Shinji's Paradox

Chapter 6:

A Resistance Situation

May 5th, 1988, 6:43 AM, Matou Residence.

I awoke on the morning of my second birthday and sat up in the crib before absentmindedly rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and yawning. I sat still for a few moments before I searched the room for the Einzbern ghost, finding her floating lifelessly like a coat on a hanger in the corner of the room with her eyes closed again.

Three months ago, she had started a kind of meditation to pass the time at night and would put herself into a trance of sorts whenever I went to sleep to avoid being bored out of her mind. There wasn't any shifting or breathing when she was like this, making the visage she held like that of a corpse; lifeless, still, and… if I was being honest, kind of disturbing. This statuesque state was the result of her withdrawing all of her attention from what was going on. She focused on thoughts and only thoughts, so all the actions that made her seem alive disappeared.

I'd never considered it before this started, but she didn't need to do any of the things that people usually did that made them living things because she just wasn't one anymore. While "awake", she would inhale before talking, blink occasionally, and sometimes walk along the floor despite her inability to touch it. I hadn't even thought twice about these things, so I didn't even notice it was happening until she went to "sleep", and it all stopped. Whether she was doing it for my sake, her own, or was completely unaware of it, I simply didn't know.

After Einzbern entered her trance, she would become unresponsive to anything other than my own efforts to get her attention or being tugged on by the astral link that bound us when I moved too far away. Once, I'd decided to let her sleep in, and she had caught up to me in a panic when Byakuya had started carrying me off to nursery school, furious that I hadn't woken her beforehand.

Her anger was understandable. She didn't know what would happen if she strayed too far away from me, and didn't want to seek the answer to that mystery either. I didn't blame her. The possibility that she would simply cease to exist if she wandered too great a distance would have terrified me too. Since then, I'd made sure to wake her every morning.

'Wake up, Einzbern-san,' I called out to her mentally.

She immediately opened her eyes, yawned, stretched her arms, and then stopped levitating to stand on the floor. "Morning, Matou-san," she said before soundlessly walking over to the crib, "Oh, and Happy Birthday, I suppose."

'I suppose I shouldn't have expected the fanfare from last year,' I said with a sigh. 'Come to think of it; when is your birthday?'

"Oh? You suddenly care?" she asked dismissively.

'… Never mind, then.'

Byakuya opened the door and stepped into the room. "Happy Birthday, Shinji," he said with a smile.

"Morning!" I said energetically, pronouncing it as he'd been teaching me.

After pulling the curtains open, he fetched some of my clothes out of their drawers and lowered the crib's bars to help me dress. He lifted off my pyjama top and was about to hand me my shirt for me to try and put on when he stopped mid-motion, his eyes fixed on something I thought was behind me. He dropped the shirt next to me in the crib and knelt to be eye level with me.

"Shinji can you— Still, Shinji? Still?" he asked me hastily as he used his hand to turn my head sideways and inspect it. I made sure to stay as motionless as I could.

'Einzbern-san do you have any idea what he's doing?' I said to the ghost.

She floated towards me and circled around until she could get a closer look at what Byakuya was trying to do. "Looks like something happened to the back of your head," she said, leaning in for a closer at the hair the man was carefully running his fingers through. "Your hair. It's turning white."

'Seriously?! How bad is it?' I asked worriedly.

"Is there something wrong with white hair?" she deadpanned. "Only the area behind your ears is affected, so it must be related to the nerve circuits. But it's almost been a year since you managed that. Why would this only be starting now?"

'Don't ask me,' I said. The worry spread over Byakuya's face when he caught me staring, and he struggled to sort himself out. He was probably trying to figure out what to do and whether or not he should get help, and I'd rather not have him do that because there was only one person he could ask about these things.

I needed to calm the idiot down before he got Zouken involved.

I casually glanced downwards for a moment and then put on a shy face to direct at Byakuya. "Toilet?" I said, catching him by surprise.

His expression relaxed, and he let out an amused huff before his smile returned. "Alright, let's finish dressing you and then go to the toilet."

May 5th, 1988, 3:19 PM, Miyama City Nursery School.

In the old causality, when I was an older and dumber kid, I had been reading the books in the Matou library with a burning passion, developing intense study habits to be a respectable magus. If I hadn't had that kind of ability, I probably wouldn't have done as well as I had academically. So before the day that Zouken had told me that Sakura would be replacing me as the heir, I'd already learned an incredible amount of things about the Matou lineage's spells and had a great understanding of magecraft theory.

