Shinji's Paradox

Chapter 2:

The Matou Family

May 6th, 1986, 6:24 AM, Matou Residence, Baby Room.

The morning had started similar to all I had experienced before. Light filtered in through the curtains, I was wrapped in something warm, and the groggy feeling of sleep slowly petered out of my head. It was not a new experience, just another part of everyday life I was familiar with.

On the other hand, there was a girl with red eyes and white hair floating about the room, and I was, for some incomprehensible reason, in the body of a newborn, twenty-six years younger than I was not even a day ago.

I was also being hoisted into the air out of my cradle by Matou fucking Zouken.

I couldn't figure out what the old bastard was trying to accomplish as he ran his hands along my arms. It didn't help that I knew for a fact that he was made of those damned worms. Being so small in comparison and unable to physically respond to his rough handling was terrifying.

The red-eyed ghost watched from nearby, and her concern for the situation was obvious, but she wasn't doing anything about it. I tried to struggle from the elder's grip, but my body was too small and weak to achieve anything. It was like trying to squeeze out of my skin. I wanted to cry out and demand that he stop touching me, but all that came out was a shrill gurgle.

His fingers came to rest behind my ears, and apparently, he found what he was looking for. Then some kind of… sensation ran from his fingers, down my neck, and through my arms and legs. Every part of my body started to ache horribly.

Zouken started looking me over with practised scrutiny in his eyes, which then widened in surprise. He did a double-take, checking every part of me all over again, finishing his analysis with a frown.

"Useless," he said with an agitated sigh as he practically dropped me back into the cradle and left the room in a hurry.

I was aching from the fall and grateful for the cushioned surface below. The odd feeling from whatever he did to me had already subsided, but I felt strange. Like my senses had a different texture than they did before. Everything returned to normal after a few moments, but I was still worried.

"Are you okay?" the ghost girl said as she approached.

I shot her a look, which probably was not a very intimidating one, given the state of my facial muscles. When it occurred to me that she wouldn't have understood, I tried to tell her to shut up instead, but my weak throat only produced another pitiful gurgle.

"Talk to me with your mind, dummy," she said. "If you focus, I should be able to hear you. Do you remember how you did it before we got here?"

The only thing I could focus on was how bizarre the situation was as she stared at me expectantly, but I remembered something about thinking my response.

Can you read my mind or something? Hello? I thought.

Her head tilted to the side as if she was still waiting for me.

'… Like this?' I tried again.

"Yep. Heard that," the ghost said with a nod.

'Couldn't you do anything to stop that bastard?' I asked angrily.

"No, silly, I'm incorporeal," she explained, lowering herself so that her feet disappeared beneath the wooden floorboards. She swung them around playfully to demonstrate. "I can't even touch the floor."

'Lot of good you are, then,' I said.

"Oh… whatever."

With any trace of conversation abandoned, we fell into an uncomfortable stare. But those scarlet eyes were so fierce that I broke off early.

I knew who she was. I hadn't been able to quash the memory of her. The girl whose heart was stuffed into my gut to turn me into the grail core. Berserker's Master.

… I never even learned her name.

I looked back at her, only to find she had disappeared from the room and I was alone.

A little worry took root and I decided that I should probably be a little more considerate the next time I speak to her. I had been rather hostile with her. She put me in this situation in the first place, and I wasn't keen on finding out if she could do worse.

My mother came through the door in a wide-eyed fervour. She lifted me out of the cradle, much more gently than Zouken did, and held me against her chest, a worried expression on her face as she delicately inspected me. When she realised I was making eye contact with her, she relaxed and smiled.

"I guess that mean old man didn't do anything too bad to you, then. Did he now, Shinji?" she said as she turned and started walking out of the room. "Oh, aren't you patient. Not even a peep."

She left the room and went downstairs with me cradled in her arms, humming a tune the whole time. She passed by Zouken in the downstairs hallway and didn't even flinch in his presence. Walked right by him like one would a streetlamp, her attention solely on me. I spotted the ghost girl hovering above the staircase, too, analysing the view of the surrounding neighbourhood visible from the window.

It was surreal, being carried through the manor. I'd walked up and down that staircase on my own not too long ago. The wallpaper was the pattern that Sakura and I had replaced after the Holy Grail War.

