After much revision, I think this story is ready for it's own thread.
Index
Chapter 1: right here
Chapter 2: http://forums.nrvnqsr.com/showthread...l=1#post923327
Fate/Taboo 1: A can of Worms
As I fell through the pit of worms and things far worse, I imagined that, somewhere, Zouken sat and laughed at what had become of me. He offered me the role of magus and master knowing very well there was no way I could win the Grail War, it was a bargain entirely tipped in his favor. In exchange for a few of the wretched worm creatures he bred in the house's basement was given the pleasure of watching as I fought an uphill battle against those who had waited their entire lives for the Grail War. Compared to the century spanning dreams of the other magi, my goal of rescuing a poor girl who had everything stolen from her amounted to next to nothing. Even after all the horrible things I had done, all the hardship I had endured, in the end I had failed to save Sakura, her sister, or the woman who had given birth to them both. Now, as I lay adrift in a sea of insects, I would die, having accomplished nothing of importance in my short life.
As the horrible wiggling things bit at every expose inch of my body, my consciousness began to slowly drift away piece by piece with each bit of flesh loosed by Zouken's horrid familiars. My eyesight went first, saving me the trouble of witnessing my becoming a bloody buffet for the sea of hungry mouths in which I drifted. My other senses quickly followed, touch, smell, hearing. After a few moments I knew nothing but absolute darkness and the echoing of thoughts within my own mind. Soon after, even my thoughts were ran silent. Abandoning all hope, I resigned myself to my accursed fate.
***
A bright light drifted lazily over my body, casting illumination where there should have only been darkness. I should have been dead, but here I lay in a windowless room on a uncomfortable bed. I try to rise to a seated position but my body revolts against such actions, answering each and every movement with unending waves of intense pain. Bound to my bed, I fight against my own body for several minutes, eventually gathering enough strength to turn my head just enough to look around the small room in which I had awaken. The way the room was laid out, the poor lighting, even the scent was familiar. There was only one place this could be. “Damn it.” I thought out loud. Unless I was horribly mistaken, this was the Matou household. My mind lay clouded, beyond a simple guess of where I was I was incapable of thinking of anything else. Resigning to this fate, I return to the position in which I had awoken, staring at the bare ceiling as to not aggravate my battered body.
Time passed, how much I could not tell for a lack of any clock in the bare room, until the silence was finally broken by a rapping on a nearby wooden door. “Hello, are you awake in there?” A feminine voice asked from behind the door. I answered her question with a pained groan, my mind to addled to voice anything else. “Oh my...! I'm coming in!” The woman behind the door nervously fiddled with the doorknob before finally opening the portal that lay between the two of us. As the door swung open my eyes became fixed on the beautiful young girl who appeared before me. Her long purple hair that framed her tiny form was her most striking feature, calling to my clouded mind thoughts of the girl I had tried so hard to save. “I'm so happy your finally awake.” She said as she directed a kind smile at me. She stepped closer, her gentle steps making little sound even against the room's wooden floor. “Are you feeling ok? You've been asleep for a very long time.” In her arms rested a fresh change of sheets. It seemed as if she had been tending to me for quite sometime.
“How long have I been out...?” I managed to utter, fighting against my own aching body and mind.
The purple-haired girl thought for a moment, resting her thin finger against her chin as if to emphasis this fact. “Grandpa said you've been laying here for about six years now.”
“Six years?!” I screamed in shock as my body broke into a cold sweat. I had accepted that I had been saved from the pit of worms, but how had so much time passed by so quickly? Unable to think of any reasonable answer to the issues at hand, I looked to the purple haired girl for answers. In response to my outburst she nodded in the positive.
“Grandpa found you in the basement in really bad shape, so he took you up here, patched you up, and asked me to look after you as long as you were asleep” Grandfather... She kept repeating that phrase. If this was the Matou household, it could only refer to a single person, the bald headed wretch of a man who had made the lives of everyone around him a living hell. And that would make the girl tending to me.... “!” My face twisted into a look of shock as I finally pieced together the identity of the girl who had been taking care of me for so long .