Of course, that was a long time ago, and years of disinterest in the art caused that knowledge to decay. Most of what I'd learned from my youth was gone and replaced with my surgery practice and other skills that I'd used frequently, so I'd been trying to learn magecraft with the assistance of my father in the Matou library. He had been trying to use books as a way to teach me how to talk and had also brought a collection of children's books, forcing me to feign interest as he read them to me.

As exhausting as it was, this made going through the motions of learning Japanese, and even some Russian, a much easier task. After ten months, I'd added to the collection of words I could use without raising any unnecessary suspicions in either Byakuya or Zouken, and I'd been able to learn the workings of a simple suggestion spell I would probably be able to replicate. The only possible ways for me to try it out were the toddlers at the nursery school, and Einzbern was okay with it since it was a completely harmless mental interference spell.

I had hypothesised that I could master this particular magecraft quickly if I could actually use it without any side effects. Over the past two months, I had made myself comfortable sitting in the nursery school by the table where all the drawing materials were kept for the children to make whatever mess they wanted. I wasn't really interested in the visual arts, but Kane was here often, and she would pull me there from wherever I was so that she could show me her artwork.

I didn't want to use any magecraft on Kane unless it was necessary. So with this particular arrangement, I decided to practice the spell on the other young artists and influence their drawings and other messes. But after eight weeks of trying to make the other children swap colours mid-stroke or colour their skies green instead of blue, I'd only learned one thing.

There was another problem with my magical circuits.

Sick of putting up with my defeated expression, Einzbern sighed and floated through the table and floor so that she could look me in the face at eye level. "If you frown like that all day, you might upset Kane or worry the supervisors," she said.

I immediately scanned the people around me and found that everyone was focused on their art. The unpleasant woman was teaching one of the girls how to use crayons. And all the other children in the immediate vicinity were otherwise distracted, so it was safe to assume no one had noticed my frustrated appearance.

'I don't understand what I'm doing wrong, Einzbern,' I admitted. 'I know the spell, and I'm trying to make it work, but I can't…'

"It's been two months since you managed to find the spell," she said with an annoyed tone as I trailed off. "But I've only seen you successfully cast it three times! I know you asked me to let you figure this out on your own, but, as I said; it's been two months!"

I flinched as she yelled in my face.

She lifted herself out of the floor and stomped her foot down, failing to make noise to compliment her anger. "What exactly is the problem? And why didn't you ask for my help sooner?!" she demanded.

'… I've been alternating between using only my nerves or including my circuits,' I told her. 'And… I wanted to see if I could do it.'

The ghost groaned. "I understand that you wanted to find some kind of pride in this. That's fine, but you should ask for help next time. Okay?"

'Okay,' I said quietly. If I do though, she's probably going to ask for something in return.

"Why would you ever need to switch between nerves and circuits anyway?" she asked. "Can't you connect the two already?"

'Because using the circuits doesn't work. I want to find out why,' I tried to explain.

"What do you mean? I thought that they'd work fine if you got magical energy into them. That's why you went to the trouble of figuring out the nerve circuits in the first place."

'It's like I need to grip the magical energy when I cast the spell, but my circuits don't have… fingers?'

"… What? Fingers…? Whatever, just use your nerves exclusively, then."

'The point is that I want to be able to do it with the circuits. The nerves work fine, but it's painful, and from what I remember of your advice regarding using them as circuits, they're dangerous. I know I'm using the vestigial ones, but what if they become damaged and unusable over time? The pigment in my hair has already been damaged. Even Byakuya saw that this morning.'

"That's… a fair point. So, you can cast the spell just fine, but not if the magical energy is in your circuits?" Einzbern mulled the question over in her head with an expression that betrayed some combination of confusion and anger. "That breaks so many rules! What is wrong with these circuits of yours?! You are using the right amount of magical energy every time, right?"

'Yes… or at least I think I am. Hold on, I'll try both methods again to see if I can figure it out,' I said.

I waited for Hinode to be distracted by one of the other children before I stepped away from the art table and approached a black-haired boy named Kaito. He was particularly attached to a blue stuffed doll that he would bring with him from his home every day, and I knew that he wouldn't hand it over without a struggle. I'd have to use the spell to persuade him.

I winced as I gathered magical energy into my nerve circuits and kept it there. Preparing the spell, I tried to get Kaito's attention before I spoke. I waved at him, and he looked up at me suspiciously.