Eventually, my mother entered the kitchenette, where Byakuya was, naturally, helping himself to a drink.

"Baka-ya!" she called out suddenly. "Alcohol first thing in the morning?!"

She strode over to where he stood by the fridge and snatched the just-opened bottle out of his hand with frightening dexterity, approached the sink and inverted the bottle over it. Byakuya was surprised but didn't make an effort to respond, lowering his gaze shamefully as the liquor flowed quickly into the open plughole.

"I might have tolerated this while I was pregnant," she said, rinsing the bottle before dropping it into the bin marked for recycling, still cradling me carefully in her other arm, "but now that our son is here with us, you're at least going avoid bringing any of this into the house."

Byakuya's eyes flickered to his left for a fraction of a second before he tensed up. His wife had noticed, and she opened the fridge to find a moderate collection of alcoholic drinks. Leaving it open, she went to the centre of the room and gave Byakuya his instruction.

"Bin," she commanded.

I looked from her to Byakuya twice over before he sighed in defeat and started pulling bottles out of the fridge, doing the same that his wife had done until none remained.

"And you," the irate woman said, switching targets to Zouken, who'd been watching the whole display amusedly from the doorway. "What were you doing with Shinji just now?"

"Calm yourself, woman," he said, tapping his cane once on the floor adamantly. "I opened and inspected his magical circuits. Nothing suspicious enough to warrant a tirade from you."

"He's not even a day old!" she said, reaffirming her hold on me.

"He'll live," Zouken scoffed. "But not as a magus."

Byakuya came to attention at that.

Zouken faced him and delivered his verdict. "Thirty-four. I was surprised at first. The inheritor has had some effect, but they're garbage quality. Magical energy passed through them, yet they seemed to remain inactive. He'll never be able to use magecraft."

With his business concluded, Zouken sauntered elsewhere in the house, leaving the rest of us in the kitchen.

"Why is he such a— oh, I'm sorry, Shinji!" she said, softening her expression as she looked at me in her arms. "Putting up with all of that in silence…? Oh, you have nerves of steel! Yes, you do!"

I sympathetically put a low-effort smile on as she wiggled her finger by my face.

She melted immediately and let out a not even slightly suppressed, "Aww".

Byakuya simply watched with the same stoicism plastered onto his face as last night.

May 6th, 1986, 9:33 AM, Baby Room, Matou Residence.

"Shinji-kun!" the ghost girl called as she passed through the closed door.

I tried to respond using my actual voice, but all my young vocal cords were capable of was a stifled gurgle that brought her to a smirk.

"Just talk to me mentally like you did before, Shinji-kun," she suggested, tapping the side of her head with her finger.

'Don't call me that,' I said. Telepathically this time.

"Shinji-chan?"

'I'd rather die again.'

"I know that you're probably struggling to get used to all of this and all, but we need to talk while we have the opportunity," she said, gesturing to my mother.

The woman was taking a break from doting on me and sleeping in a nearby chair. I watched her as she slept for a moment before turning my head back to the ghost girl and gently nodding.

"Um, so first I think maybe I owe you an explanation— ah, and an introduction," she curtseyed. "I am Illyasviel von Einzbern. But you can just call me Illya-chan. You probably remember me from—"

'Yes, yes, I remember. Get on with it.'

"… Okay, fine," Einzbern said dejectedly. "I'll start with you killing yourself in the old causality. That's what I've decided to call everything that happened before we came here. I saw that open book on the chair; you tried to convert od into magical energy, right?"

'Yes, that's what I was trying to do,' I confirmed.

"Thing is, Shinji-kun, from what I understand now after Zouken's explanation in the kitchen, your circuits are inactive, even though they're open. So absolutely nothing should have happened when you tried channelling your od. But, in that particular situation, some foreign circuits inside you rejected your body, and your body was partially destroyed."

'Foreign circuits?'

"Yes, some of mine. You see," Einzbern started pacing around the room as she explained, "for some reason, a few of my magical circuits were in your body. I'm not even going to begin to imagine how that happened with you surviving."

'Isn't having someone else's circuits a magic crest?'

"So, you do know some things," she sighed. "No. Crests need to be turned from circuits into a crest beforehand, not… whatever it was that happened to you. It's almost like they were just stuffed into you without any care."

