trying to pick myself up for a moment. And when I finally tried to move my body my arms and legs barely responded to me. Numbed and weak, I managed to drag my head along the floor to look at my body and noticed a red liquid had begun seeping through my nightshirt.

I was bleeding. Badly.

Breathing had become difficult, and my legs stopped responding to me completely. My ears began to ring from the collision with the floor. My vision slowly blurred, and the world started to go cold. The air left my lungs, and I couldn't inhale anymore.

When I realised I was losing the feeling in my body, my first thought was of Sakura.

She was going to be all alone.

The second thought was darkness.

Somewhere

"Huh?" Illyasviel said, blinking.

Or at least she thought she blinked. She could tell that her eyelids were moving, but she didn't feel them moving. Or anything at all, from any part of her body.

She quickly concluded that, whatever she had, it wasn't her body.

"… What?" she muttered.

It took a few moments of baffled thoughts for her to become conscious of the foggy void she was suspended in.

"Where am I?" she said, her voice not even echoing throughout the empty space. "Hellooo!"

"Hello," a voice came.

Illyasviel turned to face the speaker and saw a person.

No.

A figure.

"Uh… Hello?" Illyasviel said. "I don't suppose you could tell me where this is?"

"I could, but it may potentially hinder my responsibilities to do so at this time, and so I must not," it said stoically. "Also, I ask that you do not look above you, as it would needlessly complicate things."

She understood the figure's request, but her immediate response to being told to avoid looking somewhere had been to immediately set her eyes in that direction.

Hanging in the void, surrounded by endless nothingness, was a spiralling vortex of light. Caught in a brief moment of wonder, Illyasviel found her attention being drawn deeper into it.

The figure seemed to sigh.

She saw a flicker— an endless, profound flicker— of something before a light tug on her mind pulled her out of the trance. She found her sight directed onto her own raised palms after a few moments.

What she saw— what she just learned.

Illyasviel realised where she was.

"Is that… the Root?" she asked.

"Yes," the figure confirmed.

"I… just… looked into the Swirl of the Root?! This is—!"

"You understand why I requested that you avoid directing your attention that way. Do not repeat the action. The circumstances are unprecedented. I ask that you comply with all future requests."

Illyasviel pouted. "Sorry…"

The figure said nothing for a few moments before its head, if it could be called that, tilted to the side slightly, and it let out an intrigued hum. "I ask that you come to a realisation soon."

"… Huh? What realisation?"

"Your current situation," the figure said.

Illyasviel frowned in confusion. "But if you need me to know something that you know, then why not just tell me?"

"I understand. I will provide a justification for my actions," the figure said. "There is potential that some related information will make my efforts to uphold my responsibilities difficult, should you not reacquire the information and come to terms with it naturally."

Still somewhat confounded, Illyasviel took a nervous breath in an attempt to regain control of herself. It was an awkward action, as there was no air for her to breathe here, and her form simply performed the act out of habit, but she calmed down all the same.

Then, she examined her current companion.

The figure was concealed by a wispy red garb that betrayed no kind of form beneath it other than a jawline with a pasty complexion, greyed lips, and the occasional earlobe as the substance that masqueraded as fabric shifted around unnaturally.

"You may speak with me, if it will help you organise yourself," it said, noting her observations.

"Oh… thank you, um…" she paused as she eyed the figure. "… Who are you?"

"I am responsible for keeping this place secure," it said, sparing a moment to think. "I have been referred to as the Red Shadow by a few individuals. You may refer to me as such."

"Nice to meet you Shadow-san. I am Illyasviel von Einzbern," she introduced herself with a practised curtsey.

"I already know who you are."

"Oh… I see…"

Illyasviel ended her curtsey as the two fell into silence, but she quickly recognised the Shadow was waiting for her to continue.

"So… can I ask you about what happened just now? When I looked at…" Illyasviel tilted her head towards the source and returning point of all creation, "… that."

"You already know," the Shadow said.

"But that doesn't make sense. I'm already dead, so something like true magic is useless to— Oh," she caught her tongue, surprised by her own words. "I'm already dead."

"You are aware. Good. You are at terms with it, then?"

"With being… dead?"

"Yes."

Illyasviel had to think about that briefly. "I didn't get to…" she eventually muttered, her gaze downcast.

"Will this information hinder you in any way during our discourse?" the Shadow prompted.

Illyasviel pulled herself out of her despondent mood. "I knew this would happen, so… I suppose not."

"Then there is no more information I need to keep from you. As long as you are unperturbed by your death, we may speak freely of this situation," the Shadow said.

"Unperturbed…? You were trying to stop me from panicking?"

"Correct. It would have been inconvenient."

Illyasviel failed to restrain a giggle.

"What is it?" the Shadow asked.

"Thank you," she said with a smile.

The eternal eldritch entity shifted uncomfortably.

"So what now?" Illyasviel asked.