"Give doll?" I asked quietly. I felt some of the energy vanish from my nerves painfully as I posed the question as an idea, initiating the spell-casting. Kaito didn't even hesitate to hold his most treasured possession out to me so I could take it from him. I gently took the doll.

"So that was with just the nerve circuits?" Einzbern asked, looking back and forth between Kaito and myself.

'Yes,' I said as I tossed the doll back to the boy, who awkwardly caught it and returned to whatever he was doing with it, 'Now I'll try to do the same again, but after moving the magical energy to my circuits.'

I began converting od a second time and let the energy feed out of my nerves and into my circuits, where it would immediately start dissipating. I waved at Kaito to get his attention again and asked him for the doll in the same manner as I tried to activate the spell. I felt a gentle and painless tug on some of the magical energy in my circuits, but it was clumsy and sporadic.

"No!" Kaito yelled, standing up and taking his treasured doll far away from me.

I stood contemplatively for a few moments, trying to compare the two sensations properly.

"So?" Einzbern asked to break me from my silence.

'Um… I can… sort of feel a difference, I think? I don't know how I would describe it, though. Using the nerves is pretty straightforward as all the magical energy goes into the spell all at once. But the circuits kind of… dribble it into the spell?' I said.

"It needs to be a continuous feed of energy, Matou-san. What you described sounds like trying to cast a spell without enough energy in the first place… You are gathering it all beforehand, right?"

'Any magical energy I collect in my circuits leaves them immediately and then evaporates,' I reminded her.

"Then there's never enough energy in your circuits to complete the spell-casting process in the first place," Einzbern concluded. "It's like you're trying to say something, but your stuttering on the first word and can't finish your sentence."

'So there's no way for me to use magecraft with my circuits?' I couldn't help but lower my gaze despondently. 'Back to square one, then.'

"Don't give up just yet, we know what you need now," she said reassuringly.

'We do?'

"Basically, you need to be able to hold enough magical energy to pay the full cost of whatever spell you are casting immediately. Your nerves can achieve this, but your circuits don't prevent evaporation…" Einzbern closed her eyes and folded her arms. "So we need something to patch up the missing functions of your circuits through some other means…"

She hummed in thought, contemplating something.

'Well?' I asked.

"It's… complex," she warned, "and you're about to be very distracted."

'What do—?'

Something wet pushed up against the back of my head and was smeared down towards my neck. Quickly turning around, I found Kane standing beside me with a goofy grin on her face and a paintbrush held up to my head. She looked remarkably proud of herself.

"Shinji blue!" she declared.

"Blue?" I ask her.

"Shinji blue," she repeated.

I put my hand up to the back of my head, found something sticky, and removed my hand to inspect it. I saw blue watercolour paint on my fingers, and I couldn't help but sigh. Now I had to get this cleaned up, probably by that unpleasant woman watching this play out with a smile on her face.

Yeah, laugh it up, lady.

"Fix?" Kane asked.

"Fix what?" I asked back.

"Fix blue!" she said, pointing at the back of my head with the brush, flicking some paint on the floor.

I heard Einzbern giggling. "I guess it wasn't just Byakuya that was worried," she said, and at the man's name, I remembered that my hair was turning white at the back.

"Thank you," I said to Kane, and she smiled before wandering back to the art table.

'Well that was… something,' I said to Einzbern.

"I'd probably say that you two are cute together if I didn't know you were actually in your twenties," she joked. "Are you going to wear that paint all day?"

'I'm going to get one of the supervisors to clean it up, actually,' I said, ignoring her tasteless humour.

"Well it seems that you already have the attention of one of them, so why not go back to the art table and talk to Hinode-san about it?" Einzbern said, pointing at the irksome woman sitting at the table with Kane and the other young artists.

The woman in question noticed me looking in her direction and waved at me with a deceptively innocent smile on her face.

'Does it have to be her specifically?' I complained to Einzbern. But before she could respond, the woman called out to me and beckoned me over with an overacted gesture.

Einzbern shrugged and just floated over to the art table before also beckoning me over. I held back an exasperated sigh before slowly walking over to the supervisor. She was still wearing that heavy-handed smile.

"You looked bored Shinji-kun," the woman said. "You've been sitting around all day. Why don't you paint a picture? It's your birthday isn't it? You could paint a cake!"

I had half a mind to just abandon my juvenile performance and let her know that I'm not fooled by her high and mighty false positivity. But the risks of that outweigh the benefits, however much I dislike this woman. I should probably get her to clean up this paint already before it starts to itch or something.