'Oh… that might be exactly what happened, actually.'

"Ugh…" she grimaced and then shuddered a little. "Anyway. You tried to convert od, they activated, your body and the circuits rejected each other, and the resulting injuries were enough to be fatal."

Einzbern stopped pacing and faced me. "And that leads us onto my being here. I was already dead, you were there for that, but my circuits were being preserved in your body somehow."

'And they woke you up when I died?'

"No, no, I was dead, not asleep. My soul had already gone to the Root— or Akasha if you want to call it that."

'So I brought your soul out of the Root?'

"That's literally impossible. You pulled my memories and my ego loose though. That's what you can see here," she said, performing a twirl in the air and letting her long hair trail weightlessly around her. "You pulled me far enough to be able to latch onto the circuits that were active in your gut. I don't have a body, so I'm not alive, and you can see me because this form of mine is dependant on your soul."

'Okay, that was easy enough to understand. I pulled you out of this Root thing by accident when I activated your circuits, and now you're a ghost of some kind.'

"Of some kind, yes," she moved her hand around, phasing through the bars of the cradle. "I'm not sure if 'wraith' or 'apparition' is quite accurate in this situation, because I'm more like a package of memories wrapped up in an ego, bound to your soul by an astral tether of some kind that lets me exist."

All of this magi nonsense was at least somewhat understandable. The studying I had done when I was younger— or older— was coming into play here. I could at least talk to her about it, but I didn't know if I'd be able to keep pace with anything more complicated than surface level.

I took a deep breath, or whatever qualified as a deep breath for my current body. Then I felt my eyelids get heavy.

Being a baby sucked.

'I'm getting tired,' I said. "So I'll just say what's on my mind."

The ghost nodded.

'… You said there would be a price,' I said coldly.

"Ah. You remembered," Einzbern paused and pursed her lips for a moment.

'It's fine, tell me.'

"Actually, I haven't made up my mind yet," she admitted. "Is it okay for me to think about it for a while?"

I blinked, wondering what kind of person she was to have gone back in time with a stranger that is somewhat responsible for her death on nothing more than a whim. '… Yeah. I need to think about some things, too,' I said carefully, not letting my thoughts escape me.

Einzbern slowly left the room, and I returned my attention to my mother.

There was a discomfort in my chest somewhere when I saw her. Ever since I found myself here, I'd been forced to put up with it while she was around. It was frustrating, and I didn't understand why it happened.

I reasoned that I was probably just tired. A body just born comes with all the burdens one would expect it to, including the easy onset of fatigue. So I let my infant body pull me into sleep.

And I had strange dreams about the Einzbern girl. The day she was killed. Eyes cut, chest skewered, heart ripped out. I dreamt it on repeat.

Over and over.

May 7th — May 13th, 1986, Matou Residence.

The first week of my new life had passed by quickly, as all that time spent sleeping began to add up, not leaving much to remember. My waking hours were spent entertaining my mother's unyielding fascination with me, putting up with Byakuya's attempts to act like the father he was pretending to be, and being terrified of Zouken whenever he glanced my way.

There was also the occasional breastfeeding. Which was probably the most awkward experience I'd ever had. I didn't have a choice, though, as instinctual hunger started to get the better of me after a while. And saying that it didn't taste at least pleasant would have been a lie.

The atmosphere of the Matou household was different than I remembered. A faint glow seemed to bounce off the walls and warm the place and it didn't reek of the unnatural repugnance that I had come to know it by before Zouken had disappeared. It was even better whenever the elder was away doing… whatever it was that he did.

I didn't even want to think about what was hidden under the house. Behind that door within the crook of where the east and west hallways met.

Most of my attention was spent observing my mother. She always carried with her a vibrant enthusiasm and never hid her emotions, getting frustrated easily and always smiling whenever she engaged with me. It was fun being around her.

I learned she was capable of magecraft when she'd been looking for something in a cupboard, and in a minor bout of irritation, flicked her hand and conjured a small light source.

Even that part of her was fascinating.

I understood that her marriage into the family had occurred based on some kind of quality she had, and I found myself one day wondering whether or not Byakuya had married her because of Zouken's instruction or because he genuinely wanted to. Despite that, she seemed to be taking everything in stride and had her husband wrapped around her finger, taunting him with his deprecating pet name whenever he did something distasteful, actively trying to make him help with anything I was involved with, and trying to draw him out of the emotional shell he had always had up.