“Sakura...” I mulled the name over and over in my mind. “Your Sakura aren't you?” This was the girl I had tried to save. Though she had grown, she was still trapped in the same prison she was half a decade ago. I'm sure this was another of Zouken's sick jokes, a long winded attempt to rub my failure during in the Grail War in my face again.
“I am.” Sakura said in a confused tone. “Don't you remember me, Uncle Kariya?” Hearing her call my name pierced my heart like an arrow, wracking both my mind and body with horrible pain.
“No no, I just didn't recognize you since you've grown so much since I last saw you.” I tried to smile, but the pain of her kind voice prevented more then a half-halfhearted effort on my part. Sakura let loose a small sigh of relief, it seemed she had been legitimately worried that I had forgotten her.
“I guess I was just a little girl last time you saw me.” Sakura's voice seemed wistful, as if recalling memories of the last time they had met. “But I'm glad to see you awake again, for awhile I thought you would never wake up.” But despite that she had tended to my comatose body for years on end. Somehow, I resolved silently, I would repay this poor girl for all she had done for me.
“But I'm awake now, so you don't have to worry about me anymore.”
“No..No! It's all right, until you feel completely better, I'll keep doing anything I can do help you.” Though ever so slight, Sakura began to blush.
“Thanks, but don't worry about me to much, OK?” Sakura nodded once more, a small blush still staining her pale face.
“Oh...! I nearly forgot, I brought you some new sheets. I'll go after I change them.” True to her word, she quickly took up the sheet laying over my aching body and replaced it with a fresh one. “There you go, I'll see you in the morning. Good night, Uncle Kariya” I shook my head in the positive in response, trying my best to prevent any more harsh reactions from my body. Sakura left her room with a skip in her step. If my being awake made her happy, so be it. It was literally the least I could do for her.
With my caretaker of some years taking her leave, I pulled took up the blanket she has so graciously brought me and pulled it over my body my shattered frame. Taking care not to move to much in fear of the ungodly pain such action could cause, I again stared lazily at the room ceiling, counting each imperfection in its construction as some count sheep. Slowly my eyes grew just as heavy as the rest of my body, and my mind soon followed. Once more gripped by the embrace of night, I pray to whomever may listen that I will wake up the next morning.
***
Hours pass, yet I still can't sleep. When ever I begin to drift off and give a sigh of relief that I may finally rest for awhile, the throbbing pain coursing through every inch of my body jolts me awake. This cycle continues for what seems like an eternity until I finally give up on sleeping at all. Because getting up would mean more pain then simply laying still, I begin to stare at the ceiling again and wish there was a window or television in my little room.
Left with little more then my thoughts and the creaking of ancient floorboards, memories of the week that I spent fighting for her sake came to the forefront of my mind. All the pain of supporting that monster of a servant Zouken had given me, all the anguish of seeing Sakura's vacant stare, and the lingering irony that I had injured that she had cared for me for so long without knowing the horrible things I had done to her mother. Aoi's blood would always be on my hands, there was nothing I could do about that. All I could do was take to heart the second chance I was given and try once more to help the little girl I had failed so badly half a decade ago.
I thought of other things as I tried in vein to sleep. I wondered how Rin was doing, if she had managed a happy life with her mother, sister, and father all fallen victim to the all consuming darkness of the Grail War. For a moment I thought of the other masters and what had become of them, of who had won the war, and what they did with the nearly unlimited power of the Grail. Not that it mattered now, I had failed and that was all there was to it. Now, I would have to rely on myself and none else to rescue that poor child. My resolve as strong as steel, my head lay heavy upon the fresh pillow Sakura had brought me a short awhile ago. Reflection had eased my body and mind, allowing me the pleasure of finally drifting off. Soon I would be taken away from all this for a few hours, free to rest in a place far from the horrors of the Matou household.