"Messy," I said to her.

"What's messy?" The supervisor asked in a fake inquisitive tone.

"Me," I was for some reason required to clarify.

"Oh? You're all messy are you, Shinji-kun?" She said, still not lifting even a finger and maintaining the degrading baby talk.

"… Help?" I tried.

"Help with what?"

I hate this sadistic demoness so fucking much.

I stared at her for a few seconds with a disappointed glare, and she patiently maintained eye contact with me. I knew this was only happening to me. She treated all the others well, and nearly every other child in the school affectionately referred to her as Wakumi-nee-chan due to her admittedly impressive charm, but I was the only one she bothered with this… cruel mockery. There was no way that someone should be this unreasonable with a two-year-old, and someone this bad with children wouldn't be working in this profession.

"Can you help clean my hair?" I asked, being more specific so she wouldn't be able to avoid answering.

"Wow, that was a lot of words, Shinji-kun!" she said with a twinkle in her eye.

I'd have some choice words for her in a few years, but today I simply said, "… Dad teaches."

"He should be very proud," she said. "Well then, let's clean your hair."

She finally began to lead me to one of the adjacent rooms that contained a sink and cupboards, gently pulling me along by the hand through the sliding door. She helped me stand on a step nearby the sink and found a rag in a cupboard under the sink.

"All right then, Shinji-kun. Do you know the magic word?" she said as she wet the cloth so she could wipe the paint out of my hair.

Was she actually serious?

I wanted this bit she was carrying on with to end already, so I charged my nerves with magical energy.

"Clean hair?" I said, paying the spell cost.

Hinode's expression changed immediately, the amused grin dropping into a wide-eyed gape. She quickly pulled her mouth shut and glanced around the room, following up with a deep breath and a sigh.

"Um… that's not what I meant," she said, kneeling beside me. "I'll clean up your hair, but say 'please' next time, okay?"

"… Okay," I said as I let Hinode start wiping the back of my head with the wet cloth.

'Einzbern! Einzbern, we have a problem! The spell didn't work!' I almost screamed out to the ghost.

"Again?" Einzbern deadpanned.

'I was using the nerves, but it didn't work on Hinode-san! And it seemed like she knew exactly what I did!'

"Oh?" the ghost said with sudden interest. "She's probably a mage, then."

'I kind of figured! What do I do?!'

"Well 'calm down' would be a good place to start. Zouken's familiars are nearby and she's probably aware of them, given that they've been here ever since you started coming here a year ago."

'You want me to rely on Zouken for this?'

"That's not what I mean. If she's here in secret, then being discovered isn't in her interests and she'll probably flee before nightfall tonight, regardless of whether Zouken tries to do anything," she explained as Hinode-san wiped the paint off my fingers. "But if she's here with permission from the Second Owner, then the most Zouken can do is ask her to leave. So either way, you're fine."

I let the information sink in and managed to calm down as Hinode dried my head with a towel. It made sense; Zouken was dangerous enough for anyone he has his sights on to consider abandoning whatever it was they were doing and running for their lives. But he wouldn't actively go against any of Tohsaka's decisions. I'd never met the man, but if Rin's father was anything like his daughter, then he was probably just as dangerous as Zouken was.

When Hinode was done clearing the paint and drying the water, she led me back to the art table and left me there to talk with another of the other supervisors. Shortly after, she left, sparing me a hurried glance.

'I might never see her again, right?' I asked the ghost.

Einzbern nodded. "It might be for the best," she said softly.

I was uncomfortable with the turn of events. Being talked down to was annoying, but I didn't think I'd be putting Hinode on the run from Zouken. She'd seemed happy talking to her co-workers and all the children here, and now she'd probably never see them again. Then again, she was a mage and probably did only the most immoral things in her spare time. Who knows what she was doing here at the nursery school? It couldn't have been wholly benevolent.

… There was still a bad taste in my mouth, though.

"So, Matou-san. I have an idea," Einzbern said.

'What is it?' I ask, starting to feel slightly stressed.

"The woman resisted the suggesting spell, right? Well, people with magical circuits can do that unconsciously too, even people that don't know about magecraft."

'What are you getting at, Einzbern-san?'

"Well, you have been avoiding using it on Kane, haven't you? I think you should try that now."

'Why— Oh. To check for magical circuits, you mean?'