He smiled once, losing himself in her energy, much to her delight. She didn't see it, but immediately after she'd left the room, I'd seen his expression darken and his breath unsteady briefly before he put on his stoic mask once more.

Zouken was unable to handle her, and she mostly ignored him. When she'd suggested something he disagreed with, such as replacing the curtains in the mansion with something that wasn't as dull, he had been unable to intimidate her in the slightest, forced to cave in as her energy completely overwhelmed him. I have no idea why Zouken even cared about the curtains, and he insisted on keeping the old ones himself for some reason.

The Einzbern girl was using the time to grow accustomed to her new state of being, literally haunting the place as she learned her way around the house and phased through the walls, ceilings, and floors. She had also been spying on the others whenever they were alone, sometimes coming back to me with something to share, like Zouken taking out his anger on his worms after being chewed out by "that unbearable woman".

There was also Byakuya's panic attack that he thought he'd had in private. Obviously, something was causing him a great degree of distress, and for some reason, he couldn't share it with anyone. I assumed that the idiot was suffering from alcohol withdrawals.

At the end of every day, my mother would leave me in my cradle and sing a lullaby until I inevitably fell asleep, and I would dream of the mother I now knew.

Maybe one day, someone will finally say her name within earshot.

May 14th, 1986, 6:10 PM, Matou Residence.

I had been thinking about what the Einzbern girl was calling the "old causality". My old life, in other words.

As I lay in the cradle near the watchful eye of Mother, it was all I could occupy myself with. Everything I'd ever known or done had gone up in smoke, but I could still remember all of it clearly. Dreams of magecraft, losing my rights as the heir, studying in London, middle school, high school, the war…

The list was huge.

So much had happened. So much hadn't happened yet. And anytime I felt a pang of regret from those memories, they transformed themselves into ideas to prevent those regrets from repeating themselves.

… Most of them were about Sakura.

Could I even do anything about any of it? Or did I have to do it all again, like following a script? Did I want to start as soon as possible or let things play out until a certain point? It was a second chance to live my entire life, and I wanted to get it right this time. Who else got that kind of opportunity? The only person I could think of was Einzbern, but she couldn't interact with the world. If she ever decided what she wanted from me, I'd have to do all the legwork.

But that was probably fine. Hopefully, the ghost wouldn't be too unreasonable.

"Whatcha thinking about, Shinji-kun?" Einzbern said, poking her head through the wall nearby.

'This,' I said, using my tiny arms to gesture to the entire world. 'It's all a bit overwhelming after thinking about it for a week.'

"Overwhelming? I'm mostly bored, but I guess that's just because I can't do anything, I suppose," she explained, floating out of the wall and hanging around in the middle of the room upside-down, her white hair and skirt drifting freely about without the confines of gravity.

I ignored the spectacle and considered the situation again. I had future knowledge, and so did she. Changing the past-now-future wouldn't be impossible, right?

There had to be some kind of dealbreaker somewhere in all of this, though. I'd seen enough movies about time travel to understand that they were always pretty serious about changing past events, and discussing theoretical situations that could destroy time itself. Why wouldn't it be the same in reality?

The girl probably knew. She was responsible for all of this, and I still didn't know how any of it worked. Adding in that she was likely hiding her intentions, there was only one thing I needed.

Information.

'Hey, Einzbern,' I called for her attention.

" 'Illya-chan' is fine, Shinji-kun," she said as she spun around to look at me, still upside-down.

'Why did you save my life?' I asked bluntly.

"Oh, didn't I tell you that I haven't made a decision yet?"

'No, not that. You had no reason to do it, but you saved me anyway.'

The ghost girl righted herself and thought for a moment. After a moment, I realised that I may have upset her because she glared at me briefly before turning away in a little fluster.

"I wouldn't say that there wasn't a reason," she finally said, slightly downcast. "I was anchored to the world by you when I got there. If you died, I would have vanished. But I wasn't sure if you were going to die or not, so I decided not to take the risk."

I blinked a few times. ' "Wasn't sure"?'