Or, at least, that is how things should have worked. From beyond my door a muffled scream echoed throughout the house, sounding of pain and torment in a feminine tone. Snapped back to the waking world in a violent manner, I scrambled to try and reach my feet. My body fought back, once more telling me I shouldn't be doing this with a mixture of violent shaking and and stabbing pain. But still, I managed, pulling rising to my feet for the first time in years I placed one foot after another as I crossed the creaking floor. Fighting through the pain I manged to get to the door, opening it, the screaming became more clear. It was Sakura, it had to be. She was the only woman living in the house, as far as I knew, and she was in terrible pain. I try to leave the room, plodding along as I fight through the pain, repeating her name in my head as a mantra to dull the feeling that I would once more fail. But, as I finally summon the strength to cross the threshold that lay between me and the rest of the house, my body finally succumbs to the pain and gives out. I fall to the ground. Heavily crashing against the wooden floor below, the horrible feelings I had been fighting against all night finally take their toll upon my ragged body. Unable to move far, I use the last of my strength to prop myself against a nearby wall. It was there, against the aged plaster of this horrid old room, I would finally drift off to sleep. My body would go no farther this night, helping Sakura would have to wait til the morning.
***
Morning came once more, with the light filtering through the hall window warming my brow and slowly rousing me awake. With several hours of sleep under my belt, some of my vitality returns allowing me to move under my own power. Though not free of pain, it was dulled enough to the point that I may leave that accursed room for the first time in so very long. Though food of any kind sounded good at the moment, I had bigger fish to fry. Dragging myself sleepily through the ancestral Matou home I headed towards the parlor in which my father spent most of his day. The old man was in bad health and rarely left the house, choosing instead to spend his days in quiet solitude as the world passed him by. True to his usual routine, as I finally struggled my way to the parlor I saw Him. Sitting proudly, his ever present cane pressed firmly against the carpet, and wearing a smug look upon his face was my father, Zouken Matou. Slumping in a chair on the opposite side of the room, I fixed my gaze firmly on the wrinkled old man.
“Ah, Kariya, my son. What brings you here?” His mood was almost jovial, as if mocking the seriousness of my purpose.
“I'll get to the point. I heard a girl screaming late last night.” My speech seethed with rage, if anyone was responsible for Sakura's suffering it was this wrinkled parody of a human being. “It was Sakura, Wasn't it?!” Unable to control my anger, I swung my arm to the side, nearly toppling an antique lamp to the floor below. Zouken peered at me for a moment. As he did sweat formed on my brow, despite his appearance he was a powerful magus. One wrong move could mean something horrible would happen to me or Sakura. Realizing this, I calm myself, hoping to get the information I sought without angering my father.
“I will not lie, what you heard last night was Sakura screaming.” His face remained straight, unchanging even in the face of the abuse of a young girl.
“What did you do to her?!” I once more screamed.
“I was giving her what she needs.” He spoke with a light chuckle. “Which is more then could be said of your efforts.”
“You monster...”The reality of the situation had proven to be much worse then I could have ever imagined. Unable to find the words to describe the sheer hate I was feeling, the initiative of the situation fell like a feather into my father's hands.
“Now, Now. This is something that must be done. And better it be done by someone within the family then a stranger who may harm the girl.” How could he look so confident while saying such horrible things?! I thought. He smirked, as if sensing my state of mind. “But you did promise you'd do anything to save that girl, didn't you?”
“I would never do something so horrible to her” I spoke in stern rebuttal.
“Ah, but if you do not I will continue as I always have.” My back was against the wall. If I agreed, the only change would be who was violating Sakura. If I refuse, nothing would change. I was damned either way. For minutes silence hung over the parlor, until I reached a hasty conclusion. I would agree to the horrible bargain for now, at least buying sometime in which to find a real solution to all of this.
“Fine. You win, I'll take you up on that offer.” I spoke stoically.
“Very good!” Zouken cheered. “I'll expect you to attend to Sakura's needs whenever necessary, should you fail I will return you to the pit of worms.”
“Fine.” I shrugged. “I'll talk to her about it tonight.” Zouken nodded in agreement as I stood up and left the room. I had once more agreed to a terrible bargain in the name of saving Sakura. This time, I prayed silently, some good would come of it.
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Originally Posted by Kotonoha