"If she has them, she might be able to unconsciously fight the spell. You saw how the woman resisted the effects, so try making Kane do a few things that she would and wouldn't do, and if she hesitates or outright refuses, then she has them.

'I see. Is this conclusive?' I asked. 'I don't want to find out that we were wrong about this later.'

"There's no reason it shouldn't be," Einzbern said after thinking about it briefly.

I turned to the little girl in question. She was sitting at the art table with a content smile, making a mess on a piece of paper using green watercolours, glue, and sequins. It didn't particularly look like anything, just marks on paper with no meaning beyond being there.

I envisioned the fatal fall and charged up my nerves as I wondered what I should have her do. "Kane," I said, catching her attention.

"Ou— Shinji?" she said curiously.

"Get new paper?" I said, paying the spell cost.

She immediately stood up and fetched some new paper from a nearby pile, bringing it back to her place at the table. I gave a few more additional instructions, paying a painful amount of magical energy directly from my nerves each time, and she gathered a variety of coloured paper and a glue stick at the table. I then used the suggestion spell to instruct Kane in making a coloured collage, tearing up pieces of paper before gluing them onto another piece of paper in an arrangement I had in mind.

"What are you having her do, Matou-san?" Einzbern asked.

'Just watch,' I responded.

Eventually, she'd made a portrait of none other than myself. She looked happy with what she'd somehow made and was elated when she spotted the resemblance between me and the sticky mess of paper on the table.

"Shinji!" she said, pointing at the collage.

"That's… adorable? Knowing that you actually made her do it with mental interference kinda ruins it for me, though," Einzbern said.

'I have to make her do something she doesn't want to do, right?' I asked.

"Um… yes?" she blinked. "She doesn't seem too upset with what she's done, though."

On the table, there were small cups of water that the supervisors used to wash brushes. They had all been used quite a lot, and they were reaching the point that they would be rinsed and filled with clean water again.

Sorry, Kane-chan.

"Spill water?"

Kane immediately knocked over the container, and dirty water flooded over the paper collage, streaking into the paper and card and leaving many coloured marks all over her work. Her expression blanked as she took in the new sight. And then slowly twisted as she started to cry.

"Shinji?!" Einzbern shrieked. "Why did you do that?!"

'You said I had to make her do something she didn't want to do,' I deadpanned.

She looked at Kane again, watching her thoughtfully before she managed to reign in her disdain. "I don't like it. But that's technically what I suggested… I guess," she said solemnly.

'She didn't even hesitate to ruin the paper, but that means we can confirm that she has no circuits at this point. Right?'

"… Yeah, she would have resisted a little if she had circuits," Einzbern started. "Maybe she would have paused before going through with it, but it doesn't seem that she's even aware it's your fault. We can safely say that Kane has no circuits."

The remaining supervisor had come to the table to calm Kane down. She was briefly surprised by the collage on the table before she returned to comforting the girl. Kane's tears were dried as the supervisor tried to talk her down from her distress, with little success.

As she tried to clear the space on the table, Kane weakly made an effort to stop her, probably hoping that the work could be salvaged. The mess she'd made on the table was eventually cleaned up, though, and Kane fell back into crying, only this time it was…

Quiet.

…

"Kane?" I said.

She wasn't listening to me, but I supposed she could hear me. Would it work if she wasn't paying attention? I hadn't tried, but it was worth a shot.

The magical energy left my nerves with a pinch and I said, "Try again?"

Her cries were stifled, and she wiped her tears before going to fetch more paper.

May 5th, 1988, Midnight, Worm Pit.

Zouken was unsettled.

In response, the worms whined and squirmed in the pit, reacting to his unease with their own. The room was unbearably noisy, but Zouken paid it no mind. He was comforted by such things at this point.

He knew that Byakuya had been using the magecraft books in the library to teach Shinji to speak, taking advantage of the anomaly that was the child's ability to read. But the natural intelligence the boy had displayed was astounding; his vocabulary and conversational ability were at least a year ahead of where they should've been. Forming complete sentences after only just turning two was admirable, in its own trivial way.

Even more impressive was that the boy had apparently learned how to cast one of the mental interference spells in the books he'd read with Byakuya. And had been using it on the other children in his vicinity with varying degrees of success. And as satisfying as it had been to observe the potential future of the Matou blooming so early…

Hinode Wakumi was a concern. Zouken had never heard of a Hinode family, and the name was obviously Japanese. Perhaps Chinese? A runaway using a false identity? A puzzle, to be sure, but not worth the effort to solve.