Einzbern widened her eyes and shrunk back a little, even phasing through the floor to lower herself even further, and bit her lip. "It was my only option! I was really worried! I just got back from the Root, and you were unconscious, and I didn't know if you were going to survive or—"

I stopped listening to her explanation.

She didn't know if I was going to die or not, I thought in bewilderment. None of this craziness was even necessary?!

"— True Magic! There was no way I was going to never use it, that would be—"

'Shut up, you manipulative piece of work!' I said, interrupting her excuse-ridden monologue. 'You didn't save me! You saved yourself! And I was just a makeshift vehicle in all of this. You used me! Hell, even now you're just some kind of spectral parasite! Asking me for a favour in return was just you being a selfish bitch!'

"… Sorry, I panicked," Einzbern bowed her head guiltily. "And I couldn't help myself."

'Whatever. I still have questions,' I continued. 'Tell me the limits of what I can do with my future knowledge. If that's something you even know, of course.'

She looked up at me again and seemed to be unable to bring herself to speak up again.

If I wasn't being watched by Mother, I might have sighed. 'Start by explaining how you brought us here. It might help.'

"… Okay. I'll explain the magic first," she said. "Do you know the difference between magecraft and magic?"

'As it happens, I do. Just explain how it works so we can get to my real questions.'

"Well…" she righted herself and thought briefly. "What I did, specifically, was send our memories and egos back in time. Transfer a soul's personality and memories from the future onto the younger version of that specific soul in the past. That's all that I could do, and I couldn't do it without permission either. I came with you because I also counted as the personality and memories associated with your soul. So I didn't go to the version of me currently alive at this time."

'Can you do it again? Or go to the future?'

"I will never be able to use it again," she revealed.

'Did you conveniently leave those memories behind?'

"No, you— ugh. This is hard to explain," Einzbern said before taking a deep breath. "Okay then, do you know what a paradox is?"

'Yes.'

"Good, because that's what I, as the magician, or former magician, or, um, never-will-be magician, have decided to call this particular magic. Paradox; the transference of memories to the past."

'And you can't use it again because…?'

Einzbern stopped to think for a moment. "We remember the future, so we change it, so it doesn't happen. After that, the normal leap in logic is that we don't remember it. But in this case, we do remember, which creates the contradiction. The Magic permanently maintains that inconsistency. It's a sustained paradox, so the contradiction won't be erased by the World. But I needed to, um… leave it there? Like a doorstop holding open a door."

'It was one-time use then. So does that mean, as far as changing the future goes, everything is fair game?' I asked, hoping for confirmation.

"As I said, it's a sustained paradox," she repeated. "You can do whatever you like. Personally, though, I say all you have to keep in mind is that the more changes you make, the less useful your memories from the old causality will be."

'Right. The Butterfly Effect.'

"What's that?" she tipped her head to the side.

'Well,' I begin, 'when butterflies flap their wings, they move the air around a little, right? So, the theory behind the butterfly effect is that the wingbeats create enough little disturbances in the air that at some point in the future, there will be a hurricane that otherwise would not have existed.'

"That's exactly what I'm getting at," she nodded. "Basically; do you want to be the butterfly or not?"

'Do I want the hurricane or not, you mean?'

"Yes. If you want to make the most of all of your memories, make tiny little changes in your favour. That's what I'd do."

I'd just been told that I can change the future with almost no consequences. I could probably enjoy my second time around a little more than I did last time. Not being obsessed with magecraft might make some things a little more bearable. As for the ghost, she put herself in this situation, so she can get herself out.

I spared a glance at Mother, still watching from her chair as she stretched her arms and let out a yawn. She caught me looking, and her face lit up like a beacon.

Maybe… things could be good. Really good, I thought, smiling at her.

Pride washed over her like a dazzling sunrise.

A moment later, Zouken appeared in the doorway like a freak storm.

"Woman," he said.

"Yes?" Mother said, standing from her seat.

Zouken glanced at me briefly, then returned his gaze to her. "Come," he ordered before going back through the door.

She sat in silent contemplation for a moment and then stood to follow after Zouken. She stopped at the empty doorway for a moment, smiled at me again, and gleefully said, "I'll be right back."

Then she disappeared after Zouken.

Einzbern and I exchanged a glance and looked back at the door.

When muffled words eventually made their way through the walls carrying tension with them, I felt apprehensive about the current situation.