"I would like to discuss with you finding a solution to this situation. I have no procedure for this incident," the Shadow clarified.

"You're asking for my help?"

"Yes."

"Ok…" Illyasviel glanced around, careful to avoid looking directly into the root again. "Wait… as this place's guardian, aren't you normally able to deal with this kind of… weird scenario?"

"This situation is unique. The normal process that draws entities into the Records to be recorded is not functioning upon your entity because an event taking place in the World is acting in opposition to it. Standard procedure for unwelcome entities does not apply to you."

"An event taking… Wait, what's the standard procedure?"

"Destruction. As you are a part of the Records, that is unacceptable. The Records must not be compromised."

"A part of the…? How did I get here, exactly?"

"Your current entity was dislodged free of the Records, caused by resonance between the Records and the World."

"… Could you rephrase that with a bit more information, please?"

"Your recorded soul reacted to activation of your circuits in the World, and your current entity, composed of Ego and Memory, was dislodged."

"My… circuits? They were preserved?"

"Yes. For clarity, the event that caused this issue occurred approximately ten years after your death."

"Huh? How?"

"Your circuits were implanted into an individual named Matou Shinji aft—" the Shadow suddenly stopped speaking and fell silent for a second.

"Matou?" Illyasviel repeated with a frown as the Shadow stayed silent.

"We have entered a tangential topic. That information is not relevant," the Shadow continued. "It is sufficient to understand that your circuits have created a link to your recorded existence upon their activation and pieces of your identity were pulled free of the Records."

"That's kind of like… I'm being summoned? Like a Servant? That's weird. It's not a proper kind of summoning ritual, obviously. I wouldn't be here otherwise…"

"There was no ritual. This was an accidental event that threatens to compromise the contents of the Records."

"An accident involving a Matou the Root?" Illyasviel's frown became sharper as she lost herself in deep thought for a few moments, her eyes closed, and her hand cupped her chin. "Hey, Shadow-san?"

"Yes?"

"When you said you wanted to 'find a solution to this situation', you mean you want to find a way to return me to the Root, right?"

"Correct."

"So why can't you put me there yourself?"

"You are unstable. Contact between our entities will result in your destruction. In addition, I too must be recorded when my responsibilities come to an end. For me to approach the Records is to enact that process. Thus, I am unable to do so."

"Things that approach the Root are recorded?"

"… It is the method I am to use, as other entities are merely drawn in by the standard processes. But that is correct."

"Could I approach the Root on my own, instead?"

"… Are you mobile?"

Illyasviel pondered that for a moment. "I could try, I suppose," she said.

After a few seconds, Illyasviel's form slowly began to drift to her right.

The Red Shadow straightened its posture and seemed to take a relieved breath. "Excellent. An acceptable solution. I ask that you implement it immediately," it said quickly.

"Shadow-san?" Illyasviel said.

"I ask that you approach the Records for re-recording," the Shadow instructed sternly.

"What if, hypothetically, I decided that I wanted to go to wherever I was being summoned to?"

The Red Shadow stared at her in silence, its red attire waved in the non-existent wind. "That would be problematic."

"Why?"

"It is against my responsibilities to allow people to leave this place with knowledge of True Magic," the Shadow said, its impatience plain to see even on its shrouded face. "Return to the records at once."

"So you won't let me go to the world?"

The Shadow turned its attention away from Illyasviel to focus on something only it could see in the dark void. "This discussion has already yielded an ideal resolution to your presence here. You will return to the Records by being placed into appropriate proximity. As I cannot approach it, you must enact this process."

Illyasviel frowned. "That didn't answer my question."

"Irrelevant. My responsibilities dictate—"

"Your responsibilities aren't my responsibilities."

The Red Shadow turned back to Illyasviel, and the wisps of its red garb that had been held aloft by the non-existent wind fell still.

"I have a question for you, Shadow-san," she asked, her eyes bearing on the part of the figure where its eye would be were they visible.

"… Ask, then."

"Can you even stop me from leaving?"

The Red Shadow said nothing.

"I see. The decision is mine, then," Illyasviel concluded. "I'm assuming I just float away from the root if I want to go, right?"

The Red Shadow seemed to growl in frustration. "… I can still destroy you before you leave," it said.

"That's a bluff. As you said, I'm part of the Records," she donned a smirk and tilted her head forward to stare at the Shadow from under her brow. "… And the Records must not be compromised."

The Shadow glared silently at the white-haired girl in the purple blouse and frilled skirt, who returned its stare with softened features and a smile.

"Don't worry," Illyasviel said, "I'm sure that I'll be pulled back here after whatever is happening in the world concludes anyway."

All the Red Shadow could do was sigh in defeat.

"… As you have discerned, it is outside of my power to force you to return to the Records, and contradictory to my responsibilities to see you destroyed," the Shadow admitted.

Illyasviel maintained her gaze as the Shadow spoke.