She had evidently been working at that playpen for even longer than the boy had been alive. And for an entire year, she'd hidden right under his nose as he observed the child's behaviour. It was impressive she had done so, in Zouken's opinion at least. Not many mages could slip through the surveillance web he had arranged throughout the city, let alone hide active magical circuits so close to where he had his attention.

And then she'd blundered, revealing herself when she instinctively resisted Shinji's spell. She had caught Zouken's attention, and she knew it the moment it happened, going as far as to leave the room and then run from the building as fast as she could. Not that it made it any more difficult to track her, of course.

The odds that Tohsaka knew the woman was here if Zouken couldn't detect her were low, but it was still possible that she had asked for her presence here to be kept secret from even the Matou. That would make it Tohsaka's business, and Zouken had no interest in interfering with the Second Owner's matters. Sure, he could inquire into the matter whenever his gaudy landlord had time, but Zouken would respect his wishes no matter the situation.

But if the Hinode woman ever proved to be a nuisance? Or a threat?

That would be Zouken's business.

He felt the presence of Byakuya as he returned from his now nightly journey to the nearby bar. The oaf had returned to his addiction again to deal with his compounding stress. Not that it would matter for much longer, for as soon as Shinji was independent of his father, the man would be of no use to him anymore.

Perhaps Byakuya could maintain a servant in the grail war to come? He would likely meet his end if he to even try, but it may be slightly entertaining. And if he somehow tore victory from the grasp of the other participants or otherwise survived, Zouken wouldn't be complaining. The experience may even make the wretch useful.

Alternatively, Hinode's existence did open some possibilities. If she stays in Fuyuki for long enough, Zouken could convince her to allow Byakuya to take her as a second wife. Blackmail? Intimidation? Incentive, perhaps? An additional candidate for the heir, given Shinji's condition, was a practical path to take. And even if that didn't work out, multiple family lines to produce more options might be necessary, however unorthodox it was.

On second thought, any further manipulation of Byakuya may prompt him to rebel. He seems content simply caring for his son, and trying to bend him any further may break him to the point of foolishness. Even worse, it might affect Shinji's development if the man was desperate enough…

Finding out who Hinode Wakumi was would take priority, and any matter with Byakuya could wait.

The worms writhed. They called to Zouken, begging for the touch of flesh and food. He could only command their silence, and even then, they would cry out again. He didn't want to be hasty. The boy wasn't ready, and perhaps never would be. There was too much risk involved, even if it would ordinarily be better to go through with it as soon as possible. He'd made up his mind to be patient.

Zouken's thoughts were interrupted, as, through his familiar, he could see that Shinji was thrashing in his sleep. Inclined only to watch, he wondered what could have brought this on. Not too much had happened today, only the encounter with…

An idea surfaced, prompting him to leave the worm pit in haste.

A/N

Hinode isn't a Fate character; I made her up to fill a character role I needed in the narrative because there was no apt candidate for the part in all of the Nasuverse. If OCs bother you, don't fret, she's not that important.

(Edit Post Chapter 10: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!)

And don't worry about Kaito, you will never see him again. If you need me to justify that, then he's the kid Caster kills after he's summoned. I don't know if he already has a name or not.

Review Responses:

Proper Prose: I'm glad you're enjoying the story, but from what you say, it seems you were under the impression that Shinji and Illya got along just fine before Shinji admitted to the rape. This is a little upsetting for me because I tried to demonstrate an air of mistrust between them. I'll have to look over the previous chapters and reconsider some things.

A Tiger Dojo in the visual novel suggested that there was an erotic scene involving Illya that was removed at some point, yes. But I don't think it was ever implied to involve rape, and despite how unhinged Illya is, she didn't seem inclined to sexual deviancy and was more of a vengeful sadism kind of crazy. Thus, said erotic scene would have been a tantric ritual for some purpose in the "Illya Route" that we'll never see. (I'd wager a magical energy source for Shirou).

She DID order Berserker to kill and then violate Saber, though. Those who have seen the Heavens Feel movies would know this much.

I knew about Shinji's super-smarts and alchemy practice. The Matou water alignment thing has a part to play in my narrative already too.

…

Annnnnnd that's the only review this time. :(

Peace!

-GEOD

Edit 1: Post Chapter 12 Grammar Update.

Edit 2: Jan 2023 update. Made the initial discovery of Hinode's status as a mage flow a little better.