'Einzbern-san, could you…?'

"Um, sure, I'll take a look," she said before floating out of the room to investigate.

There were more muffled words, followed by a brief hush. Then there were some hurried steps, a few lights flashed from the doorway, a few more noises—

"Shinjiiii—!"

A crack echoed down the hallway after the piercing cry.

Then, I heard the sound of something being dragged down the corridor.

Minutes passed.

I could only hear the sound of my own quickening heartbeat and unsteadied breath in the otherwise deafening silence.

Einzbern quietly re-entered the room and stopped beside me, head hung.

She said nothing.

… Why did I let myself get caught up in it all?

In the warmth. In the light.

I knew this would happen. I knew.

I knew. I knew. I knew. I knew.

I fucking knew. I forgot because it was convenient. Because it felt good.

I didn't even know what I was thinking anymore.

This was the Matou family.

Why did I feel like this? Why were these words in my mind screaming to be set free? They seemed so obvious now, and they all pointed to the same conclusion.

I was a fool. I should not have ever expected anything different.

'Einzbern," I said.

The ghost looked my way.

'Zouken needs to die.'

A/N

I have a lot to talk about. Prepare yourselves.

The Change in Point of View:

Okay. Chapter 1 was in 3rd person initially (I updated it to 1st person on Saturday. MAYBE you noticed). You see, I wrote this entire chapter in 3rd person initially, and when it was done, I hated it. So I rewrote it completely and didn't hate it as much. I was also able to expand on Shinji's thoughts slightly, which I think is better.

Shinji's Mother:

I at least tried to do her SOME justice here, and have her be a much more active character in the narrative than I've EVER seen elsewhere. Also, as far as I'm aware, she doesn't have an official name. I've decided to use that in my favour.

Byakuya:

I tried to pull together a decent idea of how he could have been before the whole "I was useless and now my son is useless" downward spiral of self-pity that I think he's known for.

Zouken:

I think making him a little more dynamic than just a BBEG (Bad Bug Evil Guy hehe) is something people might like. He is still VERY evil though.

Shinji & Illya:

If anyone that reads this thinks that perhaps I'm misrepresenting them at ANY point in ANY of their dialogue (particularly Shinji), I'd like to know sooner rather than later. I'm aware Shinji is asking a lot of questions, and Illya is handling a good chunk of exposition, but I really wanted to get these two talking to each other, and I hope that as many people as possible find their exchanges digestible and not oversaturated with Nasuverse Stuff.

Said "Nasuverse Stuff":

There is a HUUUUUUUGE chance that I've perhaps stepped on a landmine of some sort dropping everything from magic circuits to the true magic into this chapter alone. Especially with the true magic, and Illya's returning from the Root. I did my best to make sure I didn't contradict anything I learned while researching this stuff… and wherever there wasn't any information on some things I substituted some Freudian philosophy or good old-fashioned CREATIVITY.

There are a lot of holes in Nasuverse magical physics; holes with weird shapes. Thus, I decided to leave some things intentionally vague so that I'm not putting square things in star-shaped holes but filling them with play-doh instead.

Sharing the talking stick with the characters:

I like character dialogue. I like narration. I'm not good at switching from one to the other, despite my efforts. It's a flaw in my style; I make big chunks of each, glue them together and call them stories. It's even worse that Shinji is literally a baby, and can't DO anything in the physical space he's talking in. I tried to animate Illya a little. Part of this project's inspiration is an effort to put my ability to practice. If anyone wants to comment on it, I beg of you to do so.

That's about everything to do with the chapter.

If you haven't read the updated Chapter 1 yet, then I invite you to do so. Even if the changes are only minor ones.

Chapter 3 is done, but I'm going to try and keep an upload schedule: I think Sundays are good. This way I can edit it and write Chapter 4 at the same time, without any kind of pressure on my back.

I'm writing for fun again and I feel good.

I would also like to hear what people think of the cover art.

Peace.

-GEOD

Edit: Rolled the year back from 1987 to 1986.

Edit 2: Grammar update.

Edit 3: Tense/Punctuation/Terminology/Style update.

Edit 4: Lore Consistency Check. Minimal changes.

Edit 5: Post Chapter 12 Grammar Update.

Edit 6: Jan 2023 update. Minimal spelling corrections.