"You have already looked into the Records and received knowledge from them. I have failed to prevent the acquisition of True Magic, and you are determined to to return to the World," it stopped for a moment, and its garb returned to squirming in the unnatural way it had before. "Yet, I must fulfil my responsibilities to the best of my means. Thus, since I cannot force the matter, I must simply ask you."

The Red Shadow lowered itself and seemed to be attempting to bow.

"I both warn and request of you. For the time you will remain in the World, avoid using that which you have acquired here," it pleaded. "Do not use that Magic."

Illyasviel seemed to be considering the Shadow's request, her gaze downward and her hands folded behind her back.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I can't make any promises."

Then she began to descend.

February 8th, 2014, 12:06 AM, Matou Residence.

"M— o— n! M— ou-san!"

I stirred at the sound of a voice.

"Matou-san! Wake up! I need you to be awake for this part!"

I felt lucidity slowly return to me, the floor visible in magnificent detail through the glasses cracked beneath my face.

I remembered dying.

"Look up here, Matou-san."

With whatever strength I had left, I forced myself to look upwards and found my gaze upon the white-haired girl with red eyes. A ghostly reproduction of the long-dead child. Something about her had always remained ingrained in my mind, so I hadn't forgotten her. Not even once. Considering that I also died, I thought that she was probably here to welcome me to hell.

I couldn't have ended up anywhere else.

She looked kind of panicked as she hovered in the air above me. "I know you're not really feeling up to anything right now, but I kind of need your permission," she said, using wild gestures to keep my attention.

I didn't know what was going on, so I blinked at her in response.

"You want to live? Just think your answer and I'll be able to hear it," she glanced at the blood pooling beneath me. "… I think."

I wasn't sure exactly what to make of it all.

Think my answer?

"Oh, right. There'll be a price. I'll tell you what it is afterwards because we don't have much time until you bleed out completely, so I'll ask you one more time," she leaned down and looked me in the eye. "Do you want to live?"

'… Sure.'

"Alright! Dying is cancelled!" she righted herself and threw her hands into the air. "Ready, set,—!"

May 5th, 1986, Evening, Matou Residence.

"— Happy Birthday!" the girl cried out at the top of her lungs.

Matou Byakuya sat beside a bed in a desk chair, holding a newborn child wrapped in a towel.

Me.

He looked over me for a short moment before he passed me over gently to the woman who lay in the bed and eagerly cradled me by her bosom.

Matou Zouken stood in the doorway, and after a brief moment, left with a dry harumph.

"Hello, Shinji," said the woman, her face glowing with joy as she held me. "Welcome to the world."

Byakuya sat still as a statue, unreadable stoicism on his face. Not even a twitch betrayed even the faintest spark of emotion.

"Oh," said the girl, in words that only I seemed to hear. "I thought there'd be more smiles than that when someone is born."

I remained motionless, unsure how to process any of what just happened.

A/N

Hello everyone!

As I so kindly alerted you at the beginning here is some refining context for you:

This story expects that you are already adequately familiar with the following:

Fate/Zero

Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works

Fate/stay night: Heavens Feel

Since you are here on FFN, it's safe to assume that you have already read/seen some of these, unless you're one of my poor IRL friends/acquaintances that I have told about this (You DID ask).

For those of you that aren't familiar with them, I highly recommend seeking them out. The animations are easier to digest, so if you choose to watch them, I suggest the ordering above as your watch order. But if you like visual novels, then Fate/stay night is a classic that any visual novel enthusiast should experience.

In addition to this, Shinji's Paradox will feature elements from the TYPE-MOON universe (Nasuverse), and rely on its metaphysics and relationships. If a character or concept seems strange to you, then a quick search in the TYPE-MOON wiki will tell you what you need to know. Otherwise, simply leave a review, and I'll answer you through private messaging or in the Author's Notes section in the next chapter, depending on how urgently you need that answer.

There may be a few exceptions to this, and I will explain them in my Author's Notes as they become relevant. All my Author's Notes will be at the end of my chapters unless they contain something I deem important enough to warrant your attention before reading, such as my small introduction at the beginning.

Peace!

-GEOD

P.S. Get rekt, Gilgamesh.

Edit: If you came here after the update, don't worry, not much has changed. I changed the P.O.V. to 1st Person, adjusted some adjectives, trimmed some repeated words, and corrected some spelling errors.

Edit 2: Rolled Shinji's birthday back to 1986 instead of 1987.

Edit 3: Big grammar update.

Edit 4: Tense/Terminology/Punctuation/Style update.

Edit 5: Akashic Record scene MEGA-UPDATE. Very tasty.

Edit 6: Prose and Typo revision. First Scene MEGA-UPDATE. Bon Appetite.

Edit 7: I can't believe I thought that the newer first scene was good. I was so horrified by the shoddy prose that I wrote a new one. Hopefully, it doesn't happen again.

Edit 8: Post Chapter Twelve Grammar Update.

Edit 9: Jan 2023 update. Not too many changes.